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

[tggzzz]

As soon as a new euphemism for a group is generated, the general public, not known for empathy, will use it as an insult.  For example, the terms “moron” and “imbecile” were supposed to be more charitable than “idiot”, and “challenged” became an insult.

When I was a kid, "retarded" was the politically correct term, then it became an insult and then I remember hearing other euphemisms, I think "developmentally disabled" was the next one that became common, and then "special", ...

Pronounced, in the playground as "speeeshuuul" in a sing-song tone.

The meaning is the same, no matter how it is pronounced.

[Simon]

Quite, changing the term does nothing and is worse as it just ignores the problem which is worse. Just brushing it under the carpet and renaming things is causing the perpetuation of the problem and makes those pretending to solve the problem incompetent and they are just causing more harm. But instead they get a pat on the back for "fixing" it by changing a name.

[tom66]

I continue to use the term "retarded" to refer to many braking and decay processes.  I don't see how it should be offensive, it's literally French for *slow*.  I would never use it to refer to a person,  because that could be offensive.

[paulca]

I continue to use the term "retarded" to refer to many braking and decay processes.  I don't see how it should be offensive, it's literally French for *slow*.  I would never use it to refer to a person,  because that could be offensive.

The grey area that got me flack, though I stood by it, was referring to a local political parties policies as retarded.

While there was a small element of being nasty, I defended it because the party is well know for still trying to bury itself in the 19th century.... so it's policies are the opposite of advanced.

[tggzzz]

Quite, changing the term does nothing and is worse as it just ignores the problem which is worse. Just brushing it under the carpet and renaming things is causing the perpetuation of the problem and makes those pretending to solve the problem incompetent and they are just causing more harm. But instead they get a pat on the back for "fixing" it by changing a name.

Compare and contrast that with "top" managments' corporate rebranding exercises.

Usually, but not always, that is due to either too many underemployed chiefs finding make-work, or a company in the doldrums and management being clueless about how to solve that.

[tggzzz]

Alternative terms, without further comment: controller and responder.

Not my idea; see https://www.eetimes.com/its-time-for-ieee-to-retire-master-slave/

I have created software entities that I've called "comptroller", but that's completely different

[Simon]

Quite, changing the term does nothing and is worse as it just ignores the problem which is worse. Just brushing it under the carpet and renaming things is causing the perpetuation of the problem and makes those pretending to solve the problem incompetent and they are just causing more harm. But instead they get a pat on the back for "fixing" it by changing a name.

Compare and contrast that with "top" managments' corporate rebranding exercises.

Usually, but not always, that is due to either too many underemployed chiefs finding make-work, or a company in the doldrums and management being clueless about how to solve that.

I do use the term special needs as a word of offense, not because it is used to refer to people with learning disabilities but because I see the sort of people trying to make these silly changes as special because they are demanding special treatment so they have special needs or are "special". How special or special needs has anything to do with learning disabilities or metal retardation I don't know. So now the word special which is linguistically a positive word is used negatively. It's crazy. I likely have aspergers, I would like to be called special for the particular skills i have but instead it has a negative connotation and signals that i am inferior.

So much language is changed these days to soften meaning and make it more pallatable. Just try listening to talk about military vehicles and weapons. Instead of calling them what they are I hear terms like, platform, system, munitions, engage and many more I can't care to remember. i never hear the words weapon, tank, gun, attack, kill, destroy which is what military equipment is about. Who are we trying to kid? We make stuff that kills people if we feel they are a threat, why do we have to soften the language?

With the constant change in terms and dumbing down of terms we are converging on a situation where you can't discuss anything properly because everything is a "thingy", we have stopped using the proper descriptive words in case we offend someone.

[PlainName]

the party is well know for still trying to bury itself in the 19th century.... so it's policies are the opposite of advanced

Perhaps 'vintage' was the word you were looking for.

Or maybe not

[tggzzz]

... I likely have aspergers, I would like to be called special for the particular skills i have but instead it has a negative connotation and signals that i am inferior. ...

I have sympathy with all that.

