The Ukraine banners are dumb. They have no place in technical docs. Like everyone else I want them to win their war, but spamming blue and yellow flags everywhere isn't going to help achieve that. Moreover the murky nature of their military alliances (Azov etc) makes it hardly a Disney movie-esque conflict with pure good and pure evil.

You see no complaints because why bother? The sort of people who do that never care if their actions are unpopular with other people, in fact they take a perverse joy in it.

Non-American distinct from both of them here: They're right.

>black people definitely experience racism elsewhere

Persuambly you think BLM is a generic "Racism Bad" message, so 3 things to say about this

1- BLM is not a generic "Racism Bad" message. It's the name of a movement whose leaders used donor money to accumulate personal wealth. It's the chant used by protestors who burned down homes and stole from people's business. It's the motto that people who write books to argue that disputing a racism accusation is a sign of guilt and fragility. I consider myself a non-racist, and this movement is not the kind of things I support.

2- The kinds of people and media outlets who support BLM tends to be selective and hypocritical. Wouldn't an honest person who shout "BLM" when a black man is killed by a police officer, wouldn't that person also be obligated to shout "White Lives Matter", WLM, when white innocents are killed by a black criminal because of their race ? This last event happens to be a real thing that actually happened (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waukesha_Christmas_parade_atta...), by a self-confessed black terrorist. Searching for "Black Supremacy", the only response in the first page is a short Wikipedia page, the rest is articles talking about White Supremacy instead. I have a feeling things are not so balanced here.

3- Even granting that BLM is a good moral cause to support, how is it relevant to a tech document ? Let us grant the following causes are all worthy of moral solidarity ["Climate Change", "China's Treatment of Uyghur Muslims", "Sexual Harrasment", "Child Abuse", "Animal Cruelty"]. All of the elements of this list are morally abhorrent things to me that I want to prevent or reverse. Now, where and when should I say this? at my home? to each and every one of my friends or family ? at work ? on the street ? Is there any time and place where I can safely lie down and not speak about atrocities, for once?

>I’ve seen plenty of tech companies with Ukraine banners on their websites

I'm very very annoyed by this too. Seeing Github and JetBrains issue a statment about this conflict is the most pathetic, hypocritical and forced thing I have seen in a very long while.

Point 3 above applies to it straightforawrdly with no explanation, point 1 and 2 also apply as follows

1- Pro-Ukraine sentiment isn't a neutral "War Bad" message, it usually encodes within it pretty dubious and very partisan assertions, such as the belief that all Russians are to - and should be - blame and punish for Putin's action, as well as unhealthy and fanatic support for the Ukrainian government and its actions.

2- Tons of countries, everywhere and all the time, have experinced invasions and other illegal military actions. The example off the top of my head is Yemen. Children dying of starvation, civilaians bombed and hospitals wrecked, *Since 2015*. Did any of those companies issue statments then ? Let's forget about the past. Do we have a right to expect those companies to protest every single war and illegal military actions, regardless of the position of US politicians and US foreign policy, in the future?

If the CEO of a large dental organization has the balls to go on stage and yell, "Hygienists! Hygienists! Hygienists!", it shows that he's willing to prostrate himself to show his commitment to the company he serves. People appreciate that. There are certainly enough CEOs ignoring the needs and desires of their employees sitting inside their ivory towers these days. We don't need more of them.

I think the issue here is not "People With Principles", but "People With Principles They Are Dying To Tell You About". This makes the standard for judging you much much higher : You not only think those principles are superior to a lot of other competing ones, You not only advocate (sometimes, a lot of times to be honest, obnoxiously) for those principles, You do all of those things in times and places where it doesn't make much sense, and right in the middle of other people who might very well disagree with you to heaven and back on those things but choose to stay silent and cooperate with you on unrelated matters nonetheless, cooperation which you break and impede by loudly and non-ceaseingly declaring views they find disagreeable. This makes the people around you, understandbly, model you as the truest possible expression of an X-ism follower: you're at least as sincere as any other X-ist, so any failings or deviation from you principles you have or do is something that the whole X-ism movement along with all its followers also have or do.

I'm biased against what typical US progressives advocate for, so I will choose one of my own principles to make an example of.

I'm a (still booting up) vegetarian, I try not to eat any meat for ethical reasons. I did manage to successfully banish meat from my food for about 2 years now, but I'm not strong-willed enough yet to stop eating marine life. (Technically this makes me not a vegetarian at all, but the weird-sounding word "Pescetarian", but "vegetarian" is more well known and more in alignment with my mental self-image and future plans.) Now, if I started advocating for vegetarianism very loudly and in every single chance and place I find, not only will this make some people very annoyed, but they will start asking : What sort of life do you lead by following this principle you're very passionate about ? If my life deviates from my principles (and it does), I expect people will be even more annoyed, outraged even, and become resistent to and critical of my advocacy. A similar thing happens with nearly every major religion or religion-like ideology, which vegetarianism and progressivism indeed are.