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I really hate this excuse. "Oh, it's okay that he's an asshole, he's European!!"

I think this is what I've heard referred to on conservative forums as "the soft bigotry of low expectations." It's arguing that he doesn't know any better, he acts this way because that's how his people act. That sort of reasoning has historically led nowhere good, and it's pretty insulting to everyone of his race who's capable of not being an asshole.

I've met really nice Finish guys, so probably not everyone is an asshole. Communication culture in Northern Europe is a lot more direct than what I experienced in North America though. So it's not low expectations, there is a real difference in cultures here. What might seem extreme in an American context might be just the top end of the "directness" scale in Finland.

Bigotry of low expectations is something like saying voter ID is racist because black people don't have voter IDs and are not reasonably expected to be able to obtain them.

As a German in Britain, lots of the politeness and round-about-ness I see here would be seen as wasting people's time back home, or even worse, been interpreted as implying a need for coddling.

> What might seem extreme in an American context might be just the top end of the "directness" scale in Finland.

Sure. But he knows that, right? In which case participating in an international project with the extreme of norms in your homeland is not a "he can't help it" situation. It's no different from me saying "I'm not Finnish, but I really like Finnish culture, so I'm going to be an asshole." I'm still choosing to be an asshole.

> Bigotry of low expectations is something like saying voter ID is racist because black people don't have voter IDs and are not reasonably expected to be able to obtain them.

(This is mostly off topic, but the standard claim here is that the legal system makes it intentionally difficult for black people, or people who live in majority black areas, or poor people to obtain voter IDs. I don't think I've seen a serious argument that anyone actually thinks black people are racially less competent at getting IDs.)

It might not be an excuse, but judging by the things people are offended by in America, it really is a cultural difference.

I dare you to find European devs who believe terms slave and master in tech context are offensive and should be replaced.

I've never seen that care to share an example - but non native speakers can often make accidently offensive mistakes using the informal Du verses Sie.

I also saw a Swedish guy suggest (on a Stack Overflow Site) that some one with the first name Mohammed change this to his "White" name of Martin - they seemed totally oblivious of what they just sugested

> I dare you to find European devs who believe terms slave and master in tech context are offensive and should be replaced.

What's with the Europeans or Americans believing all sorts of generalized falsehoods about their counterparts ?

Of course there are European developers who hold such beliefs.

I'm sure there are, but the majority of Europeans would believe this is absurd and nonsense. You understood very well what I meant.

As would the majority of US devs. I just don't think there is a big difference.

> I dare you to find European devs who believe terms slave and master in tech context are offensive and should be replaced.

Oh, hello, I'm a European dev and I'm making a concerted effort to remove those terms both from my vocabulary and any code / tickets / documentation I come across.

And why would you do anything like that? To pamper to American counterparts? if you really are a Euro, you're brainwashed by American identity politics. Too bad they leak over the ocean.

> To pamper to American counterparts?

I think you'll find that the Americans don't have the only legacy of slavery to be worried about - they just kept it going longer than most. As a British person, I've got more than enough historical shame about slavery to make me want to avoid those terms.

There's no reason to be ashamed of, it's history. You didn't take part of it. By that standards, the whole world should be morning out of shame. There is no country that becomes one without violence, that is how the countries were born. Hence every citizen of each country should be ashamed of x.

Why are you so attached to the words "master" and "slave" anyway? Just because that's the way it was done in the past? Is inertia more important than connotation?

"Primary" and "replica" seem just as good to me.

I'm often puzzled by what things Americans find offensive, and how random that gets. Americans range from "tough," to ones who just can't wait to find another pretense to claim themselves being offended by something.

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