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

[tggzzz]

It is an extremely effective technique for diluting the value of a forum, and for sucking up a lot of the moderators' valuable time.

Moderators made over 10% of the posts in this thread. You might value their time more than they do.

Oh, I value their time at zero

More relevantly, ISTR most of those moderators' posts have been about the subject, not time spent on moderation activities. In other words, ordinary people commenting on subjects that interest them.

[edy]

I wonder if anyone every encountered the terms "Master" and "Slave" in the Old Testament and realized that they have a very different meaning than the more contemporary understanding. A "slave" was more like an "indentured servant" and any mistreatment of this person by their "Master" would result in their immediate freedom and damages paid to them and charges against the "Master" in court. As well, the "Master" would have to provide for their servant food, clothing, shelter and a standard of living that was comparable to theirs or better. The "slave" could not work more than a MAXIMUM of 6 years of service, and the Master would have to provide them with enough (money, clothing, etc) to last them a while to get a foothold in society. Any wife or children of the servant also went free with them.

The reason for the person even falling into the "indentured servant" state was usually due to needing to work off a debt, or sometimes it was imposed by the court for either causing someone damages or due to a crime they committed. It was designed to be a rehabilitation and to allow the person to work back trust and work ethic in the society. "Masters" therefore had to be chosen carefully and knew they had obligations and responsibilities to their "slave", as much as the "slave" did.

The price a "Master" would pay for a "slave" (indentured servant) was commensurate with how much the indentured servant was in liability to another party C. If the indentured servant caused damage, was in debt or committed a crime against party C, and the court ruled they had to pay $6,000 for example to party C.... If the person couldn't pay it, a "Master" could pay on their behalf (almost like a bond) and now come under their wing and work off the debt by helping the Master. The amount $6,000 would determine the number of years or the type of labor or work involved or negotiate between slaves/masters in a market system.

Anyways, modern and biblical conceptions of "Master" and "Slave" were very different. The words are very much difficult to use today, with all of the easily-offended people. But times change. Even with Hard Drives I am not convinced they really mean or convey the proper relationship either. Maybe Dominant/Submissive?    Then you'll get flack from the BDSM crouds... 

[TimFox]

In this modern age, actual history and definitions have become irrelevant.  Yesterday, a mob in Madison, Wisconsin decided to destroy historical statues.  One of the statues depicted a Civil War hero Colonel HC Heg, who was a strong abolitionist and headed a militia that fought against "slave catchers" during the "fugitive slave" era.  See  https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/06/24/madison-protesters-pull-down-forward-hans-christian-heg-statues-attack-senator-sculptures-in-lake/3247948001/  and  https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime-and-courts/photos-so-who-was-hans-christian-heg-heres-why-the-civil-war-hero-had-a/collection_31313606-691a-52d2-a4fa-cbe4eca84f73.html#7  for Wisconsin coverage of the event.

[vodka]

The orcs  BLM hordes already incame to Spain.

https://youtu.be/VoAfb3f04mo

BLM request to Lacasa corporation to retire such the image  of the black man  like the title of the product "Conguitos" for being racist.
The Conguitos is snack made of peanuts with coating of chocolate. Its name is refered to fiction tribe from "Republic of Congo"


https://twnews.es/es-news/piden-la-retirada-de-la-imagen-de-los-conguitos-por-racismo


Here some  Conguito ads:

https://youtu.be/C7xx011coJk

[eti]

Up next: Abolition of the word "camp" used in the context of "camping ground" or "base camp", in case some homosexual snowflakes get "offended".

[coppice]

I wonder if anyone every encountered the terms "Master" and "Slave" in the Old Testament and realized that they have a very different meaning than the more contemporary understanding. A "slave" was more like an "indentured servant" and any mistreatment of this person by their "Master" would result in their immediate freedom and damages paid to them and charges against the "Master" in court. As well, the "Master" would have to provide for their servant food, clothing, shelter and a standard of living that was comparable to theirs or better. The "slave" could not work more than a MAXIMUM of 6 years of service, and the Master would have to provide them with enough (money, clothing, etc) to last them a while to get a foothold in society. Any wife or children of the servant also went free with them.

The reason for the person even falling into the "indentured servant" state was usually due to needing to work off a debt, or sometimes it was imposed by the court for either causing someone damages or due to a crime they committed. It was designed to be a rehabilitation and to allow the person to work back trust and work ethic in the society. "Masters" therefore had to be chosen carefully and knew they had obligations and responsibilities to their "slave", as much as the "slave" did.

