So far I’ve indulged the complaining from OP in this subthread. Here’s a contrast. I have always hated environmentalism that is solely about individual, piecemeal work.

A cause that correctly identifies the political problem is exactly something that I would get behind.

So it’s not this simplistic picture (presented by OP) of being some “inclusive” and “non-political” group that can get all the normies on board, or being a bunch of arseholes that only associate with people who intersect exactly with their interests and proclivities.

But it’s not like you can lead with that when someone says that having a political focus is “extra politics” and “polarization”. The good old “let’s leave politics out of climate change/wealth inequality/tech feudalism” chestnut.

well there's place for both, right? I think it's valid for us to agree at the end of the day that you need to have so-called radical groups that accept nothing less than what they stand for to push, what they call it, the "Overton window" of societally acceptable policies and whatnot? Sure so the radical group pushes these ideas into mainstream consciousness but you need sympathetic, but more moderate groups to make it palatteable to everyone. I think this is a good thing.

The tricky part is where to draw the line? Let's take on the behemoth of black lives matter movement for sake of discussion. Anyone with progressive ideals can get behind the base premise and of course empathize with the origin of it. Many people, whether they identify with left politics or not, maybe saw those origin moments in 2020 and agreed it was messed up and we should be better as a society. And ofc you wouldn't expect the leaders of the movement ot say, "no we dont want to scare the slightly racist people so we just want more bodyacms, its okay if there is still systemic racism" - no! they should push for the most equitable possible society. Cops should be held more accountable for bad acts, any potentially racial motivations need to be investigated, shit, while we're at it, there should be less cops since they are so militaristic in many places! (I agree).

But one thing leads to another and then that push for radical change becomes "defund the police" and all of a sudden you have a cultural backlash because now you're coming after 'good hardworking cops' and now it's a culture war! Now you've got those sympathetic, if apathetic, people who felt bad about george floyd, etc. suddenly hearing that we need to 'get rid of the police' and that could lead to safety issues or their cousin is a cop, whatever. Now they're against it.

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So, interesting thought experiment. If permacomputing folks say, no, you must be anti-capitlist and feminist and post-marxist to practice sustainable computing, essentially, now some of prime demographic who could have joined the movement (hackernews) are a little skeptical because they maybe are a little capitalist or don't understand feminism. Then the average wealthy non-tech person who buys a new phone every year hears this and instead of hearing the core principle of, huh, maybe i could buy less phones if that would foster all these positive things instead hears that by doing so they are being anti-capitlist, marxist, whatever tf it is and they get turned off, then it's "woke"!

So where is the line drawn? Do you say, eh it's fine this is for a radical group and that's how it is. Or do you try to draw in others? Quite an interesting sociological discussion actually!