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.
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.