7 ms·

I think that's a reasonable argument. I just don't get the argument against using Master in the first place.

oblio 6y ago
In summary? It offends some people. That group might be small but some other people (who some will say are overreacting and draw parallels with 1984 Newspeak) decided to not offend people for nothing. I guess the main argument is a slippery slope type of thing. What I've found, though, is that people in aggregate are reasonable. Slippery slopes almost never happen, not in the "landslide" sense. Things shift a bit, quite slowly, and at some point the shift slows down or even stops. And yes, I know about exceptions (Germany WW2, etc.). There's a reason we call them exceptions.
- type0 6y ago
  > In summary? It offends some people. I know, after-all there are people who are offended to anyone having a Master degree. > I know about exceptions (Germany WW2, etc.) In my case, I feel offended when anyone brings up things like that. Please stop posting this kind of comments.
  - gambiting 6y ago
    I can't wait until we stop using the word "occupied"(as in - occupied disk space, or occupied toiled) - my own country has been occupied so hard it stopped existing for nearly 100 years, countless people have died fighting against occupation, and now just seeing the word offends me, because somehow I grew to an adult age without the ability to differentiate between intention and context. Obviously, it's nonsense. I don't have anything against github changing the names if they desire to, but I wish we called the argument behind it exactly for what it is - nonsense.
    - type0 6y ago
      Yeah right, no should ever get an occupation because of their Master's degree
    - acephal 6y ago
      Poland?
      - gambiting 6y ago
        Bingo - there's even an old joke: A German tourist drives through the Polish border, the guard asks "name?" Helmut "married?" Yes, two kids "occupation?" No no, just visiting
  - oblio 6y ago
    > In my case, I feel offended when anyone brings up things like that. Please stop posting this kind of comments. I don't mean to offend anyone, I just have to point this out: I'm Romanian. Considering how much worse, overall, our history was compared to yours (since I noticed you're Polish), I'm not sure you get to play the "I'm offended" card against me.
    - type0 6y ago
      I was only trying to highlight that this slippery slope you talked about do exist and happens all over the Internet, and no I'm not Polish. Whether one would be really offended or just pretend to be is not the issue but mindless word policing is never for the benefit of discourse.
- wallacoloo 6y ago
  My argument is that these changes are being conducted with horrible process. As an engineer, if I want to solve a problem, I first nail down what exactly the problem is, and then evaluate the effectiveness of different solutions. Usually some stakeholder I care about is involved. EXACTLY what problem is trying to be solved in this change, and for what group? Do we actually have accurate representation from that group? Do we have any reason to believe that this change will make things better for that group? As my own organization grapples with similar things, the answer is “no”, and we haven’t been able to find anyone else who’s approaching these things with any engineering-like process. You all are pushing new things into master without any of the usual industry practices which we’ve developed over decades to protect against unforeseen consequences. That’s not a trend I want to be a part of.
  - abraae 6y ago
    As soon as you use the term EXACTLY with anything involving humans, you are in a losing battle.
  - DonaldPShimoda 6y ago
