> To me this sounds completely bizarre. Why should a software project be apolitical and without values? Not all software projects, but certainly some software

> To me this sounds completely bizarre. Why should a software project be apolitical and without values? Not all software projects, but certainly some software projects, specifically those trying to create infrastructure. Over time, we have accumulated some wisdom that society is worse off when we try to politicize a bridge, so that only people with certain beliefs are allowed to cross the bridge, or make telephone calls, or use electricity, etc. We want everyone to be able to make the telephone call and to cross the bridge. Even if they are going to commit a crime and the bridge helps them commit that crime. Even if they are not committed to western liberal values. It is this type of apolitical treatment of infrastructure that provides numerous benefits necessary for the infrastructure to thrive: 1. You can't sue the bridge builder or telephone carrier if someone uses the infrastructure to do Bad Thing. This is necessary for the infrastructure to exist. Imagine if a telephone company had to worry about a kidnapper using their phones to make calls. 2. Much infrastructure becomes more useful as more people use it (network effects), in which case the infrastructure should not be fragmented where each tribe has to build their own rival infrastructure. It's more efficient for rival tribes to put aside their differences and have everyone use the same infrastructure. This is especially true in increasing scale situations. 3. Infrastructure that requires long term support and maintenance through a variety of different regimes will need to prove that it is not favoring one regime over another. For the bridge this can be government, but for a project like Tor, they will need the contributions of software developers that do not believe in the western liberal project together with developers that do. And certainly for users running exit nodes this applies as well. Now against these benefits are the costs. Does it hurt you that your political enemy is allowed to also use the telephone to coordinate? Well, from a pure power point of view, you would like to dominate and cripple them, but from the point of view of the infrastructure, no, them making a phone call does not prevent you from doing the same. So in that type of a situaiton, it's best to have a truce and say everyone is allowed to use and contribute to the infrastructure. Now in some situations you can't have a truce because your hatred is so strong. Then you have war. That's when you deny your enemies access to your bridges while blowing up their bridges. And they do the same to you. But one thing about that state of affairs is that it's never good for infrastructure. When you politicize infrastructure, you get less of it. So no, it's not a good idea to try to make everything political. This is true regardless of anyone's moral intuitions. It's an objective fact that society is better off when certain things are not politicized, especially infrastructure services.