Comment by LoganDark

> the issue is with specifically US politics and social issues being everywhere. It drowns out all attempts at discourse for anything else

Unfortunately, US politics also drives tech issues elsewhere like the EU. For example, local data control is a big thing that some of us have been screaming about forever but nobody paid attention to--until US politics made it a hot button issue.

And, to be honest, if the EU would get off its ass and at least try to foster some alternatives, even those of us in the US would benefit. EU alternatives would mean that people in the US could finally vote against the megajillionaires with their wallets.

> Americans, including people here, seem uniquely incapable of nuance in their thinking when it comes to politics.

Bullets and beatings don't leave much room for nuance regardless of country.

I am an American and I make a very conscious effort to appreciate social and political nuances. And I go out of my way to point out nuances to others who, in my opinion, oversimplify their statements. It could be argued that the expression of stereotyping Americans as lacking nuance, itself lacks nuance. I believe really most people are similar in that we have our biases, differences in context and experiences. We can all try our best to be as nuanced as possible.

This is a good point. What would people think if there was constant political discussion here about, for instance, South Sudan and things happening there now? I'm sure there's bad stuff going on there and it's unfortunately, but if we had constant references to and discussions about the internal politics of South Sudan, I think a lot of people would get annoyed about issues that don't affect them at all in their day-to-day lives, esp. when they're coming here for discussions about technically- and computer-related topics. That must be how it seems for American political discussions.

To be clear, this is a Frenchman of Chinese descent advocating for Taiwanese independence and your complaint is about Americans.

> I partially agree, but as a non-US user of the English speaking internet, the issue is with specifically US politics and social issues being everywhere.

I mean, yeah. Most major social media services used in the West are based in the US. The single largest English as a first language population is in the United States.

Given how many users from outside the US are oft wont to opine on our state of affairs even during the good times - often without even being asked - I like to think they'll endure our discourse.

best solution to this is a closing of borders and fragmentation of the internet to local regional segments. i know it sounds backwards but it seems thats where we're headed

Allowing politics on HN doesn't mean discussing politics in every thread. If it's a story about someone who improved performance of their system by using Rust then sure there's no need to bring anything political. But threads about Nvidia, Tesla, encryption, internet blackouts, social media, startups investments, etc, all warrants political discourse.

Maybe, but telling people who are speaking to their audience on the platforms that audience is voluntarily visiting that they need to shut up is even more pointless, incompetent, and counterproductive.

Notepad++ is free, open source software for which there are dozens of alternative packages of equivalent quality. The entire cost of using this software and benefiting from the work of the developer, is having to scroll past or close a few political opinions.

If the reaction, if someone vehemently dislikes this sort of thing, is to tell that developer to "just shut up and make your software" rather than to stop using that software? Then I think that's possibly the most entitled and hypocritical position that I think it's possible to have.

> and still have the good sense to

The good sense is your judgement. At some point a real, direct, disruptive protest is going to be the right solution for a big enough group of people. Peaceful protests are just a "we're starting to get there" signal. It's not like politicians normally say "gee, lots of people don't like how I abuse power, I guess I'll stop now". It's all about being collectively upset enough about status quo.

It intrinsically does. Whatever stance changes nothing or prefers to change nothing is a vote for the status quo, by definition.

Can you name some aspects of society that are non–political? I can't think of many. Maybe the frequency spectrum of sunlight?

"I think taxes should be 2% higher"

it's not the mere lack of being with, it's the enthusiastic, public advertisement that you are not with. If you are actually neither with nor against, then you don't have any need to say anything about the issue at all. If you make a big deal about not being with or against, most people who do that are against but don't want to say so.

It’s all well and good for you if you want to be a consumer of political content when it suits you, but for a creator, the creation’s whole purpose may be a delivery mechanism for their message which may otherwise go unheard. Not saying this is necessarily what Don Ho (Notepad++) is doing, but it’s possible. Create something so good that people can’t help but use it (preferably the demographic you most want to reach, for example a country with a huge base of Windows users) and then use it as your message delivery mechanism.

> There is a time and place for activism

Conveniently, it's never here, and it's never now. I think MLK Junior wrote a speech about this? Letter from a Birmingham Jail: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....

You may not be in the right state, but the point of that part of the website is that it's a donation link. It will drive some people to help. If it's at the cost of some others getting grumpy about too much messaging... that's probably still worth it.

> Otherwise it is just noise. This is absolutely no statement about the status quo, but just how my brain works. It's also not a statement against activism in general, just about my personal opinion of it in certain places.

I considered the majority of the population to be affected by repeated messaging, messages in the background, or in other words availability bias. So the messaging be having the desired effect on society in general but not on some subset who filter it out completely.

I want to start by saying it's good that you are at least taking the time to look for this information! Stay healthily informed.

