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Edinburgh’s computer scientists banned from using Alice and Bob as too Western
- Proven 5y agoI propose Ali & Bob, a multicultural gay couple.
- agumonkey 5y agoI propose Aleph and Babeth
- gunfighthacksaw 5y agoBut the perfidious Eve and Oscar remain untouched… curious.
- smitty1e 5y agoClearly the Roman alphabet itself must be jettisoned.
- southerntofu 5y agoFor the people who don't use it as alphabet, i don't see a reason to learn the roman alphabet just to be able to use a computer. Imagine if you had to learn cyrillic alphabet or mandarin ideograms to use a computer?! See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qalb_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qalb_(programming_language)
- smitty1e 5y agoItalian is the language of opera. With the advent of unicode, cyrillic or mandarin programming languages can flourish.
- bmn__ 5y ago> mandarin ideograms That's called Chinese characters in English. In its entirety, that writing system is based on logograms, hence, a programming language uses logograms, too, not only ideograms. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22216125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22216125
- xhkkffbf 5y agoPretty much any sequence of unicode centers one linguistic tradition over another. Even choosing more modern arabic numerals over Roman numerals exclude some civilizations. I don't see a solution except for people to be, perhaps, a bit more flexible.
- southerntofu 5y agoWouldn't you say not always reusing the same two names is "a bit more flexible"?
- Ekaros 5y agoWe should question is more flexibility always a good thing? We have lot of established words and concepts? Should we be more flexible and invent new ones every time we try to communicate something? Or maybe cultural references too? Change those too why not? Maybe use Bob and Alice to refer story of two lovers ending in tragic end?
- southerntofu 5y ago> We should question is more flexibility always a good thing? In general, i would say so. A great deal of wars and suffering would be avoided if people were slightly more flexible and not so much into ethnocentric interpretations of the world. > invent new ones every time we try to communicate something? When explaining other concepts than cryptography, do you systematically borrow the same names? I guess not. Why would cryptography be any different?
- Ekaros 5y agoIn math variable names x, y, z are very common. Same goes for angles with greek alphabet. Maybe we should sometimes replace these with characters from other cultures? Maybe in programming we should start using things like umlauts as variables in short loops...
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- TazeTSchnitzel 5y agoIf an article is titled “Woke wars:” it's probably deliberately inflammatory.
- torstenvl 5y agoYour position is that it's the reporting that's inflammatory? Not the underlying accusation that someone is racist or colonialist for using "Alice" and "Bob"? That's absurd.
- ttmb 5y agoIt is possible for both to be inflammatory. The comment you replied to only mentioned the article.
- southerntofu 5y agoI downvoted because nowhere in the article did someone suggest that calling two personas Alice and Bob was racist or colonialist. That's an extrapolation you made on your own and makes no sense. Suggesting other names than Alice and Bob is part of a drive to use more diverse examples. Security is not just for Alice and Bob, but also for Anita and Bilal, and many others. Far from a new question, see also: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/09/replacing_alice.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/09/replacing_ali...
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- matthewmacleod 5y agoNah, it’s not absurd; it’s accurate. The Telegraph of late is a deliberately inflammatory campaigning newspaper. This story is a great example of that - it uses precisely-picked language in an attempt to goad you into a “WOKERATI PC GONE MAD” reaction, which has unfortunately been successful. In reality what has happened is a group of people has said “as academics we should be mindful of the legacy and effects of the language we use and the bias it can contain”. They want you to be mad about that, and it’s so silly to give them what they want.
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- bArray 5y agoA Western University, teaching mostly Western students a concept created by Western persons, is not allowed to use the well-known 'Alice' and 'Bob' actors in a security context because it's 'too Western'? They aren't claiming it's racist, nor could it be interpreted as such in the least favourable interpretation. Their 'problem' is that it's 'too Western', i.e. too White. Decolonization appears to just be the removal of White people... I don't know how I can frame that as anything other than cultural genocide. Is there seriously any ethnic minority people who see Western names used in a security example context and honestly believe they are being oppressed by it? I can't imagine anybody doing so in good faith. There is also the wider issue of restricted and compelled speech on University campuses - the exact places we expect to have the most intellectual freedom to explore modern issues. In the UK lecturers are forced to do "systematic bias" tests where they are given a split second to make some association, and 100% of the time the test concludes you are discriminating against a group (even if you shut your eyes and complete it randomly). How on earth can we expect academics to come to good conclusions if we restrict their words, thoughts and ideas?
- seibelj 5y agoCurrent understanding of math - that is, math taught in the tradition of Western colonial thought - is itself extremely horrific and problematic. Derrida proved that concepts such as “one”, “two”, and “addition” are inherently unstable and thus stating that 1 + 1 = 2 is not only fascist but ignores alternative schools of math developed outside of Western imperialism.
- southerntofu 5y agoFunny you should take this example on a tech-friendly forum. Many people here would be glad to let you know that 1 + 1 = 10. Also, a lot of people on this forum still use anglo-saxon imperial measures which are not based on a decimal system. Even in science, one truth can be looked/represented from many angles.
- bigbillheck 5y ago> Many people here would be glad to let you know that 1 + 1 = 10 Or 1+1=0.
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- seibelj 5y agoEvery time I buy a ruler I immediately use a marker to blank out the imperial units. Similarly I block out the speedometer on my car that uses imperialist “miles” per hour. Making an anti-imperialist vow is difficult but the only noble path in life.
