I love this article for the deep dive into "true" cargo cults. I learned a lot. I kinda disagree with its conclusion though. In my opinion the pop-culture interpretation of the term "cargo cult"...
I love this article for the deep dive into "true" cargo cults. I learned a lot.
I kinda disagree with its conclusion though. In my opinion the pop-culture interpretation of the term "cargo cult" has basically become ubiquitous. Language and metaphors like this evolve over time and take on their own meaning and I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that.
That being said, I do understand the redaction of certain charged terms (master branches in git, master and slave terminology in software or hardware configurations, stuff like that), so maybe it's warranted here for the same reason... but my gut says that referring to those still-existing modern day religions as "cargo cults" is the insulting thing we should stop doing, given that the term has taken on its own divergent meaning. (edit: And the term "cult" on its own is a charged term, quite often used as a pejorative when referring to someone's religious beliefs.)
Tbh I don't think that one ever made sense, and it's the change that least caught on. It's not like you had master branches and slave branches. It's master in the sense of master key or master...
master branches in git
Tbh I don't think that one ever made sense, and it's the change that least caught on. It's not like you had master branches and slave branches. It's master in the sense of master key or master copy. It's the master branch in the sense that it's the definitive branch. The root of the usage is completely different.
It's like if you got mad at a kung fu gym for calling their teacher "master".
This is likely incorrect. It is well-known that Linus created Git because he was frustrated with licensing issues around BitKeeper, which was the Linux kernel's VCS at the time. Well, BitKeeper at...
It's master in the sense of master key or master copy.
This is likely incorrect.
It is well-known that Linus created Git because he was frustrated with licensing issues around BitKeeper, which was the Linux kernel's VCS at the time. Well, BitKeeper at the time did use "master"/"slave" terminology. And this is where Linus almost certainly got the term "master" from.
Wikipedia is wrong about that one. While BitKeeper uses Master/Slave terminology (which doesn't make sense for copying a drive), Git has never used that terminology....
Wikipedia is wrong about that one. While BitKeeper uses Master/Slave terminology (which doesn't make sense for copying a drive), Git has never used that terminology.
I picked the names "master" (and "origin") in the early Git tooling back in 2005.
Q: Out of curiosity, why 'master'? What was it meant to convey? 'Master' as in 'original' or as in 'owner'?
A: "master" as in e.g. "master recording". Perhaps you could say the original, but viewed from the production process perspective.
No, Git never used that terminology, but I think it's likely that Linus (or, I guess, Petr Baudis, working with Linus) was copying BitKeeper's convention (rule?). I suppose it could just be a...
No, Git never used that terminology, but I think it's likely that Linus (or, I guess, Petr Baudis, working with Linus) was copying BitKeeper's convention (rule?).
I suppose it could just be a coincidence, but that would be a pretty weird coincidence, especially considering that fact that "master/slave" terminology was pretty common in computing back in those days.
It wouldn't be surprising if the term "slave" never appeared in anything related to Git, simply because Git has no formal notion of a hierarchy between branches. Really, if we were being extremely pedantic, we might call the first branch init or something like that. My guess is that the word "master" was chosen because, well, there had to be some default name for the first branch, and it might as well be term that BitKeeper used for its first branch. But, in Git, there's nothing intrinsically special about the initial branch, so there's no reason for Git to have a term for "non-initial" branches.
I don't give much weight to testimony 15 years after the fact, especially concerning something that was probably seen as inconsequential at the time.
Well, that sounds like a retcon. The commit itself literally says: ...
Well, that sounds like a retcon. The commit itself literally says:
For the purpose of this scenario, we are going to work with machines
with the following names: master.dmn.com and slave.dmn.com.
On machine 'master', we will create a new repository under the /u01
mount point:
...
In this section we are going to show how to interact with the master
repository and how to deal with merging and conflicts. For this demo,
we will need to create a small program which we will then push to
the master repository. We are then going to modify the file on both
the master and slave repository and then merge the work. For the sake
of simplicity, we are doing work in the master repository. However,
we recommend that the developers not do work in the master repo,
but do work in their local work areas. The local workareas are then
synchronized with the master repository. For example, the following
picture depicts recommended usage:
Peter Baudis (the author of the commit you linked) has acknowledged that it's likely (or not unlikely) that his choice of wording was influenced by bitkeeper, which makes sense since the master...
Peter Baudis (the author of the commit you linked) has acknowledged that it's likely (or not unlikely) that his choice of wording was influenced by bitkeeper, which makes sense since the master terminology was firmly ensconced in version control terminology by at the time of his writing. I suppose the origin is then a bit interesting semantically -- it was (I would say almost certainly) chosen to mean the same thing as bitkeeper, which was in the context of master/slave, but with the erroneous belief that bitkeeper meant it in the sense of a master copy. What does that mean etymologically?
Just wanted to add that this is a good point and it's not unlikely at all that the wording has been influenced by BK - more so than http://master.kernel.org .
I would go with intent, in the end. If Baudis didn't know about it, it is what it is. I would fault the word no more than I would fault someone using the word "Robot" for not knowing that...
I would go with intent, in the end. If Baudis didn't know about it, it is what it is. I would fault the word no more than I would fault someone using the word "Robot" for not knowing that etymologically, "Robot" comes from "slave".
The context that I first came across it was from Master/Slave Clocks. In this case, you have a clock that keeps time and another that copies the one that's keeping time. Which seems like the same...
The context that I first came across it was from Master/Slave Clocks. In this case, you have a clock that keeps time and another that copies the one that's keeping time. Which seems like the same relationship that is found in git.
It's very different actually. Master/Slave implies a Controller/Worker or a Main/Replica relationship where the services are performing distinct, ongoing actions for some goal. In that clock...
It's very different actually. Master/Slave implies a Controller/Worker or a Main/Replica relationship where the services are performing distinct, ongoing actions for some goal. In that clock system, the master/controller clock is driving the synchronization of the slave/worker clocks.
In comparison, when a new branch is cloned from the master branch, it's a totally separate thing and doesn't have any ongoing slave/worker process related to the master branch. Git uses master in the sense of master recording which is the original version of something which copies are derived from. This is according to the person that added "master" to Git almost 20 years ago.
Master recording itself is based on the same master/slave analogy, and "masters" are tied directly to ownership in the music / entertainment industries. Here's one article on the subject. A couple...
Master recording itself is based on the same master/slave analogy, and "masters" are tied directly to ownership in the music / entertainment industries.
Here's one article on the subject. A couple of relevant quotes (including one from one of the footnotes in the Wikipedia article you posted).
“Master” and “slave” are terms that have long been commonly linked to indicate a dominant/subservient relationship in electrical engineering and in many a recording studio. In the pre-digital era, in the context of recorded music, the terminology referred to the duplication process; it was a way of distinguishing between source recordings and the physical copies that were pressed from them and distributed for retail sale.
As recently as the ninth edition of Donald Passman’s industry bible “All You Need to Know About the Music Business,” released in 2015, the veteran attorney wrote that a master is the “controlling entity from which all copies are made — the machines making the copies are slaves. master/slave; get it?” The passage was removed from the current edition, released in 2019. “In updating my book, I realized this long-used industry term was inappropriate in the 21st century,” Passman tells Variety. “I felt bad that I had previously been tone deaf to the issue and wish I had thought more seriously about it earlier.”
TIL master recordings were often made with the help of slave tapes which would record one or two instruments to help make the final, authoritative master tape. I can't find many/any examples of...
