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

[Simon]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000jx41

All these protests about history. Well for the idiots information the problem only ever got worse but they don't care about that they just want to run around pulling statues down and erasing history because that will make today's problems go away.

[wraper]

And what am I supposed to do with my male and female connectors?
I'm going to have to start using gender neutral or trans DB9 connectors?

Normally I would suggest that somebody says these things as a great prank joke.
But unfortunately there are people out there who take the idea seriously.

Call them Partner A and Partner B.

[lukego]

That's my biggest issue with this, it never ends.

The way I look at this is that culture needs maintenance much like a house. It is a never-ending cost but that doesn't mean that neglecting it will lead to good outcomes.

I've worked on products that used master/slave terminology. I'm bothered that those products have been sold in places where those terms have strong connotations like southern USA. I don't like the idea of (say) a black person in Georgia having to talk about "masters" and "slaves" in project management meetings with their white bosses. That just seems gratuitously unpleasant. That image in my mind is why I won't choose the terms master/slave when building things in the future.

[Simon]

Don't get me started. I am tired already of commercial contractors being called partners by the government in an attempt to disguise privatization. This is the problem. Common language is very fluid and terminology is constantly changed either for commercial reasons or to impress people. I am sick of the softy softy language that fails to just call things what they are and takes 3 times longer to to explain anything as people literal circle what they are trying to say slowly delivering it lest it be too shocking. I have seen even Dave in later videos go to lengths to clarify that he i not being critical.

[bd139]

And what am I supposed to do with my male and female connectors?
I'm going to have to start using gender neutral or trans DB9 connectors?

Normally I would suggest that somebody says these things as a great prank joke.
But unfortunately there are people out there who take the idea seriously.

Call them Partner A and Partner B.

That's already screwed 



So is that a USB AA or AB or BA or mini-AB?

[Simon]

That's my biggest issue with this, it never ends.

The way I look at this is that culture needs maintenance much like a house. It is a never-ending cost but that doesn't mean that neglecting it will lead to good outcomes.

I've worked on products that used master/slave terminology. I'm bothered that those products have been sold in places where those terms have strong connotations like southern USA. I don't like the idea of (say) a black person in Georgia having to talk about "masters" and "slaves" in project management meetings with their white bosses. That just seems gratuitously unpleasant. That image in my mind is why I won't choose the terms master/slave when building things in the future.

What's your problem, he is a free man! If we still had legal slavery then that would be a problem. Slavery was legally abolished before the words were appropriately used to describe comms and control systems.

[wraper]

And what am I supposed to do with my male and female connectors?
I'm going to have to start using gender neutral or trans DB9 connectors?

Normally I would suggest that somebody says these things as a great prank joke.
But unfortunately there are people out there who take the idea seriously.

Call them Partner A and Partner B.

That's already screwed 



So is that a USB AA or AB or BA or mini-AB?

Damn, USB micro AB was already taken!

[Berni]

At least back then the USB consortium was at least half good at naming things.

Now we have "Superspeed USB 3.2 Gen 2x2"

[coppice]

At least back then the USB consortium was at least half good at naming things.

Now we have "Superspeed USB 3.2 Gen 2x2"

That's not a proper modern name. It doesn't have "turbo" in it.

[wraper]

At least back then the USB consortium was at least half good at naming things.

Now we have "Superspeed USB 3.2 Gen 2x2"

That's not a proper modern name. It doesn't have "turbo" in it.

Nope, that's obsolete for a long time. Like Turbo pascal or Turbo button in 386 PC.

[Simon]

Well I did wonder years ago with USB 1, 1.1 and 2.0 what available names were left for what would clearly be 3.0 and beyond.

[coppice]

At least back then the USB consortium was at least half good at naming things.

Now we have "Superspeed USB 3.2 Gen 2x2"

That's not a proper modern name. It doesn't have "turbo" in it.

Nope, that's obsolete for a long time. Like Turbo pascal or Turbo button in 386 PC.

You are behind the times. Porsche released their first electric car in just the last few months, and put "turbo" in its name. Turbo has made a comeback.

[lukego]

What's your problem, he is a free man! If we still had legal slavery then that would be a problem. Slavery was legally abolished before the words were appropriately used to describe comms and control systems.

I don't personally have a problem with master/slave terminology but I do find it easy to imagine that I would if I were in other peoples' shoes e.g. black kids in southern USA. So I predict that choosing those terms would cause problems for people in far away places who I'll probably never meet, and I'd prefer not to do that so I'll pick other terms instead.

[tautech]

What's your problem, he is a free man! If we still had legal slavery then that would be a problem. Slavery was legally abolished before the words were appropriately used to describe comms and control systems.

I don't personally have a problem with master/slave terminology but I do find it easy to imagine that I would if I were in other peoples' shoes e.g. black kids in southern USA. So I predict that choosing those terms would cause problems for people in far away places who I'll probably never meet, and I'd prefer not to do that so I'll pick other terms instead.

Easy, precede it with the word Bus.

[coppice]

What's your problem, he is a free man! If we still had legal slavery then that would be a problem. Slavery was legally abolished before the words were appropriately used to describe comms and control systems.

I don't personally have a problem with master/slave terminology but I do find it easy to imagine that I would if I were in other peoples' shoes e.g. black kids in southern USA. So I predict that choosing those terms would cause problems for people in far away places who I'll probably never meet, and I'd prefer not to do that so I'll pick other terms instead.

Easy, precede it with the word Bus.

And then get to the back of that Bus.

[tggzzz]

That's my biggest issue with this, it never ends.

The way I look at this is that culture needs maintenance much like a house. It is a never-ending cost but that doesn't mean that neglecting it will lead to good outcomes.

