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> Avoid political threads. Coupled with the new catchphrase "everything is political", this is quite impossible to do.

by ulucs 5y ago

cyberge99 5y ago
I haven’t heard that new catchphrase to date. There’s an old joke about the Network OSI layer: What are layers 8 and 9? Political and Financial. I think the context with things like that refer to internal business politics and having diplomatic conversations versus State or National Politics. Avoid religion and politics in general seems like solid advice as it’s too emotionally charged for most people to discuss purely logically. (Also, there are too many x factors and most politicians are relatively short term (speaking of USA here).
state_less 5y ago
The ground you walk on is not political. If folks learn to take it easy, we'll be in better shape.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
everything is political Can't stand this phrase that literally came out of nowhere. People will try and justify it with walls of text about the oppressed, blah blah, when it's just an excuse for them to chide you about why you're wrong and why this issue intersects with their politics.
- minikites 5y ago
  Name a subject or domain that involves people which isn't "political".
  - dmpk2k 5y ago
    Me taking a shit? :)
    - shoemakersteve 5y ago
      Is it right for you be taxed for using the sewer system? What are the environmental impacts of the massive scale of human shit having to be processed in treatment plants? Why does the government prevent me from shitting wherever I want, infringing on my freedom? First they take away your rights to shit on your neighbour's porch, then they take away your rights to see your kids on weekends. Stepping stones to tyranny.
      - justin_oaks 5y ago
        You're demonstrating that everything can be made political by those who want to take it on a political tangent.
        baq 5y ago
        Not OP, but yeah, that was the point. Humans are social, thus political, animals.
        goatlover 5y ago
        That just means there’s a political element to human interaction, not that everything is political. Astronomy is about the cosmos, not politics, but astronomers engage in politics like everyone else. There’s an entire world outside of humanity, and some people are not interested in turning that into more human bickering, which you can easily find in explicitly political and news discussions.
        baq 5y ago
        People being allowed to look at stars is a political issue. I’m a big astronomy fan and I’d like more money to go to astronomers to do more research. That’s political…
    - tstrimple 5y ago
      If only there wasn't a political party who though legislating who can use what bathroom. Now your shit is political too.
  - Veen 5y ago
    My love of my partner and my nephews and nieces. My enjoyment of art. My appreciation of the natural world. You can do a political analysis of those things, but they are not intrinsically political. Of course, some on the left believe that there is nothing that isn't political. But I don't think they're correct.
    - NeoTar 5y ago
      For lots of people around the world the ability to love their partner is a very political thing - homosexuality being illegal in a majority of Africa, and punishable by death in parts of the world.
      - Veen 5y ago
        We could quibble about this, but I don't think that makes their love political. The repression is external to their love of each other, not part of it. In fact, it would be a diminishment of their love to analyze it purely through a political framework—which is one reason many people don't like "everything is political". It diminishes many of the most important aspects of our lives.
        Shish2k 5y ago
        > The repression is external to their love of each other It’s not very “external” when the police are breaking down your door to force themselves into the middle of your activities. It’s something you need to be constantly aware of - if you want to have love at all, then you need to thread it through the government’s loopholes; if you do it in public, you are “an activist”. It would be nice if “love” and “government” could be cleanly separated - but for queer people, that seems to be a fantasy that only straight people have the luxury of believing in :/
    - minikites 5y ago
      Was the art you're enjoying created in a vacuum? Art is often extremely political.
    - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
- jowsie 5y ago
  This isn't a new phrase that came out of nowhere, I've seen it in use for a few years now. I believe it became more mainstream with this Ted Talk; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=171flckdKic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=171flckdKic
- Veen 5y ago
  It's not new; it's a variant of the 60s feminist activists' pronouncement that "the personal is political" or "the private is political".
- fidesomnes 5y ago
  > Can't stand this phrase that literally came out of nowhere. I don't know where you have been or how new you are here but this phrase has been around since at least the 1960's New Left ideological frameworks.
- underseacables 5y ago
  Everything is political now. Remember a year ago when you couldn’t wear a red hat in public without fear of someone attacking you physically? People are being canceled, fired from their jobs, ostracized in their communities, because they dared to have an opinion that differed from the mob. It’s all political now, and there’s not much we can talk about that someone isn’t going to try to make it political.
fendy3002 5y ago
Disagree, downvoted! /s Aside from political discussion, I see that opinion (say os or console X is better than Y) also bring downvotes. I find that asking questions and giving facts (not a wrong one) won't get downvoted and stay at 1 at worst.
higeorge13 5y ago
I have been downvoted in technological threads, just expressing my past experience on docker. Should we avoid those as well?
popcorncentury 5y ago
More accurately, everything is ideological at its core. I say this as science. Even tabs vs spaces is an ideological battle. And so is for and against downvoting. I am against downvoting because I am against censorship and for free speech. And to then say "avoid ideology" or to be modding a platform based on a "no ideology" ideology is like being against meaningful conversation on a conversation platform. So we are left with excessive pampering and everyone walking on eggshells. Whenever something gets ideological, we can't handle it and so we censor it. Or hide behind a downvote. All because we're not allowed, and hence have had no practice. The platform that can handle political discourse without breaking will be the next great social media platform. We owe it to ourselves to build it, instead of pretending this is already it, whatever your platform of choice.

