'Master,' 'Slave' and the Fight Over Offensive Terms in Computing (nytimes.com) 570
Nearly a year after the Internet Engineering Task Force took up a plan to replace words that could be considered racist, the debate is still raging. The New York Times: What started as an earnest proposal has stalled as members of the task force have debated the history of slavery and the prevalence of racism in tech. Some companies and tech organizations have forged ahead anyway, raising the possibility that important technical terms will have different meanings to different people -- a troubling proposition for an engineering world that needs broad agreement so technologies work together. While the fight over terminology reflects the intractability of racial issues in society, it is also indicative of a peculiar organizational culture that relies on informal consensus to get things done.
The Internet Engineering Task Force eschews voting, and it often measures consensus by asking opposing factions of engineers to hum during meetings. The hums are then assessed by volume and ferocity. Vigorous humming, even from only a few people, could indicate strong disagreement, a sign that consensus has not yet been reached. The I.E.T.F. has created rigorous standards for the internet and for itself. Until 2016, it required the documents in which its standards are published to be precisely 72 characters wide and 58 lines long, a format adapted from the era when programmers punched their code into paper cards and fed them into early IBM computers. "We have big fights with each other, but our intent is always to reach consensus," said Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the task force and a vice president at Google. "I think that the spirit of the I.E.T.F. still is that, if we're going to do anything, let's try to do it one way so that we can have a uniform expectation that things will function."
The Internet Engineering Task Force eschews voting, and it often measures consensus by asking opposing factions of engineers to hum during meetings. The hums are then assessed by volume and ferocity. Vigorous humming, even from only a few people, could indicate strong disagreement, a sign that consensus has not yet been reached. The I.E.T.F. has created rigorous standards for the internet and for itself. Until 2016, it required the documents in which its standards are published to be precisely 72 characters wide and 58 lines long, a format adapted from the era when programmers punched their code into paper cards and fed them into early IBM computers. "We have big fights with each other, but our intent is always to reach consensus," said Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the task force and a vice president at Google. "I think that the spirit of the I.E.T.F. still is that, if we're going to do anything, let's try to do it one way so that we can have a uniform expectation that things will function."
Here's an offensive term (Score:4, Insightful)
transistor. I mean it's endless what we can get offended over.
Is this really the most preoccupying thing to worry about?
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:5, Insightful)
transistor. I mean it's endless what we can get offended over.
Is this really the most preoccupying thing to worry about?
Words to matter.
Using Master and Slave vs say Primary and Secondary creates a different set of understanding on its functionality and its relationship with it.
Does the "Master" really control the "Slaves" functionality. Say back in the Old IDE Drive setup. the "Master" Drive is only what handles the boot loader, but it doesn't do anything to control the "Slave" Drive. Primary and Secondary is a better terminology for it.
Also the traditional image of the Master and Slave, have a negative context, and the fact that such words offend plus also force to bring up images of an unrelated issue is a problem.
You can just realize that if you simply just change some wording, you can reduce the suffering that people may have from it. But that seems too much for some people because they are afraid if they just try to be nice to others that somehow they are going to loose everything.
Also the argument, "Why worry about this little thing, when they are bigger things" is just a way to try to deflect the problem vs actually solving it. We as a population of people have the resources to work on several tasks at the same time. It isn't like we as a Coder or documenter into fixing and updating some wording. Often it just take a minor change to a behavior and perhaps a global replace. When creating documents or conversing especially professionally , I try to make sure that I don't end up sounding like an asshole so I pick my words carefully, as I don't know who may be reading it, and how my words could effect them.
I normally try to make sure my words are racially sensitive, as well don't trigger PTSD (Such as words like Kill, Bleed, Shoot...) If I can do some simple changes and I prevent a person from feeling bad then all the better.
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what else matters: context.
Lots of words have different meanings depending on the context. If someone cannot cope because of an association they formed themselves then that is their problem alone. You are responsible for your own thoughts, beliefs and actions.
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, I don't know why you got modded down, but I 100% agree with you. It appears people's comprehension level has gone down over time, to the point that they get triggered by single words, completely irrelevant of the context, and demand action. My daughter's law professor was reprimanded for using the "n" word (Slashdot wouldn't let me use the actual word or I would have) during a lesson on fighting words. The premise was basically (not exact quote, I wasn't there): This white guy walks into a black funeral and shouts "All n%&$%rs should die." The black people get angry and come toward him to beat him up. He pulls out his gun and kills one of them. Can he claim self defense?
Of course the answer to that is "no, he cannot," because he instigated them. So, a student complained about him and other stuff ensued and he got reprimanded.
The problem with this philosophy of "words hurt" is that there will be no end to the list of words that "hurt". This is especially a problem when it finds its way into a dictionary [yahoo.com]. Yes, I realize usage of words changes over time, but removing of a word because it offends people is simply wrong.
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:4, Informative)
I'm a Jew. I'm not offended by the Soup Nazi. Or grammar Nazis. Because the term, despite its origin, has conniptions beyond a political party that tried to eradicate all Jews everywhere.
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:5, Insightful)
No there isn't an end to "words that hurt". There is simply no limit to the currently ongoing race to be offended. Hence the "microaggressions" etc. There is no greater attempt at global intolerance than the "woke movement". This entire country has raised behaving like a spoiled self-important child to a national pasttime.
