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Comment by asymmetric | Hacker News Reader

Interesting project, but I find it unfortunate that they chose such a historically loaded term.

I thought of ants and bees.

In a pro-decentralisation context, the interpretation you're referring to--which is the pinnacle of centralisation forced through violence for selfish goals--is so obviously irrelevant, that it didn't even come to mind.

It will probably come to mind for folks whose families were affected violently by colonization.

That this wasn't brought up during the naming process paints a pretty clear picture of the team's demographic makeup.

Edit: Yep. https://blog.colony.io/colony-q3-update-9daa57d0918c

Touché (and yes, I would also blend into that picture seamlessly).

Perhaps it was brought up, and not deemed relevant?

"come[s] to mind" != "triggered"

Suggesting a team should alter its "demographic" ("diversity" hiring) for the sake of such a weak association is extreme.

Hm, making the name of a brand you intend to market worldwide something deeply offensive to a huge swath of the world is a pretty poor decision.

I'm not saying their hiring "should" be altered, but I do think were it more inclusive, this would have never flown. Maybe that speaks to the value a diverse team brings to an organization.

I'm not convinced it is "deeply offensive to a huge swath of the world". Or that a diverse team would bring more value.

Yes ants and bees! And the intelligence with which they organise their work and life https://blog.colony.io/the-future-of-work-cf99211e7ac4

My first association was "space colony". Colony on the moon, mars etc.

I agree. It is really unfortunate, especially for something that is trying to remove relationships of dominance.

Agree,It's a big turn off for me personally to be honest. And I imagine institues in countries which were once colonized wouldn't be excited about using such a product/project due to fair historical reasons.

An organisation that throws out a tool because of its own insecure projections on its name has more problems..

Organizations still consist of people. An organization that forces it's employees to work with a tool that has a very historically charged name, one which perhaps even degrades the people working, is gonna have much more trouble than the one which threw out the tool because of the name, at least that's my opinion. Imagine a british company asking it's division, in what was a former colony, to work with a tool called colony. You could be a fully technical person who has no regard for how certain words were used historically and just understand them by definition and without the historical context, but then you shouldn't be in a position making managerial decisions which affect your international workforce.

Did you see my other post? Now you've upped the ante; even working with this tool "degrades" people.. A pretty big stretch imo, especially since "colony" is otherwise a pretty common word - you are only focusing on negative semantics.

> Imagine a british company..

I can, and still see no problem.

> but then you shouldn't be in a position

Why? By what standard does anyone weight "historical context"? It's your supposition that there would be any affect at all to international workers.

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