TIL master recordings were often made with the help of slave tapes which would record one or two instruments to help make the final, authoritative master tape. I can't find many/any examples of dupes and copies being called slave tapes even historically because it doesn't make logical sense to call commercial duplicates slave tapes.
Thanks for helping me learn some more etymology, but I don't think this will change my opinion on the use of the word master in audio-visual work. Nobody thinks a "remaster" is related to slavery, and even Black record labels still call them master recordings.
While the original etymology may have been related to the concept of slavery, nowadays it doesn't seem to carry such meaning. If every usage of master and ownership is problematic, Pokémon would need to get rid of the master ball and Pokémon masters. I just can't see it as a real problem.
Considering the number of white people that have given me dirty glances for saying master bedroom, I think some people legitimately don't understand that the word master has uses unrelated to slavery.
Considering the number of white people that have given me dirty glances for saying master bedroom, I think some people legitimately don't understand that the word master has uses unrelated to slavery.
I think this writeup does a decent job explaining it as well. Back then, master was a catchall word in some ways, but now we have more-descriptive terms that evolved. So swapping it out for those...
I think this writeup does a decent job explaining it as well. Back then, master was a catchall word in some ways, but now we have more-descriptive terms that evolved. So swapping it out for those better terms makes sense in many contexts, even if the original context is not tied directly to oppression.
It's part of the reason in the UK calling cigarettes 'fags' is falling out of fashion. Despite never having quite the same connotation originally, it still carries its baggage from the usage elsewhere.
I'm not sure it's the word has gone out of fashion as much as cigarettes have on that one, to be honest.
It's part of the reason in the UK calling cigarettes 'fags' is falling out of fashion. Despite never having quite the same connotation originally, it still carries its baggage from the usage elsewhere.
I'm not sure it's the word has gone out of fashion as much as cigarettes have on that one, to be honest.
But "main bedroom" isn't much more descriptive, so I really don't see the benefit of breaking with historical language in this case. Part of the reason English is the way it is (spelling, etc) is...
But "main bedroom" isn't much more descriptive, so I really don't see the benefit of breaking with historical language in this case. Part of the reason English is the way it is (spelling, etc) is that we often keep historical terminology and spelling.
Also, I generally hate to attack the source, but that article is yet another example of a white woman writing about how our terminology is supposedly racially loaded. Some of the other issues she highlights like redlining are clearly more impactful than whether it's called an "owner's suite" or a master bedroom.
The amount of money, time, and effort wasted on changing things like master branch because a minority of people who usually aren’t in the industry didn’t like it is insane. If people in the uk...
The amount of money, time, and effort wasted on changing things like master branch because a minority of people who usually aren’t in the industry didn’t like it is insane.
If people in the uk want to change what they call a cigarette in standard conversation because it happens to align with an actively used slur I get it, but the entire git and associated coding change nonsense around it was insane
Not everyone wants to, or needs to, be a coder. The number of people who said "ew they use the word master for git branches" and dropped out of coding as a career is approaching 0. I'm not saying...
Not everyone wants to, or needs to, be a coder. The number of people who said "ew they use the word master for git branches" and dropped out of coding as a career is approaching 0.
I'm not saying it's no one, and i'm not going to say they wouldn't have been good coders, but there are so many other MAJOR issues with the coding industry like the out and out sexism (which is not shown in any way in the coding model, just how the classes and schooling and business is) that need fixing.
Think of it like causal factors for a non-infectious disease. Rarely can you say "yes 100% for sure you developed this disease because of this exposure." Instead, you run studies and try to look...
The number of people who said "ew they use the word master for git branches" and dropped out of coding as a career is approaching 0.
Think of it like causal factors for a non-infectious disease. Rarely can you say "yes 100% for sure you developed this disease because of this exposure." Instead, you run studies and try to look for population-level differences, and you end up concluding that the presence of factor X leads to a Y% increase in disease rates.
How many people are there for whom the term "master branch" was the final straw that caused them to give up coding? I wouldn't be surprised if it was 0. But are you so sure that, in aggregate, it has no effect?
Moreover---really, now, what is the actual cost of switching to main going forward? It's literally as simple as putting
init.defaultBranch="main"
in ~/.git/config. When else does it matter? Switching branches? If you're really having trouble remembering the name of the initial branch for a given project, why not just alias
Well for one, as I already mentioned elsewhere, it meant a large portion of stack overflow and other documentation was now incorrect and would cause you all sorts of nasty issues.
Moreover---really, now, what is the actual cost of switching to main going forward? It's literally as simple as putting
Well for one, as I already mentioned elsewhere, it meant a large portion of stack overflow and other documentation was now incorrect and would cause you all sorts of nasty issues.
My point is that the same culture and practices that make people so resistant to changes like the nomenclature switch from master -> main are typically the same culture and practices that make...
My point is that the same culture and practices that make people so resistant to changes like the nomenclature switch from master -> main are typically the same culture and practices that make people who would care about that thing not want to continue in the field. Of course, the number of people who have directly dropped out because git branches are called master branches is probably 0. Even the simplest programs typically contain more logic than that, and society is more complex than even the most complex programs.
Based on what? How do you know that? Do you know why I didn't want to switch? Because it broke a whole shitload of stuff I was trying to keep up with and git was already on my "god i need to learn...
My point is that the same culture and practices that make people so resistant to changes like the nomenclature switch from master -> main are typically the same culture and practices that make people who would care about that thing not want to continue in the field.
Based on what? How do you know that? Do you know why I didn't want to switch? Because it broke a whole shitload of stuff I was trying to keep up with and git was already on my "god i need to learn how to use this better" list, and suddenly ALL the documentation on the internet about master branch and hey copy paste this was wrong practically overnight.
I find these stances extremely presumptuous and frankly insulting. Not everyone who has a stance against this is somehow misunderstanding the point, an asshole, a sexist, or incapable. I understand that's not exactly your intent, but I'm sorry as someone who's barely a coder, and who knows plenty who are, that's just not the case.
I'm not a coder, so take my opinion with the sufficient amount of salt - But perhaps part of the problem is in word choices to begin with. Language use says a lot about the people working within...
I'm not a coder, so take my opinion with the sufficient amount of salt -
But perhaps part of the problem is in word choices to begin with. Language use says a lot about the people working within an industry, and language also informs how we think about the world. There's a lot of intersectionality between sexism, racism, classism, and all other sorts of -isms; while you may view sexism as the prevailing MAJOR issue that needs to be addressed, there may be others that disagree - perhaps they think another -ism is more important.
Or, more importantly (imo), it needs to be recognized that the racist connotation between slave and master isn't separate from the sexism, classism, or other -isms within the industry. They're all important/MAJOR, and they all ought to be addressed.
A change in terminology hardly seems like the hardest thing in the universe - but again, I'm no coder and I don't know how difficult it would be to change master/slave terminology within one's coding projects. At any rate, while a change in the actual coding may not be simple, a change in how we use the language outside of it certainly seems doable.
The "master branch" in version control systems has nothing to do with master-slave analogies. It's based on the idea of a master copy like musical and film records which everything is based on. If...
The "master branch" in version control systems has nothing to do with master-slave analogies. It's based on the idea of a master copy like musical and film records which everything is based on. If you've ever heard the term "digital master" or "remaster" that's the intended meaning. It's not wrong to call it "main" but it loses the original meaning of why you should copy from the master branch.
The terminology is not why computer science and software engineering is a White, Asian, and male dominated field. You have to remember the original computer programmers were mostly women. Some of the most important programmers at NASA were even black women.
