Hacker News Reader

Comment by spangry | Hacker News Reader

It's not just a simple case of 'update the wiki'. You've actually got to modify the code and potentially break already established APIs (and break scripts that parse redis logs).

But putting aside the fact that it's not costless to make these sorts of changes, it's also pointless. These people will never be satisfied. They're not offended; they're bullies who want to control other people and virtue signal to their bully friends. Giving in to their 'little change' just encourages more bullying, more salami-slicing, more 'little changes' (e.g. removing any reference to the word 'whitelist', instituting a code of conduct etc.).

Redis is open-source: if their political sensibilities are so offended, they can fork the project (like ayojs for example, https://github.com/ayojs/ayo).

View on HN

By "Update the wiki" I do also mean "sure just do the work yourself." We're saying the same thing.

That said, fighting against things you claim to have no preference over you're also partaking in the same control/power trip shenanigans. That's when things really go off the rails.

Not really.

It's not the particular choice of words that bothers people. It's the fact that they either have to submit to the frivolous power-trippers or die on a hill they don't particularly want to, in this case defending the word 'slave'.

You're saying they should just submit, despite the fact that they realise the whole point of it all just is their submission.

In other words, submit to the bully because, otherwise, you're just as bad as him.

The rub is you really don't know what their motivation is. You can suspect but if they're willing to put in the all the work, it costs you nothing.

Going on some crusade for no gain or loss and only to deny someone else is just whipping up drama. If you have legitimate complaints, make them.

This doesn't have anything to do with politics. Any argument based around "I don't care so you shouldn't either" is bound to cause issues.

Yes. I don't know their motivation the same way a man is presumed innocent in a court.

But people are not courts. So I do not need, not is it practical, to act like one.

However, I do know the justifications their proponents present for it. And I do know that they're frivolous. They just claim it will somehow make the world better.

They set up a conjecture - that abstract people abstractly suffer when they read those words - and proceed to impose a real action based on the conjecture: we have to delete the words.

Notice how no actual person is presented has having suffered from reading these words in Python code, let alone questioned (like a witness in a court, btw). So no actual suffering is presented.

Yet, the actions, the imposition, is concrete. It is actual. Some very actual people will have something imposed on them directly and indirectly because of this frivolous conjecture.

And the conjecture is frivolous precisely because it is an extraordinary claim - that people suffer when they read 'slave' in the context of Python code - that is presented without a single shred of anecdotal evidence, let alone proof or demonstration.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com