'Master' and 'slave': Tech terms face scrutiny amid anti-racism efforts

[Alex Eisenhut]

Boss and employee?

[Simon]

Next they will go for male and female connectors

Those are just words. There is no need to eliminate them from the language entirely if they were used for bad things in one specific context.

They already have. Try reading D38999 literature and that of similar connectors Male pins are pins and Female Pins are Socket pins. Sockets are called receptacles which i guess is just a posher name. I always call them plugs/sockets and male/female pins and female employees at connector suppliers also use the same terminology.

As for master/slave I had this problem at work, our jumped up sales manager demanded I change it all because of "cultural sensitivities" that he reckons he is an expert on, as well as everything else he deems you to have gotten wrong. Primary and secondary  is what I came up with but that was not at all apt to describe two similar units, one with the ECU in it and one without.

What the hell do you call something that is functionally a slave?

[Simon]

master was also used in older English to refer to ones employer by trainee employees as the employer was a master of the trade.

[tpowell1830]

This again? On an EE forum?

First, I would ask how these terms are racist, since there have been many cultures/ethnicities enslaved. Second, I doubt that those enslaved really care what you call it, they just don't want to be enslaved. Third, this IS fascism at its finest to start controlling the words one can say (2+2=5), say it... (George Orwell, "1984")

In the world of the easily offended, if you change a word or phrase that a group of people want changed, they (the group) will move the goalposts. There is no end to this... "We don't think that you believe 2+2=5, but you are just saying it..."

Say your words with meaning and purpose, with humility and intent. Let everyone else sort out their "feelings" about them. Some people will get offended no matter what you say.

Last, if you are concerned about someone who is enslaved, do something about it, stop slavery, not words about slavery.

[Simon]

Primary and secondary would work fine as a replacement for master/slave. Most people are capable of adjusting to meanings.... Well except for fragile angry white guys, apparently.

Not really. It denotes an amount of autonomy of the secondary. I have for example looked at a system where i anted a primary master and secondary master should the primary master fail. Master/slaves it is!

[HobGoblyn]

Slaves have been around since virtually year zero.

Yes what the USA, UK etc did to black people was horrendous and wrong.   That doesn't get around the fact that society has always had slaves of some kind.

An employee is a slave, might have better conditions, might be able to leave if he/she wants (although many cant as they have bills to pay).


The Bible talks about slaves, Abraham's wife gave him her slave to have a child by. Leviticus gives  commands on how to treat  slaves.  even says

‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.

The Koran also mentions slaves.


Most (if not all) historic sites were built using slave Labour


So what next. rewrite the Bible, rewrite the Koran,  pull down all historic sites?  Erase history?   


Some of shakespears stuff regarding sex,  we would now consider abuse/underage  yet it's taught in some schools as it's part of history.

A master and a slave everyone understands the meaning.  A master and his slaves have existed almost since day 1.

I would much rather in the UK, those wanting statues of people like Nelson pulled down, would instead do something to try to stamp out modern slavery where young women are trafficked here and exploited.

The whole thing is getting stupid.  And I'm not talking about the terrible murder of George Floyd, I'm talking about the idiots using his death as an excuse to erase history.   

Sure there's some statues that are inappropriate. like the one that was pulled down in Bristol UK  that was built to celebrate a persons involvement in the slave trade. But as usual. the no brain cell idiots have jumped on the band wagon and they''re trying to get all sorts of statues destroyed,  for example they have removed Robert Baden-Powell's statue on police advice as it's now a target. For those who don't know, he founded the UK scouts movement,  did tons for his country.   




 

[Jeroen3]

That does it. We should ban the bible.    

But in all seriousness, if somehow we cannot uphold the master/slave terminology then perhaps military ranks like commander/gunner are suitable replacements?
I suspect due to economic downfall more and more people are going to have time to spend on issues like these.

[Simon]

Yes indeed the word slave does not "target" anyone, it just states a fact that has applied to people of many cultures and still goes on today. In technical matters it is an apt description of devices that work under a designed scheme where one acts only as instructed by the other. As human slavery is so unpopular re-purposing the word in technical matters is more apt than say using the word employer/employee as that will just cause confusion. We all accept that slavery is a thing that in human culture should not exist so if we use the word to describe inanimate objects it is way less confusing and very obvious what is meant.

[Simon]

That does it. We should ban the bible.    

But in all seriousness, if somehow we cannot uphold the master/slave terminology then perhaps military ranks like commander/gunner are suitable replacements?
I suspect due to economic downfall more and more people are going to have time to spend on issues like these.

You mean that have more time no to GROW UP!

[Nominal Animal]

Words are so prejudiced and racist, we must all go on strike, right?