I am an Eastern European Jew. Majority of my family died in the Holocaust or fighting the Nazis. But I enjoy a good Jew joke as much as anyone else. I had a longtime German friend who loved Nazi jokes. I laughted. I have friends who are Asian, Indian, Black. You know what - we can and do make fun of each other's cultures. It seems that I recognize that there is a subtlety to human communication, something that seems to be utterly lost from the US politics. I also recognize that the safety of free speech is FAR more important than any specific person or group's sense of butthurt enthusiasm.
I just hope that this Ouroboros eats itself before it's too late.
Re: (Score:3)
The reality of many non-whites in the US is that they are subjugated, either because of their race, their religion, their gender, their sexual choices, or their ethnic background.
A late friend of mine, descendant of Aushwitz and Buchenwald survivor parentage used to laugh at Mel Brooks, his Producers, and more. I get it.
My positive advocacy is for how people of color and diversity are treated today by a white majority, who don't see how their actions hurt, subjugate, and rob dignity from these targets. You
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider Huckleberry Finn. The bad bad word is in that book, but it's not in the book in a way that glorifies racism like Uncle Tom's Cabin for example. The word is there as it is intended to be a bad bad word because in context the readers of the time knew exactly what it meant and that it was a degrading term. Change that word and the story itself changes. Compare this to Sherlock Holmes where in one instance a story refers to "picaninnies", where that use is clearly just Arthur Conan Doyle being an ignorant upper crust git, changing that word might be appropriate and it would not change the story or its themes in any way (it would only remove the historical context that A.C.D. was a buffoon).
Re: (Score:3)
And this is 2021. I understand historical context. Today, the cultural shift acknowledged the past pain(s) and some that continue today.
The boorish term, "butthurt" is exactly an example of the problem of understanding the context of others, denying empathy, and ending up looking viciously smug. Next it'll be: Smug Folks Unite.
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The fact that you feel that you can compel speech, or compel people to not use certain speech, is certainly illuminating as far as the kind of person you are. Hint: you're not the good person in this situation. YOU'RE the asshole.
If it was just being polite, that's what it would be called: being polite. Just because there is a good intention behind something doesn't make it good, and doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want to get to that goal of "being polite".
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People of color don't have a monopoly on pain, and there isn't a complaint about the monopoly. Instead, statistically and factually, people of color do not have public trust of the white majority in the US and EU, and AU and CN have a smaller problem because of ethnic adoption.
#Black Lives Matter because much of law enforcement is scared as hell of people of color. Not all. Driving while black in the US is plainly more dangerous than driving while white, as an example.
This said, media and politicians aren't
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
While you may feel that there is no difference between "the N word" and the actual word, many other people feel differently. Why not be polite and respectful to them? It's really no effort at all to avoid saying that word, is it?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:5, Insightful)
It didn't until only recently when a small minority of people that seem to constantly be on the lookout to be offended for something were given an amplified voice by social media.
It's time for a big backlash against this stupid bullshit that is detracting everyone from actual serious issues that need to be dealt with.
There is no right to not be offended.
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:5, Funny)
You know, back in the IDE days, when I was extensively using the master/slave terminology, I never, ever looked at those terms in another way than purely technical. I never thought "hey, this HDD from this part of the cable is the horrible white man from centuries ago who was oppressing that poor colored HDD from this other part of the cable".
Hey, while we're at it, let's do away with S.M.A.R.T as well, to not offend the lesser gifted people out there.
Re: (Score:3)
You seem stupid.
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:4, Informative)
It was accurate for IDE ribbon cables. Back in the day, we always set the more important device that needed better throughput as master. I've seen the terminology used on some SATA controllers, where the terms are obsolete.
https://computer.howstuffworks... [howstuffworks.com]
"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."
Re: (Score:3)
Right, back at you, the people looking to be offended are the bigots.
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:4, Insightful)
No, Primary and Secondary have definitions already, the Secondary generally being a failover or backup system for the Primary. This is not the same as a Master/Slave relationship, where the Master has defined roles/rules that the Slave relies on for functionality.
I'm a security systems engineer, in my realm a Master/Slave card reader arrangement means that the IN reader on a door holds the door contact and fires the strike to release the door, and generally provides the monitoring for event alarms, the Slave has no functionality of its own other than providing authentication for the OUT reader to the Master and possibly additional signaling. In the video management systems the Primary/Secondary NVRs are both fully functional servers recording the same camera channels, the Primary is the main resource but the Secondary comes into play if the Primary is not available, providing full redundancy (at times they're configured with different video retention times, and sometimes one Secondary can serve multiple Primaries).
One of these things is not like the other, the definitions work and are universally understood for what they are. Changing them is an exercise in absurdity.
Re: (Score:3)
Does the "Master" really control the "Slaves" functionality. Say back in the Old IDE Drive setup. the "Master" Drive is only what handles the boot loader, but it doesn't do anything to control the "Slave" Drive. Primary and Secondary is a better terminology for it.
That is false. And the terms were chosen with purpose specifically because Master and a Slave on a bus were usually connected to a controller with primary and secondary busses. The 4 drives attached to the computer were called primary master, primary slave, secondary master, and secondary slave. The ATA-1 specification calls them Drive-0 and Drive-1 but also notes that they were referred to as Master and Slave precisely for reasons described below:
In the old world the Slave asked the Master for permission t
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a lot here.
