How do you make sure a police state doesn't happen? Block traffic? Tweet? Cut off ties with friends and family that don't share your political beliefs?

Of course you can avoid politics. Just be a good person. Vote for who you think is the best candidate at the time. And move on with your life.

Ironically the people most involved in politics don't have their own house in order. They're often mentally ill, over educated, underemployed and without meaningful ties in their life (e.g. family, real life community, etc).

There are a lot of answers to this, but since we're likely coders in here, there's a software design answer worth pointing out.

Watch how police states behave. What tools do they use? Typically, it's roots of trust. They take down sites by tampering with their domain name. They MITM web traffic by compelling certificate authorities to do unstrustworthy things. They spy on cell phones by mimicking external authorities that the phones are wired to trust explicitly and without input from the user. They insert devices into ISP infrastructure which users tend to assume is neutral.

So if we want to prevent this: Don't tolerate roots of trust that the user cannot configure. Use a threat model that includes nation states. Don't design with the assumption that trusted third parties will remain trustworthy. Think about how to protect your users privacy. Prefer peer-to-peer where possible, because your server may at one point become compromised and harm the users. Think about how they can protect themselves if that happens. Give them control over whether to install updates. Publish your API so users can make unauthorized clients if they don't trust yours. Prefer repeatable builds, and check hashes to spot malware. Review contributions and be wary of binary blobs that may have hidden use cases.

Mostly this is just sound engineering. It means doing your job well, which is not always the same as doing the job the shareholders asked for. They invested so they could have leverage, so ask yourself ahead of time if those are the same kinds of levers that police states want to pull. Shoot them down in the design phase if possible, sabotage them after the fact if necessary.

By being durably involved in your community and by being aware of and not ignoring the consequences of your actions, of the policies you advocate for, the actions of the politicians you endorse, etc. By not just voting once and moving on.

Wow, this is pretty telling.

> Of course you can avoid politics. Just be a good person. Vote for who you think is the best candidate at the time. And move on with your life.

This has got to be one of the most naive takes I have ever seen on this subject.

Has it never occurred to you that often times being a good person means engaging in “politics”?

The people most involved in politics are mentally ill? Got it...

> Vote for who you think is the best candidate at the time

That is definitionally not avoiding politics.

I think you misunderstand what politics is, at a fundamental level.

> Block traffic? Tweet? Cut off ties with friends and family that don't share your political beliefs?

All of the above. Get involved with political organisations, NGOs, volunteering groups, go to protests and network with people there. So that when the government starts doing something that approaches a police state, you, your group, and many other groups of people will be out there ready to make their will known. Block roads, burn tires, occupy squares, remove cameras, etc. Is is easy? Not at all. Can you do it alone? No. Is it worth doing to avoid living in a police state? Yes.

Take a look at Russia if you want an example of what widespread political apathy leads to.