Stumbled upon this when looking for help on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/github/comments/1cwag3q/are_race_conditions_racist/?chainedposts=t3_n8qi6n
this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024
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You do? Because I don't. There is nothing racist about the concept of master. Is a masterpiece racist? Are master tapes, Are post-graduate degrees racist? We may as well declare "work" insensitive because slaves had to work.
Don't get me wrong, there are many terms we should adjust. I just can't see how "master" is one of them.
I'd argue that abolishing the term "slave" isn't the worst idea, implying that the word "master," only in context where it's paired with "slave," should go as well - but that, of course, requires nuance, which a simple word filter lacks.
This. To avoid the "master" branch on our git to be associated with "slave" I now name new branches "bitch"
There aren't "slaves" in git, though. The term "master" in that context is that of a master copy.
Nope. Bitkeeper used it in the master-slave pairing and the term was carried forward. Gitlab did a whole writeup about it.
"Historically, the default name for this initial branch was master. This term came from Bitkeeper, a predecessor to Git. Bitkeeper referred to the source of truth as the "master repository" and other copies as "slave repositories". This shows how common master/slave references have been in technology, and the difficulty in knowing how the term master should be interpreted."
Excerpt from the link the other member posted above! You're welcome!
It's funny, because a quick online search shows gitlab runs operations in Saudi Arabia. But at least a bunch of idiot westerners get to feel good about themselves 🤷♂️
And a master copy is used to produce slaves - though slave isn't widespread in version control it's still quite present in databases. And it all comes from the same Master/Slave naming habit.
It doesn't. See: master tapes and the mastering process.
Sorry, the maining process.
Just skip the intermediate naming conventions and go straight to
dom/subAnd yet there's a big push to rename git "master" branches, which have no slave connotations and are more analogous to master recordings.
Its not like I'll fight it, but it's stupid.
It is stupid, and it's because of a failure to understand the nuance.
I will not inconvenience myself or anyone else by making any changes to existing configurations, which will surely break workflows, but I don't give a shit what the main branch is called as long as it's obvious.
you mean master?
Black/white as bad/good is a clear case where there is a clear logical reason to change IMO. That perpetuates unconscious bias.
Evil forces of darkness and good forces of light is engrained into our cultural DNA. Night=dangerous, day=safe is just something you have to learn early as a woman, it is a fact of society and we can't pretend it isn't.
Dark lord, black rider, white knight... why focus on whitelist/blacklist specifically?
Because allow/blocklist are just as old if not even older and are way clearer terminology.
"white" and "black" there are metaphors, the "master" in git branches and SCSI isn't.
See at some point you have to ask yourself the question whether you'd be opposed to the change if blue-haired college students really into performative politics weren't a thing. Imagine the idea coming from your slightly computer-illiterate 60yold shop floor boss saying "I don't want to think about the terms here, I want to do CAD/CAM. Speak English, whippersnapper".
You're probably right about that. It is irritating though that we've added more syllables.
I'm just grumpy because I don't like random change for no reason. I think I'm probably in the 99th percentile for how irritated I get when software or a website changes its layout. I also haven't seen any trustworthy anecdotes of people who find the term blacklist/whitelist offensive to them, but I don't really go looking either. Perhaps I should.
https://lemmy.world/comment/10449033
I thought it was dumb too but, to be honest, I kind of prefer using "main" now. It's quicker to type lol
Why abolish the word slave? I've heard of people advocating for abolishing the word "black" also. It's crazy to me. I don't understand how using the word at all somehow advocates for human slavery.
It draws unfortunate parallels.
I do agree that the proposals to abolish "black" feel a bit misguided though surely well-intentioned; the etymology of "blacklist," for example, has no relation to race whatsoever. However, there are unfortunate parallels with how "black" and "white" people were and indeed are still treated differently.
What happens is that the term "black" takes on negative connotations in a million different ways. "Blacklist" being one example. It may have no overt connection to race, but it gains it through repeated use in different contexts. Your brain doesn't necessarily encode the different contexts in separate ways. You may be able to think it through at a high level of rationality in a debate, but not when you're out on the street going about your day.
