So you feeling strongly about it means that you get to decide another person, who has been a member of this community much longer than you, no longer gets a say? Ideas like this are infinitely more damaging than any technical terminology could ever be.
It’s toxic to any reasonable and rational discourse.
My ancestors were / are from Eastern Europe, i.e., Slavs. The etymology of which is where the word slave actually comes from.
Do I get a say?
In the same way it's proper to use same concept as a metaphor to describe other relationships where one thing is owned by other. There is nothing wrong or offensive in the concept of slavery. Even when the context is enslaving humans.
Slavery is immoral, but the concept of slavery is not.
Use as a metaphor depends on similar perception of the resonant features of the literal use since it relies on those carrying over to the nonliteral use; it is eminently clear that within our society there is not a common share perception of those salient features, so it is not a particularly good metaphor outside of narrow homogenous subcultures, and what it is a good metaphor for within each of those subcultures will be wildly different.
Metaphor is inherently highly culture-dependent.
Slave is actor without autonomy. Master is controlling and owning the slave.
Of course concepts can have moral weight. To suggest otherwise is foolish.
Using word slave in a sentence is not a connected to morality of slavery.
https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/education/professional-lea...
Absolutely not.
The only link between them are as words written in your post.
Demanding that certain words are banned is not moving on, it's being perpetually stuck in a victim's mentality.
Where do we stop? I’m assuming next we want to remove the words entirely from the dictionary?
Because we wouldn’t want to prevent anyone reading the dictionary would we?
If removing those words from the dictionary helps even one person more read it, then that’s a win.
> sow (verb) – to plant seed
> sow (noun) – female pig
Not only are these words pronounced differently, etymologically they have different roots. [0] Do you have any source that would demonstrate that the technical term 'slave' here has nothing to do with the historical enslavement of people?
As an aside, I wonder if the semantic satiation from using homographs that have negative connotations for some could have a positive effect overall by diluting the connotations of what someone thinks of when they hear the word "slave", etc.
Of course, any time I make any kind of comment on this I get told that my skin color makes my opinion moot (even though my ancestors were, also, slaves). I switched to primary/replica last year (in projects where I could), but the never ending tide of other arbitrary words to change gets pretty tiring -- and two different bouts of harassment, death threats, and vandalism when I haven't made changes has really put a sour taste in my mouth about the whole thing.
Indeed, but the GP comment was claiming that the word 'slave' had nothing to do that slavery. Because your comment only had a link to the Homography, it seemed to me to imply that you were saying two words were separate in meaning. That's why I asked for a source saying they weren't.
> It could even be argued that the semantic satiation from using words that have negative connotations for some could have a positive effect overall by diluting the connotations of what someone thinks of when they hear the word "slave", etc.
It could, but, are you making that argument? Should we then dilute the meaning of other words to make their negative effect less impactful? How many words? When do we choose to dilute a word, and how negative should a word be in order to motivate us to dilute its meaning?
> Of course, any time I make any kind of comment on this I get told that my skin color makes my opinion moot (even though my ancestors were, also, slaves). I switched to primary/replica last year (in projects where I could), but the never ending tide of other arbitrary words to change gets pretty tiring -- and two different bouts of harassment, death threats, and vandalism when I haven't made changes has really put a sour taste in my mouth about the whole thing.
I'm really sorry to hear that. I agree that the veracity of the backlash and counter-backlash is not helping anyone, and in on the whole hurtful and not constructive. But is that an argument for not using primary/replica? Is that an argument for never changing anything, since there will almost always be some kind of backlash to a change?
Look, I get it. I can't tell you how many times people are discussing a problem and describe their "final solution" and I cringe a little inside. But I don't say anything, and I don't ask them to change their language because those are the correct words to use, they just have an unfortunate association. But of course the people saying it are not thinking that at all, nor do I suspect they even know the connection most of the time.
Cleansing nomenclature is a fool's errand and won't actually address the real issues we face today.
There are tons of rightwingers in tech or wanting to get in to tech who are feeling excluded and unsafe due to the modern political environment, way more than there are potential black/minority software engineers put off by use of terms like "blacklist".
We've became offended by words, without context. It's just crazy... Master and slave , black and white. are becoming curse words.
What is even more ridiculous is that it's an American thing. English speakers in other parts of the world look in amazement what is happening and how it's going to end.
Which is why people should absolutely make a stand whenever they can to not let this craziness reach the rest of the world.
