[GreenDolphinSys]

The entire idea of F/OSS itself is political, and was very radical. We're just accustomed to it now, so it's not "political", in other words, it's not "controversial". Perhaps F/OSS is -more- political than other spaces because we organize around projects? Here, and on Reddit, we see the fallout of drama all the time in various F/OSS communities over disagreeing over policies. That's... politics.

Unless you happen to live alone and interact with no one, basically every single interaction is undergirded by policies determined by humans. Politics. A computer/phone being built that is purchasable for legal tender, charged by electricity being fed into our homes, where we can send packets in the air, underground and across the world, doesn't happen by magic. It's literally the result of politics.

"Detaching oneself" really just means "not paying attention to politics". And it's a free world to do so, especially for mental health reasons. It's definitely not healthy to be tapped into news/current events all the time and I have to take breaks myself. But for some people, they can't really detach when their literal existence is deemed "political". This is what people refer to when they say it's privileged to detach.

Side Note: criticism of "detaching" is not referring to things like detaching for mental health. Internet trolls aside, that's a strawman argument. What it's referring to is the kind of people who say "oh, I'm just apolitical" or "tech is apolitical, it's just code", when really the status quo is in their favor and they have zero need to ever think about political issues. They would certainly not be "apolitical" if they were being banned from entering public bathrooms or being banned from contributing to F/OSS projects on the basis of their skin color!

[dijit]

I grew up poor enough that my classmates called me "Tramp". Hand-me-downs so threadbare they could pass for actual rubbish, couldn't afford deodorant or adequate dental hygiene; the works. The 10-year-old £5 computer that barely wheezed into life was my escape into a world that genuinely didn't care about any of that.

On the internet (1hr per day, courtesy of the local library), I was just the words on the screen. Nobody knew I was poor. Nobody knew I was weird-looking. Nobody knew anything except whether my code worked and whether my arguments made sense. That pseudonymity wasn't a limitation of the technology... it was the most liberating feature I'd ever experienced.

When people say "everything is political" and "detaching is privilege", I feel like they're describing a completely different internet to the one that saved me. The privilege wasn't being able to ignore politics- the privilege was finally finding a space where the hierarchies that had crushed me in the physical world simply didn't exist.

Bringing identity and real-world political causes into these spaces doesn't make them more inclusive- it recreates the very social hierarchies we'd escaped. When you insist I must care about your cause, acknowledge your identity, or pledge allegiance to your political framework just to contribute code or discuss technology, you're making the space less meritocratic, not more.

The early internet let us be judged solely on the merit of our ideas. That was radical. That was revolutionary. For some of us, that was the only place we'd ever experienced actual equality of opportunity.

When you demand these spaces become "politically aware", what I hear is: "your refuge wasn't good enough, and now you need to care about my problems too." But this was the one place where I didn't have to perform social status, where I didn't have to prove I belonged based on anything other than what I knew and what I could build.

I'm not saying the world's problems don't matter. I'm saying there used to be spaces where we could focus on intellectual puzzles and technical problems without importing every societal conflict. And frankly, for those of us who were outcasts in the physical world, losing that feels like losing the only place we ever truly belonged.

[teekert]

Fwiw, I 100% agree with this. All of a sudden the constant judging is there, it's seeping into the once clean, apolitical world-of-mind. It started on the big tech platforms, the new weary giants of flesh and steel, but it's overflowing into our hacker-minded spaces as well now.

Like US families torn between 2 sides of their politics, they can't even have normal dinners together anymore. They can't communicate without judging, it's an illness, they've been weaponized against each other.

[whilenot-dev]

Anonymity was a given in the beginnings of the internet, and we now need to fight hard for any remaining form of it. Your post makes me longing for my past, whereas GPs post makes me longing for our future.

The virtual world(s) felt like equality of opportunity because everything was a blank canvas, or some canvas that barely had any fingerprints on it. For a lot of people the internet currently consists out of WhatsApp, Facebook, and Google News. So tell me, what is truly radical, what is revolutionary anymore?

[wasmitnetzen]

Your reading of "politics" seems quite narrow. Creating a place free of social status, hierarchies and with equal opportunity? That's 100% politics.

[GreenDolphinSys]

I'm not describing just the internet. I'm describing the nature of the world around us, both in meatspace and on in the internet in the context of this discussion. As regrettable as it is (I mean, who doesn't hate politicians?), it's just all politics, regardless if one chooses to detach or not.

