[yawpitch]

You truly do have an impressive imagination. Again, there’s no insult, there’s simply an observation. Nothing on that page is particularly political from any position but a substantially polarized one. It’s not entirely apolitical, sure, but it’s pretty milquetoast for a manifesto. If you see polarization there it’s because you’re looking through a polarized filter, in the literal photographic sense as much as the political one: you’ve rotated your filter frame to minimize reflections of what you do like and maximize visibility of what you don’t like. If you’re offended by it, you’re looking at it from such an orthogonal direction that you really should check if you’re the one whose biases are on display.

Everyone should engage their critical thinking and develop their capacity for metacognition; no one starts with either of those skill sets, and thus I assume neither in anyone (and everyone, including myself) until I see evidence of either or both. I, very gently, pointed in the direction of engaging those skills and you see violence where violence isn’t, just like you imagine excessive pride where there cannot be any at all.

Perhaps you’ve also been primed to see violence where none exists? To feel as extreme what isn’t extreme because you’ve moved (or been moved) towards the extreme?

Again, not an ad hominem… just a question we should all be asking ourselves all the time.

[zahlman]

> Nothing on that page is particularly political from any position but a substantially polarized one.

For example:

> The history of computing is deeply intertwined with capitalism and militarism.

To assert this as if it were significant, and continue on as the article does, is inherently making a political statement. It is trying to paint capitalism and militarism as inherently bad, and draw ingroup/outgroup lines in the sand. There is no reason why a capitalist or a military supporter might fail to see the value in more efficient computing, or in environmentalism generally.

There's also, you know, all the stuff it says on the main page of the site.

[yawpitch]

They didn’t assert it as if it were significant, they asserted it as if it were fact. Which, let’s be clear, it is. And no sufficiently informed person could argue otherwise, given that the historical development of computing was driven, in its entirety, by the needs of, and investments made by, businesses and militaries. The early development of computing cannot be anything but intertwined with the nature of its early developers, which form the foundation upon which all further historical (and political) development of computing must stand. You’re supplying the idea that recognizing this basic, ground truth, and really ludicrously obvious fact is also casting those foundations as “inherently bad”.

Also capitalism is not comprised exclusively of capitalists, any more than militarism is composed exclusively of military supporters. Capitalism is a political framework centered on economic power, militarism is a political framework centered on martial power, both of them are ways of understanding the cultural and political and economic and rational systems we all live within, whether we support them or not.

Nothing on the linked page says anything particularly supportive or pejorative about those frameworks, it just acknowledges them as foundational to computing. It arguably makes a very (if not inherently) capitalist argument for environmental-conserving usage of computing resources, but that, really, is about it.

Anything else you’re supplying, from your perspective… my point is that such a perspective is, itself, already polarized.

[zahlman]

> They didn’t assert it as if it were significant, they asserted it as if it were fact.

The same people who wish to tell me that "everything is political", will apparently not recognize the significance of choosing to do something when it clearly would have been easier not to do so.

The fact that the assertion is present demonstrates the imputed significance. Writing it is about making implications and value judgments, because it cannot serve another purpose in context, and it would be easier to say nothing.

[yawpitch]

Somewhat ironic that you think it would be easier to do nothing when that section is specifically asking people to consider doing nothing when doing something unnecessary with computing resources would necessarily be harmful.

Now, I might also be doing redundant work here, and maybe it’s not worth doing so, but I should think that anyone on any part of the political spectrum could find some pretty egregious examples of waste and inefficiency in the military / industrial complex.

[perching_aix]

I think it's best if we segment things a bit more carefully here.

