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Comment by adrianN | Hacker News Reader

I really don't understand how it helps against racism to purge language from certain words in contexts where they're not even applied to humans.

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Feels good without effort. Meaningful progress takes enormous amounts of time and tireless efforts, comparatively speaking.

A pull request, many even, isn’t going to fix systemic injustices and inequalities at societal levels. Slavery continues to exist today in the 21st century [1]. I’m unsure how some feel this is the case, but the bluntness seems necessary.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century (The International Labour Organization estimates that, by their definitions, over 40 million people are in some form of slavery today.)

Pretty much. Tutoring a minority kid would actually make a difference, but oh so much work. Much easier to change my FB background image to something trendy and downvote the "racists" who don't instead.

Not just tutoring minority kids. Advocating for efforts against police brutality. Advocating for prison reform, drug decriminalization, ending cash bail, free school meals (breakfast and lunch) for all children K-12 as well as improvements to educational infrastructure in disadvantaged communities. Structural changes, pulling strings that control the system.

Alas, these are not commits you can make and then move on. These must become your hobbies if you intend to see meaningful change in our lifetimes. Some of these listed above are my hobbies, and I hope they become yours if these causes matter to you.

IMO, only real actions, like tutoring minority kids, matters. You can "advocate" up, down, left, and sideways, and it will make not one whit of difference.

Want to change the world? Do the work.

I have had moderate success speaking with political representatives at local, state, and federal levels on these issues. Beyond that, campaign contributions to those who support these efforts (maxing out FEC contribution limits). Public policy changes are operating at scale (for example, over a million felons who have served their time in Florida have had their right to vote restored, which matters quite a bit).

Advocacy is work, and costly.

So you’re saying the only way for stuff to get done is for everyone to be “boots on the ground” and to never fund or work for advocacy organizations?

It doesn't fix anything directly, but it's an easy, effective way to show support for people who have been disenfranchised.

And it's the sum total that counts, so every little thing makes a difference. One project making changes doesn't have much of an impact, but if every project on GitHub did the same that would be a very clear message the tech industry isn't satisfied with the status quo.

Sometimes all it takes to stop a bully is for one person to speak up because then others that might have been keeping silent will feel more comfortable speaking up as well.

One can actually support oppressed people around them.

Why does someone want to show support to people who do not need that support after all?

Virtue signalling, plain and simple. Makes you look good to your peers without doing anything of substance.

I don't get why there isn't a sustained campaign to reach out for commitments from elected representative while they are largely working from home and more immune from the political pressures that keep them in lockstep maintaining the status quo. Now is the time to push for change from those who hold the power of the purse and frame laws.

This realization is what motivated me to start participating in charity over the past few years.

There has never been as much empty virtue signalling by privileged people as there is today. They declare the deck chairs on the Titanic to be offensive, remove a few of them, congratulate themselves and call it a day like their responsibility is absolved. Maybe they go the extra mile and try to get somebody fired for not speaking the same doublespeak as them.

But fixating on their theater achieves nothing. It just gives them more of the attention they crave. So I decided instead to donate my time and my money to good causes and actually help make things better, because this is in short supply.

The virtue signallers may or may not take note, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that if they're going to absolve themselves of doing the real work, someone else has to step up.

I avoid simply giving money to a lot of large charities. Fancy offices with executive level pay while they largely rely on donations and volunteers to do the real work for free. Kind of a corporation version of virtue signalling.

I'd rather donate food to the local animal refuge than give to them.

Some large charities are very effectively run. Charity water comes to mind. I think it’s important to not throw out the baby with the bathwater, and that donating to large nonprofits can be an effective use of resources if you’ve done your homework.

Why is the assumption that if people want to remove symbols/language that it means they aren’t also doing “real” work too? We can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time. We also should be able to acknowledge that terminology/symbols/language reinforce issues. If they weren’t significant, then we wouldn’t have so many people defending them.