Can words be renamed so as to not be offensive? Sure. I remember back when I was in school (90s), there was a movement to replace jobs with gender neutral terms. Like Policeman becomes police officer, so as to not assume any gender to police officers.
As to master/slave vs primary/secondary. Both can and do have negative context. Master person vs slave person. Primary person vs secondary person. Even in the most harmful situation that when someone reads about harddrives and hears master/slave, they get thoughts of white masters whipping black slaves, I think it's still a bad idea to focus on changing these words.
1. It's a losing battle. What offends you might not offend someone else and you'd be surprised what offends people. If someone sees a Japanese flag, maybe not big deal. But maybe some Chinese person sees that flag as the flag of oppression and conquest, like how we'd see a Nazi flag. Do we start banning Japanese flags? I'm in Canada, a very progressive place that does a lot of this. It's kind of irony... I wonder what the Canadian flag means to the indigenous people. Canadian colonizers and oppressors? I'll also give a counter example to the traditional narrative. I'm of Indian descent, but grew up in Africa. Black power carries a very different imagery for me. My village was burned down by black activists. My neighbor killed and raped. My grand father shot. White power had it's own evil notions to me, which fit a more standard narrative.
2. Words are a weaspon. Let me give a real life example again. I work for a big bureaucratic organization. The amount of politics is unreal. People will backstab and try and take people out of their position. If using the wrong words becomes an issue. Sure, in a nice case, maybe someone is genuinely offended and is genuinely hurt and goes to HR about it. But it's pretty likely this same angle could be used just to take down someone or get someone fired. I'd actually say that given our pretty politically correct workplaces these days, I'd actually say it is MORE likely to be used as a weapon than of a situation of genuine concern.
3. Words have power. I come from a very conservative Islamic background. Like the kind you picture on TV with young kids chanting the koran in a madrassa style. I was one of those kids. Words have power. Minor details have power to enforce obedience. You better say the right thing or be shunned. You better not think differently. You better not deviate or challenge. I'll give another practical example. When we had to refer to the prophet mohamed, we had to use the phrase mohamed peace be upon him (pbuh). On some level, just a nice thing to do as a matter of respect. On another level, it is used to ensure power and compliance. If I ever just said mohamed, just in conversation, I'd be disciplined for it. You have to say, so as to ensure you think positively about mohamed. You may not necessarily understand this without having lived through it. But a lot of these word games bring back memories to me of authoritarian radicals. If you want some irony... all these talk about changing words to make things nice for some people, triggers people like me who lived through what we did. Just another example. Recently I saw a video of a Polish Priest in Toronto casting about police/health people in a covid situation. He was calling them Nazi's and fascists... I'm not here to talk about covid, but understand his reality of that history of nazis and communists and state control.
I do in general try and use the best word possible to make people feel better. Yet, I'm also keenly aware of it shoots both ways and can easily be misused. You really can't be ignored of that side of the equation either... and when it comes to technical terms like this... I'm going to err on the side of the risk of this being used as a weapon and power games as opposed to genuine caring about offense is too great.
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:4, Insightful)
Words to matter.
I agree
Using Master and Slave vs say Primary and Secondary creates a different set of understanding on its functionality and its relationship with it.
Does the "Master" really control the "Slaves" functionality. Say back in the Old IDE Drive setup. the "Master" Drive is only what handles the boot loader, but it doesn't do anything to control the "Slave" Drive. Primary and Secondary is a better terminology for it.
On an IDE chain, the master does have control over the slave drive. The slave drive can not communicate with the host controller without clearance from the master. https://computer.howstuffworks... [howstuffworks.com]. Are "master and slave" the best words for this arrangement? Probably not. It is more accurately descriptive than "primary and secondary". But, it's also obsolete terminology that doesn't have relevance to modern SATA.
Also the traditional image of the Master and Slave, have a negative context, and the fact that such words offend plus also force to bring up images of an unrelated issue is a problem.
You can just realize that if you simply just change some wording, you can reduce the suffering that people may have from it.
I doubt that. People like being offended.
But that seems too much for some people because they are afraid if they just try to be nice to others that somehow they are going to loose everything
A bit of a straw-man argument. In this case, I think most of us in technology just don't see the point and can't be bothered when we have work to get done.
Also the argument, "Why worry about this little thing, when they are bigger things" is just a way to try to deflect the problem vs actually solving it. We as a population of people have the resources to work on several tasks at the same time. It isn't like we as a Coder or documenter into fixing and updating some wording. Often it just take a minor change to a behavior and perhaps a global replace. When creating documents or conversing especially professionally , I try to make sure that I don't end up sounding like an asshole so I pick my words carefully, as I don't know who may be reading it, and how my words could effect them.
I normally try to make sure my words are racially sensitive, as well don't trigger PTSD (Such as words like Kill, Bleed, Shoot...) If I can do some simple changes and I prevent a person from feeling bad then all the better.
Going forward, I agree that some the terminology should be changed. Master and slave being one. I have a co-admin that made an Active Directory OU named "Dead Acounts". I changed that to "Former Employees".
