4 ms·

As a commenter noted, stones can hurt people too. But, that's not what people think of first when they hear the word stone. On the other hand, if you know the w

by xrd 8y ago

As a commenter noted, stones can hurt people too. But, that's not what people think of first when they hear the word stone. On the other hand, if you know the word slave, you know that the first meaning brings up some sad history. It's surprising that in the context of a programming language discussion, a programming language where exact syntax and meaning matters, that this change wouldn't be accepted more easily.

gsich 8y ago
Depends if you are a native speaker or not I guess. My first contact with "master" and "slave" were IDE drives.
- xrd 8y ago
  It's an interesting point. I'm all for languages evolving as they do. I still would say that the "first" meaning of slave would be known to a majority of people as "an enslaved person." For that reason, it seems like using that term should be avoided and corrected. In the same vein, even if a small number of people created an alternative meaning that was offensive for a term, I wouldn't think that particular word should be changed/removed just because of that minority of usage. When the first and most common usage has an ugly history that impacts real people, that seems like a good candidate for an alternative term.
dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
I guess the context here is skewed a bit based on your location for historical reasons. I.e. in Europe slavery ended much earlier than in the USA, and the aftermath is fundamentally different - we don't have a large distinct population that had slaves as ancestors.
wahern 8y ago
I've never known anyone, minority or not, who got teary-eyed at the word "slave". Uncomfortableness with the basic terminology of slavery is a reflection of how people relate to their privilege, especially in an era where minority rights and minority power are at the forefront of the contemporary narrative. That isn't to say that there doesn't exist terminology that people should be mindful of. But most privileged, white people wouldn't recognize it. When the candidate for Florida governor denied using the word "monkey" to illicit traditional racial animus in his conservative base, people on the left were incredulous. But why? As we're seemingly attempting to do with the words "master" and "slave", we work hard to erase the incidents of oppression rather than actually addressing oppression. Is it so hard to believe that, once excised from common speech patterns, the memory of the origins and import of words and phrases is forgotten, even if the undertones linger? Especially among earnest individuals? (You can be earnest but still prejudiced and even prone to using the language of prejudice.) Now, no doubt blacks in Florida had good reason to be incredulous of his supposed ignorance. But context matters, in particular the perseverance of the more crass language of racism in Florida. The use of the word "monkey" was offensive because of the context and what it implies, quite concretely, about the motives of someone running for a very powerful office that has traditionally done horrible things to certain Florida communities. But nobody is, yet, arguing that we should remove the word monkey from zoo plaques, or stop using terms like monkey-patching. And that's despite the fact that, very much unlike the word "slave", if you shout out "monkey" in the company of certain groups heads will turn. Chattel slavery doesn't exist and hasn't existed for a long time. Absent a malicious or awkward context, the word "slave" doesn't elicit or trigger any anxiety or anger or tension in African-Americans. That slavery is some pervasive obsession of African-Americans that shapes and colors their every thought is a TV trope, and a racist one at that. Blacks no more identify as a slave then they do a monkey. Again, context matters; it's the context which makes the implication; it's context which turns a word into an instrument of oppression. But when the word and topic legitimately come up it makes privileged whites very uncomfortable, which is why it's so memorable and poignant in their collective imagination, and why it makes for cheap tension in script writing.
- candiodari 8y ago
  "Socially just" alternatives that were used in this example, for other processes/programs that have to do entirely what the master process tells them to: 1. (pliant) children (they started with childs, let's just not think too much what this means about the author's intelligence) 2. workers That's just ... not offensive ? ahem > But context matters, Indeed. The context is that this is a socially acceptable way to deny, distort and lie about their own history. A way to avoid having to deal with it. And of course, they have put zero thought into the alternatives. The business world is full of these zero-effort moronic "diversity" efforts that fail, suck and impose costs on everyone. Usually they're also making idiotically stupid mistakes and exposing themselves as totally stupid in the process.
  - Tomte 8y ago
    "they started with childs, let's just not think too much what this means about the author's intelligence" Considering that he's not a native speaker, and child has an irregular plural form, I find your comment very insulting.
    - candiodari 8y ago
      Even for non native speakers, forgive me for thinking that not thinking through your language/grammar/spelling means that you haven't thought through your point either. Second, let's not forget WHO is doing the asking here. Which is the big issue with this anyway: this is being presented as an order, a dictat. This is being required of people to be taken at authority, with the justification that external people (not the person asking) find this terminology offensive. Needless to say that that by itself engenders feelings of resentment. Not least because I never agreed you had this authority. Nor did the actual group being "protected" here. But also because you're demanding effort from everyone based on your personal authority. Let me repeat that very important point. The person asking is NOT asking for help. They are dictating that I help others on their authority. VERY different things. You are playing police officer, you are not the victim here. Then we get that this effort is being demanded, without adequate attention placed in the question in the first place. You're playing a bored, uninterested and brutal police officer. And guess what: that doesn't engender fond feelings ... weird, no ? In other words: you're demanding I go into my code and redo it in a number of places, but you can't be bothered even to phrase your language correctly. And by having this issue at all and me responding to it, I must agree with the implicit assumptions. Firstly, that I meant to be racist when using that terminology. Second, that I accept that you're to fix my attitude. I agree to neither of those. You are not the boss of me, and you do not have my permission to point out my flaws. On top of all that there are many problems with the argument behind it. Is anyone actually offended ? Of course ... no mention of that at all. Why are you so extremely impolite about it ? What exactly do you think of me, and other programmers, to make this demand ? Because firstly, you must think I'm a racist, otherwise it makes no sense. Secondly, you must see yourself as the savior of the oppressed. What effort, other than misspelled orders to faraway people, have you put into actually helping people ? The question as it is phrased, to replace master/slave terminology is a very low effort "listen to me or else" ... And I have a simple question for you: Or else what ?
ballooney 8y ago
Like someone else said, I would urge some Americans to have a bit more self-awareness about a lot of these issues, in that they are not absolute issues but america-specific ones (not slavery in general of course, but the modern guilt about slavery and racial segregation that is still a bit of an open wound in the USA). A lot of the 'obvious' connotations to americans about words are simply not there for the larger anglophone world. That doesn't make their concerns invalid - just that it's not 'obvious' that the choice of words is poor. I make no comments on the merits of this particular issue, just a general point about the context in which a lot of the debates are held, especially with non-american english speakers (e.g. antirez).

