You cannot and should not separate politics from controversy. Politics is the means through which we address our controversies, and the controversies impact how our political systems operate.
If we didn’t have controversy, there would be no need for politics, we’d all simply agree and do what needs to be done without needing to discuss anything, appoint leaders, make decisions, etc.
If you’re going to get this caught up in worrying about exact definitions, you need to take a step back and accept that colloquial/informal usage of words often differs from their technical definition.
Social issues are hopelessly entangled with politics in the world we live in, it’s basically impossible to discuss one without the other in any real meaningful, practical way. Trying to make that distinction is really a purely theoretical exercise, it’s sort of a “spherical cows in a vacuum” situation, if you try to discuss politics without acknowledging the vast array of social issues that impact them (or vice-versa) you’re left with something too far-removed from reality that it has no real practical applications.
Now that kind of thing can certainly make for some interesting discussions with people who enjoy that kind of thought experiment, but you’re not going to find anyone who’s willing to have that kind of conversation in a space where it’s been made clear that they don’t want to talk about politics.
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The main issue with cluster weapons that makes them so controversial is that they tend to have a high failure rate and leave unexploded ordnance (UXO) that will sit around and remain potentially dangerous for years (parts of Europe still have issues with unexploded WWI/II bombs turning up occasionally, Vietnam and Cambodia and other countries affected by the Vietnam war have issues with it, etc.) The bomblets from cluster munitions are also small, we’re not talking something the size of a car or even a suitcase that would be pretty obvious sitting around out in the open, they’re often about the size of maybe a softball or an (American) football that could get lost in some tall grass or rubble, and is also a pretty good size for someone curious (a child, perhaps) to pick up and mess around with.
Russia has already been planting mines and using cluster munitions extensively, so even if Ukraine didn’t use them they’d have a pretty extensive UXO cleanup ahead of them. That’s also not the case though, because Ukraine has also been using cluster munitions already, of much the same old Soviet designs the Russians have been using so that cat is already way out of the bag. These old Soviet designs have a pretty high failure rate, the newer us-supplied cluster munitions should be more reliable and so leave less UXO to be cleaned up in the future. Since they have already made the call that they’re going to accept the long term cleanup of using cluster munitions, it’s probably best that they at least use the better ones.
Ethically, I think there’s a definite argument to be made that it is more acceptable (though not necessarily making it right) to use them on your own soil in defense, than it is to use them against an enemy on foreign soil. It would also probably be expected that they will use them more judiciously than an invading force would since the cleanup will be their burden to bear, likely for years or generations to come. Ukraine can make decisions that will affect the Ukrainian people, Russia should not, nor should Ukraine make decisions for the people of Russia.
I won’t pretend that I like the idea of cluster munitions being used by either side in any capacity, but I think it’s Ukraine’s call to make in this case. War forces people and countries to make uncomfortable decisions. Cluster bombs are effective, and their use could potentially help Ukraine reclaim their country faster. Whether that’s worth the long term collateral damage is tougher to say.
Of all the words I would come up with to replace instance, proxy would probably be very near the bottom of the list.
For me the first thing that comes to mind is the websites we used back in school to circumvent the school network filters. I suspect that’s probably the case for a lot of people who would be confused by the term instance enough to be put off by it. Others would probably think “it’s proxy for what? Why shouldnt I go right to the actual source instead of going through a proxy?”
Server would probably be my first choice if we wanted to ditch the instance terminology, and off the top of my head, host, home, hub, portal, access point, provider, node, center, affiliate, axis, and core, would all come to mind before proxy (and most of those I wouldn’t consider to be better terms than instance, though still far better than proxy)