Do We Need Master & Slave Terminology?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ก.ค. 2024
- Xisuma Says Playlist ► • Xisuma Says
Xisuma talks about the changing terminology of certain words for tech companies, computer systems, and general language.
A informative article on the subject: www.wired.com/story/tech-conf...
Edited by Adam Aarts
/ adamaarts
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#xisumasays #blacklist #whitelist
I’ve always seen blacklist and whitelist more like a binary wording terminology. Almost like with light. If the light is on it’s white (as in the light) if the light is off it’s black (emitting no light). For me saying whitelist is is the binary-on form of a list while blacklist is the binary-off form of a list
100% agree. If the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear black and white is skin color, you're probably racist.
I could see Greenlist and Redlist being acceptable replacements since those colors are extremely widely use in traffic signals to allow and halt movement.
Lee Myers that is brilliant!
I also completely agree, but I am not from a group that is effected by racism, nor which is at the receiving end of the negative connotations, I understand that some people are effected by racism, and I think it is strong of them to stand up, to change the world for future generations. But I also think that if it becomes an issue, then there are other possible options for these terms
Same, I had never once thought of race from the words whitelist and blacklist, until the changes being made now. When it comes to master/slave terminology, that's a bit more obviously linked to slavery. However, when master is used on it's own, for example "master copy", "master repo", etc, I had never once thought of slavery. Those words might have naturally come from stuff like that in the past, but that's not what they mean in this context anymore, and we shouldn't be changing the terminology just because some get offended, especially since most people don't interpret it the way they do.
Okay but is no one going to talk about how some kid could just be messing with their computer and see the option to "Compress Children"?
-Bob, what in the world are you doing to your little brother?!
-Compressing.
Or how programmers are talking about killing child with forks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@04ZFZ GOOD ONE!
I _did_ google "how to destroy all children" the other day
@@amaryllis0 mission failed, I take it?
I have to disagree with you on this one, especially blacklist and whitelist. Blacklist's and whitelist's origin has nothing at all to do with race whatsoever. Black and white are 2 colours that have been used to describe countless dynamics outside far of race. As another commenter said should we change Star Wars because it has a dark and light side? Should we stop describing moral simplicity as "black and white"? Should we stop describing secret missions as "black ops"? No of course not and this is exactly that kind of scenario. Besides it's not just a coding thing, it's a very common and accepted term in all kinds of contexts.
As for master and slave, it's a simple term which immediately allows even someone who's never heard of the computer to instantly understand how it works. It would be very difficult to come up with another term that describes it as well. Besides there's absolutely no malice behind the term, it's merely a descriptor with really no connotations. Slavery was and still is a thing all over the world, ignoring it by getting rid of any and all mention of it, even situations as benign as this, isn't going to do anything about that.
I'm not a fan of this kind of changing of accepted terminology, it feels very forced and completely unneccesary. Tell me, how many people are actually going to get offended by the master and slave terminology to describe a system that is subservient to another system? How many people are actually offended by blacklist and whitelist? Was there much of an outcry to change it before these companies announced it?
Because to me these all these changes these multinational corporations make always comes across as nothing more than dustraction, a sort of "Hey guys look at us, aren't we so progressive and supportive of minorities!" While they simultaniously lobby governments to pass anti-consumer and anti-worker laws, allow monopolistic practices and overall be really shitty.
I agree wholeheartedly. This is just a facade for the real pseudo progressives who have a deep rooted racism in them and they are basically pretending to be "good" by making and demanding these changes. I can still get Master/Slave but tbh no one who will see this stuff in the context would be every on contact with slavery or dumb enough to know the intent behind the term in the context.
Black and White have become such a taboo these past few years it's baffling. It's a dynamic which is pretty old and it isn't related to racism. Tho I am not sure of its origins it's mostly about physical actual light. When it's light people feel good and safe and in the olden days when night time came and along with it the darkness people were scared(the fear is so strong it still manifests in people even in modern times). Hence attributing Light/White to good and Dark/Black to evil.
100% agree
Heaven is full of light and white(as clouds), hell is described as underworld of darkness and suffering. And it has nothing to do with skincolor, its just the simplest possible polarity of color.
It's history revisionism at its finest. This shouldn't be accepted.
@@JayADonut there's no wage paid out. Master and slave is a good analogy. One of the disks is master, other works for the first one for free and has to listen to it. Concept of slavery doesn't belong to black people, they shouldn't attempt to monopolize it.