It's not as if the vocabulary in tech doesn't change* every few decades anyway. In this case the vocabulary change is intentional, but even if one believes it misguided, it's hard to argue it's harmful.

* Myer and Sutherlands "On the Design of Display Processors" gives some sense of how we go around in circles (or, hopefully, spirals), but I'm unaware of any reference for how vocabulary changes while the concepts remain unaltered.

An example might be "prefix sum" calculations (or whatever they're called on GPUs nowadays), as these have appeared under different names back to before computers. (when hand calculating, in the days when "computer" was a job description, not a machine, and US Navy calculations took weeks to run, shallow parallel algorithms could save substantial sums)

It seems easy to argue that it's harmful. They're actively wasting people's time, and making it seem like civil rights activists don't have any legitimate complaints if this is the kind of stuff they spend their energy on.

This is an important point. Pushing trivia like this uses up the attention and good will that people have to spend on the larger issues. If you want to change the world, lead with what actually matters.

> In this case the vocabulary change is intentional, but even if one believes it misguided, it's hard to argue it's harmful.

Often it isn't harmful, but sometimes it can be, so that is why to be careful of it, I think.

Altering comments (and documentation) is probably not harmful (as long as it remains clear, or in some cases, becomes even more clearly meaning), but altering names of commands and other stuff (especially if it is an exposed API) is more problematic, I think. (Changing them to same words as other things to be confusing, or breaking URLs, or whatever, is also harmful, though.)

I think that it is best to change the vocabulary when the concepts are altered, and to leave it the same when the concepts remain unaltered, although I am not trying to stop you or anyone from writing what they want to write; if they don't like these words, change them, especially if the new words are a better description of it anyways.

(But I believe in freedom of speech: If someone else doesn't want to change their program or document, don't force them to do so. But I also dislike copyright: I believe that if you don't like their program or document or whatever, you should be allowed to make (and use, and distribute) a modified copy.)

If I am incorrect, I do apologize, but I assume you are not a person of color, or perhaps you come from a country in which you are the majority.

I am a P.O.C, and these small things do set a bit of a tingle in my mind when I hear them. As a software developer, I cringe a bit to myself when I have to say terms like "whitelist" and "blacklist" or "master/slave" Obviously to you they may just be innocuous words, but think about what they represent: good vs. not good. Growing up in America, these terms hold a rather disgusting history -- and upon hearing them, I find it difficult to remove that context.

I don't think this has any racist connotations, but it can and does make some people feel needlessly uncomfortable. It's a small change, and I applaud their efforts.

White/black for good/evil predate American slavery by a few millennia. They aren't racial terms, they relate to light and darkness (as in EM radiation).

Consider this thought experiment: if you were a P.O.C., say black for example -- how would you feel growing up seeing that all things bad or ill are associated with the term that your people have been called.

Blacklist, blackball, black magic, blackmail, and the list goes on. You might have never thought of these things, simply because it may not a part of your daily life.

If we can fix this in even a small way: then why not?

I hope I would have the clarity of mind to realize that just because I have taken offense doesn't mean anyone has given offense.

I don’t think I’ve seen very many people that are purely black.

Most of them look like they are shades of brown to me.

It’s fucked up how many people will be here arguing that everything black being negative and everything white being positive predates racism.

Prepare yourself. I’ve read a lot of these threads lately and it’s really disappointing. The conversation instantly devolves into bullshit like that person in the GitHub issue claiming to be an orphan that’s offended by the term parent.

I think changing contribution guidelines and being more cognizant of offensive terms going forward is an obvious win. I’m not really sure what to think about API breaking changes though. Maybe a comment in the code linking to updated guidelines would be a pragmatic solution that doesn’t require breaking changes. It’s probably got to be assessed case by case.

What do you think of breaking changes?

- What do you think of breaking changes?

I think it is better to apologise and acknowledge for terms that are offensive rather than erase them.

