Your introductory paragraph comes across very much like "people who want to change the status quo are political and people who want to maintain it are not"; which is clearly nonsense. "how things are is how they should be" is as much of an ideology, just a less conspicuous one given the existing norms.

>Is my choice to write some boiler plate code using gen AI truly political?

I am much closer to agreeing with your take here, but as you recognise, there are lots of political aspects to your actions, even if they are not conscious. Not intentionally being political doesn't mean you are not making political choices; there are many more that your AI choice touches upon; privacy issues, wealth distribution, centralisation, etc etc. Of course these choices become limited by practicalities but they still exist.

> Your introductory paragraph comes across very much like "people who want to change the status quo are political and people who want to maintain it are not"; which is clearly nonsense. "how things are is how they should be" is as much of an ideology, just a less conspicuous one given the existing norms.

With respect, I’m curious how you read all of that out of what they said...and whether it actually proves their remarks correct.

He's alluding to here that people who believe everything is political are more extremist in their views. Meaning, those who are moderate or more middle ground typically do not believe everything is political. It's implying that doing nothing or maintaining the status quo is inherently not a political action.

But of course, it is, and we have practically infinite historical examples to show that. The status quo does not exist on its own, it's a product of the dominant ideology, which is an ideology.

I understand what you think he means but I want to know how you came to those conclusions.

I believe that one point of the author precisely is that there seems to be no room for middle ground left in the tech space:

Resisting the status quo of hostile technology is an endless uphill battle. It requires continous effort, mostly motivated by political or at least ideological reasons.

Not fighting it is not the same as being neutral, because not fighting it supports this status quo. It is the conscious or unconscious surrender to hostile systems, whose very purpose is to lull you into apathy through convenience.

I don't think you're wrong so much as you've tread into some semantic muddy water. What did the OP mean by 'inevitable', 'political' or 'everything'?. A lot hangs on the meaning. I lot of words could be written defending one interpretation over another and the chance of changing anyone's mind on the topic seems slim.

Very good point. At that point though, I think it becomes hard to read the post and take it with specifics. Not all writing has to be specific, but now I'm just a bit confused as to what was actually being said by the author.

But You do make a good point that those words are all potentially very loaded.

> Sure, lots of things are or can be, but whenever I see this idea, it usually comes from people who have a very specific mindset that's leaning further in one direction on a political spectrum and is pushing their ideology.

This is also my core reservation against the idea.

I think that the belief only holds weight in a society that is rife with opposing interpretations about how it ought to be managed. The claim itself feels like an attempt to force someone toward the interests of the one issuing it.

> Is my choice to write some boiler plate code using gen AI truly political? Is it political because of power usage and ongoing investment in gen AI?

Apparently yes it is. This is all determined by your impressions on generative AI and its environmental and economic impact. The problem is that most blog posts are signaling toward a predefined in-group either through familiarity with the author or by a preconceived belief about the subject where it’s assumed that you should already know and agree with the author about these issues. And if you don’t you’re against them.

For example—I don’t agree that everything is inevitable. But I as I read the blog post in question I surmised that it’s an argument against the idea that human beings are not at the absolute will of technological progress. And I can agree with that much. So this influences how I interpret the claim “nothing is inevitable” in addition to the title of the post and in conjunction with the rest of the article (and this all is additionally informed by all the stuff I’m trying to express to you that surrounds this very paragraph).

I think that this is speaks to the present problem of how “politics” is conflated to additionally refer to one’s worldview, culture, etc., in and of itself instead of something distinct but not necessarily inseparable from these things.

Politics ought to indicate toward a more comprehensive way of seeing the world but this isn’t the case for most people today and I suspect that many people who claim to have comprehensive convictions are only 'virtue signaling’.

A person with comprehensive convictions about the world and how humans ought to function in it can better delineate the differences and necessary overlap between politics and other concepts that run downstream from their beliefs. But what do people actually believe in these days? That they can summarize in a sentence or two and that can objectively/authoritatively delineate an “in-group” from an “out-group” and that informs all of their cultural, political, environmental and economic considerations, and so on...

Online discourse is being cleaved into two sides vying for digital capital over hot air. The worst position you can take is a critical one that satisfies neither opponent.

You should keep reading all blog posts with a critical eye toward the appeals embedded within the medium. Or don’t read them at all. Or read them less than you read material that affords you with a greater context than the emotional state that the author was in when they wrote the post before they go back to releasing software communiques.

What?