I feel that in this case it's more nitpicking than actually being concerned with the well-being of people. I can understand why a term like the n-word would be offensive, for instance, but I feel a lot of people are making a stretch when they get any term related to darkness that has always had this connotation in western culture to represent something negative and making the leap to say "oh, you all perceive black people as bad also because of the language you use". I think there are far more pressing matters to attend to regarding racism than nitpicking over technical terminology.
Master and Slave is something that I must admit is fair to change, in the end it's decently negative and there's good enough of a reason to want to change them. However, Whitelist and Blacklist, is where it gets nitpicky.
It's a bunch of new-generation children putting racist where it doesn't need to be.
@@dredgenjinn my thoughts exactly.
@@AlexandreRibeiroXRV7
Such a shame the world is turning into this depressing cesspool of offense. It's like an Ayn Rand dystopia but without the creativity.
@@dredgenjinn yeah I agree with that. Could we consider using main and subordinate as replacement to master slave? It keeps the acronyms so that there will be slightly less miscommunication.
Whitelist and Blacklist comes from white people being allowed into events, toilets, etc, and black people being banned from many things for their race.
I'm a computer engineer, and I think this all is really silly. Master and slave is baked into a lot of hardware protocols like I2C, and the terminology very succinctly describes what each is supposed to be doing. Also, terms like Parent/Child (as some are suggesting) don't describe it as well and are usually used to describe inheritance, which is very different. Was and is slavery an evil institution? YES, but by removing it from our speech, we're not somehow magically making the world a better and less racist place. Slavery has been around for eons, and except for colonial times, often had nothing to do with race. I'm not in favor of changing hundreds of thousands of pages of documentation, or the English language for something that will have no impact except as a PR stunt.
EXACTLY. As a CS student and as a person who also already works in this field, I strongly agree with you.
At the end of the day, computers don’t have emotions and a slave device IS a slave as it is controlled by a master device. If it is a slave and doesn’t take offence from that (it’s a machine!) then why should it be renamed? People shouldn’t be offended that a machine is being operated by another machine.
Well put!
Its just a massive waste of time
And also, in computer systems, often it really _is_ like a slavery system, the slave unit has to obey! :D
Yeah I dont think these changes are bad at all, but I do feel like it's not fixing any issues. To me it feels like companies trying to look good by fixing symbolic prejudice rather than actually helping people.
This a good point - sure these changes are neutral at worst but potentially very slightly helpful but on a larger scale either way the changes are fairly insignificant. It's almost like the companies are just doing these low-risk changes to look good to the public to take people's attention away from the real potential impact that they could be doing with their money and influence.
You have to change legislation first before you can change minds. When the Civil Rights Act in America was signed, people didn't automatically stop being racist. They had to realize that racism isn't okay before minds were changed. This is similar to that. It may seem pointless but it says, "We're moving in the right direction."
@@DM0M0 I see your point.
Maybe the slave part of master/slave should just be changed to something that doesn't have the connotation of a perceived as worthless worker.
Though having said that, according to the bible (no I'm not saying this is definitely true, just food for thought) the slaves that the Hebrews had were actually treated right, and people were mostly slaves because they were too poor to pay for the costs of living.
Sadly that was an isolated case, if it ever happend.
@@muncherofpizza Frankly, it doesn't matter how one group of slaves were treated verses others, it matters how people today perceive it. If it's something that makes people uncomfortable today, then I say change it.
I agree. While this is a great step in the right direction, (especially with master and slave, I just don’t understand how that could’ve stayed for so long) this isn’t going to fix systemic problems in the world today. I do think it can help raise awareness about the problems in society tho :)
The concept of a "black and white" binary goes back thousands of years in many cultures, not even just Western ones. The idea that darkness represents something negative and light represents something positive has existed for an extremely long time and has absolutely nothing to do with race.
I never even thought of associating the terms "blacklist" and "whitelist" with skin color before this whole thing started, and I'm sure that's true for many other people.
Exactly what I think
The question is do we need to change it if the negative connotation is not being used?
Maybe because we don't know if actually negative connotation is being used, so let just get rip of that
Only if people continue to allow the context-ignorant leftist mob to censor people.
Yes.