While removing offensive 70’s TV comedy shows is probably a good thing to avoid perpetuating unhealthy stereotypes, preventing the use of 19th century literature is less helpful because we should not forget history.

> If we can fix this in even a small way: then why not?

Wouldn't a more straightforward and sensible solution be to stop referring to people with darker skin as 'black' since, actually, they're not that colour?

And conversely 'white' skin isn't white. So let's get rid of that reference too.

I'd argue that continuing to use black / white as racial descriptions is highly offensive because it originates in the era of institutional racism and slavery. Why perpetuate that attitude?

True, but it is also true that slavery predates the colonisation of the Americas.

(British cultural reference - What have the Romans ever done for us? Monty Python. - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7tvauOJMHo )

But the issue at hand here is very important and should not be made lite of.

The first time I saw documentation guidelines was while working for a large US software house in the early 90’s. This was a marketing led initiative, along with very specific instructions about correct use of trademarks the guide was prescriptive about always using female pronouns.

Three decades later we still have significant gender bias in the industry but in my experience things have improved almost beyond recognition.

In that time, attitudes to race, gender and sexuality have advanced significantly in the US and European corporations. I still come across unacceptable attitudes and language, but open sexism, racism and anti semitism is almost non existent. Sadly this is not yet true in some of the emerging market countries I’ve worked in.

The use of language may or may not have contributed to this welcome change, but what was at the time called positive discrimination, a term that in itself is possibly no longer politically correct, did definitely draw attention to an issue that was otherwise not generally discussed at work.

The conversation about pronouns has moved on too.

My somewhat longwinded preamble does have a point, the language we use can make people think about issues they would not otherwise be aware of.

I don’t know if the terms master and servant are generally considered acceptable, my guess is master/slave is predominant because it is meaningful, short and easy to spell and in itself is not racist language.

I think that at least some of the corporate avalanche of support for the current protests is no less cynical and self serving than the political correctness in marketing of the early 90’s, but it will still result in positive change.

> I don't think this has any racist connotations

I have a really hard time making sense of this sentiment. You're stipulating that the words have truly no ill intent whatsoever, and yet you're happy that they're being banned?

And beyond that, does this sort of thing really belong in the top ten thousand concerns of anyone, when it comes to making the world a better place?

I ask you in earnest: What do you think of the depiction of black clothes (eg. The Matrix) as badass and the depiction of white robes (eg. religious garment, angels) as signs of purity?

I just googled what is P.O.C. (Assumed I'm right.) Then, I'm a P.O.C also. I don't have a bad feeling as you when I heard the word related to my color. (I'm not growing up or living in America)

In my country, saying the color won't hurt others (that's not offensive words). But we know when or how to say the Color will hurt them (the Color word became offensive word). (I don't know how to tell you the exact example..long story)

I'm trying to understand you.

1. Do you have any bad experience? for example, people pointed at you and say a color word hurt you. Is it very common in US?

2. If whitelist = bad; If blacklist = good

will you have the same feeling?

3. Do you really think white/black list linking to master/slave, or just try to avoid it in the future? (because the society telling you not to say that) [educated to feel bad and deep feeling from heart, I think that's different)

4. When will you feel good (or no bad feelings) when you see the word Black / White (or your color)? (I will feel confused if your answer is never)

It doesn't. That's not the point. It never was.

"A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to." -Anthony Daniels

I don't believe political correctness is a hidden agenda to control the populace. It's much easier to explain by well meaning people trying to help.

Someone (maybe the Russians?) had a folk saying: May the gods please save us from those who are only trying to help.

It can be both.

During Operation Mockingbird [0] the CIA found that they only had to infiltrate a relatively small nimber of the news outlets in order to sway public opinion. They placed stories with both cooperating and unwitting journalists.

Useful idiots can be very useful.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

Humans have to use and read the code.

The word "slave" obviously doesn't mean anything to you, but is it not within your comprehension to see how it could be a painful word to encounter, in any context, for some of our fellow humans?