I'm not saying that terminology is the reason that the industry is mostly made up of white (and now Asian) men. I'm saying it is likely a contributing factor, insofar as it is a relic of the...
The terminology is not why computer science and software engineering is a White, Asian, and male dominated field. You have to remember the original computer programmers were mostly women. Some of the most important programmers at NASA were even black women.
I'm not saying that terminology is the reason that the industry is mostly made up of white (and now Asian) men. I'm saying it is likely a contributing factor, insofar as it is a relic of the industry being so steeped in white patriarchy.
I'm not even suggesting that the term "master" needs to be thrown out! Just that in certain contexts it comes with different meanings, with the master/slave dichotomy being the most notable.
I'll agree that master/slave is unnecessary terminology in computing. It's frustrating that we now have half a dozen alternative names floating around, but it is what it is. My argument is that...
I'll agree that master/slave is unnecessary terminology in computing. It's frustrating that we now have half a dozen alternative names floating around, but it is what it is.
My argument is that the term "master" is completely fine to use for everything else. I also don't think the language choices are what drive women and some minorities out of the field. I really doubt it contributes much at all. I'm speaking from personal experience.
It seems unlikely that women coined terms that later pushed women out of software engineering. Biomedical engineering is split almost 50/50 in most American universities, and they still have master mixes etc.
Couple of things here- Master -> main was not the only change being pushed at this time. There was a massive list of stuff that was being done. Yeah it doesn't seem like it should be hard. It is....
A change in terminology hardly seems like the hardest thing in the universe
Couple of things here-
Master -> main was not the only change being pushed at this time. There was a massive list of stuff that was being done.
Yeah it doesn't seem like it should be hard. It is. It very much can be. Git especially is in this cool little bubble of "wow this is a great tool that I only use 5% of, i should learn more" to "Oh dear god i've gone off the beaten path and am now in HELL" Sure at every proper west coast silicon valley elite operation it probably wasn't that bad (still a MIND-NUMBING cost in manhours when you consider what those people are paid), but it tons of small business operations, like where I work, it was a much larger problem than you'd expect.
Given all the real work that needs to be done, in coding and in improving society, I find crusades like this utterly pointless and a waste of everyone's time. I really believe that if you could somehow, magically, know how much this change improved anyone's life in the intended way, it would again be near 0. The number of people who looked at master in git and thought "that's racist" or any of the other examples you've given is so vanishingly small. It feels like people looking for things to crusade about, but if you're going to do that, why not focus on the thousands of other issues that objectively cause issues for people directly?
Changing coding nomenclature that, in common parlance, has absolutely nothing to do with slavery should be so low on the "changes that need to be made in society list", and yet somehow it was the thing that everyone did because it had no real effect and all the companies got to pat themselves on the back, and bill a shitload of hours for it.
Changing the ways we talk about people and how we interact with them is part of the real work, though. As I said in response elsewhere, I'm not saying we dispose of all instances of the word...
Given all the real work that needs to be done, in coding and in improving society, I find crusades like this utterly pointless and a waste of everyone's time.
Changing the ways we talk about people and how we interact with them is part of the real work, though. As I said in response elsewhere, I'm not saying we dispose of all instances of the word "master" - only that, perhaps, thought ought to be given to how we use language and in what context. The master/slave dichotomy is one obvious example of this.
To you, a change in nomenclature may mean wasted billable hours with no tangible benefits. To others, it may mean a recognition of their humanity. I don't know your complexion, your history, or where you live, but I'd simply ask that you consider those factors for others.
I may not be a coder, but I work in an industry that is similarly made up primarily of white men, and one part of changing my workplace to be more inclusive of everyone involves changing the way we talk. I think that's true of most places.
To who? Who was actually affected? Who thinks this is actually better? I have never met anyone who has seriously experienced any sort of racism where “fix the usage of master on git” meant...
To you, a change in nomenclature may mean wasted billable hours with no tangible benefits. To others, it may mean a recognition of their humanity.
To who? Who was actually affected? Who thinks this is actually better? I have never met anyone who has seriously experienced any sort of racism where “fix the usage of master on git” meant anything to them.
Most aren’t aware or don’t care. A few hate this sort of shit because they find it insulting fake progress. People are being imprisoned, killed, starved, and made homeless but hey let’s spend our time talking about how Silicon Valley standards will now dictate one words use in a global setting.
I take issue with these behaviors because I do believe things need to be better, drastically so. And in my eyes things like this are an absolute pandering farce and feel like a bunch of clever PR people winning over a bunch of extremists and wannabe revolutionaries who can now pat themselves on the back for a “job well done” when if anything they’ve shown how completely absurd they are.
I for one am glad that because my master branch is now named main, all racism is solved. (Yes this comment is facetious exaggeration but the importance of changes like this is vastly oversold,...
I for one am glad that because my master branch is now named main, all racism is solved. (Yes this comment is facetious exaggeration but the importance of changes like this is vastly oversold, typically by people whose jobs only continue to exist if they churn out nonsense recommendations as fast as they can)
If we're going down the sarcasm train, why didn't they do a reverse racism and rename "master" to "BIPOC"? There's always someone else with an even pettier and more ridiculous request.
If we're going down the sarcasm train, why didn't they do a reverse racism and rename "master" to "BIPOC"? There's always someone else with an even pettier and more ridiculous request.
I always find it interesting that this caricature comes up in discussions involving DEI initiatives as I’ve never really known it to be true. I’m sure there are plenty of people who don’t give a...
I take issue with these behaviors because I do believe things need to be better, drastically so. And in my eyes things like this are an absolute pandering farce and feel like a bunch of clever PR people winning over a bunch of extremists and wannabe revolutionaries who can now pat themselves on the back for a “job well done” when if anything they’ve shown how completely absurd they are.
I always find it interesting that this caricature comes up in discussions involving DEI initiatives as I’ve never really known it to be true. I’m sure there are plenty of people who don’t give a shit and latch on to these recommendations as an easy way to seem progressive. But in my personal experience, the people I know who advocate these types of things are very sincere and also, things like this are typically the lowest effort things they personally do and advocate for. I’ve known two people personally, irl, who have found the master/slave terminology (not only in git but elsewhere in CS comms engineering) of putting and distracting and have suggested to myself and others in the department that we move away from that. So I have, and personally it was not a ton of effort. I agree that steps like this are extremely minor in face of the problems that the field and that industry have. But it turns out that it’s hard enough to
convince people to do the lowest effort things!
We spent time on these changes while ignoring actual pressing issues with a service that had clinical safety implications because it was the cool thing to do at the time (in the middle of a...
We spent time on these changes while ignoring actual pressing issues with a service that had clinical safety implications because it was the cool thing to do at the time (in the middle of a pandemic I might add). I'm really not sure that spending time on it was worth the risk of people actually dying because we didn't have time to fix actual issues because of commands from on high - it's not just "billable hours".
There are much more important things to focus on when aiming to improve inclusivity in technical fields, namely the bad behavior of an uncomfortably large proportion of men in the field.
People are capable of addressing multiple issues at once. It's not a zero sum game. I'm not sure that claiming efforts to modify how we think of our fellow people is just "a cool thing to do". I...
People are capable of addressing multiple issues at once. It's not a zero sum game.
I'm not sure that claiming efforts to modify how we think of our fellow people is just "a cool thing to do". I feel that stating as much does damage to the efforts to change our society.
Changing language in coding isn't going to move the needle as much as, say, a world-wide anti-racism protest... But it does have its place in the mix. It is important, in my opinion.