On some level, you must know these words have meaning.
The sentence "i love you" changes its meaning based on the context. you can say it to your mom, your partner, your friend or even complete strangers after they helped you. every time the meaning changes.
Yes? Master/slave in computers is not the same as slavery in the real life, which is why we can actually do things like switch a server from a master to a slave and vice versa.
What do we lose by switching to precise terms which don’t require everyone to internalize an overloaded meaning in multiple contexts?
A bus doesn't have four wheels. An interpreter isn't a human being with language fluency. A bit doesn't refer to the business end of a drill. A port isn't a place where you find cargo ships. People manage to deal with jargon just fine.
> "What do we lose by switching to precise terms which don’t require everyone to internalize an overloaded meaning in multiple contexts?"
The time wasted reeducating (and I use that word intentionally) everyone?
As for the cost of switching, one nice benefit to using more accurate terms is that they’re already familiar - if you swap “slave” for “worker” or “replica”, nobody is going to need extensive retraining to adjust.
Do chess pieces color seem racial to you ?
Does that seem like a great association to defend when it can trivially be changed with no confusion or loss of meaning?
Black is positive in finance.
Words can have more than one meaning. Besides, computer terminology has a lot of words that have different meaning in the context of computers than outside of it. We have the desktop, we have the mouse, we have cookies, viruses, buses, servers, clients and so on.
Should we get rid of the "virus" since it can be so easily confused for the thing that is upending the world right now?
Master/slave is technically inaccurate in most use and, unlike mouse, it bothers some people. Why are you so attached to keeping incorrect terms when changing will have no impact on your life?
And again, it's no less "incorrect" than any of those other terms.
Arguing that the term is not more incorrect, which you have conspicuously failed to do, is missing the point. If you want to argue that a mouse is a confusing name, feel free but also note that usage doesn’t recall brutality in recent history. Masters not only didn’t usually do the same work as their slaves but the relationship was defined by the violence and permanence: your database master doesn’t torture its slaves if they make errors, or threaten to sell their children, etc. When the master died, they were replaced by their children or someone else but never a former slave. If you’re just talking about parceling out work, try to think about why you’re so attached to using “slave” instead of “workers” and how that would call your motives into question.
Using terms like primary/replica (where both do the same work) or controller/worker (where they don’t) both more accurately expresses the nature of the relation and don’t drag in unpleasant connotations.
It'll take more time than I care to spend on a matter that doesn't have any effect on anything. Unless someone wants to go update all of the servers and all of their documentation for free on our behalf, then fine, sure, have at it.
>that usage doesn’t recall brutality in recent history
This reeks of Americentrism. How is slavery "recent history"? Are we talking about world history or American history?
>Masters not only didn’t usually do the same work as their slaves but the relationship was defined by the violence and permanence
And viruses (the real world ones) are usually not crafted by criminals, yet we call them viruses since the basic premise of the two concepts is similar enough. A mouse has fuck-all to do with a mouse yet we call it that since they have a somewhat similar shape. Now that the wireless mouse is commonplace, this naming is just completely inaccurate and yet it doesn't matter since we can separate the etymology from the meaning.
>try to think about why you’re so attached to using “slave” instead of “workers”
So if I just call a server that has to obey its superior to the T or it's broken a "worker", everything is fine and dandy? That kinda seems like brushing away the issue.
>how that would call your motives into question.
Maybe my motive is that I'm enjoying the status quo (as humans tend to do) and I don't exactly want to start doing all of this renaming just because Americans are upset at it. Or maybe I'm just a massive BDSM fan.
>Using terms like primary/replica (where both do the same work) or controller/worker (where they don’t) both more accurately expresses the nature of the relation and don’t drag in unpleasant connotations.
Killing also has a negative connotation but I don't really feel like I need to spare my processes from this cruel, unpleasant and inaccurate word.
Less time than not changing it.
Master/slave terminology is absolutely accurate here and changing it will have an impact on my life.
Unrelated: Do you think black people are the only people who have suffered in slavery?
Presumably you'll now update your position based on my personal anecdote? [Or is that not how it works]
I'm Polish. My great-grandfather died in a Nazi concentration camp, as a slave. Would you care to be offended on my behalf too? Or will you tell me that I am no longer allowed to use words with multiple meanings in case I might offend myself?
It would never, ever cross my mind there is any relationship between my colleague being black and the terminology used in the system. Moreover, I think it would be racist to even suggest so.
