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Comment by mlang23 | Hacker News Reader

Looking forward to this years installment of talks. I sort of wonder if this year will be a bit more technical again. The last 5 years felt like technical topics faded into the background in favor if social issues and knitting ...

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The non-technical topics couldn't be more relevant today. The idea that tech just exists in a bubble, and that one does not need to concern themselves with any ethical or moral implications is causing more harm than ever before. Dismissing that as "social issues and knitting" is concerning to me.

(knitting also being a notably feminine-coded activity)

You also have to cater to your user base. Otherwise theres no point going to that conference instead of reading medium articles.

The Chaos Communication Congresses have sold out in seconds every year for a decade. Visitor numbers are limited only by how many people they think they can fit. It is unrivaled in technical, medial and cultural relevancy in the region.

At that point, the question becomes not how you get people to come, but who you want at your event. And I'm very glad that for Congress, this means being unashamedly political, artistic, social, antifascist, inklusive. If that scares you away, that's by design.

Last time a bunch of people tried too much to be "political, artistic, social, antifascist, inklusive", Trump was elected.

At least technicity is objective and drama free

I've been sitting here trying to understand what point you're trying to make for a few minutes and I'm really coming up blank.

Point that pushing subjective political point of views in technical conferences will not make the tech nor the political landscape better. Its actually divisive to push your own point of views without restraint and can actually backfire.

> You also have to cater to your user base.

I'm certain they are - it's possible those who don't like what they are doing are not the user base.

If you're looking for a good and approachable talk about IM crypto and related subjects, hunt for this one once it gets published:

https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2019/Fahrplan/events...

Saw it live and it was quite enjoyable.

Already published: https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10565-what_s_left_for_private_me...

Another talk that's pretty awesome is this one:

https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2019/Fahrplan/events...

The schedule looks pretty decently packed again this year to me. I'm interested in at least one talk from almost every time slot, personally.

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