I'm telling you what actually happened, in that these terminology changes were prioritized over issues that were affecting people in emergency settings, and you're choosing to ignore it. I don't...
I'm telling you what actually happened, in that these terminology changes were prioritized over issues that were affecting people in emergency settings, and you're choosing to ignore it. I don't know if the instability in the system was a factor in anyone's actual real life death, but even the risk of someone dying is far far far more important to address than upsetting terminology.
My problem with this is that even after all that I read about it over the years, I am unable to come to any other conclusion than that the reasoning leading to the change is just based on vibes....
A change in terminology hardly seems like the hardest thing in the universe
My problem with this is that even after all that I read about it over the years, I am unable to come to any other conclusion than that the reasoning leading to the change is just based on vibes.
Firstly I do not believe that "changing terminology to change behavior" ever has remotely reasonable effort to reward ratio and can take away focus on things that matter, and secondly it's almost always, and this was no exception, also used as a purity test, calling people who disagree various -ists, if not directly then by implication. Because without some form of shaming tha majority of people would never switch.
An unsufficiently reasoned change in terminology forced by purity tests is something that I will always oppose on principle no matter what. I accept that it happens, but I only join the bandwagon when it actually becomes socially problematic not to do so and will always oppose it in the beginning because I simply strongly believe that it's a wrong tool.
For either you or Vord, was fag ever commonly used as a slur in the UK or has it always meant “cigarette” and treating it as a slur is pandering for approval from their former colonies?
For either you or Vord, was fag ever commonly used as a slur in the UK or has it always meant “cigarette” and treating it as a slur is pandering for approval from their former colonies?
People still use the word fag for cigarettes in the UK commonly. Whether it’s a slur depends on the context - if you call someone a fag, for instance, it’s pretty clear that you’re not saying...
People still use the word fag for cigarettes in the UK commonly. Whether it’s a slur depends on the context - if you call someone a fag, for instance, it’s pretty clear that you’re not saying they’re a cigarette and vice versa.
Like you can talk about rice as a food all you want in the US, but if you call an Asian person rice that would be considered an insult on racial lines.
My experience tends to align with yours. The phrase "bum a fag" to mean "hobo (non-repayable loan) a cigarette" is still super common in British vernacular where I am.
My experience tends to align with yours. The phrase "bum a fag" to mean "hobo (non-repayable loan) a cigarette" is still super common in British vernacular where I am.
There is a theory that the use of "faggot" as a slur for gay men (which did absolutely originate as American English specific slang) was potentially at least partially inspired by British public...
There is a theory that the use of "faggot" as a slur for gay men (which did absolutely originate as American English specific slang) was potentially at least partially inspired by British public school slang's use of "fag" to refer to a junior who does duties for a senior, which is attested from the late 18th century. British English has gone through quite a few uses for "faggot" over the centuries, it seems.
I think that distinction doesn't mean mean what it used to in the modern day. Mass media and now the internet have done a lot to expand and further homogenize common shared culture in the anglosphere
I think that distinction doesn't mean mean what it used to in the modern day. Mass media and now the internet have done a lot to expand and further homogenize common shared culture in the anglosphere
For the exact reason you state, I support all foreign cultures that choose to emphasize their preexisting traditions they know to be provocatively offensive to Americans as a petty fuck you to the...
For the exact reason you state, I support all foreign cultures that choose to emphasize their preexisting traditions they know to be provocatively offensive to Americans as a petty fuck you to the homogenization. Coca Cola, wünderbar.
That's just not how culture works. And deliberately doing things just to offend others doesn't accomplish anything of value. While historically America has been a big culture exporter, in recent...
That's just not how culture works. And deliberately doing things just to offend others doesn't accomplish anything of value. While historically America has been a big culture exporter, in recent years they've become a big importer of culture as well. Imagine if Americans took the same attitude towards things like Anime.
Honestly it’s not even the argument to think harder about the implications of what’s being said, which is fine. It’s just that people want to believe these changes are driven by thoughtful...
Honestly it’s not even the argument to think harder about the implications of what’s being said, which is fine. It’s just that people want to believe these changes are driven by thoughtful considerations instead of hurried, reactive takes. It’s evident that specific set of guidance on terminology that went viral was being driven by purely vibes-based etymology with no background research done whatsoever. At best people were operating off erroneous, but oft repeated, folk etymologies (e.g. rule of thumb) but more often it was literally just word association on the part of listeners with no curiosity about whether the offensive interpretation they were running with was accurate (e.g. gold master).
Now that we’ve had some time to soak in this world of vibes over data and operating on reflexive takes that are never critically examined I think we have all started all see where it’s leading us. If that guidance was just a Tumblr post it would have been one thing, but it was (IIRC) published by Stanford’s CS department and then distributed out across the industry as if it was authoritative. That was just toxic to any effort to take these considerations seriously.
This is a tricky one because there are mainstream religions that absolutely fit the definition of a cult. As a survivor of one, I see people still trapped in it who get very offended when their...
And the term "cult" on its own is a charged term, quite often used as a pejorative when referring to someone's religious beliefs.)
This is a tricky one because there are mainstream religions that absolutely fit the definition of a cult. As a survivor of one, I see people still trapped in it who get very offended when their beliefs are equated to a cult even though they tick all the right boxes (brainwashing, fanatical devotion to certain individuals or ideas, substantial required financial investment, beliefs that are actively harmful to their members...)
I wonder who owns language? We're all free to say what we want (so long as we avoid particular topics that rile up authorities), but who pays the price for words and terms that harm others? There...
I wonder who owns language? We're all free to say what we want (so long as we avoid particular topics that rile up authorities), but who pays the price for words and terms that harm others?
There are a lot more tech-literate, English speaking people than Melanesians, so perhaps slightly inconveniencing them all is more costly than insulting every Melanesian whenever we want to describe a causal fallacy. Genuinely, it boils down to how you define your moral framework.
I’m OK to deal with a bit of annoyance to adjust my language, especially in the hope that highlighting small issues like these helps people build up toward seeing the bigger issues that hide in plain sight (feel free to fill in whichever you wish here).
No idea if that’ll ever work out. I could easily imagine a utilitarian viewing this as pointless, however, since Melanesian culture is near worthless in a market capitalism sense (ie it’s only good for making fun of rhetorically, or exporting as tchotchkes), so literally any effort expended by a high earner is wasted. If such a valuable person actually cared, they’d work slightly harder and donate to some relevant charity instead of meaninglessly policing language.
I guess I just have a hard time believing that members of a modern-day Melanesian religion would even consider themselves to be a cargo cult, so why would they care if we mischaracterize cargo...
I guess I just have a hard time believing that members of a modern-day Melanesian religion would even consider themselves to be a cargo cult, so why would they care if we mischaracterize cargo cults by using it as an insult?
Like we use the term "cult" in general in a similar way ("they exhibited a cult-like mentality," "that guy sounds like some kind of cult leader," and so on), but should we stop doing that because maligning the term "cult" could offend Scientologists? I don't think so, because actively practicing Scientologists (I'm assuming) don't consider themselves to be in a cult. In fact they would probably be offended by that very concession itself, because just by making it you're implying that their religion is a cult.
That being said, if this author was a member of a self-proclaimed cargo cult, or was speaking for members of an actual cargo cult who were insulted by the common usage of that term, then I'd approach it the same way I approached the switch from master to main as the primary branch name in git repos--I don't care enough to argue semantics and I don't want people to be offended so I'd just accept it and move on.
