I think it's best if we segment things a bit more carefully here.
Their homepage makes explicit references and expresses alignment with a whole host of political movements and philosophies. I believe it stands to reason that people recognizing related motifs and tropes on the subpage shared above thus shouldn't be surprising, and that it certainly isn't just people's imagination going into overdrive based on personal biases. That it is further entirely reasonable to understand these features as intentional, or at least as something originating from the page author(s)' own personal motivations and biases. So as far as the signalling itself goes, it exists, and its origin is squarely the page's author(s), not the person above. You appear to agree so far:
> It’s not entirely apolitical, sure
But then that's not really what you "made an observation" about if I understand you right, but about the normative description around that signalling. That the person above described these political motifs and tropes as polarizing. I can definitely appreciate why this is problematic: normative language about subjective matters is generally grating and incorrect, as it falsely presents the label as objective. But then simply flipping things around I do not think highlights that at all. Rather than clarifying this epistemic lapse, I'd say you merely flippantly sent people on a loop instead. This is why I found what you wrote accusatory, a designation I do reserve the right to apply, as it is self-evidently subjective. Whether you [claim to] have not intended to insult is a separate matter. I hope that this also stands to reason and is appreciable. Though I shall also add that finding political motifs and tropes "polarizing" also very much teeters on the self-evidently subjective.
But then if you said that simply handwaving things away as subjective is not particularly helpful - I agree! So let's try and define what would be polarizing from a political standpoint. Words themselves only carry meaning to the extent we can agree on them after all, so without agreeing on what a polarizing messaging is, I'm afraid we'll keep going in circles about how we see each other, and how that is not actually the case.
I'd define a polarizing political message as one that brings someone closer to a specific political clique, a messaging that promotes clique formation and alignment. I'd maybe find it tempting to further lump in radicality or fringeness, but thinking about it, I really don't think there's a reason to. I also wondered about intentionality, but that, I feel, is also optional. The potency and success of such messaging is definitely affected by these other aspects though, and thus so is their discernability.
Now, since the authors explicitly call out several political movements and philosophies on their homepage, and given that on the subpage their messaging clearly does appeal to those, the question becomes: is featuring motifs and tropes like that in itself an exercise in polarization? I think that yes, it absolutely is. This is because it makes it appear as if solidarity with those ideals was a requirement to feel solidarity with the actual named topic at hand itself (permacomputing). Which is exactly what the person above took an issue with too, certainly in my interpretation anyways.
But then recognizing this in no way means the reader has to be polarized, or that there would be a "good chance" as you put it that they'd be polarized. I can certainly imagine, with my supposedly impressive imagination, that it'd hurt their ears more if they were diametrically opposed to the ideals otherwise cited. But I'm pretty sure that only modulates the likelihood of them speaking up, rather than the distribution of people noticing it. In that sense, again, it feels extremely flippant to try paint them as the one polarized. They might very well be, but that doesn't mean that the logical leap presented was actually reasonable as a result.
Finally, few more comments:
> Again, there’s no insult, there’s simply an observation.
You may [claim to] not intend to insult. What I'm saying is that that is absolutely what you achieved, and continue to achieve, and that I'm unable to believe you. If you fail to recognize or accommodate that, that is regrettable, though I can't say I feel particularly compelled to help with it either.
> Nothing on that page is particularly political from any position but a substantially polarized one
This bugged me for a while, but I think you're mixing up polarized and radical(ized).
> It’s not entirely apolitical, sure, but it’s pretty milquetoast for a manifesto.
Subjective. Could (should?) have lead with this though maybe, I'd say this is infinitely more obvious to be just "an observation".
> If you see polarization there it’s because you’re looking through a polarized filter, in the literal photographic sense as much as the political one: you’ve rotated your filter frame to minimize reflections of what you do like and maximize visibility of what you don’t like. If you’re offended by it, you’re looking at it from such an orthogonal direction that you really should check if you’re the one whose biases are on display.
I should probably explicitly address this as well. Normatively stating that the other person is offended, polarized (radicalized?), biased, etc, is an exercise in mind reading. Not saying it cannot be inferred, just that it is at best an inference, and that it in itself is subjective.
Meta-text aside, while the phenomenon you're describing is entirely possible (it's basically what overfitting is in ML), that check did happen. It is also entirely possible to be both sensitized to certain ideas, and also those ideas genuinely being shoehorned in or being unnecessary. And there's really no need for this to be a competition or a "one or the other". It also doesn't necessarily mean it should be an impetus for soul-searching. You have your own perspective for a reason, feeling strongly about certain topics is not inherently a flaw. Quite the opposite, it is nonsensical (in a very literal sense) to be "unbiased". Not to say one shouldn't mind their biases though.
> Everyone should engage their critical thinking and develop their capacity for metacognition; no one starts with either of those skill sets, and thus I assume neither in anyone (and everyone, including myself) until I see evidence of either or both
To my latest understanding of human cognition, metacognition (and critical thought) is an innate ability of humans, and many other animals. What you perhaps rather mean is a more willful and focused exercising of these capabilities, especially around subjects one may feel strongly about, where this capability is known to be more difficult to emerge and engage. Not only was there no evidence however that they did not do so, there was explicit evidence backing their recognition up, even if they indeed did not exercise these mental facilities. So as an advice, even a general one, it's a rather oddly timed and pointed one, hence why I understood it as a malicious insinuation, an insult, instead. Even ignoring how it misrepresents the state of the art understanding of human cognition.
> I, very gently, pointed in the direction of engaging those skills and you see violence where violence isn’t, just like you imagine excessive pride where there cannot be any at all.
I appreciate that you feel that way. I hope I was clear enough just how much I see it otherwise, and how and why exactly.
> Perhaps you’ve also been primed to see violence where none exists? To feel as extreme what isn’t extreme because you’ve moved (or been moved) towards the extreme?
I have been, yes. It is entirely possible I'm misjudging your attitude. Before you assume otherwise though, I'd like to explicitly let you know that all three messages (including this one) I posted in response to you were iterated on several times before (and after) posting, with me internally pondering about exactly this among other things (like how you might further get a kick out of picturing me pondering so), and adjusting my language accordingly. I find it extremely worrisome that you see other people so lowly that you'd expressly assume they do not do this, and I do not see this kind of hesitancy from you whatsoever. On the contrary, there basically isn't a sentence in what you wrote so far I haven't found blatantly inflammatory, which really isn't helping with this impression.
> Again, not an ad hominem…
I was suggesting you engaged in coded insults. Insults are not ad hominems. An ad hominem is a logical fallacy, not a moral one. Although I do consider insults to be a form of filibustering.