    I appreciate the sentiment, but I think there's a problem with your proposed methodology (which I readily admit I do not have a direct solution to). Requiring so much proof puts a significant burden on people who might actually be in the affected group. (Before going further, I want to say that I am not in this comment taking a firm stand on the master->main transition directly, but rather commenting on this type of process in general.) Let us assume that in the general population GP of people exposed to a given term T, there exists some portion of people who feel they are negatively affected by it (GP_n) and those who do not feel directly affected by it at all (GP_0). A proposal is made to transition from using T to T'. Some portion of GP_0 will report that they are opposed to this transition, which we can call GP_opp. I would argue that, based on reactions to the master->main issue, the members of GP_opp are either a significant portion of GP_0, or else are incredibly vocal. Members of GP_opp call on GP_n to make their voices heard and to systematically prove their injury due to use of T. They say "I do not see the problem with T. Please explain to me why you find use of T bad, and why T' is a better substitute." Many members of GP_opp make this call. So now those in GP_n — which was likely a minority of GP to begin with — find themselves needing to explain over and over again the same issue. It is tiring, and it is burdensome. They are constantly needing to defend their emotions against people who claim that the T->T' transition is illogical and baseless. I would argue that this is an undue burden. We, as a society, should do better. If the T->T' transition is not incredibly difficult to perform, and if T' is a strictly (or even just mostly) improved alternative to T, then I think we should not be requiring members of GP_opp to defend themselves systematically. We should not be going to great lengths to prove the necessity of the transition, because the transition itself is not that big of a deal. It's a relatively minor change, but one which when completed leaves us in a net positive state. There's no particularly good reason not to make the T->T' transition, other than "tradition" or a minuscule amount of effort. --- Applying engineering principles to human problems only serves to maintain a status quo that we already know is harmful to people in various minority groups (whether race or otherwise). Yes, it sounds reasonable, but that's really the issue with a lot of things going on lately to begin with: it sounds reasonable, but it really isn't, because arguing in favor of it requires ignoring the emotions of the people who are most likely to be affected to begin with. I think instead we, as a society, should be moving towards arguing on behalf of people who might be injured, instead of requiring the injured to defend themselves. If no harm is done by transitioning from T->T', then why fight it? What good reason is there to not be onboard with such a change? I cannot think of one, so I err on the side of trying to consider the feelings of those who I haven't met. I try to think about how what I do may affect others, instead of requiring that other people prove that I have affected them. --- It's definitely worth putting some consideration into these things to ensure we're not wasting time on a bunch of unimportant stuff, but when it's something as trivial as changing the name of default branches of git repositories... I don't see what the hullaballoo is all about. Why shouldn't we? What are we avoiding? It seems to me that there's just a lot of people who are uncomfortable with change in general, and unfortunately it is this attitude that has by and large caused social progress of important issues to stagnate. Too many people fight change for the sake of fighting change, and the end result is we don't improve as a society. Maybe taking small steps like this more often will help us with making the big steps more often too, and I think that's a more important consideration overall. Just my (wordy) $0.02.
- wayneftw 6y ago
  Continually asking me to change my speech offends me way more. Please stop doing that.
- bioinformatics 6y ago
  Yes, it's worth to remove words and terms even if it offends one person. We should start removing these from dictionaries and from our speech. One offended person is one too much.
  - netsec_burn 6y ago
    Probably a good idea to add an /s to your comment, just in case the meaning is lost over the Internet.
bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
I think you mean m*ster It's offensive to "some people" (mainly: opportunistic blue-haired white people with a variety of mental illnesses), so it's appropriate to censor your mention of the term — it matters not that you're not using it (in the use vs mention sense of the distinction). Sort of like the way we say "n-word", "c-word", "b-word", et cetera.