I believe that almost everybody who is able to read code is also able to understand that words have different meanings in different contexts and a RNG really doesn't suffer if it's a slave to another RNG.

If you can’t see why the term “slave” might cause issues I don’t know what to tell you.

I really don't see it. For example the term pet is perfectly fine when applied to a dog, but very questionable when applied to a human. Should we rename pets to something else?

I don't know how else to put this but you really seem to lack empathy for your fellow human beings.

You are turning people's real pain into a pedantic discussion about language and context, and ignoring the real-world context of this specific scenario.

The tone deafness is astounding.

You wish to ban words, to what end?

Don’t be that guy. You’re derailing the conversation. No one is “banning” a word. We are saying that a term should be dropped and a more appropriate one brought into usage. No one is “banned” from saying the word slave and no one is advocating for it.

I'm not that guy, but it is a legitimate enquiry. This is currently about existing projects, old code, some of it even a bit "stale".

What about new projects, are they to avoid these words too, and what would you call that?

I wish the best to all blacks, queers, trans and minorities, as all voices are unique and important. But that doesn't mean we drop principles like liberty of speech and thought. If people are hurt, that needs to be addressed, and this (token gestures) just ain't enough.

TL;DR Going PC is not going to solve the root structural problem. Feeling good about short-term, shallow fixes are overrated.

The RNGs feelings aren’t at issue.

It's not about the inanimate object that is being described, it about the human who is encountering the word.

I can certainly think of other very objectionable and hurtful words that people don't want to encounter in any context.. I am sure you can think of some words too.

Why is it so hard for you to understand that this particular word falls in that category for a large number of people.

Again, it has nothing to do with context, it has to do with THE WORD ITSELF.

Slavery is at all time highs and those in Western democracies who supposedly rail against such things benefit immensely from it.

Removing a word from a codebase does absolutely nothing to help this. Most of the people claiming they are against slavery indirectly support it daily. Most coffee on Earth is made by unpaid forced child labour. Most chocolate production relies on the same.

I'll put forward that the vast majority of people who claim to care about the usage of the word slave don't think in the slightest about the prevalent modern existence of actual slaves or will do anything to change it at their own expense. Words are cheap, slacktivism is cheap, taking personal responsibility and actively avoiding slave products is not.

> Estimates of the number of slaves today range from around 21 million to 46 million[0]

> Approximately 2.1 million children in West Africa "still do the dangerous and physically taxing work of harvesting cocoa". The report suggested that it would be an uphill battle to improve the situation. [1]

> An undercover probe has discovered child labour at farms linked to coffee giant Nespresso.[2]

> Uighurs and other minorities aren’t just being subjected to forced re-education — they’re being used as slave labor after completing their terms of “study.”

> The ASPI estimates that up to 80,000 Uighurs have been forced into labor camps this way, some of them directly after finishing their indoctrination at Chinese re-education centers. The report includes three case studies focused on factories producing goods for Nike, Adidas/Fila, and Apple. A total of 83 companies have been identified as benefiting from these practices [5]

Hopefully one day those enjoying a chocolate latte at Starbucks wearing designer clothes made by indentured workers while posting about slavery on their iPhone will see the irony. [3][4][5]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_cocoa_producti...

[2] https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/26/nespresso-exposed-using-child...

[3] https://labs.theguardian.com/unicef-child-labour/

[4] https://www.fastcompany.com/90279693/did-a-slave-make-your-s...

[5] https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/306909-report-china-sell...

Because ultimately code is read by humans and some of them don't enjoy having to be reminded about slavery when reading code, and we can do without these inconsiderate metaphors.

I think at large, while some changes might be more performative than others, removing master/slave terminology seems pretty clear cut.

It clears the mind of problematic thoughts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak#Vocabulary

It's the rise of "radical political correctness".

IMHO things like this should be treated like the trolls they are; and not fed, lest important projects get overrun by this BS.

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