I see this as a bad analogy though: you wouldn't hear about it every time you go to the grocery store. Or, at the very least, you wouldn't stop and listen for the fifth time. You already know, and that's the point: the intention of most activism in technology (at least that I see) is to make you initially aware of it so you start to seek the information out and learn more elsewhere. (...And to give themselves good PR. We love rainbow capitalism /s)

Instagram and Twitter both get your attention during election season because they want you to be informed about how to vote. To me, that's a similar thing.

The whole reason why Notepad ++, vim, etc have to do this is because no one wants to take one for the team and protest/put their neck on the line.

I don't want to either, and indeed I really want others to do it for me. As such, I really want to see even MORE political stuff like this to hopefully create folks who will actually protest and put their neck on the line.

Similar reason why US military propaganda is good. I never EVER want to be drafted and indeed if you put a gun in my hand and military fatigues on me, I will die with a shot in the ass (because I am running away). Thankfully, we have a bunch of hardened 20-somethings "manipulated" into joining the military and protecting us so that I can be lazy.

So please ratchet up the politics and get others out so I don't have to. It's not that hard to ignore yet another plea for help. We do it every hour of every day.

Way to completely and totally miss the point. I don't actually think you could've missed the point any harder than you did.

Politics are quite literally life-or-death for many people. War is politics. Access to healthcare is politics. Economic policy that determines whether businesses and careers succeed or fail is politics. Freedom to say what you want, believe or not believe in whatever religion you want, and be who you are without being imprisoned is politics. The people who make the most noise about politics are the people who are literally dying for as long as the rest of society ignores their plight.

If this isn't the case for you, it's because you benefit from the status quo. It is the definition of privilege to be able to "ignore politics". That means you are currently benefitting from politics. Of course you don't want to hear about politics, politics are doing just fine for you. And the comment you were asking to was asking you to reflect on that: if the biggest problem gracing you is hearing other people make noise about circumstances, the least you could do is deal with it. Your problems are trivial if that is what gets you upset. Other people are complaining about things that affect the outcome of their lives and you're complaining about... having to hear it.

That's fine, it's also different from what was said

You can't take a break from that. I have transgender friends who fear for their life every day. They don't know what is going to happen to their rights or their healthcare. I have diabetic friends who can't work and also fear for their life because losing Medicaid would mean they will stop being able to afford insulin and will die. This is what people mean when they talk about politics being important. It's not just things that don't affect you, which is what most people mean when they say they don't care about politics. As soon as something affects you, you will understand.

Ukraine and Taiwan are only relevant to Americans, right

The issue with making something so universal as software, specifically scientific software political is that it operates in such a broad context that every political statement sooner or later will seem comical outside a very narrow scope.

Your comment is a good example of it; who is dictator? The people who hacked the software or the political pole they support? At what point did they become fascist enough to warrant politicalisation of everything ?

Choosing not to engage politically is not a neutral action. Life is politics. The world is full of people that are trying to control your life in a thousand different ways. Choosing to not engage in support or opposition to that control doesn't mean you aren't participating, it means your default position is letting them do what they want.

>Software like most Sciences, Engineering, and Trade are much longer game for humanity than politics de jour.

Not really, software, like sciences and engineering must survive politics first. If humans start tossing around nukes like angry apes then those that survive may be scratching simple arithmetic with a charcoal stick on a cave wall.

You can also sponsor the development of Neovim. The money goes to funding developers.

https://neovim.io/sponsors/

Tell me you haven't actually paid attention to Neovim without telling me.

When you launch a plain nvim instance you get the following:

> Help poor children in Uganda!

> type :help Kuwasha<Enter> for information

Same, especially if I see they have a double standard.

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I would have been interested in debating the content of your reply if your account had not been created 1 hour ago.

So what about protesting the Russian invasion of Ukraine seems objectionable to you?

> it is fair to say that Notepad++’s freedom to protest would depend on who and what they are protesting.

What? In the US, UK, and Australia, the right to protest (i.e. of speech) does not depend on what’s being protested in the way you’re implying.

I don’t see it as a waste of my time. I am not in the habit of seeing conflicts in which innocent people die as a “waste of my time”. The idea that my time is somehow more valuable than another person’s is narcissistic.

Not pertinent. My point is more in reference to the ancestor comment with respect to Ukraine and Taiwan:

> Yeah, Notepad++ is known for political messaging in their updates. Taiwan, Ukraine, etc.

If you’re calling Ukraine in particular a “separatist movement”, I don’t think we can have a productive conversation.

You can totally say Texas should be independent. A lot of Texans have.

You can’t be against the Ukraine war in Russia because Putin is an evil dictator

Only officially, because it's a requirement to retain trade relationships with China and China makes everything.

Everyone, including 99% of the world's politicians that don't have their heads up their asses, including the ones who wrote the official positions that Taiwan is not a country, knows Taiwan is a country.

No it's not and if you do believe that, you are taking an overly reductionist viewpoint.

99% countries, as they say, "acknowledge China's viewpoint".