> Avoid political threads. Coupled with the new catchphrase "everything is political", this is quite impossible to do.

by ulucs 5y ago

> Avoid political threads. Coupled with the new catchphrase "everything is political", this is quite impossible to do.

I haven’t heard that new catchphrase to date. There’s an old joke about the Network OSI layer: What are layers 8 and 9? Political and Financial. I think the context with things like that refer to internal business politics and having diplomatic conversations versus State or National Politics. Avoid religion and politics in general seems like solid advice as it’s too emotionally charged for most people to discuss purely logically. (Also, there are too many x factors and most politicians are relatively short term (speaking of USA here).

state_less 5y ago

The ground you walk on is not political. If folks learn to take it easy, we'll be in better shape.

JohnWhigham 5y ago

everything is political Can't stand this phrase that literally came out of nowhere. People will try and justify it with walls of text about the oppressed, blah blah, when it's just an excuse for them to chide you about why you're wrong and why this issue intersects with their politics.

minikites 5y ago
Name a subject or domain that involves people which isn't "political".
- dmpk2k 5y ago
  Me taking a shit? :)
  - shoemakersteve 5y ago
    Is it right for you be taxed for using the sewer system? What are the environmental impacts of the massive scale of human shit having to be processed in treatment plants? Why does the government prevent me from shitting wherever I want, infringing on my freedom? First they take away your rights to shit on your neighbour's porch, then they take away your rights to see your kids on weekends. Stepping stones to tyranny.
    - justin_oaks 5y ago
      You're demonstrating that everything can be made political by those who want to take it on a political tangent.
      - baq 5y ago
        Not OP, but yeah, that was the point. Humans are social, thus political, animals.
        goatlover 5y ago
        That just means there’s a political element to human interaction, not that everything is political. Astronomy is about the cosmos, not politics, but astronomers engage in politics like everyone else. There’s an entire world outside of humanity, and some people are not interested in turning that into more human bickering, which you can easily find in explicitly political and news discussions.
        baq 5y ago
        People being allowed to look at stars is a political issue. I’m a big astronomy fan and I’d like more money to go to astronomers to do more research. That’s political…
  - tstrimple 5y ago
    If only there wasn't a political party who though legislating who can use what bathroom. Now your shit is political too.
- Veen 5y ago
  My love of my partner and my nephews and nieces. My enjoyment of art. My appreciation of the natural world. You can do a political analysis of those things, but they are not intrinsically political. Of course, some on the left believe that there is nothing that isn't political. But I don't think they're correct.
  - NeoTar 5y ago
    For lots of people around the world the ability to love their partner is a very political thing - homosexuality being illegal in a majority of Africa, and punishable by death in parts of the world.
    - Veen 5y ago
      We could quibble about this, but I don't think that makes their love political. The repression is external to their love of each other, not part of it. In fact, it would be a diminishment of their love to analyze it purely through a political framework—which is one reason many people don't like "everything is political". It diminishes many of the most important aspects of our lives.
      - Shish2k 5y ago
        > The repression is external to their love of each other It’s not very “external” when the police are breaking down your door to force themselves into the middle of your activities. It’s something you need to be constantly aware of - if you want to have love at all, then you need to thread it through the government’s loopholes; if you do it in public, you are “an activist”. It would be nice if “love” and “government” could be cleanly separated - but for queer people, that seems to be a fantasy that only straight people have the luxury of believing in :/
  - minikites 5y ago
    Was the art you're enjoying created in a vacuum? Art is often extremely political.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
jowsie 5y ago
This isn't a new phrase that came out of nowhere, I've seen it in use for a few years now. I believe it became more mainstream with this Ted Talk; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=171flckdKic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=171flckdKic
Veen 5y ago
It's not new; it's a variant of the 60s feminist activists' pronouncement that "the personal is political" or "the private is political".
fidesomnes 5y ago
> Can't stand this phrase that literally came out of nowhere. I don't know where you have been or how new you are here but this phrase has been around since at least the 1960's New Left ideological frameworks.
underseacables 5y ago
Everything is political now. Remember a year ago when you couldn’t wear a red hat in public without fear of someone attacking you physically? People are being canceled, fired from their jobs, ostracized in their communities, because they dared to have an opinion that differed from the mob. It’s all political now, and there’s not much we can talk about that someone isn’t going to try to make it political.

fendy3002 5y ago

Disagree, downvoted! /s Aside from political discussion, I see that opinion (say os or console X is better than Y) also bring downvotes. I find that asking questions and giving facts (not a wrong one) won't get downvoted and stay at 1 at worst.

higeorge13 5y ago

I have been downvoted in technological threads, just expressing my past experience on docker. Should we avoid those as well?

popcorncentury 5y ago

More accurately, everything is ideological at its core. I say this as science. Even tabs vs spaces is an ideological battle. And so is for and against downvoting. I am against downvoting because I am against censorship and for free speech. And to then say "avoid ideology" or to be modding a platform based on a "no ideology" ideology is like being against meaningful conversation on a conversation platform. So we are left with excessive pampering and everyone walking on eggshells. Whenever something gets ideological, we can't handle it and so we censor it. Or hide behind a downvote. All because we're not allowed, and hence have had no practice. The platform that can handle political discourse without breaking will be the next great social media platform. We owe it to ourselves to build it, instead of pretending this is already it, whatever your platform of choice.