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Inaction is a political position in support of the status quo. It is the equivalent of saying "I am fine with this".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mwcampbell 4y ago
I disagree with this. Inaction is merely an acknowledgement that we can't be informed, effective activists on everything. I'm pretty much disengaged from political activism these days, because I don't want to be manipulated into joining the human equivalent of a botnet. Instead I focus on the one area (accessibility for disabled people) where I'm actually knowledgeable enough to have an informed opinion, and where I can actually do something meaningful. Edit to add: Also, accepting the status quo on some things, even if one doesn't think it's ideal, may be necessary to be maximally effective in one's primary area. So my main open-source project in the area of accessibility is maximally permissively licensed (the MIT/Apache dual license typical in the Rust community), is hosted on GitHub, and targets proprietary platforms first, because I care more about accessibility than any of these other things. I have no problem with this specific decision though.
- vladharbuz 4y ago
  It seems to me like the disagreement isn't as big as you make it out to be. This is an instance where the maintainer of a business has strong views that they consider well-informed on the social impact of an issue, and there is no pragmatic barrier to taking action according to their values, so they are doing this. Inaction in this case might be reprimandable, but I am not saying that I reprimand them or you for neglecting other social issues or anything like that. I am sympathetic with the idea that we cannot all have well-informed views on everything, and that we might not want to act based on half-baked views. I think there is a subtle and interesting discussion to be had there. Thank you for your work on accessibility! :)
  - mwcampbell 4y ago
    Fair enough. I think Drew is right to value issues such as environmental impact and global wealth inequality to the extent that his company turns away some software projects, even free software projects. I mainly replied to his comment because, taken out of context, that kind of argument can be used (and IMO sometimes is used) to pressure people into taking a stand on a particular issue of the moment.
- em-bee 4y ago
  adding to that it is difficult to engage in political activism without getting into partisan politics which is undesirable to some.
xigoi 4y ago
There are billions of political issues on Earth. Do you think if someone isn't protesting against water spoilage in some random village on the opposite side of the planst, then they support it?
- ddevault 4y ago
  To clarify, I would narrow my statement, perhaps, to something like this: "inaction [regarding a subject with which you are familiar and are in a position to act on] is a political position".
  - xigoi 4y ago
    I'd say issues which meet this definition are still way too numerous to be active about all of them.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

I disagree with this. Inaction is merely an acknowledgement that we can't be informed, effective activists on everything. I'm pretty much disengaged from political activism these days, because I don't want to be manipulated into joining the human equivalent of a botnet. Instead I focus on the one area (accessibility for disabled people) where I'm actually knowledgeable enough to have an informed opinion, and where I can actually do something meaningful. Edit to add: Also, accepting the status quo on some things, even if one doesn't think it's ideal, may be necessary to be maximally effective in one's primary area. So my main open-source project in the area of accessibility is maximally permissively licensed (the MIT/Apache dual license typical in the Rust community), is hosted on GitHub, and targets proprietary platforms first, because I care more about accessibility than any of these other things. I have no problem with this specific decision though.

vladharbuz 4y ago
It seems to me like the disagreement isn't as big as you make it out to be. This is an instance where the maintainer of a business has strong views that they consider well-informed on the social impact of an issue, and there is no pragmatic barrier to taking action according to their values, so they are doing this. Inaction in this case might be reprimandable, but I am not saying that I reprimand them or you for neglecting other social issues or anything like that. I am sympathetic with the idea that we cannot all have well-informed views on everything, and that we might not want to act based on half-baked views. I think there is a subtle and interesting discussion to be had there. Thank you for your work on accessibility! :)
- mwcampbell 4y ago
  Fair enough. I think Drew is right to value issues such as environmental impact and global wealth inequality to the extent that his company turns away some software projects, even free software projects. I mainly replied to his comment because, taken out of context, that kind of argument can be used (and IMO sometimes is used) to pressure people into taking a stand on a particular issue of the moment.
em-bee 4y ago
adding to that it is difficult to engage in political activism without getting into partisan politics which is undesirable to some.

xigoi 4y ago

There are billions of political issues on Earth. Do you think if someone isn't protesting against water spoilage in some random village on the opposite side of the planst, then they support it?

ddevault 4y ago
To clarify, I would narrow my statement, perhaps, to something like this: "inaction [regarding a subject with which you are familiar and are in a position to act on] is a political position".
- xigoi 4y ago
  I'd say issues which meet this definition are still way too numerous to be active about all of them.