Is software political?
Is software political?
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In this paper the author highlights how both engineers and social scientists misinterpret the relationship between technology and society. In particular he attacks the narrative, widespread among engineers, that technological artifacts, such as software, have no political properties in themselves and that function or efficiency are the only drivers of technological design and implementation.
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I think the issue is people simply define politics differently, even differently within certain contexts, and there's no right or wrong answer.
One could argue that it's not possible to be truly "apolitical" in software, as even "doing nothing" is considered a strategic political move to some.
A recent controversial example (Ladybird browser) is a perfect demonstration IMO:
- user: "please change mention of 'he' to a gender-neutral term"
- Andreas: "please keep politics out of this"
Now to some, dare I say most, this is a perfectly reasonable position for Andreas to be in. But to others, perhaps a vocal minority at the opposite extreme... it's everything from bigotry to borderline terrorism.
I'm not saying either side is right or wrong, or that there can even be such a thing... everyone is just defining politics differently in that context.
I don't think healthy discourse can be had until we can all learn to "agree to disagree" and move on when we aren't willing to change our definition of subjective terms... or either come to a compromise.
But I think calling people right or wrong on a subjective term is a waste of time. You can try to change their mind, but if you fail, then it's probably best to leave them alone instead of launching negative campaigns against people who have opinions you don't like. Eventually that leads to war.
Defining the status quo as non-political is a political stance to support the status quo.
Everything is political by definition.
Technically I agree, but I think most people don't put enough thought into it to realize that... like all the people that downvoted me ><
But like I said, in the moment of writing those things I think people are just narrowly thinking about specific things as political and others are not, even if that's not "technically correct", but nobody is perfect.
People are thinking that some things should change and others shouldn't or don't need to in those moments.
Now to some, dare I say most, this is a perfectly reasonable position for Andreas to be in.
If wanting different pronouns/gender neutral language is political, then wanting to stick to "he" etc inherently is political, too. It's completely incomprehensible to say that "position X" is political, but "position anti-X" is somehow not.
I think where people are making a mistake in Ladybird's case is assuming he actively wanted to keep it as "him" on purpose, like as a retaliation or just because they said "gender-neutral"... like they're taking it as some kind of personal attack or as if he was intentionally trying to make it into something bigger than a simple mistake, which could have been handled without mentioning gender-neutral (which is called a hot button issue for a reason).
Basically in Andreas' eyes I think he would have actually accepted the PR if it didn't include that term in it. He knows people are currently causing massive drama all over the Internet in recent years over things like this, he simply doesn't want to get involved. And if that's considered political to some, well, I think you just found the Paradox of Tolerance.
That's a whole lot of assumptions, and cascading of them.
Gender-neutral is a factual, grammatical term. How do you call it if not that? The first PR in that case was rather neutral and not presumptuous or critical. It was a suggested improvement. But they made it [more] political by calling it political. And then denied it - which is inherently taking a political position.
Again, his opinions on what is or isn't political in a certain context are not the same as yours. Neither is right or wrong, you just have a difference in opinion.
And what exactly do you call navigating different opinions and proposals for actions in a community setting? That is LITERALLY politics.
Yes, people can have different opinions on what is political, but that doesn't mean those are equally valid. Politics has a clear definition. People can have different opinions in politics, but not really about what is politics.
From wiki:
"Politics (from Ancient Greek πολιτικά (politiká) 'affairs of the cities') is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status."Saying they don't want to do politics, while making a literal political decision is just completely contradictory. The minute the project turned into a community project,.it turned into a political project both by definition and necessity.
And what exactly do you call navigating different opinions and proposals for actions in a community setting? That is LITERALLY politics.
I call it yet another opinion. Like I said, I don't think there is a point in trying to tell people how they should define things.
What's considered politics to you is not the same for everyone, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Just because politics the phenomenon involves subjective opinions doesn't mean the definition of the term is somehow subjective, or at least not any more or less subjective than any other term.
Opinions are subjective, but we still all pretty much agree what an opinion is and what isn't. Because while opinions are subjective, the term "opinion" isn't.This is literally the basis of human communication. If things and terms didn't more or less mean the same thing for different speakers, we would be unable to communicate with each other.
If terms were generally completely subjective and up to the individual, there would be no point in you talking with me, or anyone else, because you could never be sure if who you are talking to even remotely means the thing that you think they mean.
I would consider what's going on here is literally the definition of failure to communicate as humans because many here cannot agree on terminology. Either someone has to change or we have to make a compromise, or agree to disagree. Otherwise the arguing never stops.
I would consider what's going on here is literally the definition of failure to communicate as humans because many here *cannot* agree on terminology
Okay, so you are acknowledging that an agreement on terminology and a shared understanding of it needs to occur for successful communication to happen. In other words, that terms need to be intersubjective if we want to have any chance at communicating at all.
This is exactly the point I was making above.
If you think a shared understanding is vital for successful communication, how do you square that of with your claims that having your own subjective definition of politics is perfectly reasonable and acceptable and there's nothing we can or need to do about it?
Working with your own definitions and not trying to come to a shared one is by your own admission a failure to communicate. So why do you then insist on just claiming a term is completely subjective instead of at least trying to offer a term that can be agreed upon. Why do you insist on communicating in a way that by your own admission is bound to lead to communication breakdown?
It wasn't political until a bunch of terminally online people can't deal with a gendered pronoun made it political.
Telling a bunch of socially inept people to go pound sand is not a political act.
My friend it is you who is socially inept. Trans people are not basement dwelling "politicals" most of us are just normal every day folks with jobs and partners etc. who just want to be respected to the same level that everyone else is.
I have never even heard of this browser but it's clear the maintainers have priorities of pushing an agenda rather than designing software to meet end user requirements and I wish them well and hope they can learn to set aside their ideology.
Fundamentally it also doesn't even have to be about that either, gender-neutral is a factual grammatic term and it's silly to suggest using gender-neutral pronouns is some sort of political act.
If anything it's Andreas who made it political by taking it so personally in his head, which he did because of political bogeymen in his head, he got triggered by a term and now the chuddie defense force rushes to his side in the latest culture war battleground.
You are right, gender neutral pronouns aren't political. Having an internet meltdown because someone didn't use them is.
But as far as I understand someone just requested he did, and then it was Andreas who had the meltdown, hence the accusations of politicization?
- user: "please change mention of 'he' to a gender-neutral term"
- Andreas: "please keep politics out of this"
Now to some, dare I say most, this is a perfectly reasonable position for Andreas to be in. But to others, perhaps a vocal minority at the opposite extreme... it's everything from bigotry to borderline terrorism.
I literally cannot roll my eyes harder right now.