Updating the Language of SPI Pin Labels to Remove Casual References to Slavery | Hacker News Reader

Updating the Language of SPI Pin Labels to Remove Casual References to Slavery

hackaday.com

16 pointsdazhbog26 comments

As a black person, I find this to be pretty racist. The idea that this will appease blacks or is wanted by us is deeply insulting.

How disconnected from black experience can you be that you think this is important or desirable?

It trivializes our very important concerns about police brutality and systematic racism. Do you want to fight against slavery? Then lets campaign to abolish the exception in the 13th amendment.

I get your point, but the Open Source Hardware Association probably does not have much influence over more important issues.

I don't think this is so much of them saying "look at us we fixed it!" as much as it is them saying "we're taking responsibility for the domain over which we have power".

Seems more like a cheap, public religious exorcism; "thoughts and prayers"

"Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation."

-Lao Tzu

> As a black person, I find this to be pretty racist. The idea that this will appease blacks or is wanted by us is deeply insulting.

White-dominated society deciding to stop casually reinforcing racist ideology and trying to figure out how to do that isn't about appeasing blacks or appealing to them on the level of atomic steps (I suppose the end goal of a society with less pervasive racism is something that probably appeals to most blacks—it certainly does to me personally, but I wasn't elected to speak for the whole race.)

> How disconnected from black experience can you be that you think this is important or desirable?

I think it's pretty racist for you to declare that my experience must not be black enough, as I find it not terribly important in and of itself or, out of context, desirable, but a part of a direction which is both important and desirable.

> It trivializes our very important concerns about police brutality and systematic racism.

I disagree that it does, and I think claiming that it does requires adopting a fallacious line of thought of the pattern “Doing X at all implies that doing X is all that is necessary or desirable”. Were I to adopt such a pattern, I would say that this:

> Do you want to fight against slavery? Then lets campaign to abolish the exception in the 13th amendment.

...likewise trivializes our very important concerns about police brutality and systematic racism, because while historically centrally important in the formation of racist structures in our modern society and economy, actual de jure penal involuntary servitude in the hole created by the 13th Amendment exception is a small and decreasing part of that in the present.

But that's silly, because attacking the 13th Amendment hole doesn't mean not attacking all the other problems.

These are people who will do anything to destroy you. Question whether an SPI pin name is oppressive and risk having your career destroyed. It's not a matter of social progress, it's about seizing power and using any tool to do it.

I think that's the breakthrough I had in realizing whether it's worth arguing against the woke-mob. They don't care about arguments, they don't even have one.

What power exactly do you think is being seized through the renaming of a pin on a chip? And by who?

Renaming a pin isn't seizing power - it's exercising power that's already been taken or at least trying to be established, i.e. calling anyone who dares to question actions, movements, etc. a racist and destroying their livelihood. The power is through co-opting race issues, and other marginalized identities to silence debate and free thought. Oddly enough it's usually done by the managerial, urbane, upper-middle class white crowd.

It only destroys the livelihood of people who decide to die on some mountain of political thought exercise that doesn't belong in a professional workplace to begin with.

There's no transfer of power happening. Professionalism is and always has been inherently incompatible with unfettered "debate and free thought".

If we spent our time changing specs every time someone somewhere gets offended by something that didn't even happen to their generation, we will be spending all our time doing only this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century

So ? I know there is still slavery. There are still people who die, should I stop using the phrase "the server is dead" because I might offend you since you lost your grandma ?

While there has been so many pushes like this to remove the words of slavery from our consciousness, it's important to be conscious of the fact that there are more people living in slavery right now than ever before in history.

Well that’s interesting, but could easily be do to an explosion of population. Anyone have historical per capita numbers? They seem to be hard to find.

Difficult to find such data, but population explosion surely helped scale up the absolute numbers.

Nevertheless, a lower rate of slavery per capita should still not suffice as a satisfactory excuse for us to ignore the uncomfortable present realities of the tens of millions of people currently living as slaves.

Completely agree, my issue is only with the presentation of data while not providing context for it which I feel is disingenuous in an argument that has no need to be disingenuous.

How amusing.

As a thought experiment, if using the term "slave" is prohibitively offensive in a computer program (even if the reference is only conceptual and doesn't have anything to do with human slavery--as anyone with half a brain knows), what is supposed to happen in the event that a program, or some "casual" text actually does need to refer to actual human slavery? Is it a topic that can no longer be put to words, because the words are offensive? For example, what if I wrote a computer program to do some sort of analysis on historical slavery data. Is it acceptable or not to name a variable "slaves?" Do I have to rename it "disadvantagedPersonsThanksBLM" ?

Would the reasoning be "conceptual slavery cannot be expressed in such a way, but real slavery is permissible to express" ?

What's next, "leader?" Maybe red-black trees have to be renamed? Integration tests? Maybe we have to switch default terminal colors to pink-purple to satisfy the definitely-not-fascists?

It's easier to try and remove words to show everyone you're "doing something" than to actually make a real change.

I think proponents of this change would say that talking about slavery is the perfect time to use the word "slavery". This is about an organization deciding to stop using the word for something that is not slavery.

I would say that both "slaves" and "disadvantagedPersonsThanksBLM" are likely both inappropriate variable names for your program. You should probably pick something that is more descriptive of the function.

Open hardware associasion's post

https://www.oshwa.org/a-resolution-to-redefine-spi-signal-na...

"our community has gone this long without acknowledging the need to treat all humans with respect."

Wait is that what we weren't doing by using the terms "slave" in a different context than anything resembling the actual slave trade? Come on now, we're all adults here. Have some respect for our own autonomy of thought.

Also, great job calling out all those companies who haven't given in to your ludicrous demands. That'll get the PR people there so scared they won't have a choice but to do what you say.

I was doing this in my SCH's years ago. Before I plug in any wire, I first ask permission to touch it and what it's preferred pronoun is

I would like to know if those who effectively are slaves now, would approve of this. It looks like doing something to feel good without checking whether it actually does any good.

Continuing to use obsolete terms like MISO is double-plus-ungood.

The only problem I have with this extremist campaign is that it's about controlling other people. Disagreeing with their narrative publicly means risking their attempt at cancelling your livelihood. You couldn't even disagree within an organization safely.

They're not asking nicely. They're not actually asking at all. You either agree with the change or you are branded an Enemy of Progress.

Imagine an employee at a Big Tech Company publicly disagreeing with the change solely for the fact that they don't wish to succumb to bullying. Many nerds have a visceral reaction to bullies.

Paradoxically, these people are forcing others to take actions against their will. They're making themselves masters and making slaves of others.

This isn't about racism anymore (and I doubt it ever was).

It's about imposing draconian penalties on anyone that doesn't yield.

They're interested in power - it's a naked power grab, and they shield it with their claims of vulnerability and powerlessness.

Social standards change over time, they always have and always will. And when you do business, others will expect you to conform to those standards.

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