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

[PlainName]

but then the host and his mates launch into an hour-long prepared speech about how Peter Jackson fundamentally misunderstood the books and anybody who likes the films is provably a philistine.

It only appears that way to those stuck in the same corner forced to listen. The rest of the room are carrying on their various discussions, rants, crying, etc., and don't realise this little corner it an ongoing LotR-fest.

You forget that Dave has literally as well as figuratively restricted discussions of this (and covid19) to single threads. Not interested? There is a whole web forum out there you could immerse yourself in and never have to trouble yourself with this stuff again. But you chose instead to hang around stuff you don't like and then whine that no-one else seems to not like it either.

[nuclearcat]

Can I suggest that we all agree that it's the seemingly invisible, insidious movement that instigated the M/S discussion in the first place is the thing that should receive all our collective venom?

In that case it would go horribly political fast and get very nasty.

I think we just need to be more consistent, and often it's enough to stay away from those, who drag our subject of interest, hobby, profession to politics. Soft-cancel them, until they become more reasonable.
I can accept fighting with company with idiotic documentation or SDK, but dealing with lunatics, who make political decisions on signal naming? They lost competence in my eyes.
And if it is safe to say so to them, for me, project, employer - i will do it, and each person need to do it. If not very safe, but still i feel urge, i will disguise as disagreement on technical points, and just oppose it in professional way, as often "newspeak replacements" are much worse ones, creates compatibility issues and etc.
So they will think before making one more idiotic decision and embarrassing themselves.

[lukego]

It only appears that way to those stuck in the same corner forced to listen. The rest of the room are carrying on their various discussions, rants, crying, etc., and don't realise this little corner it an ongoing LotR-fest.

You forget that Dave has literally as well as figuratively restricted discussions of this (and covid19) to single threads. Not interested? There is a whole web forum out there you could immerse yourself in and never have to trouble yourself with this stuff again. But you chose instead to hang around stuff you don't like and then whine that no-one else seems to not like it either.

That's a fair point and a fair criticism 

[MK14]

thing have changed from end racism to; every system, social norm, value, method ever used by a white person is racist by  association and must all be destroyed

This Master/Slave naming thing, should be approached by discussion, and mutual agreement.

Not by someone on social media (or somewhere), claiming it is offending minorities, with no proof.

Even if it is offending someone. The thing is, they are MISUNDERSTANDING the term. So it is the person taking offence who is wrong. They need to realise and educate themselves, that words can have different contexts and meanings.

tl;dr
It is NOT for one person (or small group of people, who have created their own ideas, on what racism/inclusive, really means) to decide this, via social media, or similar. (Not saying sjw, as some people take offence at it).

We as a set of people (Nation, area, Country, World etc), should decide, on its merits.

[coppice]

Can I suggest that we all agree that it's the seemingly invisible, insidious movement that instigated the M/S discussion in the first place is the thing that should receive all our collective venom?

In that case it would go horribly political fast and get very nasty.

You mean like now?

[coppice]

thing have changed from end racism to; every system, social norm, value, method ever used by a white person is racist by  association and must all be destroyed

The real thing that has changed is that until recently most claims against oppression were "leave us alone to live our lives our way". Now most claims are "we will say how you should live your life". That's really insidious.

[PlainName]

Master/slave has just been the trigger for a massive clearout of humorous, clever and/or succinct terms. We now have to use only po-faced and approved words.

VMWare has jumped on the bandwagon and made male and female forbidden monikers:

https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/23/vmware_offensive_terminology_style_guide/

Not content with that, they have also killeddeprecated:

• invalid
• masterful
• mastermind
• masterpiece
• master plan
• masterstroke
• simple
• white board
• ghetto
• kill switch
• taint

Soon it will be unsafe to use words more than one letter long for anything.

[MK14]

Soon it will be unsafe to use words more than one letter long for anything.

A new 'Fully Inclusive Racism Free Alphabet' programming language then.

F I = 1 T 100          // F  O  R     I     L  O  O  P  1  T  O  100
P I,                         // P  R  I  N  T    I,
N I                          // N  E  X  T  I

X = 3
X++
P X                         // P  R  I  N  T    X

[MK14]

• invalid
• masterful
• mastermind
• masterpiece
• master plan
• masterstroke
• simple
• white board
• ghetto
• kill switch
• taint

The list itself, is creating a form a racism. See bolded word.

Also, what do we replace "white board" with ?

I know, BLACKBoard ?              

tl;dr
This (I mean the outside world, not this thread), is getting really silly.

[lukego]

This (I mean the outside world, not this thread), is getting really silly.

PSA: Consider reading the linked article more carefully before making more comments like this.

[MK14]

This (I mean the outside world, not this thread), is getting really silly.

PSA: Consider reading the linked article more carefully before making more comments like this.

I have, and I'm still happy with what I said.
This thing is beginning to become the thin end, of what is starting to be a horrible looking wedge.
I'm NOT happy about it, and (freedom of speech), should be allowed to voice my opinion.