General question to everyone: What is the Tildes-accepted way to share comments about the same article, from another source? This same essay has been discussed over on Hacker News, and there are a...
General question to everyone: What is the Tildes-accepted way to share comments about the same article, from another source? This same essay has been discussed over on Hacker News, and there are a couple of replies that I think are worth sharing here, but I don't feel like it would be correct to just past them here. I'll paste one below for the interested, but wanted to ask this meta question along the way.
I don't really want to read other people's comments from sites I'm not on as a rule, but I think linking would be fine if there was something particularly good just like linking to an adjacent...
I don't really want to read other people's comments from sites I'm not on as a rule, but I think linking would be fine if there was something particularly good just like linking to an adjacent article.
I wouldn't just want the comments reposted, in the same way I basically never want to see AI summaries of articles or videos.
That's kind of how I was feeling, too, so I'm glad to hear that. Since I'm relatively new here, I figured it was good to ask out loud. Thank you for the response.
That's kind of how I was feeling, too, so I'm glad to hear that. Since I'm relatively new here, I figured it was good to ask out loud. Thank you for the response.
Funnily enough the HN thread is why I reposted it here, I read the comments, then the article, then the comments again, and wanted to see what the discussion here would be like. I found the HN...
Funnily enough the HN thread is why I reposted it here, I read the comments, then the article, then the comments again, and wanted to see what the discussion here would be like.
I found the HN comments mostly disappointing and underwhelming to read, heavily biased towards discussing language "policing" (hey now that's an offensive term, it's nothing like real police, saying we shouldn't use the term cargo cult has never broken in to the wrong house on a raid and shot someone's dog!) and "scolding" and the like, but the article itself is far more interesting.
I knew the term "cargo cult" and a loose retelling of the story of people constructing a straw plane in the hopes cargo will fall from the sky, but I sat down and read the article and actually learned about the people behind it, their actual reasons for practicing it, terrible mistreatment towards them that we've already forgotten about or ignored, and the continued misrepresentation of these people and the practice.
It actually pisses me off how much the discussion (mostly on HN) focuses around some notion of language policing instead of discussing the actual humanity and tragedy inherent to the real story. No one gives a shit if you ("you" in the general sense) say cargo cult or not, it's an article, it's not a cop (doesn't have the budget to be one certaintly!), it's not the government, it's not a regulatory, it's an article, written by someone curious in the subject and wanting to teach others. I don't know if Melanesians even care about the term, I don't care if you (again, general "you") care about it, I just hope people take the time and learn something they didn't before, learn about a time people got mistreated and language and society papered over what happened, and at the very least, if you're going to say something is a cargo cult, now you at least know how to use the term accurately. Now you really know what a cargo cult is.
There's just not much to talk about with the latter. It's an interesting piece of history, but there wouldn't be much point in having 20 comments which are just "that's interesting" "yeah that's...
It actually pisses me off how much the discussion (mostly on HN) focuses around some notion of language policing instead of discussing the actual humanity and tragedy inherent to the real story
There's just not much to talk about with the latter. It's an interesting piece of history, but there wouldn't be much point in having 20 comments which are just "that's interesting" "yeah that's interesting" "I agree, that's interesting". That's what the "vote" button is for.
Meanwhile, on language policing there's sides to take and arguments to foment.
I think it's fine to add a comment and even say something as simple as "related discussion here: link" though it's nicer if you have highlights or links to insightful comments.
I think it's fine to add a comment and even say something as simple as "related discussion here: link" though it's nicer if you have highlights or links to insightful comments.
The cargo cult metaphor is commonly used by programmers. This metaphor was popularized by Richard Feynman's "cargo cult science" talk with a vivid description of South Seas cargo cults. However, this metaphor has three major problems. First, the pop-culture depiction of cargo cults is inaccurate and fictionalized, as I'll show. Second, the metaphor is overused and has contradictory meanings making it a lazy insult. Finally, cargo cults are portrayed as an amusing story of native misunderstanding but the background is much darker: cargo cults are a reaction to decades of oppression of Melanesian islanders and the destruction of their culture. For these reasons, the cargo cult metaphor is best avoided.
In this post, I'll describe some cargo cults from 1919 to the present. These cargo cults are completely different from the description of cargo cults you usually find on the internet, which I'll call the "pop-culture cargo cult." Cargo cults are extremely diverse, to the extent that anthropologists disagree on the cause, definition, or even if the term has value. I'll show that many of the popular views of cargo cults come from a 1962 "shockumentary" called Mondo Cane. Moreover, most online photos of cargo cults are fake.
A good long read. Thanks for posting it! I've used the cargo cult metaphor in discussion of system safety Asian illustration of "manipulating a symbol without understanding its meaning". It's...
A good long read. Thanks for posting it!
I've used the cargo cult metaphor in discussion of system safety Asian illustration of "manipulating a symbol without understanding its meaning". It's fairly common to see people writing safety requirements or doing an FMEA or whatever without really understanding why, resulting in outputs that aren't useful in advancing the safety of the system. This idea was passed down to me from my own teachers, so it's nice to have a more nuanced understanding.
Ironic that the cargo cult metaphor has, in a way, become a cargo cult! People use the term to describe a scenario without thinking of the origin of the term. Digging into the term's origin...
Ironic that the cargo cult metaphor has, in a way, become a cargo cult! People use the term to describe a scenario without thinking of the origin of the term. Digging into the term's origin reveals that there very likely never were people practicing the 'cargo cult' religion as Feynman described. Instead, there were just a lot of natives desperately hoping for any way out of colonial oppression, and a lot of false prophets who honestly have a lot in common with US apocalypse cults.
So can I now coin a new 'cargo cult' term that describes people using a term erroneously as a metaphor for a scenario that never existed?
I love this article for the deep dive into "true" cargo cults. I learned a lot.
I kinda disagree with its conclusion though. In my opinion the pop-culture interpretation of the term "cargo cult" has basically become ubiquitous. Language and metaphors like this evolve over time and take on their own meaning and I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that.
That being said, I do understand the redaction of certain charged terms (master branches in git, master and slave terminology in software or hardware configurations, stuff like that), so maybe it's warranted here for the same reason... but my gut says that referring to those still-existing modern day religions as "cargo cults" is the insulting thing we should stop doing, given that the term has taken on its own divergent meaning. (edit: And the term "cult" on its own is a charged term, quite often used as a pejorative when referring to someone's religious beliefs.)
Tbh I don't think that one ever made sense, and it's the change that least caught on. It's not like you had master branches and slave branches. It's master in the sense of master key or master copy. It's the master branch in the sense that it's the definitive branch. The root of the usage is completely different.
It's like if you got mad at a kung fu gym for calling their teacher "master".
This is likely incorrect.
It is well-known that Linus created Git because he was frustrated with licensing issues around BitKeeper, which was the Linux kernel's VCS at the time. Well, BitKeeper at the time did use "master"/"slave" terminology. And this is where Linus almost certainly got the term "master" from.
Wikipedia is wrong about that one. While BitKeeper uses Master/Slave terminology (which doesn't make sense for copying a drive), Git has never used that terminology.
https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441
Edit: I also don't see anything about Master/Slave in the original commit, but maybe I'm missing something.
No, Git never used that terminology, but I think it's likely that Linus (or, I guess, Petr Baudis, working with Linus) was copying BitKeeper's convention (rule?).
I suppose it could just be a coincidence, but that would be a pretty weird coincidence, especially considering that fact that "master/slave" terminology was pretty common in computing back in those days.
