[nyc_data_geek1]

The whole idea that pushing back against resource exhaustion and planned obsolescence is inherently apolitical is bunk, in fact. Politics are only "extra" and "bolted on" when you are comfortably benefiting from the status quo

[HerbManic]

I see you are playing the role of Cassandra today. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in tech that are just covering their ears saying "la la la la! I CANT HEAR YOU!!!" as they don't want to hear these things.

They aren't bad people, not even close. We all do this to some degree. Its just that we all think we are the good virtuous people and yet all of us have some form of negative impact on the world, especially in the Western world.

[zahlman]

> Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in tech that are just covering their ears saying "la la la la! I CANT HEAR YOU!!!"

They are doing nothing of the sort. They are telling you that they have heard the argument countless times already, and disagree with it as strongly as ever.

I reject the implicit definition of "politics" required to make the argument (which does not agree with common use, even if dictionaries may fail to capture the subtlety); and I reject the notion that your side should be entitled to define the terms. Everyone knows what it means to "get political", and there is strong consensus that it does not include "let's go about the rest of our lives as we were already planning to do".

> Its just that we all think we are the good virtuous people and yet all of us have some form of negative impact on the world

There is no contradiction between "being the good virtuous people" and "having some form of negative impact on the world".

By my back of the envelope calculations, we produce something like 300kg of CO2 annually simply by breathing. I would prefer to continue to live, however.

[anon7725]

> By my back of the envelope calculations, we produce something like 300kg of CO2 annually simply by breathing. I would prefer to continue to live, however.

The CO2 that you exhale came from elements that were fairly recently part of an animal or vegetable - ie part of an active and ongoing carbon cycle, rather than deposited into the ground 100M years ago and pulled out to be inserted into the system.

Carbon cycles aren't bad - they're fundamental to life on Earth, obviously. It's making the system unstable by continuous addition that causes the problem.

[mrhottakes]

Correct. Technology is inherently political, and it has been for all of human history.