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Tesla sued for severe harassment of black workers at California plant

theguardian.com

51–60 of 221 posts

Re: Tesla sued for severe harassment of black workers at California plant

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That's not even the worse part. The refusal to make a change that costs you nothing in order to stick it to people you don't like is much worse and indicates all sorts of behaviors you do not want on your team.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla sued for severe harassment of black workers at California plant

#52
post #42
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The «master» to «main» change was totally unnecessary and B.S. imho. Even 15 years ago, when I started my professional journey (in Germany) there were a lot of people who were gay, trans and so on in the dev community … and nobody cared about it. We were all passioned about technologies and respected each other based on commitment/engagement/skill level. At the end most of the true full blood developers were always «…

But it is also a technical improvement. main is easier to type. It takes a lot of effort to overcome the inertia of a default, so even if the reasoning is a bit suspect the outcome is going to be a win eventually.

Except its a very common adjective, so any time you refer to it you have to say 'main branch' otherwise you've introduced unnecessary ambiguity. Whereas 'master' refers to one thing and one thing only in most contexts (unless you're selling bedrooms).

Re: Tesla sued for severe harassment of black workers at California plant

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That's not even the worse part. The refusal to make a change that costs you nothing in order to stick it to people you don't like is much worse and indicates all sorts of behaviors you do not want on your team.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla sued for severe harassment of black workers at California plant

#54
post #41
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is not about that. The problem is that some people feel the need to bend over backwards, making symbolic gestures that do not change the underlying issue. As if renaming 'whitelist' to 'allowlist' is going to turn any neo-nazis into angels. George Carlin had a word or two to say about this phenomenon: https://youtu.be/hSp8IyaKCs0

I don’t think the idea is to convert neo-nazis. People feel pretty powerless to help fight racism and doing small things like this help them feel a bit better. Also, changing language that explicitly says “white good”, “black bad” can’t really hurt. It takes very little effort and “allow list” is actually clearer anyway.

> Also, changing language that explicitly says “white good”, “black bad” can’t really hurt. It takes very little effort and “allow list” is actually clearer anyway.

That isn't what they say at all. The only way that argument holds any water is with profound ignorance.

It's the same line of thinking as saying that "red team" is offensive because "red" used to be a derogatory term for native Americans. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34039816

Re: Tesla sued for severe harassment of black workers at California plant

#55
post #13

[flagged]

Capitalizing the "B" in "Black" is not some kind of reverse racism or a ploy to elevate one race above another. This is fundamentally about granting a basic level of recognition and respect to a community that has been uniquely disenfranchised. Their identity and history were forcibly taken from them due to the slave trade. They can't point to a specific nationality like "Japanese," "German," or "British" with a capital letter to highlight their roots, so the capital "B" serves as a symbolic nod to that lost heritage.

Re: Tesla sued for severe harassment of black workers at California plant

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That's not even the worse part. The refusal to make a change that costs you nothing in order to stick it to people you don't like is much worse and indicates all sorts of behaviors you do not want on your team.

Not diving into the debate about whether this is a useful change, but I do want to push back on the notion that this "costs you nothing." It costs effort, which means it costs billable hours, and therefore money. The question is if that spend pays dividends.

Re: Tesla sued for severe harassment of black workers at California plant

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That's not even the worse part. The refusal to make a change that costs you nothing in order to stick it to people you don't like is much worse and indicates all sorts of behaviors you do not want on your team.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla sued for severe harassment of black workers at California plant

#58
post #40
post #13

[flagged]

The «master» to «main» change was totally unnecessary and B.S. imho. Even 15 years ago, when I started my professional journey (in Germany) there were a lot of people who were gay, trans and so on in the dev community … and nobody cared about it. We were all passioned about technologies and respected each other based on commitment/engagement/skill level. At the end most of the true full blood developers were always «…

Yeah I dont think germany is a good example of mutual respect. Far from it actually. Racism and discrimination are rampant in that country, including in tech. Any german moralising americans on racism should first look at their own 10x issues.

Re: Tesla sued for severe harassment of black workers at California plant

#59
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'd never hire a software engineer who tried to make major disruptive changes to play meaningless language games and score social status points.

It may be meaningless to you. But it's not meaningless to other people.

Now you can choose not to care about their opinion and be dismissive of their integrity by claiming it's only for social status. But you're never going to hire the best engineers if that's the approach you take.

I've worked with some of the very best in the industry and never seen anyone do great things by being intolerant of people.

Re: Tesla sued for severe harassment of black workers at California plant

#60
post #47
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is also a technical improvement. main is easier to type. It takes a lot of effort to overcome the inertia of a default, so even if the reasoning is a bit suspect the outcome is going to be a win eventually.

This is such a silly argument. Let’s call it “m” then - it’s even easier to type, so should be an even bigger win, right? Thousands of scripts and workflows be damned.

Less silly than you might think. An important part of life is letting people you don't like make the world better. The people behind this change are the up-in-others-business personalities. They're always going to be destructive, but we should appreciate when they do a little good nevertheless.
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