The price a "Master" would pay for a "slave" (indentured servant) was commensurate with how much the indentured servant was in liability to another party C. If the indentured servant caused damage, was in debt or committed a crime against party C, and the court ruled they had to pay $6,000 for example to party C.... If the person couldn't pay it, a "Master" could pay on their behalf (almost like a bond) and now come under their wing and work off the debt by helping the Master. The amount $6,000 would determine the number of years or the type of labor or work involved or negotiate between slaves/masters in a market system.

Anyways, modern and biblical conceptions of "Master" and "Slave" were very different. The words are very much difficult to use today, with all of the easily-offended people. But times change. Even with Hard Drives I am not convinced they really mean or convey the proper relationship either. Maybe Dominant/Submissive?    Then you'll get flack from the BDSM crouds... 

The slavery laws in most western countries covers indentured servitude as well as the total ownership for life arrangement most people think of as slavery. I think you've only read a part of what the bible says about slavery. What you described above is the conditions for enslaving other Jews. When enslaving foreigners there is no time limit. Its what most people think of as slavery today. Also, the extent of mistreatment which the bible permits is pretty severe. You can't beat a slave to death, but there's some wording about being allowed to beat them so badly that they can't get up for a day or two.

[magic]

Equality of outcome?  Are we really going down that rabbit-hole?

Yes, I think so. Parts of the world are pretty much in a free fall

Your self-description is noted.
I tend to think the best of people, unless there is a good reason to believe otherwise.

Think of it as just neurodiversity
There is nothing wrong with people of sociopathy.

You removed the context for my statement in order to be able to make your point. That is not good practice. Here is the context; I'm content to let anybody else make up their own mind...

Okay, and for the google links which got me

I tend to remove nested quotes for brevity, anyone can click the link to see the original quoted post anyway.

And basically trolling it seems.
Be careful how far you push it here.

Meh, if I were to troll I wouldn't try to point out people's mistakes but keep going...

[edy]

The slavery laws in most western countries covers indentured servitude as well as the total ownership for life arrangement most people think of as slavery. I think you've only read a part of what the bible says about slavery. What you described above is the conditions for enslaving other Jews. When enslaving foreigners there is no time limit. Its what most people think of as slavery today. Also, the extent of mistreatment which the bible permits is pretty severe. You can't beat a slave to death, but there's some wording about being allowed to beat them so badly that they can't get up for a day or two.

While the laws in the Old Testament were considered radically progressive towards creating a moral ethical society at the time (compared to the otherwise barbaric contemporaneous practices of the day)  I think civilization over the past 3000 years has evolved beyond the literal word in the Bible. It was a step in creating improved conditions for human societal evolution but certainly not the last, and we can look back now and laugh but 3000 years ago it was like a paradigm shift in most people's thinking to the societies in which they grew up.... "You mean I can't kill my slave, I can only beat them so they can't get up for 2-3 days?". 

I still propose "Dominant/Submissive" (and all it's sexual connotations)... From a "How Stuff Works" page I found the following explanation:

To allow for two drives on the same cable, IDE uses a special configuration called master and slave. This configuration allows one drive's controller to tell the other drive when it can transfer data to or from the computer. What happens is the slave drive makes a request to the master drive, which checks to see if it is currently communicating with the computer. If the master drive is idle, it tells the slave drive to go ahead. If the master drive is communicating with the computer, it tells the slave drive to wait and then informs it when it can go ahead.

So the Dominant/Submissive even works because it is only applicable when there is a cable CHAINING the drives together.     See, it all fits!!!! Just replace every "Master" with "Dominant" and "Slave" with "Submissive" and it makes perfect sense.... with chains involved, these hard drives are up to some crazy relationship! 

[james_s]

Its quite normal to see this happening in disadvantaged groups. Many working class kids try to shame anyone in their group who tries, through hard work or raw talent, to make progress in life. The colour of their skin is irrelevant.

I think it's even lower level than that. Humans are fundamentally tribal animals, they tend to shame anybody who is an outsider, who doesn't fit in with the tribe. Whether that's because of their race, nationality, political leanings, religion, or anything else. It's the same reason if you look among teenagers there are the jocks, goths, punks, nerds, etc who tend to congregate together and tease others who different than themselves. This is fundamental hardwired human behavior, we can use our intelligence to override it to a significant extent but it will always exist.

[coppice]

Its quite normal to see this happening in disadvantaged groups. Many working class kids try to shame anyone in their group who tries, through hard work or raw talent, to make progress in life. The colour of their skin is irrelevant.

I think it's even lower level than that. Humans are fundamentally tribal animals, they tend to shame anybody who is an outsider, who doesn't fit in with the tribe. Whether that's because of their race, nationality, political leanings, religion, or anything else. It's the same reason if you look among teenagers there are the jocks, goths, punks, nerds, etc who tend to congregate together and tease others who different than themselves. This is fundamental hardwired human behavior, we can use our intelligence to override it to a significant extent but it will always exist.