by xrd 8y ago

gsich 8y ago

Depends if you are a native speaker or not I guess. My first contact with "master" and "slave" were IDE drives.

xrd 8y ago
It's an interesting point. I'm all for languages evolving as they do. I still would say that the "first" meaning of slave would be known to a majority of people as "an enslaved person." For that reason, it seems like using that term should be avoided and corrected. In the same vein, even if a small number of people created an alternative meaning that was offensive for a term, I wouldn't think that particular word should be changed/removed just because of that minority of usage. When the first and most common usage has an ugly history that impacts real people, that seems like a good candidate for an alternative term.

dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago

I guess the context here is skewed a bit based on your location for historical reasons. I.e. in Europe slavery ended much earlier than in the USA, and the aftermath is fundamentally different - we don't have a large distinct population that had slaves as ancestors.

wahern 8y ago

I've never known anyone, minority or not, who got teary-eyed at the word "slave". Uncomfortableness with the basic terminology of slavery is a reflection of how people relate to their privilege, especially in an era where minority rights and minority power are at the forefront of the contemporary narrative. That isn't to say that there doesn't exist terminology that people should be mindful of. But most privileged, white people wouldn't recognize it. When the candidate for Florida governor denied using the word "monkey" to illicit traditional racial animus in his conservative base, people on the left were incredulous. But why? As we're seemingly attempting to do with the words "master" and "slave", we work hard to erase the incidents of oppression rather than actually addressing oppression. Is it so hard to believe that, once excised from common speech patterns, the memory of the origins and import of words and phrases is forgotten, even if the undertones linger? Especially among earnest individuals? (You can be earnest but still prejudiced and even prone to using the language of prejudice.) Now, no doubt blacks in Florida had good reason to be incredulous of his supposed ignorance. But context matters, in particular the perseverance of the more crass language of racism in Florida. The use of the word "monkey" was offensive because of the context and what it implies, quite concretely, about the motives of someone running for a very powerful office that has traditionally done horrible things to certain Florida communities. But nobody is, yet, arguing that we should remove the word monkey from zoo plaques, or stop using terms like monkey-patching. And that's despite the fact that, very much unlike the word "slave", if you shout out "monkey" in the company of certain groups heads will turn. Chattel slavery doesn't exist and hasn't existed for a long time. Absent a malicious or awkward context, the word "slave" doesn't elicit or trigger any anxiety or anger or tension in African-Americans. That slavery is some pervasive obsession of African-Americans that shapes and colors their every thought is a TV trope, and a racist one at that. Blacks no more identify as a slave then they do a monkey. Again, context matters; it's the context which makes the implication; it's context which turns a word into an instrument of oppression. But when the word and topic legitimately come up it makes privileged whites very uncomfortable, which is why it's so memorable and poignant in their collective imagination, and why it makes for cheap tension in script writing.