In summary? It offends some people. That group might be small but some other people (who some will say are overreacting and draw parallels with 1984 Newspeak) decided to not offend people for nothing. I guess the main argument is a slippery slope type of thing. What I've found, though, is that people in aggregate are reasonable. Slippery slopes almost never happen, not in the "landslide" sense. Things shift a bit, quite slowly, and at some point the shift slows down or even stops. And yes, I know about exceptions (Germany WW2, etc.). There's a reason we call them exceptions.

type0 6y ago
> In summary? It offends some people. I know, after-all there are people who are offended to anyone having a Master degree. > I know about exceptions (Germany WW2, etc.) In my case, I feel offended when anyone brings up things like that. Please stop posting this kind of comments.
- gambiting 6y ago
  I can't wait until we stop using the word "occupied"(as in - occupied disk space, or occupied toiled) - my own country has been occupied so hard it stopped existing for nearly 100 years, countless people have died fighting against occupation, and now just seeing the word offends me, because somehow I grew to an adult age without the ability to differentiate between intention and context. Obviously, it's nonsense. I don't have anything against github changing the names if they desire to, but I wish we called the argument behind it exactly for what it is - nonsense.
  - type0 6y ago
    Yeah right, no should ever get an occupation because of their Master's degree
  - acephal 6y ago
    Poland?
    - gambiting 6y ago
      Bingo - there's even an old joke: A German tourist drives through the Polish border, the guard asks "name?" Helmut "married?" Yes, two kids "occupation?" No no, just visiting
- oblio 6y ago
  > In my case, I feel offended when anyone brings up things like that. Please stop posting this kind of comments. I don't mean to offend anyone, I just have to point this out: I'm Romanian. Considering how much worse, overall, our history was compared to yours (since I noticed you're Polish), I'm not sure you get to play the "I'm offended" card against me.
  - type0 6y ago
    I was only trying to highlight that this slippery slope you talked about do exist and happens all over the Internet, and no I'm not Polish. Whether one would be really offended or just pretend to be is not the issue but mindless word policing is never for the benefit of discourse.
wallacoloo 6y ago
My argument is that these changes are being conducted with horrible process. As an engineer, if I want to solve a problem, I first nail down what exactly the problem is, and then evaluate the effectiveness of different solutions. Usually some stakeholder I care about is involved. EXACTLY what problem is trying to be solved in this change, and for what group? Do we actually have accurate representation from that group? Do we have any reason to believe that this change will make things better for that group? As my own organization grapples with similar things, the answer is “no”, and we haven’t been able to find anyone else who’s approaching these things with any engineering-like process. You all are pushing new things into master without any of the usual industry practices which we’ve developed over decades to protect against unforeseen consequences. That’s not a trend I want to be a part of.
- abraae 6y ago
  As soon as you use the term EXACTLY with anything involving humans, you are in a losing battle.
- DonaldPShimoda 6y ago
  I appreciate the sentiment, but I think there's a problem with your proposed methodology (which I readily admit I do not have a direct solution to). Requiring so much proof puts a significant burden on people who might actually be in the affected group. (Before going further, I want to say that I am not in this comment taking a firm stand on the master->main transition directly, but rather commenting on this type of process in general.) Let us assume that in the general population GP of people exposed to a given term T, there exists some portion of people who feel they are negatively affected by it (GP_n) and those who do not feel directly affected by it at all (GP_0). A proposal is made to transition from using T to T'. Some portion of GP_0 will report that they are opposed to this transition, which we can call GP_opp. I would argue that, based on reactions to the master->main issue, the members of GP_opp are either a significant portion of GP_0, or else are incredibly vocal. Members of GP_opp call on GP_n to make their voices heard and to systematically prove their injury due to use of T. They say "I do not see the problem with T. Please explain to me why you find use of T bad, and why T' is a better substitute." Many members of GP_opp make this call. So now those in GP_n — which was likely a minority of GP to begin with — find themselves needing to explain over and over again the same issue. It is tiring, and it is burdensome. They are constantly needing to defend their emotions against people who claim that the T->T' transition is illogical and baseless. I would argue that this is an undue burden. We, as a society, should do better. If the T->T' transition is not incredibly difficult to perform, and if T' is a strictly (or even just mostly) improved alternative to T, then I think we should not be requiring members of GP_opp to defend themselves systematically. We should not be going to great lengths to prove the necessity of the transition, because the transition itself is not that big of a deal. It's a relatively minor change, but one which when completed leaves us in a net positive state. There's no particularly good reason not to make the T->T' transition, other than "tradition" or a minuscule amount of effort. --- Applying engineering principles to human problems only serves to maintain a status quo that we already know is harmful to people in various minority groups (whether race or otherwise). Yes, it sounds reasonable, but that's really the issue with a lot of things going on lately to begin with: it sounds reasonable, but it really isn't, because arguing in favor of it requires ignoring the emotions of the people who are most likely to be affected to begin with. I think instead we, as a society, should be moving towards arguing on behalf of people who might be injured, instead of requiring the injured to defend themselves. If no harm is done by transitioning from T->T', then why fight it? What good reason is there to not be onboard with such a change? I cannot think of one, so I err on the side of trying to consider the feelings of those who I haven't met. I try to think about how what I do may affect others, instead of requiring that other people prove that I have affected them. --- It's definitely worth putting some consideration into these things to ensure we're not wasting time on a bunch of unimportant stuff, but when it's something as trivial as changing the name of default branches of git repositories... I don't see what the hullaballoo is all about. Why shouldn't we? What are we avoiding? It seems to me that there's just a lot of people who are uncomfortable with change in general, and unfortunately it is this attitude that has by and large caused social progress of important issues to stagnate. Too many people fight change for the sake of fighting change, and the end result is we don't improve as a society. Maybe taking small steps like this more often will help us with making the big steps more often too, and I think that's a more important consideration overall. Just my (wordy) $0.02.
wayneftw 6y ago
Continually asking me to change my speech offends me way more. Please stop doing that.
bioinformatics 6y ago
Yes, it's worth to remove words and terms even if it offends one person. We should start removing these from dictionaries and from our speech. One offended person is one too much.
- netsec_burn 6y ago
  Probably a good idea to add an /s to your comment, just in case the meaning is lost over the Internet.

bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago

I think you mean m*ster It's offensive to "some people" (mainly: opportunistic blue-haired white people with a variety of mental illnesses), so it's appropriate to censor your mention of the term — it matters not that you're not using it (in the use vs mention sense of the distinction). Sort of like the way we say "n-word", "c-word", "b-word", et cetera.