Comment by ryandrake
19 days ago
Similar comments also come up in the [now regular] "I don't want to see political articles on HN" threads, and I think the response is similar: Asking for "no politics" is itself a strong political view: One in support/service of whatever the current status quo is. Trying to set oneself apart from (or above) politics is itself political. If you're lucky enough to be one of the fortunate people on earth who are not under attack by political forces or who benefit from status quo politics, I'd encourage you to simply reflect on that good luck and try to ignore the "politics" that others are deeply affected by and care about.
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. It drowns out all attempts at discourse for anything else, and Americans, including people here, seem uniquely incapable of nuance in their thinking when it comes to politics.
So, while I fully agree with your stance that banning political discourse is support for the status quo, I also think that it's reasonable to ask for it to be toned down a bit, especially when the politics and social issues of one country is basically drowning out everything else.
All that said, I'm talking mostly about HN or other community forums here. The owner of Notepad++ has the right to put whatever they want into their software, and if we're discussing that here on HN then it's an occasion where discussing politics is valid.
> 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.
The EU is trying but these things have to happen bottom–up. The EU Council or EU Parliament isn't a software development shop. They allocate funds to groups like NLNET who allocate them to a selection of the projects they get proposals for. NLNET can only allocate funds to something an individual or small group proposes. If you want to propose something, please go ahead.
Capitalists can also start software businesses and sell their software, but those are all in Silicon Valley because the money is there because the US has a privileged financial position.
3 replies →
>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.
What exactly do you want the EU, the Brussels based institution, to do here? Because AWS didn't come into existence because Uncle sam came in and twisted Bezo's hand telling him to invent a hyperscaler that will conquer the world.
EU's lack of comparable domestic alternatives is a consequence of the failure of its entrepreneurship and free market in the SW private sector, and nothing that EU institution can do about it to magically fix this since the solution is not MORE regulatory interference form government bureaucrats who don't know how the internet works.
You might be able to force innovation if the governments can throw money at the problem if the VC sector is lacking, but they can't force economies of scale and mass adoption without a China style great firewall, in which case you'd then have even bigger issues.
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.
What really do Americans know about Ukraine or Taiwan? E.g. can even 1% of US population show Ukraine on the world map (without using Google Maps)? Could they do it before 2022? Before 2014? Do they know anything about Ukraine or Taiwan history? How many Americans know a single foreign language?
If tomorrow there would be a war or protests in, say, Burundi. Will Americans stay with Burundi or against it? Or with the country the media will tell them is "good" because their interests align with US interests?
I think answers to all these questions are obvious.
1 reply →
I would say it's statistics, rather than stereotyping. I'm glad you're capable of nuance though, maybe you can teach that to some of your compatriots?
I think that the stereotype of Americans lacking nuance around political issue is valid. Obviously, like all stereotypes, it’s not 100% true but Americans seem to feel obliged to pick one side of an issue, most of the time aligned with the worth of their choice, and then to view everything that’s happening through that lens.
Try to point out to a democrat that Trump is doing something right or to a Trump voter that Biden did something right. Most of them can’t accept that. The “other” side has to all bad. I don’t see this to such an extreme in other countries I know like Germany or Spain.
6 replies →
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.
Do you think it's socially acceptable to ignore everything that doesn't affect you personally? Many activists would certainly have you think otherwise. As far as I can tell, fighting that habit is a huge goal of activism.
11 replies →
People on HN are happy to talk about the internal politics of distant nations, so long as the name of the distant nation is Israel or Palestine.
1 reply →
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
We're already there, but not geographically aligned. We talk in isolated forums, mostly on Discord. Big public melting pots like Twitter have failed.
Not wanting politics on HN, need not imply support of the status quo, or even a lack of interest in politics. It can simply be a different belief about the purpose of online forums.
I read about politics all day long in many different places. My belief that HN should be relatively free of such stories is not because I believe I can detach myself from politics, but because I believe topic based forums are more valuable and useful than “anything goes” forums.
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.
I wish that were true, but in my experience so far, it isn’t.
Not only does politics and general stories crowd out everything else over time on other sites, there are HN submitters who seem to be trying to accelerate this.
During the war, when HN was getting Israel-Palestine stories constantly, I started looking at the submission history of some of the submitters, and some of them were just pushing these types of stories every day for months and months.
So yes, I think allowing politics will eventually mean being dominated by politics and general interest.
2 replies →
The use of Rust is already political!
Nah, it doesn't mean they support the status quo. It just means some political tactics are pointless, incompetent, and counterproductive.
Political opinions about how things should be don't automatically dictate the actions that should be taken in support of those opinions. I can be mad about a law or a court decision and still have the good sense to, for example, not throw red paint on a lawmaker or judge.
Some behaviors just aren't helpful, and neither being right nor being upset changes that.
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.
Notepad++ maintainers can do whatever they want. I don't care. I'm just taking apart this tedious, superficial, self-serving activist cliche about how not being an activist is supporting the status quo. Some people want change just as much as activists do, but they have different ideas about when and how it's helpful to be an activist.
1 reply →
> 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.
> Whatever stance changes nothing .. is a vote for the status quo, by definition.