It wouldn't be surprising if the term "slave" never appeared in anything related to Git, simply because Git has no formal notion of a hierarchy between branches. Really, if we were being extremely pedantic, we might call the first branch
initor something like that. My guess is that the word "master" was chosen because, well, there had to be some default name for the first branch, and it might as well be term that BitKeeper used for its first branch. But, in Git, there's nothing intrinsically special about the initial branch, so there's no reason for Git to have a term for "non-initial" branches.I don't give much weight to testimony 15 years after the fact, especially concerning something that was probably seen as inconsequential at the time.
I mean, I would give it more weight than 3rd party conjecture 15 years after the fact.
Bitkeeper was the first version control system to use the term master (25 years ago), and it was definitely in the context of master/slave.
https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/HOWTO.ask#L223
The original author of the commit that added the "master" branch said it was in the context of "master record".
Well, that sounds like a retcon. The commit itself literally says:
...
I meant for git
https://repo.or.cz/cogito.git/commit/3c4347c8b64fb516bc097ab174c3247113b7603d
Peter Baudis (the author of the commit you linked) has acknowledged that it's likely (or not unlikely) that his choice of wording was influenced by bitkeeper, which makes sense since the master terminology was firmly ensconced in version control terminology by at the time of his writing. I suppose the origin is then a bit interesting semantically -- it was (I would say almost certainly) chosen to mean the same thing as bitkeeper, which was in the context of master/slave, but with the erroneous belief that bitkeeper meant it in the sense of a master copy. What does that mean etymologically?
https://web.archive.org/web/20220616084301/https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441
I would go with intent, in the end. If Baudis didn't know about it, it is what it is. I would fault the word no more than I would fault someone using the word "Robot" for not knowing that etymologically, "Robot" comes from "slave".
So is master offensive in bitkeeper but benign in git?
Yes
The context that I first came across it was from Master/Slave Clocks. In this case, you have a clock that keeps time and another that copies the one that's keeping time. Which seems like the same relationship that is found in git.
It's very different actually. Master/Slave implies a Controller/Worker or a Main/Replica relationship where the services are performing distinct, ongoing actions for some goal. In that clock system, the master/controller clock is driving the synchronization of the slave/worker clocks.
In comparison, when a new branch is cloned from the master branch, it's a totally separate thing and doesn't have any ongoing slave/worker process related to the master branch. Git uses master in the sense of master recording which is the original version of something which copies are derived from. This is according to the person that added "master" to Git almost 20 years ago.
Master recording itself is based on the same master/slave analogy, and "masters" are tied directly to ownership in the music / entertainment industries.
Here's one article on the subject. A couple of relevant quotes (including one from one of the footnotes in the Wikipedia article you posted).
TIL master recordings were often made with the help of slave tapes which would record one or two instruments to help make the final, authoritative master tape. I can't find many/any examples of dupes and copies being called slave tapes even historically because it doesn't make logical sense to call commercial duplicates slave tapes.
Thanks for helping me learn some more etymology, but I don't think this will change my opinion on the use of the word master in audio-visual work. Nobody thinks a "remaster" is related to slavery, and even Black record labels still call them master recordings.
While the original etymology may have been related to the concept of slavery, nowadays it doesn't seem to carry such meaning. If every usage of master and ownership is problematic, Pokémon would need to get rid of the master ball and Pokémon masters. I just can't see it as a real problem.
Surely "trunk" is the logical choice?
Considering the number of white people that have given me dirty glances for saying master bedroom, I think some people legitimately don't understand that the word master has uses unrelated to slavery.
I think this writeup does a decent job explaining it as well. Back then, master was a catchall word in some ways, but now we have more-descriptive terms that evolved. So swapping it out for those better terms makes sense in many contexts, even if the original context is not tied directly to oppression.
It's part of the reason in the UK calling cigarettes 'fags' is falling out of fashion. Despite never having quite the same connotation originally, it still carries its baggage from the usage elsewhere.
I'm not sure it's the word has gone out of fashion as much as cigarettes have on that one, to be honest.
But "main bedroom" isn't much more descriptive, so I really don't see the benefit of breaking with historical language in this case. Part of the reason English is the way it is (spelling, etc) is that we often keep historical terminology and spelling.
Also, I generally hate to attack the source, but that article is yet another example of a white woman writing about how our terminology is supposedly racially loaded. Some of the other issues she highlights like redlining are clearly more impactful than whether it's called an "owner's suite" or a master bedroom.
The amount of money, time, and effort wasted on changing things like master branch because a minority of people who usually aren’t in the industry didn’t like it is insane.
If people in the uk want to change what they call a cigarette in standard conversation because it happens to align with an actively used slur I get it, but the entire git and associated coding change nonsense around it was insane
There is a reason why this is the case!
Not everyone wants to, or needs to, be a coder. The number of people who said "ew they use the word master for git branches" and dropped out of coding as a career is approaching 0.
I'm not saying it's no one, and i'm not going to say they wouldn't have been good coders, but there are so many other MAJOR issues with the coding industry like the out and out sexism (which is not shown in any way in the coding model, just how the classes and schooling and business is) that need fixing.
Think of it like causal factors for a non-infectious disease. Rarely can you say "yes 100% for sure you developed this disease because of this exposure." Instead, you run studies and try to look for population-level differences, and you end up concluding that the presence of factor X leads to a Y% increase in disease rates.
How many people are there for whom the term "master branch" was the final straw that caused them to give up coding? I wouldn't be surprised if it was 0. But are you so sure that, in aggregate, it has no effect?
Moreover---really, now, what is the actual cost of switching to
maingoing forward? It's literally as simple as puttingin
~/.git/config. When else does it matter? Switching branches? If you're really having trouble remembering the name of the initial branch for a given project, why not just aliasin your shell config?
Well for one, as I already mentioned elsewhere, it meant a large portion of stack overflow and other documentation was now incorrect and would cause you all sorts of nasty issues.
My point is that the same culture and practices that make people so resistant to changes like the nomenclature switch from master -> main are typically the same culture and practices that make people who would care about that thing not want to continue in the field. Of course, the number of people who have directly dropped out because git branches are called master branches is probably 0. Even the simplest programs typically contain more logic than that, and society is more complex than even the most complex programs.
Based on what? How do you know that? Do you know why I didn't want to switch? Because it broke a whole shitload of stuff I was trying to keep up with and git was already on my "god i need to learn how to use this better" list, and suddenly ALL the documentation on the internet about master branch and hey copy paste this was wrong practically overnight.
I find these stances extremely presumptuous and frankly insulting. Not everyone who has a stance against this is somehow misunderstanding the point, an asshole, a sexist, or incapable. I understand that's not exactly your intent, but I'm sorry as someone who's barely a coder, and who knows plenty who are, that's just not the case.
I'm not a coder, so take my opinion with the sufficient amount of salt -
But perhaps part of the problem is in word choices to begin with. Language use says a lot about the people working within an industry, and language also informs how we think about the world. There's a lot of intersectionality between sexism, racism, classism, and all other sorts of -isms; while you may view sexism as the prevailing MAJOR issue that needs to be addressed, there may be others that disagree - perhaps they think another -ism is more important.
Or, more importantly (imo), it needs to be recognized that the racist connotation between slave and master isn't separate from the sexism, classism, or other -isms within the industry. They're all important/MAJOR, and they all ought to be addressed.
A change in terminology hardly seems like the hardest thing in the universe - but again, I'm no coder and I don't know how difficult it would be to change master/slave terminology within one's coding projects. At any rate, while a change in the actual coding may not be simple, a change in how we use the language outside of it certainly seems doable.