Changing some other terms will only create confusion and pointless work. Whitelist and blacklist have nothing to do with race. It's good and bad. Angels and devils. Cowboys with white hats and cowboys with black hats. Some people make everything about race because they have to have something to crusade over. No matter what you write or say, someone will find a way to be offended when they dig it up in 20 or 30 years.
What I don't want to see is revisionist whitewashing of documents to cover up our industry's dark history of insensitive jargon. Lets fix what we have to, put an asterisk on it, and move on. But while we do so, lets not be hyperbolic about what we are doing. We won't be fixing the world's ills. It's just about not painting a target on our own backs.
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You could also do Master and Servant.
Sure, but that's a lot like life. We'll end up playing between the sheets. You'll get on top, and me underneath. Then, we can forget about equality.
Re:Here's an offensive term (Score:5, Interesting)
You could do a lot of things. Primary and Secondary are fine in most cases. It's interesting how people on the 'virtuous' side of the question are twisting themselves in knots to claim that "master and slave' is actually technically inaccurate. Maybe - but nobody was ever confused before and needed them to explain it...
The issue is that to some people (and with good reason) the word 'slave' will always invoke black people as property in the US South. To them it doesn't matter that "slavery has existed since at least Biblical times", or that the association never crossed your mind when coming up with the term to describe controllers. The fact that it never crossed your mind would just be another example of White Privilege. And they're right - White Privilege is not about the advantages you had as a white person; it's about the disadvantages other people had that you never had to consider.
I'm all for acknowledging where other people are coming from. How something could be perceived as a microaggression - regardless of the intent of the 'aggressor'. But the attempt to force your pain on everybody else is arguably doing more harm than good.
Shall I relate my story about how I once reacted to a friend's mother asking if I (a Jew) was okay with her serving pork when I was invited to dinner. What I felt was something like "it was the first thing you thought of - and totally irrelevant to this BLT eating atheist". Sill, disappointed though I was at the rabbit hole she sent me down, I'm also aware that she was just trying to be nice. I won't attempt to equate that with 400 years of oppression, but still, I do think making people walk on eggshells is more likely to perpetuate the problem than, y'know, actually solve it. Especially when you keep moving the eggshells around, so nobody's ever quite sure where it's safe to step.
All that said, changing the technical terminology, while a silly use of resources that could be doing other things, won't hurt anybody either...
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With slashdot being a free-to-access service, all the revenue generated to pay for the infrastructure, hosting and moderator fees comes from advertising revenue.
Advertising revenue only works when you an show meaningful data to potential advertisers and agencies. In order to do that you need site traffic.
And sadly, contentious, click-bait articles seem to generate more posts than any other. Although slashdot seems to have been on a bit of a decline for a while now, this *might* be the p
master and slave have never been descriptive (Score:3, Insightful)
They don't describe the NATURE of the control relationship, they only tell you who is in charge, and in some cases they don't even do that (like the ATA bus.)
Re: master and slave have never been descriptive (Score:2)
Re: master and slave have never been descriptive (Score:5, Funny)
That being said, if they want to rename master/slave systems to dominant/submissive, I think it might at least be humorous.
Re: master and slave have never been descriptive (Score:4, Informative)
I find the whole idea offensive of renaming miscellaneous things that had no racial or social implications whatsoever simply to satisfy SJW.
I mean if you steadfastly refuse to stop using language that hurts others for "miscellaneous things" then you may just be an arse. I like you have never been a slave, but where we differ is that I don't presume to know how how the people who have historically been oppressed feel, nor do I belittle them by calling them SJWs. Speaking of which what does the J stand for again?
Mind you that's the extent of our disagreement. As soon as we move beyond miscellaneous things to specific things then words have meanings and those need to checked to ensure they are used correctly. The connotations of being a master or a slave are actually implemented in communication systems. But times change. We probably could have stopped calling IDE drives master and slaves in the late 90s when after several revisions of the ATA spec the slave was no longer subservient. On the flip side on an I2C bus in your motherboard master and slave is very appropriate since the slaves do not talk unless spoken to, and when the master speaks the slaves STFU.
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I mean if you steadfastly refuse to stop using language that hurts others for "miscellaneous things" then you may just be an arse.
Language belongs to everyone not just perpetually offended loudmouths. Just because a few people are overly sensitive does not mean the rest of us have a moral duty to entertain illogical, nonsensical and annoying demands.
If you want to judge people as being an "arse" for not giving a shit about illogical nonsense you are certainly entitled to do so.
Also the term "hard worker" should never be used because it is deeply hurtful to Melissa Perry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
nor do I belittle them by calling them SJWs. Speaking of which what does the J stand for again?
I think it stands for Marxist
Re:master and slave have never been descriptive (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it a bit amusing that Master/Slave is perceived as being offensive exclusively to blacks, until around the 13th century the second largest export from Europe after furs was slaves.
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Residual issues from slavery 800 years ago in Europe: nothing?
Residual issues from slavery 156 years ago in the US: voter suppression, statues, prejudice, and much, much more.
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It affect things differently when there is a target group of people defined as less human than others, then subjected to slavery. I don’t believe the European slaves were ethnically different, instead they were economically different. This allowed the concept of slavery as something you could escape. Black slavery in America was a subjugation of a group of people perceived differently, that extends still to today, as evidenced by the derogatory remarks within this very thread.