As problematic as the assertion "by definition" is aside, it should be noted that endlessly commenting about politics on internet forums effectively changes nothing.
I've been kettled by mounted officers and hit by high pressure hoses on cold evenings, something that also rarely effects change .. but that's a least a fun night out with people and better than wasting bits on the intertubes.
3 replies →
No, that isn't remotely true. It means that the alternative you offer isn't compelling, not that your interlocutor likes the status quo.
1 reply →
I wouldn't say that avoiding political discussion yourself because you can't handle it is a vote for the status quo, but telling others not to talk about politics is definitely a vote for the status quo.
6 replies →
> Similar comments also come up in the [now regular] "I don't want to see political articles on HN" threads
In the context of forums, the political threads are generally /not interesting/[0]. Political threads often devolve; they bring nothing 'new' or 'fresh' to the table, and they lead absolutely no where. It's a fart-in-the-wind situation no matter what your position is. Leave that stuff on reddit where the rest of the farts-in-the-wind go to waste. It's like watching commentators on Fox News or CNN or <insert favorite cable TV show here>. They're a large waste of time and they're often geared towards re-enforcing your side, aka echo chamber.
Now, if a thread actually evolved into real measurable action, that might actually be interesting. But that's not what happens on these forums. There's probably very few of us that see some HN thread talking about something awful happening somewhere and they take direct action, such as petitioning their government, protesting, etc. It's probably happened once or twice, but most of the farts in those threads just hang around and stink up the place.
Please stop stinking up HN.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Asking for "no politics" is itself a strong political view
No, it explicitly is not, and this "deepity" doesn't change any rational analysis. The injection of politics into every aspect of society must and should be refused.
Can you name some aspects of society that are non–political? I can't think of many. Maybe the frequency spectrum of sunlight?
Politics is more of a way of thinking and speaking than about any specific topic. For those of us who see a lot of problems with society but know that things will never be how they "should be", it is healthy to limit amount of time spent thinking about problems that cannot and will not be solved.
please tell me about the intricate politics of a phone booth. just because you can make everything political doesn't mean it is inherently political or doesn't make you look like a terminal online annoying loser when you try to compensate for your vapid personality outside of ideological dogma.
2 replies →
I disagree. I want to separate my technology from politics. I consume politics through other venues. I don’t want HN full of political articles. It doesn’t mean I support status quo. It means I don’t want this one website pushing politics, which it increasingly does.
HN discussions are usually very high quality and respectful disagreement therein, which is unique online nowadays.
I’ve come here to escape Reddit, which is all politics all the time. If this place turns as political as Reddit, I’m out.
> Asking for "no politics" is itself a strong political view
If this is true, I'd like to know what a weak political view is instead!
"I think taxes should be 2% higher"
> One in support/service of whatever the current status quo is. Trying to set oneself apart from (or above) politics is itself political.
apparently, it's OK to have this stance of "if you're not with us, you're against us".
It's absolutely possible to not want political discussions in various places - it doesn't mean you support one or the other side. It simply means you don't want that discussion here. You could support the incumbents or not - not wanting the discussion does not imply support for the incumbents.
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.
I always imagine how long one can keep ignoring politics? When they bust down your door and put you in the black van?
They are making a mistake I was never political!
I don't care for the current status quo at all. The current administration has wrecked this country and completely compromised its position in the global economy potentially forever. But there is a time and a place for those arguments and activism, as well as the same for other parts of the world suffering from similar or worse issues. Like, I wouldn't be receptive to hearing about Ukraine every time I go to the grocery store. When I want to hear about it I go to the YouTube channels documenting it! They're very interesting, but I need to be in a space to receive it. Similarly there are places where I'm not specifically looking for it but where I'd be receptive because it's not immediately irrelevant to something I'm doing. 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.
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.
Both the points:
1. I don't want to see political messages in unrelated delivery mechanisms
and
2. I created $PRODUCT as a delivery mechanism for a political message
are equally valid.
I feel that the problem that comes about is when a $PRODUCT was not created as a delivery mechanism but is being co-opted into being one at some later stage; the audience feels deceived and the creator feels that the audience is ungrateful.
I'm not very familiar with Notepad++ (having never used it, nor experienced any desire to try it), but I'm fairly certain that the creator has been political long enough now that the audience cannot complain about the message being delivered with the product.
It's like complaining about Vim having a message for the plight of Ugandans - it's been there for decades; too late to complain now about it.
I'm more sympathetic to complaints over projects which never had a specific political message suddenly acquiring one when they realised what a large audience they had, or when new people join a decades-old project and introduce a political message that was never there before. I can sorta understand outrage then.
> 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.
It has an effect on me too: it makes me begin to extra-quickly ignore any messaging of that sort. I become so tired of it that it starts actively frustrating me to see. And I bother people to take it elsewhere. This is a behavioral issue on my part, but I'm still struggling to justify to myself that they couldn't be getting more out of it by putting it somewhere more appropriate.
1 reply →
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.
Not wanting politics crammed into every nook and cranny of daily life is not a "political" view of one kind or another, it's a preference for how I want to consume information and interact with people.