That pseudonymity you're describing still exists in many spaces to this day. I have no idea what many (most?) of the contributors on F/OSS projects look like, or anything about them unless they voluntarily divulged it. You don't have to "pledge allegiance to political frameworks", not for any F/OSS project that I'm aware of.

What people do have to do more now is treat other people with respect, which the old internet very much did not do well. There are many people who can code, so projects actually don't have to keep around people who can't conduct themselves nicely.

"When you demand these spaces become ..."

"Demand" is a strawman argument. What changed overall is that people bring themselves into these spaces, not just a pseudonymous username. That comes with different expectations for conduct. Do you miss the flamewars of the past?

"where I didn't have to prove I belonged"

What F/OSS projects do you have to do this for? Basically every project I've contributed to had nothing like that.

"... there used to be spaces where we could focus on intellectual puzzles and technical problems without importing every societal conflict"

While I can empathize with this, I'm not sure if I entirely agree with this recollection of the internet. People could still be cruel to anyone who happened to reveal anything about themselves, as humans tend to do, that was "atypical", shall we say. I don't see why you still can't focus on technical problems, because unless you're a moderator, nobody is forcing you to comment on anything except technical discussions.

[iso1631]

So if someone wants to close your local library you wouldn't have a problem? If someone decides that you can't have a £5 computer, you have to subscribe to a computer service?

Read this and tell me free software is not politics

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html

[SPICLK2]

Just because the idea of F/OSS software is/was relatively radical and a certain type of political act when applied in certain situations, does not mean that it necessarily needs to concern itself with any other political act. After all, all acts are political, right?

To extend your world picture just one more step - for those people whose "existance is political", a F/OSS world that does not concern itself with irrelevant politics provides that very haven where only the merit of ideas is considered.

[throwawaypath]

>The entire idea of F/OSS itself is political, and was very radical.

Political and radical as it pertains to software, not whatever the grievance of the day to virtue signal over is.

FOSS projects are tired of the incessant US-centric, champagne socialist politicking destroying their communities. Thankfully peak nonsense is behind us. You no longer have power.

>But for some people, they can't really detach when their literal existence is deemed "political".

Everyone's existence is "political." It's a privileged position to think your existence is "political" while others are not.

[direwolf20]

Why do you think that politics has to relate to the grievance of the day? Every interaction between two people is political. You can pretend it's not, if you're happy with the status quo and seeking to defuse movements that seek change, because you don't like change. This is an indicator of privilege because only people who benefit from the status quo seek to prevent it from changing.

[rendx]

I would go further and claim that anyone who sees themselves as "apolitical" just basically thinks their own opinion is the only true way to see things "rationally" (and as such "fact" and not an opinion; nothing to be "political" about), and everyone else is just plain wrong/mistaken. Since they're not ready to admit this to themselves and others, they hide behind the "apolitical" label. Otherwise they would see that their own opinion is a "political statement" on equal basis as others. It doesn't even make a difference if you voice it or not.

This strategy works poorly to avoid conflict and friction (life), since one just shifts conflict to reappear elsewhere. Hence the often claimed need to self-isolate "for mental health" to avoid getting in contact with... positions such as one's own, and half-suppressed anger at all those that just don't see what is RIGHT.

Hint: It doesn't work.

[Orygin]

This closely matches the way a few of my "apolitical" friends behave.

They mostly think their opinion is the right one, and others are just flailing around not understanding the real "objective" "truth". But they never spent more than a minute thinking things through and re-evaluating their biases and "objective reality"...

They then spend quite some time ranting about things that are obviously political, but on the same breath say they are proud not to vote...

[teekert]

One can recognize the importance of defining processes for how decisions pertaining to a soceity are being made, and adhering to those, while, at the same time, trying not to judge views other than yours, or simply trying not to engage too much in debates pertaining to that process. In other words, you can choose not to let politics seep to much into your identify.

I am a hacker, a baker of breads, a father, a debater, a thinker. Period. Not libertarian or whatever. My ideas sometimes are more like a democrat, sometimes more republican. I often like Bernie Sanders, and Schwarzenegger would be a nice, good, kind republican president imho. I don't like being seen as a part of any of these groups. I enjoy discussing reasons for "the 2 party" (but not really 2 party-) system much more than discussing which is morally superior.

This, to me, is a valid stance. For some it is the way to stay sane.