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It affect things differently when there is a target group of people defined as less human than others, then subjected to slavery. I don’t believe the European slaves were ethnically different, instead they were economically different.
Aristotle explained quite carefully why (white) slaves were a type of subhuman born to be slaves. They seem ethnically similar to us, but not to the What-We-Now-Call-The-Greeks who very very odd about things like this.
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Re:master and slave have never been descriptive (Score:5, Interesting)
Worse than that, it's actively confusing.
I've argued repeatedly here about the i2c bus, and everyone arguing back doesn't realize that any device on the bus can in principle act as a clock source and the target can always exert control over the clock. The source of confusion is because they assume that with the master/slave terminology the control is much more one sided.
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In principle, any device can be the clock source. In practice, essentially every I2C bus has a a single master, and each device is either master or slave on its bus, because there's no standard for resolving bus contention between masters.
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They don't describe the NATURE of the control relationship, they only tell you who is in charge, and in some cases they don't even do that (like the ATA bus.)
Though the change of master branch to main branch by github doesn't feel like it improves the situation any. I feel like root or base might have been a better choice. To me repository branches are about diverging paths from the root. Main just doesn't seem to properly describe this and I'm having a hard time with why this bothers me.
Maybe I should just stay out of pedantry.
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Master/slave is a very well understood control relationship. I'm pretty sure even little kids understand it. If it's applied incorrectly to specific technology, that's a different matter.
There's also a pain in the ass of having "descriptive" language in that we end up with a billion words. In practice we do not need all those different words because you can understand the difference based on the context.
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never ending navel gazing..... (Score:3, Insightful)
The second we sponge all the 'offending' terms from tech .. then some other bunch of snow flakes will come up a whole new set of words to be offended about. Maybe the liberal arts snowflakes should actually concentrate on learning something useful, instead of dreaming up new ways to be offended.
Re: never ending navel gazing..... (Score:2)
Re:never ending navel gazing..... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Do you still go up to a black person in the street and call them ni99er simply because you don't want to cave to the fact that they are offended?
That's a bad analogy. It's reasonable to expect a bad response because there's no way for the black person to distinguish people who did not intend to offend from those who did. Nobody's going up to a black person and calling them "blacklist" though, and it's very easy for a black person to tell if the word "blacklist" in a technical document is intended to offend them (hint: it's not).
It stands to reason that people who actually experienced slavery would be offended by that use of language
Which most black Americans haven't. They haven't in generations. People who are complaining about this have never been slav
Re: never ending navel gazing..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Co-rrect. "Computer" used to be a job. A human. So by "using" the computer, you are "appropriating computer culture" and are "condoning enslaving computer humans" and "YoU sHoUlD bE aShAmEd!1!".
I could make this shit up all day. From literally anything you could possibly say.
Why? Because you let me make the rules and give me a spotlight to stand in.
I'd make a great SJW... if these pesky things called empathy and a concience wouldn't stop me.
Humming? Really? (Score:2, Interesting)
"The Internet Engineering Task Force eschews voting, and it often measures consensus by asking opposing factions of engineers to hum during meetings. The hums are then assessed by volume and ferocity. Vigorous humming, even from only a few people, could indicate strong disagreement, a sign that consensus has not yet been reached.
Humming? What the hell, are these people 12? What next, revocation of cookie privileges?
It's obvious (Score:2)
The master designation should be replaced with "Anti-racist", and the slave designation should be replaced with "systemic racism"
I'm as woke as anybody, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
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An argument like "at some point we won't be able" says nothing about the subject in question; it maliciously dramatises it without giving any substantiation for that hypothetical prediction. And it doesn't because you can't. Because none of the reasons which have been provided by the proponents of replacing the master/slave metaphor in tech would apply to "say[ing] that the colors of this text aren't black on white", and noone would put forward such a proposition.
And then, many examples which came up since
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OK, Main/Secondary, if it bothers you that much. I'm an old white guy, so the fact that it doesn't bother me is irrelevant -- easy enough to change terms and retain the same initials, so the signal names can stay the same.
Now, let's address the *real* problem: male and female connectors!
CSB: I'm an EE. We had a young, attractive, female intern. I was working with her on a project and she confided to me that she could never remember which connector was male and which was female. I've been through all the tra
Re:I'm as woke as anybody, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a pretty liberal guy. Black Lives Matter, etc. I'm afraid I don't see the harm in using master/slave in computer nomenclature when it properly describes the task at hand. There are multi-master systems we don't seem to have a problem with. My thinking is this is just a never ending hole to dive into. At some point we won't be able to say that the colors of this text aren't black on white.
"Black lives matter" is one thing. Of course black lives matter.
"Black Lives Matter" is a political organization started by Marxists with goals having little to do with black lives mattering.
Re:I'm as woke as anybody, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
You probably don't see the harm b/c you aren't black.
Slaves are not, and have never been, all black. That's part of the problem here - there is an idea that slavery is a special racist crime that only black people suffered from in one place at one (extended) time. There are plenty of slaves in the world today of all sorts of colours. Fetishising black slavery dismisses their reality as a sort of second-class suffering; "you're not a real slave unless you're a black slave".
Surely, you can see that using the term "slave" for anything is a pretty poor choice.
No. If one machine has to do what it's commanded by another machine then slave is a perfectly clear description.
