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ZFS Removes References to Slavery

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Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#141
post #116
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the compelled speech in Canada, in regards to gender pronouns.

This is a legal hypothetical advocated by Jordan Peterson and not actually ever demonstrated in reality / tested in court / etc., right? (That is, neither Peterson nor anyone else has said that they were compelled to speak in a certain way and there are no legal proceedings against anyone who has refused to speak in a certain way, right?)

I'm not sure if the compelled speech was actually adopted into law. I'm referring to Jordan Peterson's interview and senate hearing in relation to the law.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kasiov0ytEc

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnIAAkSNtqo&t=8s

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not at all difficult to assume that something is offensive to someone, but not to me. It's extremely easy that for any different person, different phrases are considered offensive. But the solution of 'let's create a world where nothing is offensive anymore' seems ludicrous. I don't think there is a racial bias in associating blackness w/ evil or 'whiteness' with good, I rather think it has to do with night/dark…

> I don't think there is a racial bias in associating blackness w/ evil or 'whiteness' with good, I rather think it has to do with night/darkness vs day/light. Do you think 'red' as a widely used 'warning light' somehow relates to 'native Americans'? I think maybe I didn’t make my point clear here. I don’t think that in these particular examples there exists racial bias in the language. The language (most languages)…

I am too tired to de-construct this in full, just a few short points:

- It's about where the goal post is. Let's not forget what the original discussion is about. You invoke a lot of 'emotional imagery' ('why not be kind'), we are talking about long standing naming conventions that can be thought of as being non-racial and no one had a problem with 2 months or 2 years ago, now becoming a problem because people think they are doing something positive here, while it's not addressing ANY problem regarding racism at all ...

- software is both, living and artifact - we are not talking about a new program written in 2020 using some weirdly offensive and arcane naming conventions, we are talking about retroactively updating naming conventions in programs. Regarding societal norms we always play catch up, should I vet my code once a week to check if it is still conforming to PC-culture?

- software is a technical thing, we programmers like to think of it as non-political ; like I've said multiple times I think already: when I read source code thinking about racism is so far off my radar, that it's insane to see 'master' and 'slave' and think of it (for me, at least). Which also ties in with the point I tried to make, that some people are so ingrained in their social justice war, that I think they just see 'racism' and 'bias' EVERYWHERE.

- a lot of people feel 'pressured' into complying with what they regard to be ridiculous changes (when it comes to technical merit) because there is a certain amount of people who view non-compliance with whatever their current crusade is about as 'unkind' - if you think me using master/slave terminology has something to do with the topic of racism in the United States, I refuse to make that connection I guess.

- ultimately: it's probably more about people patting themselves on the back, for having done something, and for having changed nothing - and I deeply resent that. In other words: blind activism at its best.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#143
post #116
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the compelled speech in Canada, in regards to gender pronouns.

This is a legal hypothetical advocated by Jordan Peterson and not actually ever demonstrated in reality / tested in court / etc., right? (That is, neither Peterson nor anyone else has said that they were compelled to speak in a certain way and there are no legal proceedings against anyone who has refused to speak in a certain way, right?)

It's not even a hypothetical. Peterson just completely misrepresented the law and actual lawyers have said that all of his claims were nonsense.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#144
post #48

I think this is a good thing. I'm not a fan of removing the master name, because master has more meanings than in the slavery context and its other meanings fit well the metaphor of master in IT. But they have not removed the master term. Only the slave term, which can go away. I will not miss it, it always felt weird to use this metaphor.

Why should we ban the word "slave"; aren't there more people living in slavery now, than ever before in history? Seems like if anything we should be raising awareness about that, not hiding it literally.

It's not about banning the word slave, we need this word, but the term slave in IT that is not necessary.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#145
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the definition for PoC? I want to know if I'm included.

It’s a discriminatory term excluding people suffering from albinism.

Please don't post flamebait here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#146
post #29

I invite people to read about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the so-called Red Guards. We are getting there. Be very careful what you say and what exact terms you use.

More importantly, these recent events are being likened to the Chinese cultural revolution _by Chinese people who lived through it._ That should give you enough of a signal to understand that this is not necessarily benign and in anybody’s best interest. I think the reason we use master and slave is simply that the words are short, equal length in both letters and syllables, and get the message across — cf leader/fol…

Same thing with eastern european communism.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no technical reason to make this change, it's an annoying change with literally zero positive impact on the world, this won't abolish slavery nor will it help anyone, it may help the promoters of this stupidity to feel better about themselves, like "look at us! we are aligned with the PC agenda! We're sooo progressive and docile!"

No technical reason, but clearly a political reason. And politics matter in an open project where diversity and collaboration are so important to their long-life goals. You don't agree —and that's fine— but does it harm you to rename it? That is past the initial inconvenience of it not being the word that it's been before... Is that any more inconvenient than the other API changes that almost all software goes throug…

What harm does it do to rename things based on nothing but the pathetic impulse to abide by the nonsensical PC agenda? Well, it introduces the need for me as a developer to adjust to a new naming scheme for no good reason, we know APIs change all the time, and adjusting to new naming schemes is part of the job, but when a project decides to break an API its always for a good reason, no professional team will ever break an API on a whim, because in most projects, people are aware that breaking APIs immediately deprecates massive amounts of code, and that these changes should only be made only if it's absolutely necessary; breaking APIs and forcing everyone else that just want to get the work done to comply to this nonsense is not going to help slaves around the world, if you really want to take action, set a donation prompt for a charity on the README or in the program itself as Vim does, but don't annoy the rest of us with this bs just so that you can feel better about yourself ffs

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#149
post #4

Is Linux going to be next? Let's ask Mr Torvalds nicely to remove all master / slave references in the Linux kernel because it is 'offensive'. /s I don't think such a request is practical given the kLOCs of those references which will break other software.

http://chng.it/gyDxtJNb - sign this petition!

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#150
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we ban the word "slave"; aren't there more people living in slavery now, than ever before in history? Seems like if anything we should be raising awareness about that, not hiding it literally.

It's not about banning the word slave, we need this word, but the term slave in IT that is not necessary.

Then why are IT professionals so eager to hide that word from themselves, when there are more people living in slavery now than ever before?
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