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"Keep that shit out of code", you say, while software services take millions of dollars in government contracts, and spend millions more lobbying. Like ???????

"Keep that shit out of code", you say, while software services take millions of dollars in government contracts, and spend millions more lobbying. Like ???????????

ratsmack 7y ago
Taking a government contract is not the same as politicizing code.
- hacknat 7y ago
  To you. Peoples' politics are, definitionally, subjective.
- rexpop 7y ago
  It absolutely is. Government is the reification of politics, and technologies facilitate this reification–or don't.
rexpop 7y ago
This is a crucial point. Status quo sycophants tell us to "take politics outside," but what they mean is "take YOUR politics outside, and make more room for MINE." Politics is money and power. Tech is money and power. Tech is politics. And anyone who says otherwise is trying to undermine your power by obscuring this reality.
- allovernow 7y ago
  This comment is deeply ironic and lacking in self awareness. >take YOUR politics outside, and make more room for MINE. The only ones trying to enforce political opinions on software development are those who claim the status quo is broken. Those who push for vague COCs as political tools to oust anyone with inappropriate opinions. People who put developer feelings over merit and productivity. The rest, and majority, of us are just trying to write code. The only way to legitimately act as though "everything is political" is by playing a bastardized version of six degrees of separation, and in doing so insufferably forcing the polarization of any environment in which one participates. If you can't separate politics from work and entertainment, you have a serious problem.
  - anarchodev 7y ago
    > The rest, and majority, of us are just trying to write code. This comment is a really embarrassing commentary on how the US education system's emphasis on tech and STEM has crippled our critical thinking. If you're working at github, you're literally constructing the tools used to terrorize communities. You can't do that in an "apolitical" way. Your actions are political. We feel the same way about the companies that manufacture their kidnapping trucks, their bulletproof vests, the bullets in their guns. We do have a serious problem.
    - staticassertion 7y ago
      Yeah, it's always embarrassing to read topics like this and remember that, for the most part, the people in your field are basically braindead codemonkeys.
      - rexpop 7y ago
        What's embarrassing is the pervasive desire to insist on the moral superiority of being unaware of second-order effects. We're more than happy to debug nearly endless stack traces, but tracing the stack of our customers' and suppliers is, somehow, a threat to the foundations of our identity as good people, purely vocational talent. We're too steeped in the California Ideology [1]. 1. https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideo...
  - rexpop 7y ago
    > The only ones trying to enforce political opinions on software development are those who claim the status quo is broken. Well... them, and those who claim the status quo is working. The room does not disappear when you close your eyes, and a randomly wired neural network still has bias.[1] 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970937

"Keep that shit out of code", you say, while software services take millions of dollars in government contracts, and spend millions more lobbying. Like ???????????

ratsmack 7y ago

Taking a government contract is not the same as politicizing code.

hacknat 7y ago
To you. Peoples' politics are, definitionally, subjective.
rexpop 7y ago
It absolutely is. Government is the reification of politics, and technologies facilitate this reification–or don't.

rexpop 7y ago

This is a crucial point. Status quo sycophants tell us to "take politics outside," but what they mean is "take YOUR politics outside, and make more room for MINE." Politics is money and power. Tech is money and power. Tech is politics. And anyone who says otherwise is trying to undermine your power by obscuring this reality.

allovernow 7y ago
This comment is deeply ironic and lacking in self awareness. >take YOUR politics outside, and make more room for MINE. The only ones trying to enforce political opinions on software development are those who claim the status quo is broken. Those who push for vague COCs as political tools to oust anyone with inappropriate opinions. People who put developer feelings over merit and productivity. The rest, and majority, of us are just trying to write code. The only way to legitimately act as though "everything is political" is by playing a bastardized version of six degrees of separation, and in doing so insufferably forcing the polarization of any environment in which one participates. If you can't separate politics from work and entertainment, you have a serious problem.
- anarchodev 7y ago
  > The rest, and majority, of us are just trying to write code. This comment is a really embarrassing commentary on how the US education system's emphasis on tech and STEM has crippled our critical thinking. If you're working at github, you're literally constructing the tools used to terrorize communities. You can't do that in an "apolitical" way. Your actions are political. We feel the same way about the companies that manufacture their kidnapping trucks, their bulletproof vests, the bullets in their guns. We do have a serious problem.
  - staticassertion 7y ago
    Yeah, it's always embarrassing to read topics like this and remember that, for the most part, the people in your field are basically braindead codemonkeys.
    - rexpop 7y ago
      What's embarrassing is the pervasive desire to insist on the moral superiority of being unaware of second-order effects. We're more than happy to debug nearly endless stack traces, but tracing the stack of our customers' and suppliers is, somehow, a threat to the foundations of our identity as good people, purely vocational talent. We're too steeped in the California Ideology [1]. 1. https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideo...
- rexpop 7y ago
  > The only ones trying to enforce political opinions on software development are those who claim the status quo is broken. Well... them, and those who claim the status quo is working. The room does not disappear when you close your eyes, and a randomly wired neural network still has bias.[1] 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970937