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A comment on When did the CS field turn from freedom of speech and hacker mentality.

Re:When did the CS field turn from freedom of speech and hac... by nodesocket on Monday October 05, 2020 @12:11AM (#24684492)
I find the recent (last four years especially) disdain and disapproval for pure capitalism, free-market, and smaller government here on HN somewhat baffling. I have been active on HN since early 2011 and there was much more active discussion and approval of capitalism, business, and libertarian ideology before. I suspect Trump has pushed people who were central or fiscally conservative to the far left, but frankly the consensus on HN seems to support the more radical socialist and anti-capitalist ideas now a days. Not even to mention the utter evaporation of free speech (in its pure form) and complete over politically correctness in technology (see master branch and master / slave changes).
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Re:When did the CS field turn from freedom of speech and hac... by bloodorange on Monday October 05, 2020 @01:36AM (#24684823)
Assuming you genuinely made a sincere effort and could not come up with plausible reasons for the resistance, I'll mention a couple that immediately came to my mind:

- Breaking existing conventions

- Using "being offended" as a way to control someone else's language

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Re:When did the CS field turn from freedom of speech and hac... by throwaway_oil on Monday October 05, 2020 @01:45AM (#24684860)
I can see resistance, but I'm surprised by how much.

I see the inconvenience of the former, but I don't see how it ignites the passion I see in these disagreements. :%s/master/main/g should go a long way, right?

The latter is nothing new; it's the Overton window, which has existed for a long time. This issue seems like a small shift in the window.

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Re:When did the CS field turn from freedom of speech and hac... by nodesocket on Monday October 05, 2020 @01:29AM (#24684793)
The Fuhrer analogy is a typical stretching of reality and truth to suit your argument. Master / slave in computer science has deep roots. Parallel ATA, master clock, databases, distributed systems. There have been multiple african american technologist who have come out saying it's not offensive, I am willing to bet the people that are pushing for the change are in fact not african american but white. Thus virtue signaling, without actually taking the group who is affected into account and polling their opinions.
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