Do you see the harm if we renamed the "masters" to "husbands" and "slaves" to "wives"?
This illustrates my first point nicely. You think that's a reasonable analogy (or pretend to at least) because in your head "master" is read as "white master" and slave as "black slave", so there is a specific human relationship which can be swapped out for another specific human relationship. But "master" is not "white master". Slave owners can be any colour - many of the original Caribbean plantation slaves were owned by black masters who sold them on to the whites; many modern day slave owners are Indian and Chinese. Slaves can also be any colour - the slaves that allowed Sparta to specialise in military matters were native Greeks and almost uniformly white; many modern slaves are Polish or Bulgarian.
So "master" is a generic term and so is "slave"; replacing them with "husband" and "wife" is a false analogy designed to support your own mistaken interpretation and limited understanding of the words, as well as your very parochial and narrow grasp of history.
Changing words because some ignorant fool imagines some personal slight is a waste of time; they'll find some other nonsensical reason to change whatever you choose instead.
Re:I'm as woke as anybody, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
You probably don't see the harm b/c you aren't black. You don't think you could come up with another term rather than "master" and "slave"? Surely, you can see that using the term "slave" for anything is a pretty poor choice. Do you see the harm if we renamed the "masters" to "husbands" and "slaves" to "wives"? Surely that would go over well, "In this database, the husband tells the wife what to do and when the wife processes the query, she provides it back to the husband. Then the wife process terminates."
Try putting yourself in someone else's shoes for a second "Mr. Pretty Liberal Guy".
Your attitude seems to be getting in the way of your argument. Your example is completely off the mark. I call a database scenario as you describe server/client. Client asks for data, server gives it - or maybe it doesn't because the client doesn't have the privileges to do so. A master/slave configuration typically is at a lower level where the master tells the slave what to do and when to do it, and expects that the slave does the work.
And what's with the husband over the wife bit? My wife is a partner on the same level as me. It seems you are the one needing to look at your relationships.
Re:I'm as woke as anybody, but... (Score:5, Funny)
And what's with the husband over the wife bit? My wife is a partner on the same level as me.
That's very old school of you. My wife definitely gives the orders around here. XD
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, how does having money mean you can't protest racial inequality
You can... it's just disquieting that the money she has, all came from people donating to protest racial inequality. She was not rich beforehand
Do you think the people that donated to BLM wanted to fight racism by buying large mansions in white neighborhoods?
If you really, actually want to fight inequality it is imperative to point out abuses like this so that funds are used to fight inequality, not magnify it.
Re: (Score:2)
its funny because she called herself a trained marxist, usually marxists don't own 4 or 5 bourgeoise houses. it's funny because that money could have been spent towards BLM. it's funny because people act like BLM donations went through act blue and bidens presidential fund. but most people only see the racial justice and turn off the rest of their thinking because of a fear of racism. it's funny, comments like yours.
They can't be too offended (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they're still doing business with countries that engage in actual slave-like conditions such as China with their Uyghur population.
This hits at all levels. The workers who froth at the mouth about leadership not being woke enough still happily draw a paycheck from companies heavily dependent on grossly abusing foreign workers; the leaders who piously denounce Trump, Georgia and more tell us "it's complicated" when their price points and products literally require slave labor to keep their numbers up.
In the past, people had the good sense to not listen to a preacher, rabbi or imam who rails about sin and then gets caught not only with hookers, but running a fucking bordello on the side. Today, we actually listen to what these two-bit hypocritical, self-righteous and increasingly violent extremists have to say about morality rather than driving them to the fringes of society where they deserve to be.
Re: (Score:2)
Slavery is not even illegal in 94 countries, including several of the petro-states that the modern world is utterly dependent on. The Kuwaiti royalty were thoroughly offended when Bush the Competent insisted they give up their slaves as part of the deal to give them their country back at no charge (they then proceeded to enslave several thousand Filipinos and Indonesians lured into the country with offers of "jobs" instead).
There's no battle raging (Score:2)
Can we stop with this already
Re: There's no battle raging (Score:3)
Why do you need to follow a valid counter-statement could have supported and given a valid basis as an argument with some stupid triggered crap that makes your side look even dumber than your opponent? That makes *my* side look dumber. is this a false-flag operation? Are you him?
Janissaries (Score:2)
Re: Janissaries (Score:2)
Fun fact: In Mauretania, slavery is still a thing.
Outlawed very very recently. But nobody cares yet.
Um (Score:3)
Computer components are inanimate. They don't have a "race".
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Um (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Um (Score:2)
Nobody has a "race" actually.
It's a pseudo-scientific concept that died, literally a 100 years ago. And even in Germany, 75 years ago. Yet somehow, America keeps casually using it like it is a real thing.
How hard is it to learn new words? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, most of what you like to call SJW shit is just corporations hoping to make money overseas. They don't care about your cause or the SJWs...they just want to avoid controversy. If you're shipping a motherboard or a server system, you don't care about US politics, just revenue. Master/Slave is a distraction from your real job.
But really, how fucking old and senile are you? I'm pretty fucking old and I just accept that things change. I'm literally autistic and even I can understand that just because something is "harmless" to me, doesn't mean it's not irritating to people in some other region of the globe. Why can't you people understand that your view of the world is not universal? Communication is relative. Language that is perfectly fine in your shithole part of the country won't fly in a room full of people with good jobs who make good money in international businesses.