I've worked on products that used master/slave terminology. I'm bothered that those products have been sold in places where those terms have strong connotations like southern USA. I don't like the idea of (say) a black person in Georgia having to talk about "masters" and "slaves" in project management meetings with their white bosses. That just seems gratuitously unpleasant. That image in my mind is why I won't choose the terms master/slave when building things in the future.

Only 28s long; pithy.

[lukego]

Only 28s long; pithy.

Also related, albeit a little longer, but contemporary and from a non-fictional counterpart:

[wraper]

That's my biggest issue with this, it never ends.

The way I look at this is that culture needs maintenance much like a house. It is a never-ending cost but that doesn't mean that neglecting it will lead to good outcomes.

I've worked on products that used master/slave terminology. I'm bothered that those products have been sold in places where those terms have strong connotations like southern USA. I don't like the idea of (say) a black person in Georgia having to talk about "masters" and "slaves" in project management meetings with their white bosses. That just seems gratuitously unpleasant. That image in my mind is why I won't choose the terms master/slave when building things in the future.

Was that black person a slave? No? Then he'll be uncomfortable of it only because he was told he should be. My ancestors were serfs and I'm white. Should I be offended too? It's fascinating how black people occupied the word slave as if it belongs only to them. Or that all white people have something to do with their slavery when even ancestors of most of the white people have nothing to do with that and many of them were basically slaves themselves.

[Berni]

Well I did wonder years ago with USB 1, 1.1 and 2.0 what available names were left for what would clearly be 3.0 and beyond.

Well USB 2.0 already made a problem there.

You got:
Low Speed (1.5Mbit on USB 1.1)
Full Speed (12Mbit on USB 1.1)
High Speed (480Mbit on USB 2.0)
Super Speed (5Gbit on USB 3.0 or 10Gbit on USB 3.2 Gen2 or 20Gbit on USB 3.2 Gen2x2)

It sounds like "Full speed" should be faster than "High speed" so it already got confusing there. The new finagled "Super speed" just made it worse since it was not only faster than full, but it can mean 3 very different speeds depending on what revision port it is.

[lukego]

My ancestors were serfs and I'm white. Should I be offended too?

If there's a part of the industry where white men are struggling to get a foothold then I hope other groups will extend them the same courtesy and help to take down any unnecessary hurdles that they identify. I don't think we talk about this as much because white men are relatively well represented and successful in the tech industry at the present time.

[wraper]

My ancestors were serfs and I'm white. Should I be offended too?

If there's a part of the industry where white men are struggling to get a foothold then I hope other groups will extend them the same courtesy and help to take down any unnecessary hurdles that they identify. I don't think we talk about this as much because white men are relatively well represented and successful in the tech industry at the present time.

All that "representation" thing is BS. Should we now punish Asian people because even white people are heavily underrepresented in Software/IT sphere in US compared to them? When people get different treatment because of their skin color, not their merits, I call it a racist BS. People actually become effing racists by fighting with perceived "racism". Also color of a skin is a quite arbitrary way how to group people. Even if you think that modern people are somehow responsible for their ancestor wrongdoings, skin color is a quite arbitrary way how to group them. People of the same perceived color come from very different ethnic or social groups with a vastly different history. There are effing millionaire offspring born with a silver spoon in mouth crying foul about their tough fate because of the slavery and racism. Hypocrisy at it's best.

[Simon]

our local council once decided to encourage more Indians to work for them to better represent the population of the town. I thought WTF? they can apply for office jobs at the council the same as anyone else. Positive discrimination is still discrimination. All you need to do in treat people equally. If positive discrimination carry's on for too long it becomes racism the other way around, so rather than trying to fix the so called problem in an instant you implement the solution, equal treatment.

[coppice]

I don't think we talk about this as much because white men are relatively well represented and successful in the tech industry at the present time.

This is the appalling state social discourse is in right now - seeing people as amorphous blobs of humanity, tagged by a colour code. How did we slip away from seeing people as individuals with their unique strengths and weaknesses? In the 70s many developed countries made great strides in helping the capable children of poor families of all origins get a good start in life. Now they been abandoned in favour of helping the children of the affluent.

[bd139]

Actually I think it devolved into helping the people with the largest social audience.

[Nominal Animal]

I've worked on products that used master/slave terminology. I'm bothered that those products have been sold in places where those terms have strong connotations like southern USA. I don't like the idea of (say) a black person in Georgia having to talk about "masters" and "slaves" in project management meetings with their white bosses. That just seems gratuitously unpleasant. That image in my mind is why I won't choose the terms master/slave when building things in the future.

Do you realize that when doing so, you're actually not eradicating racism, but perpetuating it?  You are not being thoughtful, you are just enforcing the association between slaves and black people.  Every time you carefully avoid using those terms, you are expressing the association between "black", "slave", and "master".

Why would it be unpleasant for a black person in any Western society to talk about masters and slaves?  There should be no association!  You are not responsible for the evils of your ancestors, nor are you the product of evils done to your ancestors.  You are your own person, interacting in a society where slavery is considered horribly wrong, a crime against humanity.  We all agree that slavery is monstruous; that the entire institution is wrong, and that we must learn from it to not repeat that kind of monstrous actions.  The idea of associating someone with slavery just because of their skin color is itself racist!

I like how Morgan Freeman put it: Stop calling me a black man, and I stop calling you a white man.  I know you as lukego, and you know me as nominal animal.  That is enough.

If being blunt this way is racist because a snowflake may hear a word that hurts their feelings, then fuck, I'll be a racist.  I refuse to treat anyone differently just because of their skin or "race".