Their homepage makes explicit references and expresses alignment with a whole host of political movements and philosophies. I believe it stands to reason that people recognizing related motifs and tropes on the subpage shared above thus shouldn't be surprising, and that it certainly isn't just people's imagination going into overdrive based on personal biases. That it is further entirely reasonable to understand these features as intentional, or at least as something originating from the page author(s)' own personal motivations and biases. So as far as the signalling itself goes, it exists, and its origin is squarely the page's author(s), not the person above. You appear to agree so far:

> It’s not entirely apolitical, sure

But then that's not really what you "made an observation" about if I understand you right, but about the normative description around that signalling. That the person above described these political motifs and tropes as polarizing. I can definitely appreciate why this is problematic: normative language about subjective matters is generally grating and incorrect, as it falsely presents the label as objective. But then simply flipping things around I do not think highlights that at all. Rather than clarifying this epistemic lapse, I'd say you merely flippantly sent people on a loop instead. This is why I found what you wrote accusatory, a designation I do reserve the right to apply, as it is self-evidently subjective. Whether you [claim to] have not intended to insult is a separate matter. I hope that this also stands to reason and is appreciable. Though I shall also add that finding political motifs and tropes "polarizing" also very much teeters on the self-evidently subjective.

But then if you said that simply handwaving things away as subjective is not particularly helpful - I agree! So let's try and define what would be polarizing from a political standpoint. Words themselves only carry meaning to the extent we can agree on them after all, so without agreeing on what a polarizing messaging is, I'm afraid we'll keep going in circles about how we see each other, and how that is not actually the case.

I'd define a polarizing political message as one that brings someone closer to a specific political clique, a messaging that promotes clique formation and alignment. I'd maybe find it tempting to further lump in radicality or fringeness, but thinking about it, I really don't think there's a reason to. I also wondered about intentionality, but that, I feel, is also optional. The potency and success of such messaging is definitely affected by these other aspects though, and thus so is their discernability.

Now, since the authors explicitly call out several political movements and philosophies on their homepage, and given that on the subpage their messaging clearly does appeal to those, the question becomes: is featuring motifs and tropes like that in itself an exercise in polarization? I think that yes, it absolutely is. This is because it makes it appear as if solidarity with those ideals was a requirement to feel solidarity with the actual named topic at hand itself (permacomputing). Which is exactly what the person above took an issue with too, certainly in my interpretation anyways.

But then recognizing this in no way means the reader has to be polarized, or that there would be a "good chance" as you put it that they'd be polarized. I can certainly imagine, with my supposedly impressive imagination, that it'd hurt their ears more if they were diametrically opposed to the ideals otherwise cited. But I'm pretty sure that only modulates the likelihood of them speaking up, rather than the distribution of people noticing it. In that sense, again, it feels extremely flippant to try paint them as the one polarized. They might very well be, but that doesn't mean that the logical leap presented was actually reasonable as a result.

Finally, few more comments:

> Again, there’s no insult, there’s simply an observation.

You may [claim to] not intend to insult. What I'm saying is that that is absolutely what you achieved, and continue to achieve, and that I'm unable to believe you. If you fail to recognize or accommodate that, that is regrettable, though I can't say I feel particularly compelled to help with it either.

> Nothing on that page is particularly political from any position but a substantially polarized one

This bugged me for a while, but I think you're mixing up polarized and radical(ized).

> It’s not entirely apolitical, sure, but it’s pretty milquetoast for a manifesto.

Subjective. Could (should?) have lead with this though maybe, I'd say this is infinitely more obvious to be just "an observation".

> If you see polarization there it’s because you’re looking through a polarized filter, in the literal photographic sense as much as the political one: you’ve rotated your filter frame to minimize reflections of what you do like and maximize visibility of what you don’t like. If you’re offended by it, you’re looking at it from such an orthogonal direction that you really should check if you’re the one whose biases are on display.

I should probably explicitly address this as well. Normatively stating that the other person is offended, polarized (radicalized?), biased, etc, is an exercise in mind reading. Not saying it cannot be inferred, just that it is at best an inference, and that it in itself is subjective.