[SerieZ]

This (I mean the outside world, not this thread), is getting really silly.

PSA: Consider reading the linked article more carefully before making more comments like this.

I read the article and I 100% Agree with the notion that taking words out of context and twisting them so as to one can feel offended is quite silly.
I find it silly that a Company would waste its resources on addressing such a non Issue and I also find it silly that such articles are written.
Quite frankly even as soon as decade ago thinking such a thing would happen at this frequency it would have seemed quite silly and is silly to me now.
I also find it silly that somehow some people find it necessary to nanny, white knight or otherwise justify such nonsense. Why are they doing that? Seems so silly to me.

[Simon]

Can I suggest that we all agree that it's the seemingly invisible, insidious movement that instigated the M/S discussion in the first place is the thing that should receive all our collective venom?

In that case it would go horribly political fast and get very nasty.

You mean like now?

No I mean real shit slinging, never mind the mud

[madires]

To summarise:
A small minority think it's a good idea to change the words master/slave, because they find them offensive.

Most people disagree with this proposition, as they don't find the words master & slave are offensive. They think it depends on the context and that changing them would require a lot of effort, for no good reason.

I'd like to add that the explanation for renaming ostensibly offensive words isn't just flawed but also shows signs of racism and white supremacy. "Master" is associated with white people and "slaves" with black people only, which ignores history and the present. We had/have also black masters and white slaves. And people of color neither asked for the support nor were asked if they have any issues with the ostensibly offensive words. The do-gooders decided for themselves that some words are offensive and need to be replaced.

[MK14]

I'm worried, that if we keep quiet about this (silent majority), for fear of being accused of being racist and unfair to other people.

In the future, I will go and try and make a forum post, submission to an open source software place (not implying I already do, or do not, do this), submission to a website (e.g. its comments section), etc.
Then something like the following, will occur.

GCC MyNewProject.cpp
>>0 Errors
>>0 Warnings
>>59 violations of new 'inclusive' language/comments filter, please correct source file(s), and resubmit compilation
>>Line 9 .. .. .. SnookerBall = "White" *** INCLUSIVE-ERROR 'Ball' and 'White' not allowed! ***
>>Line 21 .. // End Process *** INCLUSIVE-ERROR 'End' not allowed! ***
>> Line 29 .. SimpleAdd(7, 9); *** INCLUSIVE-ERROR 'Simple' not allowed! ***
>> Line 50 .. processType = MASTER; *** INCLUSIVE-ERROR 'MASTER' not allowed! ***
>> Too many other inclusive errors found - compilation aborted

[lukego]

Side-question: Having already participated in this discussion sufficiently, how would one mute this thread or otherwise prevent it from coming up in the "New replies to your posts" page?

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Delete your posts...

[PlainName]

Click the 'unnotify' button at the bottom (or top) of the page?

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

It reads "notify" for me.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Can I suggest that we all agree that it's the seemingly invisible, insidious movement that instigated the M/S discussion in the first place is the thing that should receive all our collective venom?

In that case it would go horribly political fast and get very nasty.

You mean like now?

No I mean real shit slinging, never mind the mud

Yo momma's so fat...

[Simon]

Side-question: Having already participated in this discussion sufficiently, how would one mute this thread or otherwise prevent it from coming up in the "New replies to your posts" page?

just stop clicking on the links in the email. You only get a notification the first time a new comment is posted. If you do not view it you won't get more emails. That stops you getting a whole slew of unnecessary emails. Or click on the unnotify button at the top/bottom.

[John B]

"Those who cannot control themselves will seek to control others."

[PlainName]

But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

1 Corinthians 7:9

[Unixon]

What do you think?

I think all of this is heavily forced bullshit and we must be prepared to rollback this madness and destruction at any moment.

[0culus]

A natural result of what happens when people try to push stuff in our industry that affects us, every aspect of it gets discussed in a discussion forum.
We are engineers here. And engineers are blunt, don't like bullshit, and will call things out as they see it.

And anyone who thinks differently than you and your mates isn't an engineer, really. Lacks the capacity for logic. Got it.

Wow, reaching much?
I should have used the word "typically", as in #NotAll
I thought that would have been obvious.

If any engineer wants to think there is value in this stuff then they are welcome to that opinion and to defend it. Just don't be surprised when the majority of engineers don't see any value in it and call your proposal silly.
It's not just here, ask this anywhere (apart from Twitter) and you'll end up with a locked thread like on Hackaday because so many people think it's silly, and that hurts the feelings of those proposing it.

Well said.

The tone of this response to Dave's comment illustrates exactly what is wrong. People like 'luke' are allergic to healthy debate. They apparently think that "freedom of speech" is "freedom from speech", particularly when it's speech they disagree with. No, it doesn't work that way. If you find yourself 'uncomfortable' about debating something like the topic of this thread and feel like it ought to be 'canceled' because whatever virtue signaling talking point, you are part of the problem.