I've wondered the same thing myself before and I don't think we should stop using words that have bad histories to them, that have changed in meaning. For example the phrase "long time no see" came from a Native American person greeting W. F. Drannan in broken english. Despite having a background as something offensive the phrase has obviously changed it's meaning to just being a way you greet someone you haven't seen in a while and not a way of saying, "oh boy i hate natives and other people who speak broken english". Therefore why bother changing something that no one is offended by?
Master on Github isn't related to master and slave terminology and there is no slave.
Wait, is GitHub renaming the Master branch to a different name?
@@muncherofpizza They said they are going to
@@Luk4zs smh. Master doesn't mean their are slaves. "Master of the house" just means head of the house.
@@fallenentity2 Yeah, I know
That moment wen big companies are more consirned with stupid terms that literally knowbody cares about,than with giving there emplyes fair salaries, caring about the envirement, being polliticly neutral and being pressured by public mobs.
Also sorry for gramer flaws, not a native English speaker.
Youre generalising very much here. "Big company bad" here is the last place id expect to find it being used.
Not all corporates dont pay fair, not all dont care about envirement.
@@kamilsuhak3847 Let's be fair here, I'm trieing to say that there are a bigger problems out there than 'WORDS'.
yOUR MAYBE RIGHT, i'M GENERALIZING, BUT i HOPE YOU GET WHAT i'M TRYING TO SAY. also sorry for caps, keyboard is broke.
‘nobody cares about’ sadly not true, I can imagine a lot of people who would care about it
He/she dose have a point. there are is a large misplacement of resourses happening now.
"the white man will try to satisfy us with symbolic victories rather than economic equity and real justice" -Malcolm x
This is what annoys me about cancel culture and these small “changes” that do nothing. We need to actually fix things where the problem lies, rather than specific minor things
Honestly, removing words is as dumb as cancelling chess because white pieces go 1st.
I just dont get it.
imagine living in a country were your cloves come from child slaves in East-Asia, but you're consirned with a termenology that most people haven't even hered about, let alone care about or get offended by it.
@@Ismail-db1vj One problem is a lot easier to fix, to be fair - although I agree there's definitely an issue with priorities here.
@@Ismail-db1vj you can be concerned about multiple issues at once. There is always going to be more than one issue in this world.
@@uniquename6925 But we need to pick are battles wisely, and this battle is not nedded in my opinion.
GannonNotFromZelda yes there are. It effectively ruins chess as an idea why does it need to be changed? There may be no set backs but nobody would use it anyway
Edit: so it would be pointless and to pander to a tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny minority
If it ain’t broke then why fix it?
exactly
I don't think that's a very healthy mentality to have in a lot of cases but I agree that it works here.
That is precisely the problem: 99.99% of the time, for many of us, the status quo is "good enough" and as a result we don't make an effort to improve the situation. The challenge here is to open our minds to the possibility that maybe some of these things are problems worth fixing, problems that we don't see because they don't affect us.
And when a tech co. pops up and says, "You know what? Why don't we change this right now..." They're met with all this cynicism (which, admittedly, is a fair reaction), diversionary tactics, and resistance on the ground that the change isn't necessary.
And I submit that this kind of reaction does nothing good for anyone. If you think they are wasting their time... OK, but now you've wasted your time and theirs by pushing back because the change doesn't satisfy your own aesthetic concerns or traditionalism. You might say that it's an irrelevant issue - but it is a piece that they can have some power over, a piece of the problem they *can* do something about.
And finally, what this all boils down to is that it's a show of respect. An acknowledgement that maybe this problem you can't personally relate to, this thing that affects other people - and not even universally according to skin color - it's an acknowledgement that that problem *matters*, that you *value* and *respect* the people who are affected by a simple issue of word choice that's the easiest thing in the world to solve. That you can take a moment to think that maybe this *does* matter enough to someone else that it's worth *slightly inconveniencing* yourself to accommodate them. How is that a bad thing?
...I know there are answers to that last question, people resist "political correctness" (you know, except when it's their own brand of political correctness) and justify it in various ways - I know these arguments exist. But my point is there's really nothing bad about a change like this, and I do think there are benefits to shows of respect. People are raising points like Malcolm X quotes, the argument that token displays of respect are a distraction from real change that's needed - and I think there's truth to that, too. But respect is important, too. The culture we build around the respect we show, or deny, becomes the behavior we exhibit in more concrete terms.