Any deviation from the middle of a bell curve - tall/short, fat/thin, etc - marks someone out for some derision. However, the vitriol poured on someone trying to get ahead in life can be on another level.

[retrolefty]

Its quite normal to see this happening in disadvantaged groups. Many working class kids try to shame anyone in their group who tries, through hard work or raw talent, to make progress in life. The colour of their skin is irrelevant.

I think it's even lower level than that. Humans are fundamentally tribal animals, they tend to shame anybody who is an outsider, who doesn't fit in with the tribe. Whether that's because of their race, nationality, political leanings, religion, or anything else. It's the same reason if you look among teenagers there are the jocks, goths, punks, nerds, etc who tend to congregate together and tease others who different than themselves. This is fundamental hardwired human behavior, we can use our intelligence to override it to a significant extent but it will always exist.

 Correct. It has been coined monkeyshere. This link is a must read for anyone that want's to understand the problem and hopefully try and raise above it at least on a personal level.

https://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html

[Nominal Animal]

In case you think this stuff is mostly about United States, think again.

The Finnish government just revealed its revamped equality efforts: now based on intersectional feminism.

Yes, Finland now has an intersectional feminist government. 

[SilverSolder]

In case you think this stuff is mostly about United States, think again.

The Finnish government just revealed its revamped equality efforts: now based on intersectional feminism.

Yes, Finland now has an intersectional feminist government. 

What is "intersectional feminism"?   Does it promote good kissing?

[magic]

You bet it does

It's quite miraculous that thousands of societies exist or existed which scaled beyond the alleged 150 heads "monkey limit" and didn't turn into absolute shitshow, even despite nobody thinking about the monkey limit or making efforts to personally raise above it. Shocking, how are they doing it?

[Nominal Animal]

Intersectional feminism is just a tribalist, classist political view that denounces individual responsibility or agency, replacing it with The Group.

It's quite miraculous that thousands of societies exist or existed which scaled beyond the alleged 150 heads "monkey limit" and didn't turn into absolute shitshow

No, it isn't.  All this is very well known in anthropology.

To simplify a bit, if you have a group of humans isolated from other humans, they will become like a large family; sort of anarchistically self-organize.  They'll develop their own moral codes, and assuming food and shelter is available, tend to prosper.  Around 100-200 people you start getting conflicts that require some sort of a legal system, plus organized governance, often around the eldest.  (One way we differ from apes and monkeys is that intelligence and complex communication gave us a way to overcome the 150 head limit; something other apes and monkeys do not have.) Around 1500-2000 people you start seeing an increase in crime.  Not just in absolute numbers, but in relative terms; meaning that the probability of a random person to be a victim of crime increases.  The typical way of describing this is "people start to lurk in between the cracks of the society", sheltered by the anonymity provided by a larger society.

The reason this is well known in anthropology is that this has repeated all over the world for thousands of times.  Pick a human society today or in history, and you can describe how it behaves/works based on the above.

Commerce, religion, and co-operating but separate cultures (like agricultural societies doing commerce with nomads or migratory herders) add some very interesting wrinkles, making the situations even more interesting (for example, how you can have two separate cultures coexist without merging, even though you no longer can tell from an individuals' DNA which one they belong to), but does not really change the overall picture.

[SilverSolder]

Intersectional feminism is just a tribalist, classist political view that denounces individual responsibility or agency, replacing it with The Group.

It's quite miraculous that thousands of societies exist or existed which scaled beyond the alleged 150 heads "monkey limit" and didn't turn into absolute shitshow

No, it isn't.  All this is very well known in anthropology.

To simplify a bit, if you have a group of humans isolated from other humans, they will become like a large family; sort of anarchistically self-organize.  They'll develop their own moral codes, and assuming food and shelter is available, tend to prosper.  Around 100-200 people you start getting conflicts that require some sort of a legal system, plus organized governance, often around the eldest.  (One way we differ from apes and monkeys is that intelligence and complex communication gave us a way to overcome the 150 head limit; something other apes and monkeys do not have.) Around 1500-2000 people you start seeing an increase in crime.  Not just in absolute numbers, but in relative terms; meaning that the probability of a random person to be a victim of crime increases.  The typical way of describing this is "people start to lurk in between the cracks of the society", sheltered by the anonymity provided by a larger society.

The reason this is well known in anthropology is that this has repeated all over the world for thousands of times.  Pick a human society today or in history, and you can describe how it behaves/works based on the above.

Commerce, religion, and co-operating but separate cultures (like agricultural societies doing commerce with nomads or migratory herders) add some very interesting wrinkles, making the situations even more interesting (for example, how you can have two separate cultures coexist without merging, even though you no longer can tell from an individuals' DNA which one they belong to), but does not really change the overall picture.

