I think the analogy works the other way. Thermodynamics, like politics, is a thing we can't be rid of. Therefore, even if you don't care about the exact tempera

I think the analogy works the other way. Thermodynamics, like politics, is a thing we can't be rid of. Therefore, even if you don't care about the exact temperature of your groceries, put them in the fridge. If you have a bag of fresh bread, milk, and frozen meat, it's a lot better to stick the whole bag in the fridge than leave the whole bag in the counter. Obviously it would be even better to put them away properly, but if you want to not care as much as possible, you still have to care a little bit. There's no way to avoid it completely, and ignoring it doesn't make it go away and is certainly not meritorious. The NRA is "more political" in the sense of their daily activities, of course, but I think you could construct a great argument that the IETF has more impact on world politics (or, let's say, the governments of the world) than the NRA. Everyone knows the NRA is taking an absolutist give-everyone-an-AR-15 stance; they work very hard on it, but at this point they're almost an anchor. Some parts of the US give easy access to guns, and they're going to do so regardless. Other parts (NYC, where I live) make it very hard to access guns, and the NRA isn't able to do much more. And the rest of the world doesn't care. Meanwhile, the IETF, in how it chooses to distribute power to network operators vs. service providers vs. end users, which protocols it facilitates standardization work on, who is in the room, what sorts of threats cryptographic protocols protect against, etc., has a lot of influence on who has power over digital communications. I think I'd even argue that it's more important for someone at the IETF to be aware of the political implications of their work than someone at the NRA. The NRA has an obviously political mission; whether you choose to pay attention to it in how you do your job and what you prioritize or not, you're going to further that mission. (Imagine, for instance, being a gun-control advocate at the NRA and see how much impact you'll have.) The IETF's mission is more open-ended, which means you can develop protocols to facilitate government surveillance or to subvert it, depending on what you think is more important.