My company has mandated all of this. Change blacklist and whitelist, change the git master branch name, don't use master-slave, there's a list of "racially charged" terms and the replacements we're supposed to use. It's all a corporate virtue signal mask so they can lay people off and increase exec compensation and still claim to have some moral high ground.

It's amazing how much of the world operates in this manner. People are stupid and think they're acting on the right course by banning names they don't like and encouraging them to take action. And because their moral positions are so thin, they don't want to be held accountable and they want their money back.

Will the company operate in the red instead of in the black as well?

> Will the company operate in the red instead of in the black as well?

Pretty sure that'd just 'offend' (wannabe representatives of) Native Americans instead.

Only if they get rid of the CHIEF executives

And the list is constantly growing (and growing more ridiculous).

See if any of them have attainted a Masters degree ;)

I used to work in the real estate space. When these "master-to-main" changes were being discussed for git branch names, a lot of real estate companies announced that they were no longer going to refer to a home's largest bedroom as the "master bedroom", citing that term as "racist", "sexist", and "outdated":

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/realestate/master-bedroom...

I suppose you could replace "master" with "graduate"

What if you graduate with an associate or bachelor's degree instead?

"graduate degree" (pronounced gra-jə-wət) is generally understood to mean master's degree (or uncommonly, PhD).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_school

So according to your link and yourself, a graduate degree may encompass both master's and doctoral degrees, which would only serve to obscure the meaning.

Also, I don't think you intended it to be this way, but your inclusion of the pronunciation comes off as condescending.

I only included the pronunciation because you used a version of "graduate" in your original comment that has a different pronunciation and different meaning. (gra-jə-wāt vs. gra-jə-wət)

> a graduate degree may encompass both master's and doctoral degrees, which would only serve to obscure the meaning.

Nope, 99% of the time "graduate degree" == "master's degree". Usually "postgraduate degree" is used to refer to doctoral degrees. "graduate degree" is very common and generally unambiguous.

"undergraduate degree" = bachelor's degree, etc.

"graduate degree" = master's degree, etc.

"postgraduate degree" = doctorate, etc.

> Nope, 99% of the time "graduate degree" == "master's degree". Usually "postgraduate degree" is used to refer to doctoral degrees.

I've never seen people use the terms this way, and every source I find confirms what I have consistently seen in use, that “graduate degree” and “post-graduate degree” are synonyms that refer to academic (usually not professional, though that varies by context) degrees which typically require a preceding degree of bachelor’s or higher.

>I only included the pronunciation because you used a version of "graduate" in your original comment that has a different pronunciation and different meaning.

You should really learn about linguistic morphology.

Sorry, but those are very ambiguous.

We were told to no longer call free time between meetings “white space.”

What about the whitespace character?

If your computer is running in dark mode it’s now darkspace.

See also: Master and slave in device controllers.

That one's a bit more understandable in that it's actually referencing a master/slave relationship. "Master" as in "master copy" is... not that.

Yes, a master/slave relationship in technology. Don't drop the context to support policing words. Context very much matters when dealing with words yet for some reason the context is dropped in order to make it seem like a word is being used in an offensive way. Except it's not, you're just forgetting the context to make it that way.

If a process is directly commanding and telling another process what to do I don't see how calling it a master is wrong? It is one of it's definitions.

There is an open source tool that randomly terminates EC2 instances in the interest of chaos engineering called "chaos monkey".

What would you think if the tool was called "concentration camp executioner"?

You might think I'm making an extreme example to make a point, and I am - you would have a viscerally emotional reaction and recognize that the accuracy of a word does not offset the negative connotations associated with it.

I use the word "gypped" in my vocabulary. It never occurred to me that it is a derogatory term towards gypsies. Until very recently, "jewed" was a perfectly appropriate term to use in professional contexts with the same meaning.

The definition of a word is not relevant to the reasons why people are asking for terms like master/slave to exit our ubiquitous technical vocabulary.

Honestly that it's a stupid comparison. In one case you're talking about an animal that is chaotic. Monkeys by nature are pretty wild and chaotic animal so that word makes sense.

Your example doesn't make sense. Why would a tool be called that? You're describing a specific tragic event in event where as a monkey is.... a monkey....

Just stop. Your logic makes zero sense. Do not try and compare an animal to a historically tragic event to justify word policing. That is absolutely insane and is incredibly disrespectful. Your use of tragedies to justify your woke word policing is quite frankly disgusting.

The fact that you can't explain how it makes sense without comparing it to some random tragedy is no better than the people who call everyone with a conservative view a "nazi". Just knock it off.

Chaos monkey sounds completely fine and I can't see how any sane non-racist person would associate that with a black person. If that is what you are doing, I think you need to do some self-reflection on what that says about your own subconscious racist biases.

> Do not try and compare an animal to a historically tragic event to justify word policing. Your use of tragedies to justify your woke word policing is quite frankly disgusting.

deanCommie was trying to get you to see that SLAVERY was also a historically tragic event that people are reminded of when they see terminology like master/slave.

> Chaos monkey sounds completely fine and I can't see how any sane non-racist person would associate that with a black person.

They weren't trying to say that. This whole discussion is master/slave. This is precisely the point - chaos monkey is a fine neutral term that describes what is needed without any negative connotations. "Concentration camp guard" isn't.

Primary/replica is a fine neutral term. "Master/slave" aren't.

Honestly, your outrage about the comparison to concentration camps exactly proves the point that language matters regardless of intent.