Tetsujin very well though out answer but the thing is I don’t see it as a change worth making as well it will cost time effort and resources that won’t effect anyone and if anything seems like you could be putting that effort money and time into something that genuinely effects a lot of people.
@@tetsujin_144 Thank you for saying this. Most of the people commenting on this video aren't even going to be affected by a change like this so I don't see why anybody has a problem with it. Nobody ever takes the time to think a little deeper than, "Well, I don't see the point." If the only outcome can be a potential positive outcome with zero negative outcomes, more people should be asking, "Well, why not?"
my take on this: companies are co-opting and diluting social justice for PR/profit. I don't think many people would care about this if the media and companies didn't.
Yes.
For me, 'slave' still has a strong association with the negative meaning of the word. 'Master' on its own, however, already feels like it means 'main' and 'most important' for me. This probably comes from the fact that 'master' can also mean someone highly skilled in a certain subject. Someone who is the best possible in their work is a 'master' in their craft, they've 'mastered' the skill, etc, etc.. Thus others depend on them to get more information (to learn for example).
Actually, until recently I didn't even know 'master' could also refer to an owner of slaves. (English is not my first language)
Was looking for this comment!! Great point
Does English have a version of the word Knecht?
That would be a good replacement for Slave, seeing as in the context of programming it means about the same, but without the negative charge.
@@muncherofpizza Knecht translates to servant in English, which is a personal assistant such as a Butler.
@@lizardlegend42 servant still means that the servant is subservient, which is what we need a word for that isn't slave.
At a certain point it just becomes symbolism, are we gunna cancel starwars for having a light side (good) and a dark side (bad). I agree with the master and slave thing but not with whitelist and blacklist because at some point you're looking for things to be racist because your primary lens of viewing the world is one of race and thats not healthy
Why should the master and slave be changed. Every race has been enslaved and a slave owner. People just accosiate slavery with black people because that's the main one were taught. Most people, including me, wasn't taught about any other slaves in school
What does it matter anyway, master and slave are just terms. Are there actually people who get hert from this? If not, than why bother rerighting your programming language.
When I hear master, my first thought is League of Legends' master and grandmaster (tho i stopped playing it), then chess's grandmaster.
@@phillip7494 I mean It doesnt matter who was enslaved it's still a terrible thing I think the reason we associate slavery at least in US with african Americans is because that is the most common kind that happened here but slavery in general is a terrible thing
@@thiccychiccy1157 yeah but trying to forget about it is stupid. We should be taught about slavery and racism so that we know how horrible it is and never do that again
Using git, there has always been a master branch, but there has never been a "slave" branch as far as I know. Master is just the branch you start off with. I think it's creating a lot of work, changing literally millions of branches and repositories, simply because someone is offended with the word master. It's fine to remove them and I am not insensitive towards anyone, but what is next? Let's say we change it to primary and secondary, next someone will say they are offended with primary or secondary. It's a slippery slope once we start limiting our speech because someone is offended by it.
Also master and slave has nothing to do with race. Because America had a predominantly black slave trade for a couple hundred years that was abolished 150 years ago it's now a racial thing? The US is the leader in child and sex trafficking NOW.
typo in the title: should be "terminology" not "termonology"
similar to the origin of the term "rule of thumb" which if I remember correctly had something to do with a law that you couldn't beat someone with an object larger than your thumb
If we're banning master because it could be considered as having a racist connotation (
@@wyattwaters4758 well said...
@@wyattwaters4758 Oh I see those are some fair points. You see, in my language the word for slave master and master for mastery in some kind of craft are different words so in English I didn't really thought too much about the word itself in different situations.
As a computer scientist i agree with changing "master"/"slave" to some more descriptive and neutral words. Github for example changed "master" to "main" which is the more suitable word for what it describes. For the problem of breaking things it's defently possible to introduce the new terms with legacy support to give old systems time to be adjusted.
For black-/white-list I don't think it's really necessary. It would be overthinking in this case.
I think there are more descriptive terms that would work better for black/white list. For example, a block list doesn't need to be explained to anyone, it's a list of blocked items.
For white list and black list, you have to be explained their meaning if you aren't already familiar with the terms.
Would you consider the words main/subordinate? It keeps the acronyms, so it is really nice.
I am an electrical engineering student, who wants to keep the terminology consistent in his future field...
@@uniquename6925 Yes there are but i think the words already are descriptive if you think about it. Other comments already explained why.