The solution may not be to change the language, though. There are too many longstanding cultural associations with black = evil, and there's just no way to get rid of them all.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-bad-is-black-effect/
"Although psychologists have known for a long time that people associate dark skin with negative personality traits, this research shows that the reverse is also true: when we hear about an evil act, we are more likely to believe it was done by someone with darker skin. This “bad is black” effect may have its roots in our deep-seated human tendency to associate darkness with wickedness. Across time and cultures, we tend to portray villains as more likely to be active during nighttime and to don black clothing. Similarly, our heroes are often associated with daytime and lighter colors. These mental associations between color and morality may negatively bias us against people with darker skin tones. If this is true, it has far-reaching implications for our justice system. For example, eye witnesses to crimes may be more likely to falsely identify suspects who possess darker skin."
"Overall, the “bad is black” effect only underscores the importance of finding ways to combat the various ways that our inherent biases can influence perceptions of guilt and innocence. Understanding the extent of these biases, as well as what may be causing them, represents an important first step."
Humans, conversely, are incredibly talented at deciphering nuance, except when they don’t want to.
It upsets some people. It doesn't affect the end user. The terms "Bull Branch" and "Cuck Branch" will make stand up meeting more fun.
Isn't the master branch the submissive one? Always behind, getting force fed content from the other branches.
You take that push!
I guess it could be construed as racist when it's literally "master/slave". But I have never seen it as a normalization of slavery because there usually is no value attached to the terms, it's just describing the relation between them. And I don't think acknowledging that a slave generally doesn't have much say in doing what their master tells them is racist in itself or endorsing/normalizing slavery.
But also, I am white, and there are other terms we can use that can describe this kind of relation just fine, so, whatever. I just get mildly annoyed when some stuff that was working perfectly fine gets deprecated just to change these terms and I have to adapt to it.
Master/slave indicates a relationship between two things. You can have masters and slaves in mechanics, for example. We've also had masters and slaves for decades in the tech field. Drives and floppy readers used to be configured in a master/slave setting. And of course, you have masters and slaves in programming.
None of these examples have anything to do with race or human slavery. They're just a way to describe how two things interact with each other. Human slavery is called that way because the relationship between the slaves and the masters can be described by that word, not the other way around.
It's clear that we should stop using racist words with racist intentions. No-one argues that human slavery should be allowed. However, in this case, there's no intention of racism in the words, and we shouldn't stop using words just because they can be used in a racist setting. Same thing goes with black paint. It's clear that the word black is describing a color, and it is needed to correctly describe it.
I work with databases and don't use master/slave because it's not really accurate. Replicas break a lot, and the primary doesn't have any control over them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_(technology)
here you go!
That is a very specific usage of the word "master". We can adjust that, while continuing to use "master" in all the cases where it has nothing to do with slavery.
Let's just call it the sensei branch and be done with it
Whatever ma'am, go name the branch at work a racial slur, I don't care
That's quite a toxic response, ma'am, and I do not understand why.
Why is it toxic?
Because that's like saying that "negro" is a slur when it's being used in a Spanish textbook. No it's a fucking color. Context is important and rewriting other languages because it seems hurtful in yours is super toxic.
Master means supreme, master piece, the supreme piece, master ball, supreme ball, master key, the supreme key. It was used in slavery because the master was the supreme entity for the slaves, in a bad way. One specific use of a word doesn't and shouldn't cover the inherent meaning of it and as a consequence all of its uses.
Tbh, I don't care which name is used for the supreme branch, be it main or master because my team usually renames them to prod/uat/dev and branches as feature_etc, but saying that others are using racial slurs because they are using the old default that makes perfect sense is toxic.
Ok, and do the people who are offended/hurt/affected by the user of "master" not finding your desire to continue using master toxic?
I think that it's about intolerance, some people are using a term in the intended non-slur manner, and others are intolerant about that rational desire. Even tolerant people shouldn't torerate intolerance, so no, being pissed about people telling them to stop using the term in the intended non-slur way is not toxic.
If that really hurts you, it's a you thing. It's not intentional, the meaning isn't derived from the slur, it's not a micro aggression. You won't like the answer, but toughen up.
So , why is toughening up not an option for you?
As stated in my comment:
Bro, I'm gonna asumme you are just creating fake outrage, holy shit.
ok. and that's what we're doing with you. multiple gigantic software institutions with actual people who are affected by this have made the change, and you're sitting there going "brah, it's not offensive, it's cool, get hard" .
you get hard.