I'm seriously thinking about deliberately becoming a racist curmudgeon.  This political whining about words and group identities and being oppressed, when there is stuff to DO to make the world a better place, is doing my head in.  I'm a fucking individual, not a representative or interchangeable member of whatever group hierarchy you're trying to build; I won't change my vocabulary or bend my knee because someone with the same skin color as I has been mean to someone with your skin color at some time.

These activists and "scientists" can all stuff their eusocial hierarchies up their bums for all I care.

[Syntax Error]

You guys are right to mention modern slavery. I doubt any urbane white hipster who demands everything via social media, gives a second thought for the traffiked Vietnamese slave who cultivates his ganja.

Maybe for master/slave bus, a ruler/pleb bus?

But in the light if decency, this about I2C might need a rewrite? "Slaves are chained together under the control of the master." Not cool.

[Simon]

define "chain together" in electronics.

[amyk]

How about dom and sub...

I remember a while ago coming across the website of a connector manufacturer, which through automated translation had products which were "bisexual", "gay", and "lesbian". 

[0xdeadbeef]

Actually, the word "slave" seems to come from the Slavs (East European people), so while racist in a way, originally it certainly was not aimed at Africans (or African Americans) at all. Besides, slavery was quite common in the ancient world also among people of the same ethnicity. Anyway, as with many other words, today's meaning was influenced by the history until then, so I can understand that people are offended by this. Actually, while I don't really care so much about "PC" issues, I also wondered why someone would choose such a potentially offending term when I first stumbled over this master/slave nomenclature. There certainly would have been other choices like master/servant or commander/subordinate and so on. But yeah, now that the term is widely used, it's kinda hard to change it.

[Simon]

All words had to come from somewhere, virtually all words are derived of others, if you want to go down that rabbit hole soon we won't be allowed to speak.

[madires]

What the hell do you call something that is functionally a slave?

RCU (Remotely Controlled Unit)

The work-arounds are cumbersome. We prefer simple and short words.

[Simon]

The work-arounds are cumbersome. We prefer simple and short words.

Yes, quite, it has to fit on a diagram, often as a simple tag on a wire in a diagram so you can't put a flipping paragraph in the place of a wire.

[madires]

Not really. It denotes an amount of autonomy of the secondary. I have for example looked at a system where i anted a primary master and secondary master should the primary master fail. Master/slaves it is!

You could call the slave "hot stand-by" (term used by HSRP or VRRP for example).

[Simon]

I am working on a system with a contractor where we have a master ECU and satellite ECU's but we still refer to the communication protocol as master/slave, we sometimes call the satellite ECU's slave ECU. The term satellite came about when the communication protocol was not fully worked out and we did not know how much autonomy they would have. they are literally slave devices, they report when requested their status to the master and the master tells them what to do. So even though I have a heater with thermistors and a hot water valve the satellite simply tells the master what the thermistor says and the master tells the slave what position to drive the hot water valve to. That is a master slave communication and control method, no other way to describe it. But you can call the ECU a satellite as it is an extension of the function of the master ECU, it lives on the end of a comms bus and saves lots of cables going between different boxes.

[madires]

ECU Extension Unit? Sub-Controller? LCU (Local Control Unit)? However, it's still a slave unit.

[Simon]

Satellite if fine at a high system level and accurately describes the smaller ECU's. But the comms method is master/slave end of.

[SiliconWizard]

This is just getting ridiculous. Really.

Even for people actively working against racism IMHO. They are just wasting their time (and everyone else's) while there are certainly valid causes to defend.
If anything, this is just getting non-activists irritated, which just works against their cause. I sometimes wonder if those people are not just sabotaging the cause actually while just trying to get some exposure.

As an extra thought specifically about this "word ban" approach: I suggest those people to read (or re-read) "1984". The idea of banning words from the language just for the sake of avoiding related thoughts to even form in peoples' heads is exactly what was described as "Newspeak".

[Simon]

The bottom line is that too many people are assholes and if you take all of these issues they just come back to one thing, bullying others to boost ones ego. once a particular group are found to be on the hit list often it stops being called bullying and in a minority name ism and then people go nuts and act like its a governments fault when it is people. I am not one of those so i will feel more than justified to keep calling things what they are.

[mfro]

I propose changing MASTER to PRIMARY and SLAVE to SECONDARY.

Try an unambigous description of an IDE controller interface + drives using your proposal...

Btw. words (and facts behind them) don't go away by just some people not using them for unrelated purpose. You just leave the (innocent) words to them that use them badly.

[free_electron]

Next they will go for male and female connectors

Those are just words. There is no need to eliminate them from the language entirely if they were used for bad things in one specific context.

and there is already heavy prejudice against sexless connectors (apc-7)