In my opinion there is no need to make extra efforts to phase the terms out, and each company can decide what they use since both versions are ok.
@@metanim1 I somehow feel that subordinate will either be shortened to sub by people which will miss the point or we will have the same problem again in 100 years... maybe secondary could be a way to keep the acronym...
Idk, me and my friends sometimes trade/pay for villagers they work non stop no pay and they don't have rights
Talking about villagers in Minecraft
Ah yes, first world problems in a nutshell
You just perfectly summarised the whole discussion
It may seem like a very small piece of the overall problem - but it is nevertheless a part of the problem.
@@tetsujin_144 The only problem are messed up heads of people who seek change for the sake of it without realizing all the issues they are creating for others.
Tetsujin but why go after such small things when huge things go ignored by so many?
While I partially agree with you that programming language should be neutral, I think that this - what is basically a PR stunt - won't do A N Y T H I N G. People are calling for a police reform, and this change (as all regarding this subject) will create even more polarization in people.
I'd like to see a poll on how people feel about this (for ex. what do you think should be changed to solve racism) and I can guarantee that the slave/master change would be on the bottom.
Also, I'd like to see some alternatives to slave/master. The terminology is clear, the slave is inferior to the master and does all that the master tells it to, but secondary/primary doesn't have any relationship and if anything it tells people "the 2ndary thing goes after primary thing and they are controlled by something else" or "2ndary is a 2nd choice if primary fails", so I'd like to see some clear terminology about this.
I've seen someone else reccomend main/subordinate.
@@delta3244 i don't think any programmer would be happy about using a word as long as "subordinate" when "slave" is already a perfectly short and intuitive term.
@@master_bw3919 Autofill. I don't care that a keyword is 11 chars long if I can type 3 + tab for the same results. Also subordinate can be abbreviated sub, which serves as essentially autofill for speech and I'm fairly sure doesn't cause conflicts.
@@delta3244 Main/Sub is already shorter and more intuitive
Black/darkness has always been associated with bad, and I doubt it has anything to do with race. It would make more sense if it's because darkness impairs your sight making threats more difficult to identify. If we can put such an effort towards something so ultimately meaningless, can we please implement a better calendar next? lol
I was under the impression it was an on/off utility and the terminology was derived from how light bulbs went on and off. Hence, white for yes (the light is on) and black for no (the light is off)
This basically sums up where almost all of this terminology comes from. Some food for thought that I have often considered before, if we were a nocturnal species, would these terminologies be reversed? A nocturnal species would be more uncomfortable and scared of light than darkness, so it makes sense that an intelligent nocturnal species would have the opposite of our phrases when it comes to light and dark.
I respect how civil and fair you explain your point. However i cannot agree with you on this, if there are sone subliminal messages about racism in the words "master and slave, and whitest and blacklist" then it is also a reasonable assumption that by changing them into a more politically correct terminology that it would subliminally say that "hey you cannot say what you want, peoples feelings are more important than your freedom of speech"
Why would it be unreasonable to say that people’s right to feel comfortable and inoffended is more important than someone else’s right to cause them harm through what they say?
the problem with changing such core terminology is not only would it be an insane and costly undertaking, but it would completely mess up compatability across the board. you still can't name a file "con" in windows today, because of how DOS was designed.
Master and slave is used in coding for a very specific reason. You're explicitly stating that file B is chained to file A and can't do anything without file A.
Such as an excel file lookup chained to an access database. The access database is the master, with all the raw data. The excel lookup is the slave, because it doesn't hold/own any of the data itself.
Using any other term would be confusing.
No, Parent and Child would work as replacement terminology. The access database is the parent, with all the raw data, while the excel lookup is the child, because it doesn't hold or own any of the data.
Whitelist and Blacklist, however, shouldn't be changed.
@@dredgenjinn Parent and child have very specific meanings so they can't be used for that.
@@rixterz11
Meanings that are no different to Master and Slave.
@Jayflight The Child is connected to the Parent; it is not a copy of the Parent.