Meta-text aside, while the phenomenon you're describing is entirely possible (it's basically what overfitting is in ML), that check did happen. It is also entirely possible to be both sensitized to certain ideas, and also those ideas genuinely being shoehorned in or being unnecessary. And there's really no need for this to be a competition or a "one or the other". It also doesn't necessarily mean it should be an impetus for soul-searching. You have your own perspective for a reason, feeling strongly about certain topics is not inherently a flaw. Quite the opposite, it is nonsensical (in a very literal sense) to be "unbiased". Not to say one shouldn't mind their biases though.

> Everyone should engage their critical thinking and develop their capacity for metacognition; no one starts with either of those skill sets, and thus I assume neither in anyone (and everyone, including myself) until I see evidence of either or both

To my latest understanding of human cognition, metacognition (and critical thought) is an innate ability of humans, and many other animals. What you perhaps rather mean is a more willful and focused exercising of these capabilities, especially around subjects one may feel strongly about, where this capability is known to be more difficult to emerge and engage. Not only was there no evidence however that they did not do so, there was explicit evidence backing their recognition up, even if they indeed did not exercise these mental facilities. So as an advice, even a general one, it's a rather oddly timed and pointed one, hence why I understood it as a malicious insinuation, an insult, instead. Even ignoring how it misrepresents the state of the art understanding of human cognition.

> I, very gently, pointed in the direction of engaging those skills and you see violence where violence isn’t, just like you imagine excessive pride where there cannot be any at all.

I appreciate that you feel that way. I hope I was clear enough just how much I see it otherwise, and how and why exactly.

> Perhaps you’ve also been primed to see violence where none exists? To feel as extreme what isn’t extreme because you’ve moved (or been moved) towards the extreme?

I have been, yes. It is entirely possible I'm misjudging your attitude. Before you assume otherwise though, I'd like to explicitly let you know that all three messages (including this one) I posted in response to you were iterated on several times before (and after) posting, with me internally pondering about exactly this among other things (like how you might further get a kick out of picturing me pondering so), and adjusting my language accordingly. I find it extremely worrisome that you see other people so lowly that you'd expressly assume they do not do this, and I do not see this kind of hesitancy from you whatsoever. On the contrary, there basically isn't a sentence in what you wrote so far I haven't found blatantly inflammatory, which really isn't helping with this impression.

> Again, not an ad hominem…

I was suggesting you engaged in coded insults. Insults are not ad hominems. An ad hominem is a logical fallacy, not a moral one. Although I do consider insults to be a form of filibustering.

[yawpitch]

Speaking of a form of filibustering, this forum rejects any reasonable response I write as too long. Email me at michael at yawpitchroll d’aught com and I’d be happy to give this another round.

[perching_aix]

I was actually pretty worried that I would run into a character limit myself, I don't usually write comments this long for a number of reasons, and I only noticed how excessively long it was by the time I submitted it. I guess there really is a limit then and I just fell short of it.

I appreciate this is kind of a dick move from me after I made you read all that (and write something evidently even longer!), but truth be told, my engagement on the matter was more instinctual than deliberate, so when presented with the option to willfully continue afresh elsewhere, I'd prefer to decline. Thank you for willing to engage me in depth and even offering to continue separately. This now does suggest to me I might have legitimately got off on the wrong foot earlier.

While I might change my mind depending, if you do receive any emails to that address claiming to be connected to this, please do assume it is not actually me, and ask for some "proof of identity" (e.g. changing the text on my bio to at least demonstrate control of this account). Won't perfectly guarantee it's me, but then nothing really can. You probably already figured as much, but I felt it's best I explicitly called this out regardless.

[yawpitch]

I appreciate the opsec advice. Honestly would have preferred to be able to reply here, for the public benefit of others, but I think you just came in under the artificial verbosity limit and there were a lot of interesting threads I didn’t want to butcher or not respond to thoughtfully.

Shame these sort of forums haven’t figured out a better means of handling the kind of longer form back and forth required to find common ground, especially where political philosophy gets involved.