Hacker News Reader

Comment by erikpukinskis | Hacker News Reader

I was excited to see a contrarian perspective here, but I'm disappointed that you've just selectively quoted the parent while claiming they are wrong. I would love to know how you define political and why you think the decision to make a function public instead of private is apolitical.

View on HN

It's not apolitical. But it's also not necessarily political. Sure there can be different opinions about an API and some of those might have a political motivation (for a very broad definition of the word political). But this does not mean that APIs are primarily about politics. And there is certainly a huge leap to such concepts like power and money.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng...

    The activities associated with the governance of a country
    or other area, especially the debate or conflict among
    individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.

Politics is not just about nation-states and the type of work usually associated with governments. Politics is what we call the various ways we humans solve our disagreements.

And yes, this can be about power and money, though political decisions come in all sizes.

internal politics are just about everywhere. at the office, at your favorite bowling league, at the fishing competition.

Apolitical: my opinion, which is natural and normal

Political: your opinion, which is biased and mindkilled

Reply on news.ycombinator.com