So much language is changed these days to soften meaning and make it more pallatable. Just try listening to talk about military vehicles and weapons. Instead of calling them what they are I hear terms like, platform, system, munitions, engage and many more I can't care to remember. i never hear the words weapon, tank, gun, attack, kill, destroy which is what military equipment is about. Who are we trying to kid? We make stuff that kills people if we feel they are a threat, why do we have to soften the language?

Words are slippery. Old joke...

The different branches of the military are told to "secure the building". The marines storm it, the army establishes a defensive perimeter, the navy paints it, and the air force acquires a 5 year lease with option to buy.

With the constant change in terms and dumbing down of terms we are converging on a situation where you can't discuss anything properly because everything is a "thingy", we have stopped using the proper descriptive words in case we offend someone.

Or worse, stopped communicating because it might unwittingly offend somebody.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Now that they want to remove statues, the saying "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" comes to my mind.

In fact, I bet they don't even know/understand the whole history behind the people, circumstances and context of those whose statues they want to remove.

[DimitriP]

Alternative terms, without further comment: controller and responder.

Not my idea; see https://www.eetimes.com/its-time-for-ieee-to-retire-master-slave/

....

To paraphrase the Carly Simon song ....  "You are so vain" .. "you think this term is about you".
After Llloyds , who will be apologizing next , compass ,  sail manufactures and shipbuilders ?

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Is subnormal offensive too? Because that's what I think they are. What's the proper newspeak(*) term?

(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

When a minority can impose its views on the majority, isn't that a perversion of democracy?

[magic]

Not sure what your experience is of the software industry, but I have always found the environment quite calm.

Well, my experience was always being an ambitious kid and hanging out with other ambitious men and preferring high gain / high risk over sure gain / low risk. I know a few competent female programmers and all of them work cozy corporate jobs and would never think of going to some crazy startup and ordering pizza at 16 to sit until night and get some complex feature done with the buddies after all the chit-chat of normal working hours is gone. I know men who do that, I have never seen a woman like that. And then feminists are envious of the achievements of the most talented, hardest working and also most lucky of some seriously obsessed nerds and think that there was some conspiracy to keep them out of the boys club.

At any rate, it's true, there is a "culture problem", if you insist that it's a bug and not a feature. Simply blaming the gender gap on women avoiding STEM topics as such doesn't explain the entirety of the gap, IMO.

This is perhaps not representative of the "median" industry experience, but it gets media attention when some kid achieves staggering success from his garage and then everybody asks why it had to be yet another boy and not a girl this time.

Also it has to be said that software nerds can be weird and quirky and it takes some thick skin to deal with it. Another disadvantage for women because they simply aren't thick skinned.

By the way, you fell for a meme (or I fell for Poe's law?)

You do know that software or rather programming was invented by a woman?

It really wasn't if you mean Ada Lovelace. Programmable computer (and by necessity - some program to run on it) was the idea of Babbage after he got tired of designing fixed-function automatic calculators for various complex formulas. Other kinds of programmable automatons using punch cards already existed, though weren't exactly Turing complete. What Ada did clearly see was an opportunity for advancement of science (and a business) in trying to tame his aspergeric tendecies, write about and popularize the idea, stop offending people left and right and get that shit built
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2015/12/untangling-the-tale-of-ada-lovelace/

[DimitriP]

When a minority can impose its views on the majority, isn't that a perversion of democracy?

There is word for that:
ter·ror·ism

/ˈterəˌrizəm/

noun: terrorism

    the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
    "the fight against terrorism"

[paulca]

Or worse, stopped communicating because it might unwittingly offend somebody.

This.

Tangent, but as a single 40yo I have completely given up trying to find a woman.  It's too fucking dangerous these days.

On work and university social media boards I see women posting pictures, some pretty racey and they are littered with comments from other women like, "Wow! Hot!", "Love it babe!", "Hot, hot, hot", "Yummy mummy!"

Now, as a man if I posted something as simple as "You are very pretty."  I'd be fucking skinned alive.

Best to avert your eyes, avoid talking to them when you can and heaven forbid don't whatever you do compliment them.

[paulca]

When a minority can impose its views on the majority, isn't that a perversion of democracy?

