> Once you’ve established that someone supports authoritarian dictatorship, your engagement should be restricted to telling them such views are unacceptable in the space (if applicable) or correcting errors of fact for any onlookers.
Even as they metaphorically step on the throats of the people you care about?
White men are now having to do what every other ethnic/gender group has had to do for hundreds of years; that's not cancel culture, that's growing equity. Thinking before you speak is a great idea, and a lot more people should do it.
And when it comes to technical conversations (the topic of this post), literally none of this is true at all. White men are absolutely and completely free to say literally any work-related thing they want, there is no chilling effect present there.
Then is it really a "totally different aspect"? You can't know the motivations behind why politics comes up in a conversation, and it's perfectly reasonable for someone who isn't the target of oppression to feel empathy for and advocate on behalf of the oppressed.