Saying "Tech is political" is rather vague. It leads to confusion and much discussion.

[smallcircles@social.coop]

Saying "Tech is political" is rather vague. It leads to confusion and much discussion.

It may be better to say that "Tech has impact".

It has *many* Externalities to be adequately addressed by us, and political impact just one of many design criteria to take into account.

The Free software development lifecycle #FSDL encourages more holistic consideration of externalities in Economic, Ecological, Political, and Cultural areas, to make our software more sustainable.

Circles of Sustainability - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

[unexpectedteapot@social.linux.pizza]

@smallcircles I don't think most of the discussion is avoided when saying instead tech has impact. People who are confused by "tech is political" aren't disagreeing on the premise of impact, they're disagreeing on the premise of accountability, responsibility and choice... aka politics.

[smallcircles@social.coop]

@unexpectedteapot

The discussion is not avoided. Rather it can be held in fairness now and directly given follow-up in the design and implementation of the technology.

Rather than generalize "tech is political" we now have a process to breakdown + deal with impacts appropriately. Very often there's big cultural impact, for instance, that is much larger than actual political aspects.

I.e. more cultural than political. Then discussing cultural impact in terms of politics is not fruitful.

[smallcircles@social.coop]

@unexpectedteapot

TL;DR When we say "tech is political" we really refer to how tech affects us in many different ways, and we feel that its externalities ought to be dealt with adequately. By making Externalities explicit in the design process we can give more fruitful follow-up to "tech is political" discussions and deal with concrete impacts in areas of economics, ecology, politics, and culture (e.g. circles of sustainability model).

[gert@social.coop]

@smallcircles I'd think Big Tech is selective in the sense that it has only the profit motive that guides them, not any externalities. E.g. there used to be this 10% time for OSS development at some of them, but not anymore.

It wasn't always like that, e.g. Bell Labs.

[smallcircles@social.coop]

@gert yes indeed. And a lunatic hypercapitalist system tuned to continue the status quo, a long death march of our freedoms.

We in the FOSS movement are aware, and are working hard for a better world, but:

> We completely failed. We helped build a world where mostly everything is "Microsofted", "Googled" and "Iphonized". All of this made possible thanks to open source and millions of hours worked for free by people who contributed to what we thought was "the commons".

On Open Source and the Sustainability of the Commons

On Open Source and the Sustainability of the Commons par Ploum - Lionel Dricot.

(ploum.net)

[smallcircles@social.coop]

@gert

The overall theme of the #FSDL development method is to holistically assess and address sustainability criteria and produce #SustainableFOSS.

Sustainable #FOSS is open software with externalities appropriately addressed, designed for its environment and with long-term maintenance assured. Built with sustainable income.

#BigTech taking advantage of FOSS is also an externality to deal with in the FSDL. Under this bullet a whole strategic approach can be formulated to target the commons.

[smallcircles@social.coop]

@gert

PS. The FSDL is merely just a concept, an idea, right now. It might become a project at Social Coding movement to develop this as a pattern library.

[gert@social.coop]

@smallcircles It is a tall order to bring ethics back to the field of IT. Even NGOs like CPSR were wiped out by capitalism.

We need a trigger for this and societal collapse may be it, if we are prepared.

[smallcircles@social.coop]

@gert well, who knows. But I hope we don't get there.