So, you are the only one allowed to have feelings about this?
So his opinion does not matter? Only yours does?
I was not only taught these words in the context of colonialism, because that‘s not only where they belong. Societies based on slavery were common in the ancient world, including Greece.
All of this changing of vocabulary is not going to help anyone. But it will happen regardless, I‘m okay with watching this phenomenon play out over the next 30 years or so. Eventually society will figure out that this has done nothing to fix social injustices.
There's an asymmetry here. Whether we recognize it or not, we're in a world where one side has all the institutionalized power, the extra advantages baked into the system. The way I've heard it expressed is "The ultimate privilege is not realizing you have a privilege." I know it can be an uncomfortable topic, but it's been said that that's what perpetuates the system: all the sincere denials, the honest statements of "I just don't see it. I've never experienced it, and I've never really seen it happening myself..."
It ends up inadvertently invalidating anyone who attempts to challenge in even simple ways a few of the basic baked-in issues.
I'm not sure how this conversation could've played out in a way that was better. But I do think there's a dynamic at work here that makes it not as simple as it seems...
The claim that there is „one side“ with all the advantages is a distraction as well. There are many imbalances and injustices. They are not between two sides. Things that come to my mind are, for example:
* Was your family rich?
* Was your family educated?
* Gender
* Skin color
* Family ties in the place you live
* Accents/Habitus
* Social strata
* Political power
This is a very basic listing. All of this may or may not have an influence. The fact that the current debate is more shallow than even that says a lot.
Tech has a very clear problem with continued sexism and racism. That's why the terminology we use matters. There's no equivalent dynamic around the history of the word "kill."
>There's no equivalent dynamic around the history of the word "kill."
I thought that the recent US protests were exactly because there's a racial dynamic when it comes to killings?
For example, Mediterranean people were for a long time regularly kidnapped by Arab raiders from the south. Vikings kidnapped people from the British isles. Etc.
A bold claim without anything to back it up.
I can do that too, but it doesn’t make it fact.
Yes, this is why there are so few Asian and white men employed in technology...????
Terminology matters. Slavery was only a couple generations ago. The people marching in the street and the comments in this thread make it quite clear we still have a long way to go. This is a small step along that path in the right direction.
This is objectively, demonstrably wrong. It’s ahistorical.
Unless of course, your view is so myopic and US-centric that you’re blind to any slavery outside of the one specific example you’re obviously referring to. All the while posturing your empathy for others.
Just because it happens in a country you don't care about, doesn't mean that it no longer happens.
These debates can be broken down into two smaller, more focused ones:
1) Where does a specific word, e.g. "master", or "kill", exist on this linear spectrum of offensiveness?
2) What should be the cut-off point where we actively work towards replacing terminology?
As for question number one, I feel like I'm in no position to join the conversation, as I'm not part of an oppressed class. The only thing I can do is defer to the judgement of those who feel harmed, and I have no ground for arguing with this understanding of theirs.
As for the second question, I'm inclined to set the bar fairly low. This is because the cost associated with replacing terminology is miniscule in the long run. In fact, I believe an order of magnitude more human effort has been spent on debating terminology updates, than spent on adapting to updates that have happened, such as the one in Python documentation.
1. Whose opinions count on the issue? Just Christians? All women?
2. Do we take them any less seriously if the motivation seems vaguely political?
I really do understand setting the bar low when everybody is arguing in good-faith. But on anything political, I think it's pretty much a stalemate and we have to recognize there's almost no overlap.
It's very obnoxious when as a real world person with a real world request, I hear "but what about [insert hypothetical here that isn't actually happening]?" and there's an easy answer: "if that arises, let's deal with it then."
I am descended in part from African slaves. I work in tech. I have dealt with, because of my racial characteristics, a variety of micro and not-so-micro aggressions from my coworkers and that's on top of the bullshit I've had to deal with from neighbors and society. All of this causes me to consider walking away to find something where I don't have to deal with as much BS, and that also makes me sure that the diversity issues in tech are not just a pipeline issue, it's an issue of this work environment not being welcoming to people with different backgrounds. All of these issues are additive - few people want to enter a pipeline for hostile working environment in the end, and those that did have to endure constant bullshit in order to be retained.
