Technology Is Political. No Matter How Much People Try to Say It's Not.

The Inherent Politics of Tech: Don't Be Bamboozled

Talofa Reader,

In my career and in life, the following statements I've heard repeatedly make me want to headbutt a brick wall to save me from a lawsuit:

1. "Don't bring politics into x, y, z!"

2. "I don't do office politics."

3. "I don't care about politics, I just want to write code!"

Sure, they're all worded differently but essentially all say the same thing, which is, "I don't understand how society and human beings work and I'm basically an underdeveloped human being."

I mean, even look at the recent uproar over a women's rugby team doing a Haka that was critical of the government.

"Keep politics out of sports," scream the same crowd that tells everyone else to "harden up, change the channel if you don't like it".

Weakest demographic of human beings to ever exist.

Politics is in everything because people are in everything and people are inherently political beings shaped by the ideologies, values, and power structures around them.

This is just a fundamental understanding of people, so it pains me to think this is missing from anyone's consciousness.

In terms of technology - not just the way people who work in tech think about politics, but just how anyone views technology, the most dangerous misunderstanding about technology is that it's not political.

People think the technology is objective; it's just doing what it's programmed to do, abdicating it of any responsibility.

But the truth of the matter is, technology is very much political - in how it's created, developed, by whom, for whom, and why?