The "master branch" in version control systems has nothing to do with master-slave analogies. It's based on the idea of a master copy like musical and film records which everything is based on. If you've ever heard the term "digital master" or "remaster" that's the intended meaning. It's not wrong to call it "main" but it loses the original meaning of why you should copy from the master branch.
Just like blacklists and whitelists have nothing to do with race.
The terminology is not why computer science and software engineering is a White, Asian, and male dominated field. You have to remember the original computer programmers were mostly women. Some of the most important programmers at NASA were even black women.
I'm not saying that terminology is the reason that the industry is mostly made up of white (and now Asian) men. I'm saying it is likely a contributing factor, insofar as it is a relic of the industry being so steeped in white patriarchy.
I'm not even suggesting that the term "master" needs to be thrown out! Just that in certain contexts it comes with different meanings, with the master/slave dichotomy being the most notable.
I'll agree that master/slave is unnecessary terminology in computing. It's frustrating that we now have half a dozen alternative names floating around, but it is what it is.
My argument is that the term "master" is completely fine to use for everything else. I also don't think the language choices are what drive women and some minorities out of the field. I really doubt it contributes much at all. I'm speaking from personal experience.
It seems unlikely that women coined terms that later pushed women out of software engineering. Biomedical engineering is split almost 50/50 in most American universities, and they still have master mixes etc.
Couple of things here-
Master -> main was not the only change being pushed at this time. There was a massive list of stuff that was being done.
Yeah it doesn't seem like it should be hard. It is. It very much can be. Git especially is in this cool little bubble of "wow this is a great tool that I only use 5% of, i should learn more" to "Oh dear god i've gone off the beaten path and am now in HELL" Sure at every proper west coast silicon valley elite operation it probably wasn't that bad (still a MIND-NUMBING cost in manhours when you consider what those people are paid), but it tons of small business operations, like where I work, it was a much larger problem than you'd expect.
Given all the real work that needs to be done, in coding and in improving society, I find crusades like this utterly pointless and a waste of everyone's time. I really believe that if you could somehow, magically, know how much this change improved anyone's life in the intended way, it would again be near 0. The number of people who looked at master in git and thought "that's racist" or any of the other examples you've given is so vanishingly small. It feels like people looking for things to crusade about, but if you're going to do that, why not focus on the thousands of other issues that objectively cause issues for people directly?
Changing coding nomenclature that, in common parlance, has absolutely nothing to do with slavery should be so low on the "changes that need to be made in society list", and yet somehow it was the thing that everyone did because it had no real effect and all the companies got to pat themselves on the back, and bill a shitload of hours for it.
Changing the ways we talk about people and how we interact with them is part of the real work, though. As I said in response elsewhere, I'm not saying we dispose of all instances of the word "master" - only that, perhaps, thought ought to be given to how we use language and in what context. The master/slave dichotomy is one obvious example of this.
To you, a change in nomenclature may mean wasted billable hours with no tangible benefits. To others, it may mean a recognition of their humanity. I don't know your complexion, your history, or where you live, but I'd simply ask that you consider those factors for others.
I may not be a coder, but I work in an industry that is similarly made up primarily of white men, and one part of changing my workplace to be more inclusive of everyone involves changing the way we talk. I think that's true of most places.
To who? Who was actually affected? Who thinks this is actually better? I have never met anyone who has seriously experienced any sort of racism where “fix the usage of master on git” meant anything to them.
Most aren’t aware or don’t care. A few hate this sort of shit because they find it insulting fake progress. People are being imprisoned, killed, starved, and made homeless but hey let’s spend our time talking about how Silicon Valley standards will now dictate one words use in a global setting.
I take issue with these behaviors because I do believe things need to be better, drastically so. And in my eyes things like this are an absolute pandering farce and feel like a bunch of clever PR people winning over a bunch of extremists and wannabe revolutionaries who can now pat themselves on the back for a “job well done” when if anything they’ve shown how completely absurd they are.
I for one am glad that because my master branch is now named main, all racism is solved. (Yes this comment is facetious exaggeration but the importance of changes like this is vastly oversold, typically by people whose jobs only continue to exist if they churn out nonsense recommendations as fast as they can)
If we're going down the sarcasm train, why didn't they do a reverse racism and rename "master" to "BIPOC"? There's always someone else with an even pettier and more ridiculous request.
I always find it interesting that this caricature comes up in discussions involving DEI initiatives as I’ve never really known it to be true. I’m sure there are plenty of people who don’t give a shit and latch on to these recommendations as an easy way to seem progressive. But in my personal experience, the people I know who advocate these types of things are very sincere and also, things like this are typically the lowest effort things they personally do and advocate for. I’ve known two people personally, irl, who have found the master/slave terminology (not only in git but elsewhere in CS comms engineering) of putting and distracting and have suggested to myself and others in the department that we move away from that. So I have, and personally it was not a ton of effort. I agree that steps like this are extremely minor in face of the problems that the field and that industry have. But it turns out that it’s hard enough to
convince people to do the lowest effort things!
We spent time on these changes while ignoring actual pressing issues with a service that had clinical safety implications because it was the cool thing to do at the time (in the middle of a pandemic I might add). I'm really not sure that spending time on it was worth the risk of people actually dying because we didn't have time to fix actual issues because of commands from on high - it's not just "billable hours".
There are much more important things to focus on when aiming to improve inclusivity in technical fields, namely the bad behavior of an uncomfortably large proportion of men in the field.
People are capable of addressing multiple issues at once. It's not a zero sum game.
I'm not sure that claiming efforts to modify how we think of our fellow people is just "a cool thing to do". I feel that stating as much does damage to the efforts to change our society.
Changing language in coding isn't going to move the needle as much as, say, a world-wide anti-racism protest... But it does have its place in the mix. It is important, in my opinion.
I'm telling you what actually happened, in that these terminology changes were prioritized over issues that were affecting people in emergency settings, and you're choosing to ignore it. I don't know if the instability in the system was a factor in anyone's actual real life death, but even the risk of someone dying is far far far more important to address than upsetting terminology.
I'm not ignoring anything, thanks. But I'm bowing out of this conversation.
My problem with this is that even after all that I read about it over the years, I am unable to come to any other conclusion than that the reasoning leading to the change is just based on vibes.
Firstly I do not believe that "changing terminology to change behavior" ever has remotely reasonable effort to reward ratio and can take away focus on things that matter, and secondly it's almost always, and this was no exception, also used as a purity test, calling people who disagree various -ists, if not directly then by implication. Because without some form of shaming tha majority of people would never switch.
An unsufficiently reasoned change in terminology forced by purity tests is something that I will always oppose on principle no matter what. I accept that it happens, but I only join the bandwagon when it actually becomes socially problematic not to do so and will always oppose it in the beginning because I simply strongly believe that it's a wrong tool.
For either you or Vord, was fag ever commonly used as a slur in the UK or has it always meant “cigarette” and treating it as a slur is pandering for approval from their former colonies?
People still use the word fag for cigarettes in the UK commonly. Whether it’s a slur depends on the context - if you call someone a fag, for instance, it’s pretty clear that you’re not saying they’re a cigarette and vice versa.
Like you can talk about rice as a food all you want in the US, but if you call an Asian person rice that would be considered an insult on racial lines.
My experience tends to align with yours. The phrase "bum a fag" to mean "hobo (non-repayable loan) a cigarette" is still super common in British vernacular where I am.