There is such a thing as being able to act and think in ways that aren't political in nature. Maybe not for you, but it absolutely is possible.
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 you seem to believe politics exists to solve people's problems is probably the reason you feel it is so important. I'm sorry that you are so profoundly confused.
9 replies →
Fully agree, it’s akin to atheists, they very often are convinced they are not religious. Agnostics are the unreligious ones. In fact, atheists are the most fanatical zealots in my friends circle.
> Asking for "no politics" is itself a strong political view
We are all Schmittian now
> Trying to set oneself apart from (or above) politics is itself political.
we are just sick of propaganda. And of pissing contests. And of "mine is longer than yours" content.
I'm tired of this. I look anywhere, I see politics. At the end of the day all this does is alienate me from anything that isn't the status quo anywhere, because all I see of the opposition of it is constant incessant whining and the prevention of my relaxation. It's a selfish view but I don't care.
Sometimes when the politics deeply affects you, you just need a little break from 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.
And if all you do all day is worry about someone else's or your own problems and politics you will not survive. Everyone has problems. Every single person has an issue that could cause them to die or a political event that could cause them harm. Your friends are not special or unique. There are billions of people who don't know if they will have food for their next meal, don't have money to pay rent, struggle with an addiction, etc.
It's okay to watch a show about knights and demons and enjoy it. It's okay to use a piece of software that doesn't code every release as a protest against something. Instead of judging other people for not burning out, maybe take a break yourself. It's okay and normal.
[flagged]
2 replies →
>Similar comments also come up in the [now regular] "I don't want to see political articles on HN" threads, and I think the response is similar: Asking for "no politics" is itself a strong political view: One in support/service of whatever the current status quo is.
Before I respond to your comment, allow me first to acknowledge the following injustices happening in the world:
* war in gaza
* war in ukraine
* civil war in sudan
* civil war in yemen
* civil war in myanmar
* ethnic violence in syria
* insurgent attacks in nigeria
* insurgent attacks in congo
* attacks on protesters in Iran
...
Wait, what's that? You don't want every comment to start with some sort of land acknowledgement-esque disclaimer of all injustices happening in the world? What are you, some sort of gaza war/ukraine war/sudanese civil war/ ... sympathizer? Tens, if not hundreds of millions have been affected by the event listed above, so at the very least you can spare a thought for them before discussing about some text editor getting compromised? You might argue acknowledging the war in gaza is beating a dead horse, but do you think the median HN reader has thought about the civil war in myanmar in the past month?
[flagged]
Ukraine and Taiwan are only relevant to Americans, right
iirc, Notepad++'s "I support the current thing" was about Honk Kong, not Taiwan.
1 reply →
[dead]
There’s a difference between arguing over the tax rate and ignoring fascism. At a certain point there is nothing more important than “politics”.
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 ?
If the main problem is that "sooner or later it will seem comical" I don't think this problem is severe enough to justify the number of words that have been written on HN about this topic.
i dont see how saying "no politics" is similar to asking "why is there political messaging literally everywhere" , do you see how conflating the two is the exact behaviour that the original commenter was trying to discuss ?
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.
Is choosing to set certain parts of one’s life apart from politics equivalent to “choosing not to engage politically?” If so then shouldn’t every action that you take be imbued with politics, including the choice of how long you brush your teeth and when, where, and how you sleep? Or are certain things exempt from the rule, but not posting on HN? If that’s the case, why does posting on HN require political engagement but not, say, your interactions with the clerk at the grocery store? Are those of us who fail to inform every person we meet about our political views choosing not to engage politically? Even if we dedicate a certain portion of our lives to political engagement?
Edit: I’ll also add that political messaging is highly contextual. What is appropriate and effective in one place may be counterproductive or actively harmful elsewhere. Format and tone actually matter if you care about your pet cause succeeding, believe it or not.
1 reply →
> Choosing to not engage in support or opposition
I do not think it is uncommon for someone to do this, then see the side they oppose win more in elections, public perception, etc then decide to engage more and that is "why is there political messaging literally everywhere".
Since we can't remove it, the next best alternative is to participate and advocate for responsible political engagement. I think until we have some shared understanding of what responsible political engagement is we will continue to have it everywhere.
the original commenter has explicitly stated willingness to engage politically , he has also stated this is not something he is willing to do when it is interrupting his seperate personal choices , concluding with an observation that others tend to conflate non-constant political will with a constant apolitical view. can you please explain how you are not conflating these two concepts ?
This is about being productive and weighing the overall value of things.
The politicisation of software is as harmful as requiring every research paper to be published with a political allegiance banner.
Software like most Sciences, Engineering, and, Trade is a much longer game for humanity than politics de jour.
It is easy to forget the extent of contributions from all sides of politics that has contributed to this trade, from Mohammed Algorithm to English, Russian, Chinese, and, everyone else to computing; but forgetting that and forging that for quick political hack points is a disservice to humanity.
>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.
This take is completely blind to how sciences has worked throughout history of humanity and specifically post major world wars.
Additionally, it is based on a false notion that political banners in software helps in pursuing anyone let alone change political outcomes.
5 replies →