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Comment by mrzimmerman | Hacker News Reader

I actually thought you meant people like the comment you're responding to, but then I realized you also appear to be arguing in bad faith.

"Master of <subject_matter>" is pretty clear in that a person has mastered a trade or an area of study! No one confuses that with the idea of "Master/Slave" or "Master Branch" which implies a hierarchy that reminds some people of slavery, particularly the slavery that was practiced in the US.

There's an obvious contextual difference, and it's not some political conspiracy from an imagined "leftist elites" that I assume you think are coming for you. Conspiracy theories are unhealthy and I personally think you should let this one go.

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"Master Branch" does not imply a hierarchy any more than a master key does. It's simply an original from which copies can be made.

You know what actually sounds like a conspiracy theory? Believing that a word with no link to racism at all is racist because a company told you it was in a disgusting attempt to garner social justice points without actually doing anything helpful.

The only thing unhealthy here is inventing problems where there aren't any and then trying to force the majority population to go along with your insane ideology while trying to paint them as bigoted if they don't like it. Sounds like a recipe for creating a dystopian society.

Please tell me what good will come out of this? Because I can think of a lot of negatives.

>a word with no link to racism

Slave owning in the US was heavily linked to racist ideology, that's simply history.

> without actually doing anything helpful.

"main" is both shorter and more ergonomic to type

> then trying to force

None of my old repos have broke over the new suggested default

> insane ideology

Maybe they took not being racist a little too far, but changing a single word is hardly "insane" or "ideology".

> while trying to paint them as bigoted if they don't like it

I think the only people getting painted as bigots are the ones painting themselves with their over-reactions.

> dystopian society

With the way some of these complaints were worded, you'd think they changed the default new repo branch name to "stalin" or "karlmarx" or "漳州市" and started disabling non-compliant accounts, so I had to read the article, no it's actually a really boring and unintrusive default branch name of "main" for new repos.

So you have no explanation as to how the word master is linked to black slavery in the United States? What's the point of your comment again?

You realize that word existed before the US was even a country right? You also realize that the word is used in many contexts with no relation to anything dealing with skin color or slavery right?

"Maybe they took not being racist a little too far, but changing a single word is hardly "insane" or "ideology"."

You've got your head in the sand and are oblivious to what's going on at a national level if you think this just involves a tiny one word change happening at GitHub. There's a broader cult like indoctrination happening with the current administration and it's cascading all the way down to schools and the workplace.

I'm really tired of hearing this spiel about how we shouldn't get upset because this is just one silly word. Well since it's filling children's minds with critical race theory in schools and training them they're subconsciously evil if they're a certain color I find it quite upsetting.

Btw here's the etymology of the word to prove your point even more incorrect https://www.etymonline.com/word/master

> So you have no explanation as to how the word master is linked to black slavery in the United States?

Black slaves had something called "masters".

> if you think this just involves a tiny one word change

I literally unironically believe this, and the only skin I have in this game is that "main" is shorter and more ergnomic to type.

> There's a broader cult like indoctrination happening

Yeah, it's called "qanon" and "postmodern conservatism".

> it's filling children's minds with critical race theory in schools

I'm not an alt right extremist who believes in nonsensical white supremacist conspiracy theories, so the fact that children are getting a real education is not a problem for me.

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