Thank you for the clear analogy.
There is a theory that the use of "faggot" as a slur for gay men (which did absolutely originate as American English specific slang) was potentially at least partially inspired by British public school slang's use of "fag" to refer to a junior who does duties for a senior, which is attested from the late 18th century. British English has gone through quite a few uses for "faggot" over the centuries, it seems.
I think that distinction doesn't mean mean what it used to in the modern day. Mass media and now the internet have done a lot to expand and further homogenize common shared culture in the anglosphere
For the exact reason you state, I support all foreign cultures that choose to emphasize their preexisting traditions they know to be provocatively offensive to Americans as a petty fuck you to the homogenization. Coca Cola, wünderbar.
That's just not how culture works. And deliberately doing things just to offend others doesn't accomplish anything of value. While historically America has been a big culture exporter, in recent years they've become a big importer of culture as well. Imagine if Americans took the same attitude towards things like Anime.
Gestures at Sailor Moon from my childhood, when the lesbian couple were like, cousins or something
Honestly it’s not even the argument to think harder about the implications of what’s being said, which is fine. It’s just that people want to believe these changes are driven by thoughtful considerations instead of hurried, reactive takes. It’s evident that specific set of guidance on terminology that went viral was being driven by purely vibes-based etymology with no background research done whatsoever. At best people were operating off erroneous, but oft repeated, folk etymologies (e.g. rule of thumb) but more often it was literally just word association on the part of listeners with no curiosity about whether the offensive interpretation they were running with was accurate (e.g. gold master).
Now that we’ve had some time to soak in this world of vibes over data and operating on reflexive takes that are never critically examined I think we have all started all see where it’s leading us. If that guidance was just a Tumblr post it would have been one thing, but it was (IIRC) published by Stanford’s CS department and then distributed out across the industry as if it was authoritative. That was just toxic to any effort to take these considerations seriously.
This is a tricky one because there are mainstream religions that absolutely fit the definition of a cult. As a survivor of one, I see people still trapped in it who get very offended when their beliefs are equated to a cult even though they tick all the right boxes (brainwashing, fanatical devotion to certain individuals or ideas, substantial required financial investment, beliefs that are actively harmful to their members...)
It's only a cult till you hit tax-exempt status.
I wonder who owns language? We're all free to say what we want (so long as we avoid particular topics that rile up authorities), but who pays the price for words and terms that harm others?
There are a lot more tech-literate, English speaking people than Melanesians, so perhaps slightly inconveniencing them all is more costly than insulting every Melanesian whenever we want to describe a causal fallacy. Genuinely, it boils down to how you define your moral framework.
I’m OK to deal with a bit of annoyance to adjust my language, especially in the hope that highlighting small issues like these helps people build up toward seeing the bigger issues that hide in plain sight (feel free to fill in whichever you wish here).
No idea if that’ll ever work out. I could easily imagine a utilitarian viewing this as pointless, however, since Melanesian culture is near worthless in a market capitalism sense (ie it’s only good for making fun of rhetorically, or exporting as tchotchkes), so literally any effort expended by a high earner is wasted. If such a valuable person actually cared, they’d work slightly harder and donate to some relevant charity instead of meaninglessly policing language.
I guess I just have a hard time believing that members of a modern-day Melanesian religion would even consider themselves to be a cargo cult, so why would they care if we mischaracterize cargo cults by using it as an insult?
Like we use the term "cult" in general in a similar way ("they exhibited a cult-like mentality," "that guy sounds like some kind of cult leader," and so on), but should we stop doing that because maligning the term "cult" could offend Scientologists? I don't think so, because actively practicing Scientologists (I'm assuming) don't consider themselves to be in a cult. In fact they would probably be offended by that very concession itself, because just by making it you're implying that their religion is a cult.
That being said, if this author was a member of a self-proclaimed cargo cult, or was speaking for members of an actual cargo cult who were insulted by the common usage of that term, then I'd approach it the same way I approached the switch from master to main as the primary branch name in git repos--I don't care enough to argue semantics and I don't want people to be offended so I'd just accept it and move on.
General question to everyone: What is the Tildes-accepted way to share comments about the same article, from another source? This same essay has been discussed over on Hacker News, and there are a couple of replies that I think are worth sharing here, but I don't feel like it would be correct to just past them here. I'll paste one below for the interested, but wanted to ask this meta question along the way.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42679275
I don't really want to read other people's comments from sites I'm not on as a rule, but I think linking would be fine if there was something particularly good just like linking to an adjacent article.
I wouldn't just want the comments reposted, in the same way I basically never want to see AI summaries of articles or videos.
That's kind of how I was feeling, too, so I'm glad to hear that. Since I'm relatively new here, I figured it was good to ask out loud. Thank you for the response.
Funnily enough the HN thread is why I reposted it here, I read the comments, then the article, then the comments again, and wanted to see what the discussion here would be like.
I found the HN comments mostly disappointing and underwhelming to read, heavily biased towards discussing language "policing" (hey now that's an offensive term, it's nothing like real police, saying we shouldn't use the term cargo cult has never broken in to the wrong house on a raid and shot someone's dog!) and "scolding" and the like, but the article itself is far more interesting.
I knew the term "cargo cult" and a loose retelling of the story of people constructing a straw plane in the hopes cargo will fall from the sky, but I sat down and read the article and actually learned about the people behind it, their actual reasons for practicing it, terrible mistreatment towards them that we've already forgotten about or ignored, and the continued misrepresentation of these people and the practice.
It actually pisses me off how much the discussion (mostly on HN) focuses around some notion of language policing instead of discussing the actual humanity and tragedy inherent to the real story. No one gives a shit if you ("you" in the general sense) say cargo cult or not, it's an article, it's not a cop (doesn't have the budget to be one certaintly!), it's not the government, it's not a regulatory, it's an article, written by someone curious in the subject and wanting to teach others. I don't know if Melanesians even care about the term, I don't care if you (again, general "you") care about it, I just hope people take the time and learn something they didn't before, learn about a time people got mistreated and language and society papered over what happened, and at the very least, if you're going to say something is a cargo cult, now you at least know how to use the term accurately. Now you really know what a cargo cult is.
There's just not much to talk about with the latter. It's an interesting piece of history, but there wouldn't be much point in having 20 comments which are just "that's interesting" "yeah that's interesting" "I agree, that's interesting". That's what the "vote" button is for.
Meanwhile, on language policing there's sides to take and arguments to foment.
Having clicked through, same.
And now feeling similar here.
I think it's fine to add a comment and even say something as simple as "related discussion here: link" though it's nicer if you have highlights or links to insightful comments.
A good long read. Thanks for posting it!
I've used the cargo cult metaphor in discussion of system safety Asian illustration of "manipulating a symbol without understanding its meaning". It's fairly common to see people writing safety requirements or doing an FMEA or whatever without really understanding why, resulting in outputs that aren't useful in advancing the safety of the system. This idea was passed down to me from my own teachers, so it's nice to have a more nuanced understanding.
Ironic that the cargo cult metaphor has, in a way, become a cargo cult! People use the term to describe a scenario without thinking of the origin of the term. Digging into the term's origin reveals that there very likely never were people practicing the 'cargo cult' religion as Feynman described. Instead, there were just a lot of natives desperately hoping for any way out of colonial oppression, and a lot of false prophets who honestly have a lot in common with US apocalypse cults.
So can I now coin a new 'cargo cult' term that describes people using a term erroneously as a metaphor for a scenario that never existed?