While I think finding offense in places where there is not meant to be any is just stupid and one of the things wrong with society today but a good alternative to Master/Slave would be Main/Secondary? Or Parent/Child but that is already used for other stuff
My take on this is that it doesn’t really help anything and there are bigger issues to do with race to worry about but…
If you wanna change it go ahead as long as whoever is pushing for the change uses their own time and money to do it. It shouldn’t be something like:
“Hey those words are racist I want them to change”
“Ok but that would be complicated and take a lot of time and money”
“Too bad, if *YOU* don’t change them then you’re a racist”
I just don’t want it to get out of control like an issue in Victoria, Australia a little while ago with feminism. The feminists said that it was sexist that all the traffic lights for ‘walk’ and ‘don’t walk’ showed people with pants. They assumed that those people with pants were men (even though they could have just been women wearing pants) and said it was sexist. Then instead of some feminist group paying for it to change as they wanted 50% of the lights to show people in dresses, they made the tax payer pay the money. That’s just ridiculous! I’m not wasting my money on their problems. People can change whatever they want but these days so many people seem to think that they’re entitled to make other people change something they don’t like.
Not sure how I feel about this. I’m not generally a fan of changing language for political reasons unless it changes on its own first. (IE: retarded in psychology changed to a slur, so psychology used a different word). Master slave I get, but I’m not sure about blacklisted and whitelisted. I don’t know all the history behind it, so I’m open to changing my mind if someone shows me that it’s harmful or derived from something harmful, but it doesn’t seem like it’s referring to the race here. I’m open to changing my mind though.
From a quick google search blacklist first came around in the 1600s and was popularised in WW1 by the British military to describe people who have had dealings with the central powers, they were blacklisted from classified information. It doesn't seem to have ever had any racial connotations to it so this really baffles me
Thanks for the context. It sounds kind of like “the black sheep of he herd”, where it sounds like it might be racially motivated, but isn’t. (Black sheep of the herd came from black wool not being dyeable, and therefore less desirable). Interesting how some figures of speech are totally benign, but sound like they are racially motivated.
Hi, this is a really considerate way of asking this question, which I appreciate. While the other person answering this has correctly pointed out the original etymology of 'blacklisting', words carry different weight and it's more about the social thinking behind words NOW. If you use the word “black,” it’s immediately contrasted “white". The use of “black” and “white” divides individuals, or products, companies or internet sites into two distinct groups - you can’t be on both. And, clearly, they are wired with racial definitions - and tensions.
If you want a more in depth view of past uses of 'blacklisting', according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “blacklist” originated in the 17th century and referred to a list of individuals suspected of antisocial behavior or being a traitor, Kriszta Eszter Szendroi, a professor of linguistics at University College London told me. Use of the word picked up again in the 20th century and referred to all sorts of power relations: Employers would create a blacklist of individuals suspected to be partaking in trade union activities; in turn, trade unions created blacklists of employers, Szendroi said. Also at the turn of the century, during Prohibition, blacklists were created for suspected habitual drunkards likely to face the consequences of the law. Later in the 20th century came the “Hollywood blacklist,” where people believed to be Communist sympathizers were denied work in the entertainment industry.
In your example of a 'black sheep', that wasn't originally meant to describe race, but as racism and prejudice becomes more embedded in our system, less overt but still oppressive, we should be making an effort to changing the immediate negative reaction to things described as black.
Also, to the people suggesting we instead change the words used to describe skin colour, black is not just a descriptor but an identity. It is an ethnic term, not all people who are black, have black skin. However, black should not then be demonised and continue to be used to describe 'bad' stuff. Anyway, I hope that makes sense, the way I see it, someone's got to give, and it definitely should not be people who have fought for centuries for basic human rights.
@@mariemossy1389 100% agree. The problem isn't the word on its own but the social thinking and culture behind it.
How about instead of changing hundreds of words relating to black and white, we just change TWO words (black and white, when talking about race) to something else
I can’t think of a replacement for white Americans but would African American be a good replacement for black especially if you’re trying to be respectful and/or not raise tensions.
@@gvnawesome good thought, but not every black person everywhere is African American. I like the idea though
Edit: I mean when talking about America, yes, but this kind of thing is all over the world, is what I mean. It would be to be generally universal
@@gvnawesome The problem with that is people who are black, but not american. British black people don't seem to refer to themselves, or be referred by others as African British or anything, they're just black.
@@gvnawesome Most black people in America (not all) prefer to be called black. African American implies that you or your parents are immigrants from Africa and most black people in America have been here long enough to have no roots to Africa. If you actually are an immigrant from Africa who gained American citizen ship, then you would be African American.