A global business needs to consider global needs...China, Denmark, the Congo, Argentina...each has different cultures and different norms, but I can say with confidence getting those international dollars without friction is far more valuable than standing up for stupid, dated terms, like Master/Slave.
Just grow the fuck up. Life changes. Things change. Adapt or die. Nothing is worse than hearing an old guy ramble on about his "In my day..." stories...except maybe some loser getting upset because he has to change and is screaming into the void while no one but his social media buddies care.
You don't have to like every change that comes your way, but you do have to adapt.
Re:How hard is it to learn new words? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is master/slave offensive? I don't honestly give a shit.
Is that why you typed a screen of moronic shit about the topic? Because you don't care?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, it's human nature - among the many things we want other people to know is how little we care about any given topic, and we're often quite loud about it lol. But I don't really think his comment falls into that category, though at first glance it might appear to. The point is that this sort of shit has always been going on, and always will be going on - it's kind of silly to get upset about it. I don't agree with this sort of nonsense navel-gazing shit either, but I also don't really give much of a shi
Re: (Score:3)
Is master/slave offensive? I don't honestly give a shit. The industry wants to use new words. Why bother getting upset? You guys are all upset about SJWs taking away words you never used except when you upgraded motherboards or hard drives
Just grow the fuck up. Life changes. Things change. Adapt or die. Nothing is worse than hearing an old guy ramble on about his "In my day..." stories...except maybe some loser getting upset because he has to change and is screaming into the void while no one but his social media buddies care.
You don't have to like every change that comes your way, but you do have to adapt.
I believe unfalsifiable statements such as the ones expressed above should be summarily ignored as they convey no useful information at all.
If someone were to complain about the collapse of democracy in Germany and the rise of the third r.e.ich this same tired change adverse / "get over it" line could be invoked and it would be no more or less applicable.
Change should not be accepted out of deference to the future or deference to bandwagon fallacy. Change should be evaluated on the merits.
Learn the concept of *intention*. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody cares how you "interpret" what somebody said. That is *your* prejudice. Hating somebody for that, is *your* hate. *Your* bullying.
Ask the author how he meant that, when he used those words.
(Hint: Nobody is thinking of enslaving *people*. They are devices! Nobody thinks of treating anyone worse or acting like enslaving people is OK. Also, protip: Your "pets" or children *literally* are your slaves, so get off your high horse. And as a German, I could act "offended" like you too, with your constant misuse of the term "Nazi", like in "grammar nazi", and complete lack of a clue for what "racism" actually means. But I don't. Because I'm not in puberty anymore, where offendability was a thing.)
But maybe you meant this differently too . . .
So please do tell us your intention with this.
So I don't have to assume it's bullying and rip you a new one.
Like all political correctness... (Score:5, Interesting)
There are some changes which are reasonable to make and there are some which are just the result of people hunting for things to get offended over. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to have a conversation about these issues today. We need to be more conscious of the way we use language, for sure, but it is essential to be deliberate and thoughtful about it.
Master/Slave seems like an obvious enough target. People push back on changes for political correctness on the premise that some of the terms are not a big deal, but if they're not a big deal then changing is also not a big deal. It's a reasonable enough call out and I think there are alternatives which feel natural to use.
Black Hat/White Hat is trickier. It's kind of a second-order concern people have about it. Personally, I think that the culture is a bit too settled on the "white good black bad" trope and that it makes sense to change.
Google's guide on writing inclusive documentation includes some examples I think go way too far. "Senior" is the first term I would use to respectfully refer to an older person. Their suggestion, "older adult" includes the word "old" and I have no doubt that it will be a term that goes through the revolving door of political correctness and comes back out being offensive.
Another example of the revolving door is that they call out, "physically challenged" as being patronizing for people who use wheelchairs, etc. It's a term which was specifically coined to be respectful, but which has now worn out its welcome and is now offensive. It is a great example of why these decisions need to be made carefully and deliberately and not just slapped together because someone found a reason to be offended. Continually changing terms in this way betrays the fact that people are fundamentally uncomfortable with the underlying concept and are using language to try to avoid reality, rather than accept it.
They also call out discussing, "native speakers" of a language. That is a term I have heard used in one and only one context: to ensure that communications are clear and avoid confusing language and local idioms for documentation which needs to be understood by non native speakers. It is, very literally, a term used to promote inclusiveness.
Google's document smells of the typical corporate group think which is a terrible way of going about this. They're not addressing a problem, they're trying to acquire wokeness as a commodity and brainstorm ideas to acquire it. One has to wonder what the racial, age, etc. demographics of the group that developed this are - I would bet that they are not particularly inclusive. That's dangerous in the information age where these changes can ripple out rapidly. Language always evolves, but if we're going to actively promote changes, it needs to be done sensibly and with input from the people it actually affects.
What about "blacklist?" (Score:2)
What about "blacklist?" Its etymology has nothing to do with race.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't look now, but it's already on the radar [dice.com].
This is going to go on until there's a woke corpse swinging from every lamppost. At this rate, it probably won't be much longer.