Efforts to use more inclusive language aren't going to fix nearly any of the big problems, but it is very, very nice to see /any/ effort here, given the history of none at all. Seeing the effort makes these space more bearable, and in my estimation that justifies the very, very minimal cost of committing to trying to use inclusive language going forward (as a software engineer I'm not keen on renames for renames sake, but we're not talking about renames anywhere - we're talking about preferring inclusive names for new things). Likewise it's disheartening to see how many white folks want to proclaim that there are no diversity and inclusion issues in tech.
I'd be quite content to concede renaming master/slave in the linux kernel if that was the end of it. I think what I want to fight against most is the amount of distraction/canceling/fear involved in ever-changing semantic rules. The reason people like me get very hesitant to concede any ground is for fear it would empower even more fear of job security at work (over constantly changing correctness rules).
So you can understand where I'm coming from:
- I worry that this is a slippery slope, and if some places do it, then all places will feel pressure to do it, and be called out on twitter if they don't, and create a huge amount of distraction from actually building good products for the customer
- I worry that this is a slippery slope, and that more words might be included (class, caste, abort, kill, black, white, race, male port, female port, dongle)
- I worry that this is a slippery slope, and that these words in other contexts won't be allowed (mastery, pop culture Britney Spear's Slave4U song, BDSM, Master's ranks in videogames)
(I've seen this in my own lifetime with the word "retard," which used to be the most correct medical term for certain mental deficiencies, and due to a constantly shifting correctness window is now basically worse than "Fuck.")
Now traditionally "slippery slope" is sometimes considered a philosophical fallacy. But perhaps you can say, if the momentum kept going would you be against it? Because if that train didn't stop, I think all the consequences I listed would be much too high a price to pay.
So if we gain momentum here, I see the next step as seeking other forms of reparations, not going after other words.
If there are others who are suffering who want to advocate for ways to improve our language to reduce the unintended harm it has, they're of course welcome to.
Also c'mon this slippery slope argument sounds like this to me: "Where does it stop? Will people object to every word and I'll be forced to express myself just through grunts? What if they then come for my grunts? Therefore I should continue to call things whatever I want because slippery slope."
Where does it stop? It stops when people stop pushing.
If you want to help american black people prosper you're looking too far back in the past.
> So if we gain momentum here, I see the next step as seeking other forms of reparations, not going after other words.
Why reparations based on race? Why not just help the poor and downtrodden regardless of race?
You're promoting race-conciousness. You know where that ends? White conciousness and white nationalism. If you (not "you" as in dannyphg) lump people together as a group and attacks them and says they need to give you stuff, those people will start banding together and fighting back. I cannot emphasize enough how much race wars fucking suck. Even the ones just fought with votes and preferential treatment for your own tribe suck.
Definitely not the point I'm trying to make. The point I'm trying to make is every time we take a safe word and make it a "bad" word we sweep up a lot of people along the way, most of whom in my experience aren't really bad people, they're usually just stubborn, caught unawares, a standup comedian, or taken out of context.
Maybe these language changes should have a 5-year deployment window so everybody gets notice.
I think my other question isn't just where it stops, but when it stops. Is it ever going to be enough words banned and then we're done forever? Because if the answer is "no" then I'm probably not able to side with this change-the-language movement as a good use of our limited political energy.
The current narrative is that tech industry inherited the dominant white supremacist culture. (To be specific, "master/slave" entered as a tech term in the 1950s there was wide support by whites for the existing laws enforcing white supremacy)
As such, the term was "safe" because those who used it - white people in tech - were also nearly always those people who gain from the underlying dynamics of white supremacy.
Another narrative comes from "Broken Metaphor: The Master-Slave Analogy in Technical Literature" by Ron Eglash" available from https://sci-hub.st/10.1353/tech.2007.0066 :
> ... being unconscious of social mores was a good sign for a future physicist, because physics transcends culture. Perhaps this kind of emphasis on a technical identity is at work here, too, and the master-slave metaphor is attractive to engineers because its free use “proves” that they inhabit a nonsocial or culture-free realm, which is a matter of professional pride
There are other certainly other narratives, which is why I'm asking why you think it was a safe word, even when others do not, and have not for years.
Note that Eglash's paper quotes a Black researcher who had problems with that term back in 1992.
To re-ask your earlier question, whose opinions count on the issue of why a term is "safe"?
You mentioned "a 5-year deployment window so everybody gets notice".
The "notifications" started well more than 5 years ago. Even here on HN, Django changed 6 years ago, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 .
