Technology and the consequences of using technology are inherently highly political.

New or improved technologies shape communities.

Ignoring that is a political statement as well.

Just see how online media has changed discourse, how Amazon changed retail business, how business analytics change the way businesses work, how always being connected changes relations, ...

When developing technologies one can be Wernher von Braun "(where the rockets land and whether they contain explosives is) not my department" or one can consider consequences.Both are a political position, with consequences.

>Technology and the consequences of using technology are inherently highly political.

So what stance does The Art of Computer Programming take on communism?

Knuth in the wake of the Iraq war and the Abu Ghraid crimes asked some "Infrequently Asked Questions" which are of course highly political. He kept this page linked on top of his home page. And in 2022 he wrote a postscript with more political questions.

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/iaq.html

I didn't ask about Knuth.

I asked about the book. Everything is inherently HIGHLY political, thus this should be an easy question.

Perhaps you are exaggerating. At least, my original comment was “not talking about politics is a political position”, not “everything is HIGHLY political”.

However, yes, some people would say that, for example, almost everything is political to some degree. I don’t know if I agree with them entirely. In case of Knuth, they would probably say that the choice of what to write about in the book (just like the choice of whether to be a computer scientist in the first place) cannot be divorced from his politics. Like the choice of someone to work in nuclear science or environmental science or “anything that pays good money” is informed by individual’s political positions. “Politics is water” is a great metaphor.

Between the four books there is a lot of paper being printed, with chemicals which have to be sources somewhere.

But a bit more serious there are different angles to this:

One is that the formalization Knuth did, is basis for the way other research on computer science has been setup.

His work on TeX as part of writing the books has great impact on how scientific reports are being written, which themselves have consequences.

And then there is all the consequence while implementing technology. How optimisations by better algorithms enable data mining, replacing manual labor, ...

Now of course impact differs. Not everybody is building V2 rockets (as well as Saturn rockets) like von Braun did, but there are many wheels in the machinery.

I myself am a small wheel in building database engines. The software is used by sports clubs to manage their members, shop owners to manage their inventory, companies to run their ads and air craft carriers to replicate strategic data across the ship, so that if one part is damaged, the other can still operate. If I were to leave, the organisation would continue developing, but the work has impact.

That’s a very narrow redefinition of both technology and politics, and even there it’s only a step away from discussions about how automation affects millions of jobs, how daily lives are shaped by what’s allowed by the software which large companies or governments build, or how amassed data can be misused in ways which wouldn’t be possible without efficient algorithms.

Is communism the only political topic? Or does whether or not The Art of Computer Programming talk about accessibility in software not constitute a political opinion?

> having discipline to not pollute unrelated conversations with your politics

Discipline isn’t found in hiding. Someone who cannot discuss politics without polluting conversations isn’t disciplined, they’re unpracticed in conversing and thinking through their views.

Things are often inherently political.

> You can believe something without proselytizing.

You can talk about politics without proselytising. Why should discussing a topic even invoke the words like “belief” and “proselytising”?

Not only stating an opinion is compatible with a constructive discussion that could lead to a mutual adjustment of opinions—in fact, stating your opinion is often a pre-requisite to having a discussion that could lead to it being changed.

The magic happens when person A realizes that another, equally sane person B can think very differently about topic X. At that point, the person A has to either 1) write the person B off as crazy (not so easy when that person is obviously sane in every other way), or 2) realize that there may be something to it and ever so slightly adjust own opinion on topic X, or at least become more tolerant.

Not being able or willing to freely exchange and converge on opinions with people whom you routinely meet in real life, only discussing them online in your respective bubbles, is a sure way to having only more and more wildly incompatible and divisive opinions, and I suspect it is exactly what has been happening in recent years.