You could see it as a bunch of survival strategy "memes" competing...   and some strategies work better in larger groups, others in smaller ones.  Typically as humans we have to master strategies for both, in order to do well.  Not easy, and not all of us make it.

[Simon]

It is an extremely effective technique for diluting the value of a forum, and for sucking up a lot of the moderators' valuable time.

Moderators made over 10% of the posts in this thread. You might value their time more than they do.

Oh, I value their time at zero

More relevantly, ISTR most of those moderators' posts have been about the subject, not time spent on moderation activities. In other words, ordinary people commenting on subjects that interest them.

Quite

[Nominal Animal]

You could see it as a bunch of survival strategy "memes" competing...   and some strategies work better in larger groups, others in smaller ones.  Typically as humans we have to master strategies for both, in order to do well.  Not easy, and not all of us make it.

Or, you could see as I do, a strong evolutionary path to becoming an eusocial species.

Do not forget that certain ant species are agricultural, exclusively subsisting on farmed fungi.  There is ample evidence in the animal kingdom that the kind of tight-knit inwards-turning urban environments humans now build, has lead to eusocialization.  (Consider macrotermes termite nests, and compare to an utopian human self-sustaining arcology.) Will human intelligence counter that?  Observation says no; there is evidence that human mean intelligence is actually dropping, although bringing this up is considered racist and offensive (and therefore you won't see a peer reviewed article saying it outright; only old retired profs saying so, and explaining why they think so).

It also brings an interesting interpretation for the f_c term of the Drake equation: eusocial intelligent beings have no reason to communicate with anything or anyone external.

I don't dare say if I believe there are signs the r/K selection theory applies to humans too, because that sort of thing gets one completely shut outside the academic world.. but an alien might make some very interesting parallels about r-strategy and communism/socialism, I bet.

There could be literally hundreds if not thousands of eusocial intelligent non-human species all over the Milky Way, none communicating with anyone else, all arguing amongst themselves which words and concepts are to be considered offensive.  You know, pondering the truly important stuff.

[Simon]

there is evidence that human mean intelligence is actually dropping, although bringing this up is considered racist and offensive (and therefore you won't see a peer reviewed article saying it outright; only old retired profs saying so, and explaining why they think so).

Of course it is, we live in a society that does not require too much of it to survive and have kids. There is no more natural selection between intelligent and average to below average. Even what little selection society can offer in thick people can't afford kids because they are generally less financially successful is not a thing.

[SilverSolder]

You could see it as a bunch of survival strategy "memes" competing...   and some strategies work better in larger groups, others in smaller ones.  Typically as humans we have to master strategies for both, in order to do well.  Not easy, and not all of us make it.

Or, you could see as I do, a strong evolutionary path to becoming an eusocial species.

Do not forget that certain ant species are agricultural, exclusively subsisting on farmed fungi.  There is ample evidence in the animal kingdom that the kind of tight-knit inwards-turning urban environments humans now build, has lead to eusocialization.  (Consider macrotermes termite nests, and compare to an utopian human self-sustaining arcology.) Will human intelligence counter that?  Observation says no; there is evidence that human mean intelligence is actually dropping, although bringing this up is considered racist and offensive (and therefore you won't see a peer reviewed article saying it outright; only old retired profs saying so, and explaining why they think so).

It also brings an interesting interpretation for the f_c term of the Drake equation: eusocial intelligent beings have no reason to communicate with anything or anyone external.

I don't dare say if I believe there are signs the r/K selection theory applies to humans too, because that sort of thing gets one completely shut outside the academic world.. but an alien might make some very interesting parallels about r-strategy and communism/socialism, I bet.

There could be literally hundreds if not thousands of eusocial intelligent non-human species all over the Milky Way, none communicating with anyone else, all arguing amongst themselves which words and concepts are to be considered offensive.  You know, pondering the truly important stuff.

If nothing else, there is a great insult in there, in calling someone r-selected! 

[Moshly]

 

[PlainName]

This is really sad. Right at the start the backing was unbelievable and of a scale where something could actually be achieved, which is a pretty rare thing when it comes to people vs establishment. But they've completely jumped the shark now and actively killing off support. Pretty soon it will be back to how it was, except the divide will be even wider than it started out at.

[james_s]

I do worry that things will end up much worse. People will avoid even interacting with members of certain races out of fear that there is anger and animosity or that they will say the wrong thing and set somebody off. Then all of the riots and general unrest, that certainly fuels the law & order types. When I'm worried about my city being burned down that kind of takes priority over reforming things.

[DimitriP]

except the divide will be even wider than it started out at.

tada.wav !!!

[Simon]

The problem is always the same, make a fuss about what does not matter and ignore the real problem so that we have another fight for another day and repeat.