Drupal changed its terminology 12 years ago, which lead to discussion 6.5 years ago here at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6826918 .
The earliest discussion on the topic was 11 years ago, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=466188 .
When would you consider that proper notice has been sent?
Tell me, do you still use the term Negro? Or did you side with the change-the-language movement on that one? Because the logic you use sounds identical to the logic used to resist that change.
Why use your limited political energy to, e.g., construct hypotheticals against language change when language always changes?
This has connections with the right of a particular group of people to decide how their group gets named. Wikipedia indicates that "black" was once considered the offensive term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negro#United_States . However, most black people today prefer either the term black, or for some Americans, African-American.
This is similar to the issue of whether it's ok to use master/slave to relationships between people, but not whether the usage in tech relates to people or is unacceptable because it parallels historical relationships with groups that in the United States were seperated by race
Once upon a time it was "safe" to use a number of terms which are no longer safe. I pointed out that some of reasons to oppose the change used similar arguments to what zug_zug used.
You are right - "Negro" is an example of a label that a group decides for itself, and not a good example to bring up. So I'll use two other examples.
Consider "boy". This was a form of infantilization used to remind adult black men that the were junior citizens at best. Civil rights protestors in the 1960s wore signs "I am a man", in opposition to this racist label. But before then, it was safe to call black men a "boy" because if the man were to oppose that use, he would risk being physically attacked and losing his job.
Going back a few decades, white passengers called all black porters "George", after George Pullman - a racial slur that was one of the reasons which lead the porters to unionize. But early on, it was "safe" to call your porter George.
In both cases, I don't doubt there were people who argued against the language change by asking "Is it ever going to be enough words banned and then we're done forever?" Which leads me to conclude that isn't a strong argument.
(See https://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/15/understanding-why-you... for a further treatment of both examples.)
zug_zug suggested that it was once "safe" to use the term "master/slave". With those examples in mind, what does "safe" mean? Was it that those bothered or affected by the term have had little power to change things or even speak out until now?
zug_zug elsewhere posed a hypothetical question asking who gets to decide if something is offensive. I turned it around to ask who gets to decide if something is "safe."
Regarding your last paragraph, it also parallels historical relationships with groups elsewhere, as the current discussion of removing statues of South American "heroes" who were also slavers and leaders of genocide shows. South Americans whose ancestors were routinely oppressed via slave culture and white (or white-er) supremacy have little voice in this discussion, but shouldn't be forgotten.
Can't we devise a general set of principles on which we can base decisions to remove words and metaphors from our professions and culture? "Let's deal with it then" sounds like it leads more to reflexive responses to loud voices (for or against) instead of thoughtful, collective, consideration. If principles can be agreed upon in the abstract, without the emotional baggage of specific words for any side, they can be applied and even if one don't like a specific outcome, one can recognize that it's fair.
I'm totally on board with discarding the "master/slave" metaphors in tech, they bring up unwelcome reminders of something much more serious an terrible, especially for people because of the ancestry and/or because of feelings about their role within modern systems.
I have more of a problem with removal of the word "master" on its own; "master" has many different meanings and uses unrelated to American slavery or other systems of oppression.
My biggest problem is with claiming removing "blacklist/whitelist" is an act against systemic racism. "Blacklist" is not a racial term and "whitelist" was only an obvious choice for the opposite of "blacklist" when one was needed. Black and white dualism [0], associating black with bad and white with good, long predates any use of those terms towards groups of people and continues to do so today. It's unfortunate that these particular words are so overloaded; it would be better if "white" and "black" were no longer used to refer to people but there's little interest in that and I know of no good alternatives.
Have you considered whether you might just be sensitive and these micro-aggressions might just be the normal give and take of working in an office environment? With nothing racial about them?
> All of this causes me to consider walking away to find something where I don't have to deal with as much BS
I would be very surprised if you find a less racist job than in the tech industry. Big tech caters way more for minorities than most of the other industries.
This topic has appeared many times on HN. At https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23763739 I quote and link to several earlier real-world examples.
I think those examples show that the spectrum is NOT "offensiveness of words". I see it as one of workplace hostility, quite in line with existing civil rights laws, and within a reasonable existing legal framework. As such, I don't think your #1 or #2 have much bearing at all.