@@DM0M0 Yes, i feel like calling a black-american african-american it is the same logic as calling a white-american a european-american
It's unlikely that old systems will be affected. More likely, currently maintained systems might be updated and new software and hardware will just use better terminology in the future.
As someone in the tech field I don't really care either way, whether or not these changes take place. Master and slave is already a rarely used terminology in software now a days.
Personally, block list seems like a much more sensible name than black list. And a "trusted list" seems much more sensible than whitelist. These two terms weren't very intuitive in the first place. I would be glad to see people looking for better naming conventions.
X, I've got to respectfully disagree with you here. When it comes to "master" and "slave", they describe a relationship. The same way with "child" and "parent", and even "dummy" value (btw, "dummy", refers to the fact that the value doesn't move around or get used in a calculation, exactly like a real, physical dummy or manniquin). These words all describe a relationship between different things. "Primary" and "secondary" are not the same relationship. In a master-slave relationship, the master will tell the slave(s) to do what it wants done. This relationship is essentially what makes a super computers work, along with data storage tech, like raid. There is one system that is there solely to tell everyone else what to do. That's why they're called master and slave.
Also, I think you're giving a bit too much validity to people feeling about certain words. In order for these words to offend you, you have to ignore all context around them. That's a very dangerous concept to give way to. The reason the n-word is offensive is because the context in which it was once used. The reason "retard" is offensive is because it was used as an insult for so long. And that's only sometimes, saying "fire retardant" is a perfectly fine thing to say. In biology circles, saying "retarded growth" is a perfectly normal thing to say. The context is what matters. However, the people you are listening to are ignoring all context around the usage of the word. They don't understand and that's totally fine with them. That, in my mind, is what needs to change. At least for now.
This, and also white/black aren't even accurate descriptions of skin color and should be changed long before changing words that are based on metaphors relating light/dark to good/bad.
I can understand wanting to change master and slave to something else, but i agree that primary and secondary are not the terms to replace them. Maybe master and subordinate instead?
Hm, sounds like all we need is for everyone to think a bit more and not give in to impulses, follow trends blindly, or only read the click-baity headlines without asking questions... then the "thinking about context" comes naturally. Who would have thought that this is important?
You are good at explaining things, and sharing you're opinions reasonably, it makes you very interesting to listen to :)
More like he became dangerously good at making people blindly believe him.
@@Progeusz Yes, a good example are the many comments under this video that share his exact same opinion. It's like nobody disagrees with him and nobody shares any new viewpoints.
This reminds me of the Canadian government changing the national anthem from "all thy sons command" to "all of us command" from out of the blue, instead of addressing systemic injustice against the natives or even calling Canada our "native land" in the anthem. I can't say I quite agree with this, because blacklist and whitelist, like the word sons, doesn't stem from a prejudicial place. It's more binary, like off or on. There really shouldn't be actions that cede to small, and frankly not asked for, changes like this if they don't come from a history of discriminatory intent.
Like the master and slave PERFECTLY describe one thing that has control over other... electronic, pc and other things. If there is any one thing that is controled by another it is slave (even with humans, unfortunately). Slave is a word not "political" statement
Changing anything in programming language is a very bad idea due to a lot of reasons - including backward compatibility.
Old tutorials become obsolete, changing words like that adds 0 good things to the language, only tackles some hyppocrits' ego.
You are very correct! I am advocating for a switch to main/subordinate but only because I really want the field I am entering to have a cohesive naming system
I laughed when he put a zebra on the screen. Greenlist and redlist are some alternatives - green for allowing and red for not allowing.
I don't see the problem at all. A blacklist is meant to be significant as what is not allowed as it is much harder to write in darker paper than it is to write in white sheets.
As for Master and Slave, I do not see any negative connotation to it. I see a bigger argument to change these terms than the other ones because some people find these words to be very strong
Agreed
You see no problem? I assume you're white? ...
@@svenschreiber9360 Jesus Christ shut up. Not everything is a race issue snowflake
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: Yes, we need some word to describe it to anyone who doesn’t understand the concept and instantly get it.
Watching this video on the phone while your stream is going on in my pc and its way past my bedtime
Thought-provoking and productive as always, X! I appreciate that you always try to add to the conversation and become part of the solution instead of regurgitating others' opinions.