candiodari 8y ago
"Socially just" alternatives that were used in this example, for other processes/programs that have to do entirely what the master process tells them to: 1. (pliant) children (they started with childs, let's just not think too much what this means about the author's intelligence) 2. workers That's just ... not offensive ? ahem > But context matters, Indeed. The context is that this is a socially acceptable way to deny, distort and lie about their own history. A way to avoid having to deal with it. And of course, they have put zero thought into the alternatives. The business world is full of these zero-effort moronic "diversity" efforts that fail, suck and impose costs on everyone. Usually they're also making idiotically stupid mistakes and exposing themselves as totally stupid in the process.
- Tomte 8y ago
  "they started with childs, let's just not think too much what this means about the author's intelligence" Considering that he's not a native speaker, and child has an irregular plural form, I find your comment very insulting.
  - candiodari 8y ago
    Even for non native speakers, forgive me for thinking that not thinking through your language/grammar/spelling means that you haven't thought through your point either. Second, let's not forget WHO is doing the asking here. Which is the big issue with this anyway: this is being presented as an order, a dictat. This is being required of people to be taken at authority, with the justification that external people (not the person asking) find this terminology offensive. Needless to say that that by itself engenders feelings of resentment. Not least because I never agreed you had this authority. Nor did the actual group being "protected" here. But also because you're demanding effort from everyone based on your personal authority. Let me repeat that very important point. The person asking is NOT asking for help. They are dictating that I help others on their authority. VERY different things. You are playing police officer, you are not the victim here. Then we get that this effort is being demanded, without adequate attention placed in the question in the first place. You're playing a bored, uninterested and brutal police officer. And guess what: that doesn't engender fond feelings ... weird, no ? In other words: you're demanding I go into my code and redo it in a number of places, but you can't be bothered even to phrase your language correctly. And by having this issue at all and me responding to it, I must agree with the implicit assumptions. Firstly, that I meant to be racist when using that terminology. Second, that I accept that you're to fix my attitude. I agree to neither of those. You are not the boss of me, and you do not have my permission to point out my flaws. On top of all that there are many problems with the argument behind it. Is anyone actually offended ? Of course ... no mention of that at all. Why are you so extremely impolite about it ? What exactly do you think of me, and other programmers, to make this demand ? Because firstly, you must think I'm a racist, otherwise it makes no sense. Secondly, you must see yourself as the savior of the oppressed. What effort, other than misspelled orders to faraway people, have you put into actually helping people ? The question as it is phrased, to replace master/slave terminology is a very low effort "listen to me or else" ... And I have a simple question for you: Or else what ?

ballooney 8y ago

Like someone else said, I would urge some Americans to have a bit more self-awareness about a lot of these issues, in that they are not absolute issues but america-specific ones (not slavery in general of course, but the modern guilt about slavery and racial segregation that is still a bit of an open wound in the USA). A lot of the 'obvious' connotations to americans about words are simply not there for the larger anglophone world. That doesn't make their concerns invalid - just that it's not 'obvious' that the choice of words is poor. I make no comments on the merits of this particular issue, just a general point about the context in which a lot of the debates are held, especially with non-american english speakers (e.g. antirez).