Here's a real-world event from May 2003, at https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/masterslave/ :
> a black employee of the county’s Probation Department filed a discrimination complaint with the Office of Affirmative Action Compliance after spotting “master” and “slave” labels on a videotape machine, whereupon the Internal Services Department was obligated to issue notification requesting that vendors refrain from using the master/slave terminology.
To answer your #1, as an affirmative action topic, the opinion which counts is the relevant court which judges violations of civil rights laws or, in the L.A. case, the opinion of the administrative department overseeing civil rights enforcement.
Your hypothetical isn't structured as an affirmative action issue. Presumably the 5 people feel its insensitive because they are against abortion. In the US, most Christians, most women, and most men support abortion rights, so it's tough to see how being a Christian or woman is at all relevant as the protected class.
It's certainly possible to refine your hypothetical, but I still don't see how it would ever fit under civil rights laws anywhere near as well as "master/slave" does.
FWIW, if you are working for a small evangelical Christian anti-abortion organization, and you use "abort" as the name of the method to cancel a meeting, then yes, you should change it. There are better names for the metaphor you are trying to describe, and generally the only answer to "whose opinions count" is "the ones who can fire you", or more broadly, negatively affect your job.
Their opinions in turn are often based on sales and PR. If it makes sense to their customers to continue using terminology evocative of white supremacy, colonialism, and tragic horror, then go ahead. If it makes sense to their customers to continue using terminology evocative of women's rights, then go ahead. If no one cares, then they won't do anything.
There's been over a decade of raising awareness of issues with "master/slave" terminology, and many people now care. That hasn't existed with "abort". Given the number of groups actively removing the "master/slave" term, I don't see how you can call it a "stalemate" - the abolitionists are winning yet again. And rightly so.
Slavery doesn't imply genocide, and a whole lot of people would argue that abortion is worse than loss of culture.
Just use what's customary and get on with your life. If it's hurting you to see it then get therapy, you've lost proper perspective.
In other words: if anyone says that something is to be renamed, do as they say. If you think it's nonsense or a waste of time, you're just not recognizing it as important, and they are.
In all honesty, it doesn't matter how you feel about it. I do feel strongly about it, and I'm Native Mexican, “
So let me get this right. Your Mexican views count but his white views don’t matter? Ok..
How about don’t discount someone’s view just because they are or aren’t a certain skin color.
I think that's pretty much the gist of everything these days.
I don't think you get to tell other people what they get to feel.
I encourage working on your empathy here. Who gets to decide "what's polite"? What if people disagree? Who gets to decide whose opinion counts?
???
>>> Just do the right thing, is it worth the arguing?
So I think your argument is very all/nothing. There's a whole spectrum of "this thing offends 1 person" -> "this thing offends 100% of people", and we do have to draw a line (is it 20%? 50%?) and not simply label things "offensive."
It's all especially confusing when some people are offended on "behalf" of others. I think oversimplifying this issue is wrong and making this very discussion "unsafe" is also wrong.
We're talking about words vs. words here. Nobody is enslaving anyone, which would be the equivalent to your utterly horrible analogy here.
You're dead wrong. So you DO incorrectly believe that slavery is over and done with.
I already presented you plenty of proof. Can you prove otherwise?
Just like if I said "words vs. words here. Nobody is raping anyone." in the context of a terrible standup routine. I'm not talking about every action in the whole world.
I'm with you, 100%.
Most white people think the slavery/genocide of america's past is just that - it's in the past. So, when they hear people pushing on verbiage associated with it today, they think "oh, that person is dredging up ancient history, why don't they get over it?"
I (and many others) would argue the legacy of that genocide and slavery is _alive and well_ and shapes our lives today, daily. [0][1]
If one could reasonably complain about master/slave language in the south in the 1850s, they're reasonable to complain about that language today.
Anyway, I think this work of getting rid of language rooted in violence and white supremacy is _very_ worth doing. It's just renaming branches, no one is asking someone to do anything more than press buttons on their keyboard.
Certainly, not everyone has to, but I hope some companies do this work, they're thoughtful and intentional about their language, and then they deliver better products and services by virtue of having healthier culture than their competition, and grow wealthy. Wealthier than the companies who think this work is not worth doing.
I'd never force someone else to rename branches, but I've renamed all of my branches I can control!
I emailed Github Support to see if I could get away from using `master` on Github Pages on my personal site, and they said they are working on it, but this isn't available yet.
Even this comment feels risky. It's attached to my name. I'm honestly a little intimidated to leave it, but it feels like a cop-out if I set up an anonymous account to say "I agree!"