Social, not racial (Score:4, Informative)
Let's replace them (Score:5, Interesting)
Lets replace them with thrall and freeman
When my viking ancestors took slaves, it wasn't racist .. it was just anti-christian.
Who would argue against anti-christian naming conventions?
Offensive only to English speakers ? (Score:2)
I know that the name of the Swiss super-computer "Piz Daint"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
is very offensive to native speakers of Romanian.
Why should we consider only what is offensive to those for which English is native ?
You know you've been around a while... (Score:2)
... when you used to hum Depeche Mode "Master and Servant" while debugging IDE bus cables to get the right combination of cable twist and jumper settings on each "master" and "slave" drive.
For the avoidance of doubt, I support a gradual drift towards controller/controlled terms that irritate fewer people. If you're all willing to spend much time arguing about this, why not apply your energies to improving the many confusing terminology and bad mental models in other places in technology stacks, even where t
Thumbs up and thumbs down (Score:2)
Anybody has worried yet about black holes or black swans?
If I was forced to pick one thing that should be banned in the name of political correctness that would be thumbs up/down. That one is truly atrocious and did mean difference between life and death. Plus how could you oppose something that could hurt facebook?
Will they be renaming "black hole"? (Score:2)
Will they be renaming "black hole", especially after the greeting card "black hole controversy"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Don't like master/slave? (Score:3)
What about king/peasant?
Argh... this so called political correctness... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Slave" is a word, with a meaning... and while it is true that this term was applied to people, it has long since become a very widely accepted metaphor in technlogy which simply refers to something that does not ever act autonomously, and which must therefore be controlled externally. Full stop. There is nothing in this definition about the concept of slavery or treating humans unequally, it just refers to something does not do anything on its own.
"Master" is similarly a word, and refers to something that has authority and jurisdiction over something else. Again, full stop.
People should reasonably be masters over their own financial matters, for example. Nothing in the definition implies or suggests that people should ever be treated unequally.
I get it. Human slavery is an abhorrent concept, but we should not be trying to excise any elements of our language that may have at one time referred to such indecencies simply because of the concern that to not do so might be indicative of a tolerance for such activities. Because it isn't.
Obviously stomp out real human rights abuses whenever and whereever they are encountered. Do so vehemently, and swiftly. But do not try to change the language that we use just so that people are essentially being prohibited from even imagining the concept (to the extent that thought is dependent on words). To do so only makes the language that we use less precise, and is liable to only increase the chance of miscommunication and decrease our ability to empathize with eachother.
I am traumatized by the Linux 'kill' command (Score:3)
Please suggest better names.
I tried ask_politely_to_end_your_life for a while but it still brings up horrendous and traumatizing associations.
Help!
It's About Power (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately now that corporations have seen that groups of people can gain vast amounts of money and power by being perpetually offended, they want their share. So corporations have started using said people to gain power for themselves. It's actually quite sad, but it doesn't matter to the person being used, they just want that power. None of this will stop until we stop giving power to these people, and that won't happen because they've gained enough power (with the help of the corporations using them) to actually make it hurt for anyone who dare ignore them. It will take some brave people with nothing to lose to stand up to them, and I don't see that happening. We're screwed and it's all of our own making. Better luck next life.
next up (Score:5, Funny)
Boycott Mastercard
The word slave comes from Slav. (Score:4, Insightful)
All those being offended should do the work and not appropriate and whitewash my people's history.
Re:Can we stop the stupidity already? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can we stop the stupidity already? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Can we stop the stupidity already? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Can we stop the stupidity already? (Score:2)
Hahahahaha!
If you did that, you'd be attacked for discriminating against blacks (cables) and not giving any blacks (cables) equal opportunities (to connect things).
There is no way out.
.
.
IFF you play along.
*whispers loudly:* You don't have to play along!
You don't even have to listen.
Dom / Sub (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Dom / Sub (Score:3)
You know those are the same thing nowadays, right?
Look up "revolving doors". And where politicians worked before and will work after their time as a politician. Nobody bribes anymore. That's what political donations are for.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah clearly defined lounge IDE devices. /s
Re:Getting ridiculous. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tearing down symbols is the last thing you can do when the easy pickings have all been achieved, and what's left is complex and requires - omg! - actual WORK and THOUGHT to resolve.
So, let's rail against words and symbolds. That's visible, easy and gives useless fuckwits the impression that they're achieving something.
Meanwhile, people who actually move the world calmly hum along, unimpressed.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Yes the debate is a waste of time: so I assume you're happy with the name changes and won't be debating it further?
Re: SJWs never quit (Score:4, Insightful)
Breivik, SJWs, where's the difference?
Their moral standards ae about the same.
Only SJW are much *much* more cowardly, on top of it.
Re: (Score:2)
Daylight savings time is silly, and doesn't even save any daylight (we go to "savings" time in the summer, when we have the most daylight).
Count me in for eliminating it.
Re: (Score:3)
I wish the male/female Connector thing would DIAF, frankly.
I guess it makes sense for banana plugs and 3.5 mm jacks. How does it make sense for anything else? Is it the array of micro penii that makes a Dsub male, or is it the chunky wiener with an array of pee holes thrust into the welcoming receptacle the male one? What about annular connectors? Is the innermost or the outermost willy the determining factor in which bit is male? And what do you do which is it for a twinax connector? I genuinely do not kn