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Is software political? (www.jstor.org)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/opensource

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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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[–] Corbin 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yes. The meme is the belief that societies divide neatly into "political' and "non-political" systems. Those carrying the meme often find themselves confused as to why there are "political" aspects to the "non-political" systems that they interact with and rely upon. An easy temporary antidote to disrupt this meme: Politics is merely the discussion required to establish or change policies; the non-political systems are those which have no policies whatsoever, which are the systems that aren't managed by humans. All human systems are political.

[–] sukhmel 3 points 4 months ago

Sometimes people get to learn that politics is in everything managed by humans the hard way, I recommend against it