this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2026
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I disagree, and I'm not alone: https://gomakethings.com/articles/all-tech-is-political/
I wouldn't dare do the disservice of judging the article (in full) purely on title, but "technology" includes the hammer, the wheel, and all the way around to sticks and fire.
Again, I am willing to debate the ethics of use of any given technology all day as that is absolutely a conversation worth having, especially with some technologies like spy satellites and permanently-connected IOT devices alongside LLMs.
But technology itself isn't inherently political.
Now I'm clicking the link.
Edit: Upon reading, I fully take their point, but my own lens of it is more that everything is within the realm of politics rather than innately political itself. Tractors aren't inherently political, but John Deere managed to make them so. Actors using, to my earlier point, any technology as a lever for politics doesn't inherently make that technology political.
I appreciate that viewpoint immensely however, even though I don't fully align with it myself.
I think you're assigning too much free will to people and societies. If you take the Marxist perspective that technology creates its own social infrastructure - who owns what, who does what, who gets the benefits, who receives power and who is disposessed - then technology can be seen as inherently political. If and when a technology appears, that reshapes society in ways that significantly change the benefits distribution of society's labour, the distinction between the inert technology itself and its effects on society becomes an academic discussion. Even if this technology can only reshape society when that society exists and is combined with the technology. So rather than focusing on the academic distinction, I think people would care more about focusing on the social effects, which are political, and whether there are opportunities to make these effects benefit them (us).
I think we are ultimately in agreement with a subtly different perspective on things.
Nothing is inherently political, but everything is ultimately within the realm of politics. Land itself isn't political until people draw lines on it and start making claims.
Inert, lifeless things are not themselves inherently political. Their uses and the people who decide such make them so.
DRM is inherently political. Flock cameras are inherently political. AI data centers are inherently political. Many tools and technologies are inherently political.
DRM is a tool to protect IP and can (though often does not) protect the individual who created the IP.
Flock cameras are really just cameras that are utilizing other tools to track people. The company using them in that way are the political ones. The tool being used as it is just happens to be the point of contention.
Data centers weren't really a (Big) problem til they started being used for AI. So again, it is the use case rather than the tool itself.
I want to be abundantly clear that I am not actually arguing for any of these things as i think Flock et al should be slow-roasted one inch at a time just as a starter and our warm-up round for what happens to Meta and Google and Palantir and so on.
The semantic/pedantic part of me just kicks against blanket statements that, when analyzed, tend to be on shakier ground than it first appeared.
How about grok? Apolitical?
Hilariously yes. The fact that primarily Nazis feed it and warp its data and output continuously to suit their needs is what makes it a political tool rather than being innately political.
I will absolutely die on this hill.
What possible beneficial use can it have? Teaching rational humans like you and me how to recognize dog whistle bullshit and how to deal with it properly - up to and including RUD and permanent disposal.
IMO, this level of hair-splitting is why online arguments are frustrating and unproductive.
By your measure, no inanimate object isn't a tool, and therefore no inanimate object has inherent politics. This is an obtuse and useless point to make and I have no idea why you have wasted so many characters doing so.
A flag is a tool that ships use to communicate when sailing, so a nazi flag is an apolitical tool.
See how stupid that sounds? Understand how useless a point of view that is?
Obviously there is a spectrum between sewing needles and nuclear weapons.. But I think it's clear that even e.g. stone axes have had meaningful impacts on the structure of society and also on politics as a subset of that (e.g. their use had implications for power relationships, perhaps as a weapon, perhaps as a way to increase socioeconomic status, etc.)
obligatory Fuck John Deere
Get out of here with your nuanced takes and reading entire articles!
This is Lemmy good sir, and we crucify people based on general vibes and extreme positions!
Off to the downvotes!
My bad, I'll go punch a libertarian to make up for it now.
Oh shit, I think that was a Lemmy user who went so far left they Pac-Man'd their way to the lib right!
Legalize nuclear bombs
legalize the weed grenade