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- protomyth 5y agoI sometimes wish all the energy spent on things that aren't actually offensive (e.g. naming hurricanes) would be spent on looking at actual problems that need fixing. For all this concern and "action", we still have no real changes on the reservations. I suspect other communities have the same damn problems. Words and writing are cheap and easy to soothe some guilt, action actually requires energy and time.
- southerntofu 5y agoWhy not both? Can we agree small steps to dismantle the cultural hegemony[0] (as seen in comments here where people feel the white race is under threat by fictional character names) is still a good step? I entirely agree with your point though, that people in power to make that kind of decision could do a lot more to challenge the balance of power in the world. If every well-thinking liberal on this planet organized to start a revolution and entirely do away with oppression in all forms, we'd be living in a free and egalitarian society by now. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony
- ldkdkdkdk 5y agoGod forbid that people have a culture
- me_me_me 5y agoFor this reason I am proposing everyone not speaking English, the cultural hegemony of English language combined with forced propaganda of Holywood english entertainment must be curbed. Sigh... Tell me who is it the position of power to enforce nomenclature of 'Alice and Bob'? An Alice and Bob alliance? Write your own paper with whatever names or none names you want and nobody will care. Did you even know that this came out of a -> b but to make it clearer a and b got names? People from outside given field are coming over and start making demands, be it CS or any other field. Last year we went though the 'defeated' of oppressive master branch in git, also black/white lists and such. To what end? NOBODY is CS ever connected term 'master branch' in git as something to do with slavery and nobody used it as some propaganda tool. There was a terminology of slave and master used for tasks or old HDDs, but it was organically phased out. Because it felt odd/unsavory using that terminology and people just moved on with different analogies.
- haunter 5y agoHN mods will remove this pretty soon or flagged to death
- benjamir 5y agoI suggest "Shut the fuck up" and "Alpaca": first one speaks for itself and the second one speaks for the chinese majority of the earth's population -- see homophone: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Mud_Horse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Mud_Horse Totally not western!
- bigbillheck 5y agoThe only source reporting this is the Telegraph, and I think people should take a deep breath and ask 'is somebody just trying to rile me up?' before getting mad.
- matthewmacleod 5y agoYeah, it is reasonable to conclude that an article worth the headline prefix “woke wars” has no interest in doing anything other than riling you up. I am so, so bored of people falling for this obvious manipulation.
- mst 5y agoThe Russell Group is a group of 24 universities, and this is attributed to Russell Group School of Informatics 'internal documents' of which there's not even a hint extant on the wider internet that I can find (the other articles are straight up re-rolls of the telegraph one). Do I find it plausible that a group of activists at the Russell Group bureaucracy level have written this bit of silliness into a set of guidelines? Sure. Do I think that "Edinburgh’s computer scientists banned" is an accurate reflection of the current situation? It's certainly a possibility, but not one I'd give much weight to without rather more definitive information than this.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> this is attributed to Russell Group School of Informatics 'internal documents' of which there's not even a hint extant on the wider internet I’m having trouble finding any indication of an entity called the “Russell Group School of Informatics”; individual universities in the Group seem to have such schools, but it sounds like there are major errors in the attribution reporting or, even worse, basic fact-checking of the documents.
- torstenvl 5y ago> major errors in the attribution reporting or, even worse, basic fact-checking of the documents No. There are major errors in your and GP's reading comprehension. The article is absolutely clear it is talking about Edinburgh's school of informatics. Immediately after spelling out the university's full name in the preceding sentence, the article says "The top-flight Russell Group university’s school of informatics claims there are 'problematic issues related to computing terminology'" That is the only mention of the Russell Group. Reasonable people may disagree, I suppose, as to whether the University of Edinburgh deserves an epithet like "the top-flight Russell Group university," but no reasonable person can disagree that that is exactly what the authors did.
- mst 5y ago"Russell Group School of Informatics" was literally a copy-paste from the article. My reading comprehension is just fine. So is my clipboard. It is, in fact, possible to be anti-wokescold and also care about criticising one's opponents precisely. I wish more people on the same side of the argument as me would remember that.
- norvig 5y agoI use "Ali" and "Bo", because they are (a) gender-neutral, (b) less Western, and (c) prefixes of "Alice" and "Bob".
- rcarmo 5y ago…and retain the important property of being in alphabetical order.
- me_me_me 5y agoto gain... absolutely nothing. I would even go as far as to claim you are devaluing your work by making your examples more confusing to the reader. Why not call A and B, 漢 and الْحُرُو That would surely be better
- dragonwriter 5y agoIf you are using the English language and names chosen to have unique starting letters in the Latin alphabet, starting with the first letter of that alphabet and moving forward, you have not meaningfully avoided Western (and more specifically Anglosphere) cultural bias, and avoiding domain-specific conventional names for that reason is a particularly meaningless gesture.
- TMWNN 5y agoHighly relevant: "lower case as Indigenous 'eventing' support resistance" (<https://www.mtroyal.ca/AboutMountRoyal/MediaRoom/Perspectives/2021/08/lower-case-as-indigenous-eventing-support-resistance.htm https://www.mtroyal.ca/AboutMountRoyal/MediaRoom/Perspective...>) From the Mount Royal University website: >this is a beginning effort at describing the use of lower case on the website of the office of indigenization and decolonization. [...] >we resist acknowledging the power structures that oppress and join the movement that does not capitalize. ("Indigenous" is intentionally capitalized by the author.)