There is word for that:
ter·ror·ism

/ˈterəˌrizəm/

noun: terrorism

    the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
    "the fight against terrorism"

You mean like the USA these last 3 or 4 decades?

[nuclearcat]

IMO all is happening dont have anything to do with democracy. It is just small bunch of bored & spoiled rich infantiles want to play heroes and "save some poors and unfortunate ones". But as nobody taught them to think properly and also they are lazy to do hardwork (as it is required to be a real hero and reduce poverty) - they are completely satisfied with renaming words, harassing people they dont like, and bending others freedom to their liking, like forcing to do symbolic useless acts (like forcing police to knee, instead of real changes, or companies to change few comments in code).
The main problem is that they adapted so well that they abuse the freedoms of countries they live in to the maximum in their own selfish interests. And the rest of the people are stuck in the fact that if they try to shut them up, this is a beginning of the end, because you can't reduce freedom only part of people you don't like, your freedom will be next.

P.S. I require tolerancy to my condition! Don't call me "old fart", i'm vintage natural gas generator!

[Simon]

When a minority can impose its views on the majority, isn't that a perversion of democracy?

It's all in the context. The minority should expect equal respect from the majority but may have do demand it if they are being targeted because they are a minority. It's when the majority have to bend over backwards for unreasonable demands that you have a problem.

The thing is everyone wants to work in absolutes.

[GlennSprigg]

Video removed. This is not the place for such things.

[Simon]

I believe he drew first? was he prepared to kill? but yes it seems like a long sentence, what do cold blooded white murderers get?

[EEVblog]

Quite, changing the term does nothing and is worse as it just ignores the problem which is worse. Just brushing it under the carpet and renaming things is causing the perpetuation of the problem and makes those pretending to solve the problem incompetent and they are just causing more harm. But instead they get a pat on the back for "fixing" it by changing a name.

It's worse than that. Caving in and changing terms empowers the complainers further to do it again, and again, and again....
The worst is when you aren't even using the word to insult someone and you are using it in some other innocent context, but someone gets offended by it anyway, and still maintains the outrage even after that is explained to them. These people need to be flatly told to just piss off.

Oh, and the person complaining almost always isn't part of that group they are complaining the word is offending.

[EEVblog]

Every techie knows what this means - you don't even have to read the article (overly long, you know the examples better than the author does), but here it is if you want:  https://www.cnet.com/news/master-and-slave-tech-terms-face-scrutiny-amid-anti-racism-efforts/

I've been against this in the past because I thought it would create confusion.  Now that I think about it, if we can all (100% of the industry - think IEEE directive) agree on the copypasta, this might be a good and feasible thing.

I propose changing MASTER to PRIMARY and SLAVE to SECONDARY.  Since MASTER and SLAVE are words that are not otherwise often used in technology, probably updating documents is as simple as doing a replace on these two words, with a quick check.  Induhvidual engineers will probably not adopt the new words orally until there is a new generation, but who cares.  Update the documentation, wait for the results, less irritated people.

What do you think?

Bugger off (in the nicest possible way), go and solve real problems in the world.

Apparently I'm late to this 22 page party, just found it. What did I miss? 
Let me guess, there are probably two maybe three posters advocating for changing it because "well, why not, what's the harm in not offending people?" 

[SparkyFX]

When a minority can impose its views on the majority, isn't that a perversion of democracy?

...

There is word for that:
ter·ror·ism

In terms of justice their is no "minority" and "majority"... either there are crimes or there are none. Making such distinctions makes such discussions drift into social topics and points of view.

I do ofc know that there are crimes committed by people making these distinctions or living in their own little bubble, but undermining the concept of equal justice is the first step to the kangaroo court and dictatorship. Such dictatorships then usually turn against all of its own citizens, because that's where the majority is and over-represented niche cases never cut the mustard, so new scapegoats need to be found.

I admit that there is somewhat of a blind spot in there, when it comes to governments trying to offset inequality - but that is based on law and therefore not a crime.

[EEVblog]

Oh, and I'm pretty sure this thread is going to go off the rail if it hasn't done so already, so please keep it fairly on-topic. No obvious segues into BLM etc please.