[0] https://www.sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/
[1] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/behind-the-police/id15...
The same is happening pretty much everywhere in society, where everything becomes contextual and should be adapted to the personal sensitivities of individuals. Which is fine for everything that's fashionable.
But code isn't (just) litterature or art or fashion. The first and foremost concern of code is to convey a precise meaning so that reader (and compilers) understand it correctly.
How do you know it is going to stop to slavery ? How about every single people in the world start getting offended by words in code because it may remind them of something painful in their history, or just doesn't suit their culture / religion / whatever ?
Will you have to create different branch of the linux kernel depending on where the code is going to be cloned ? Where is this going ?
PS: i appreciate greatly that you say you wouldn't force anyone to change their wording, and only change it for yourself. I believe that's the right thing to do. But i feel you greatly underestimate the long-term consequences of supporting for "inclusive terminology"
That might be true! I suspect and hope that I'm not, but only time will tell.
> i appreciate greatly that you say you wouldn't force anyone to change their wording, and only change it for yourself. I believe that's the right thing to do. But i feel you greatly underestimate the long-term consequences of supporting for "inclusive terminology"
Yeah! As soon as someone says "here's a good thing I'm trying to do AND YOU ALL HAVE TO DO THE SAME OR BE SHAMED" they kinda lose my respect.
I can update branches on my personal stuff with zero consequence in 30 seconds. Easy.
Complicated CircleCI/deploy environments where branch names are hardcoded in a dozen different places, and the app is on fire already, and no one has time, and the manager is trying to hire new developers while keeping the senior devs happy?
I'm not gonna throw shade on them at all.
That all said, I would _love_ to talk about this more, if you're feeling inclined at all. I tried to dig up an email address for you, and couldn't find it. If you'd be willing to swap some emails on the topic, i'd be thrilled! Hit me up at [email protected]!
this is precious, because it saves a lot of explanation time and ambiguities.
Once again i wouldn't mind using a different term if it made things even clearer for a given case. But only for this reason, and not for PC.
Why do you believe that it's just white people opposing this? (I'm not white.)
Why do you believe it's just American's opposing this? Alternatively, are non-Americans permitted to continue using these terms?
> "I'm honestly a little intimidated to leave it, but it feels like a cop-out if I set up an anonymous account to say "I agree!""
It's so de rigeur these days that you shouldn't feel bad about that. There are bad actors on all sides waiting to pounce on anything that anyone says.
While the policy should happen whether or not he supports it. I think it does matter how he feels though. He should feel that these words shouldn't be used in this context. Because, we're not going to solve non-whites being second class if a white people can't see the pain cause by the use of the terms. There are so many bigger problems that should be easier to see and acknowledge that seem to just be over looked, because we don't see the pain.
I am with you SambalOelek. I may not understand everything you and your ancestors have gone through so forgive me when I'm ignorant and tell me about it. That said I don't want you or random people like you to have to do all the work, so I'm reading. https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/black-lives-matter
This change barely moves the needle on Black representation in tech, but I think it does, however little. Improving Black representation in tech /barely/ moves the needle on racism, but I too think it does, however little (these are good jobs and I know it's helped me and my family close some of the racial wealth gap).
And just to be clear: It‘s fine to use primary and replica. There‘s no problem with the decision itself. The problem is the idea that caused this change and the people in this thread who just stop short of calling someone a racist, because he would reject the idea that the terminology was racist in the first place.
edit: I‘ve not seen such fluctuating votes in a long time if ever than in this thread.That shows how divisive this topic is. So I‘ll call it a day. As I said elsewhere, I can wait 30 years or maybe 50 and see how things played out. But one thing is for sure, these ideas (that is: the current approach) will eventually disappear by themselves without leaving even a trace.
So yes, it's harmful.
My point about "it doesn't matter how you feel" is inspired by comments like "political correctness culture is out of control".
So many times, people are concerned by their personal freedom and not their responsibility to humanity.
Being asked not to use a word is not severely limiting your world. The trauma of limiting your vocabulary is not comparable to the ideas they evoke.
This is the future ladies and gentlemen.
Let’s take a look at real racism, and police brutality.
I’d say you are pretty privileged if your biggest worry is people using White list and black list in the Linux kernel.
I'm assuming you weren't.
Edit: Glad to see the true nature of your culture. I probably won't come back.