I hate when just because something has a color in its name people automatically assume it is representing race
That's kind of the issue, though, isn't it? One of the most hotly debated things today is "black" and "white," so it's natural for one's mind to think of race instantly whenever hearing those words, as that's the most prevalent use in society. That also means that the feelings and experiences we have tied to these words are constantly sitting at the forefront of our minds, so anything that might refer to inferiority of colors would understandably zap our minds right to the racial struggle. Someone mentioned a better solution would be to change how we denote race, rather than changing everything around it.
Context matters. People live their lives with the (racial) concepts of "black" and "white" potentially being a significant determining factor in what kind of life they experience. So to also go through that life and constantly hear "black" or "dark" being used as the eternal, go-to metaphor for "evil" or "bad" - the fact that that is a metaphor and (in theory at least - though I'm kind of dubious about that) has nothing to do with race doesn't really change the fact that it conveniently connects straight into the dialogue about race and racism and messes with how people see their own racial identity.
@@tetsujin_144 Light and dark are associated with good and bad. White and black aren't associated with good and bad except through their association with light and dark. Beyond that, light and dark for good and bad has been in use since long before recent times, long before white/black as races was considered a big deal. There is no good reason to believe light/dark = good/bad has anything to do with race.
@@Apothecartea I'm sorry for you if these issues sit always at the forefront of your mind. That is exactly why we have a problem.
The wider society should just not consider race at all, in any manner, and we should help locally and effectively in bad parts of cities etc.
Too much thinking and obsessing over this stuff is way counter-productive.
Every one of the videos on this channel I've seen are very good and raise pretty good points. Well done, X.
I do disagree with master and slave drive, specifically using the word slave, you could keep master in my opinion but slave definitely needs to be changed to something else.
Edit: A part of my thought process here was master bedroom, that's not offensive (although it does derive from old fashioned ideas about family, but it's not as bad as using the word 'slave')
I think in some cases it is just simpler to leave some of this terminology as is. For end users it may make a difference but it is important that whatever replaces it is intuitive. Master and slave for instance, even though not the best way of putting it, everyone understands the relationship between those 2 components without additional knowledge. "Server" is another good example of this. And I also feel, in the other parts of language that are more controversial, that it is important not to go too far. I learn Spanish, a language with a masculine and feminine form which divides nouns into either, but we don't try to change it. We appreciate its quirks as a language. Our modern English is a mash of hundreds of years of change, and it isn't perfect, but it is interesting and unique.
I've got very little programming knowledge but i've always seen "parent and child" used instead of "master and slave" so that's a good alternative
no. taking offense to these terms just gives more power to the words. By making these words "blacklisted" you could potentially turn them into new N words for edgy people to use to offend the people your trying to protect.
if you get offended by someone calling hard drives master and slave you need to get over yourself and stop making everything about yourself.
Hdd's aren't master and slave anymore. They're 0 and 1, they were a long time ago.
Plus in the context of drives either is dated because SATA does not work the same as IDE or whatever its name is.
i don’t think anyone is offended by it, just maybe uncomfortable at the use of something as forward as slave and master, whereas blacklisted and whitelisted obviously don’t have direct connotation to that of its history
I believe it was in the 1920/30 black Jazz musicians called each other 'Man' as they were called 'Boy' by many others. It can be a minefield to use to certain words and in some cases. There are moments that if you don't use the 'correct' terms you can get called out even if you are defending them. That can be quite saddening... the times we live in
I said this in another thread, but this wasn't the type of change people were protesting for. Nobody was holding up a cardboard sign saying "Rename some computer programming terms!", they were protesting for actual change which will make a difference to peoples lives.
I agree on everything you said, it's really important to take note of the small things that might increase our or insert us biases, especially if they dont take much effort!
I could agree with consider removing some of those terms in fairly new codebases and maybe "slave" and "master" if anyone use them.
But waste time and effort removing those words don't make any sense for me.
Xisuma's Graphic Avatar is so skinny. In real life, Xisuma is very lean but his biceps are fantastic.
Ok here's an idea. How about instead of changing terminology realted to black and white, which is simplest and cleares difference for on/off, good/bad, yes/no, heaven/hell, WE CHANGE terminology about skin color. Instead of black, white, yellow, red. Let it be something like idk, beige and brown. Or maybe make COMPLETELY new word for describing a race. That way we can never mistake color or anything rasist like with race. Maybe remove term skin color altogether. Make a new word. Skin gozid.
Like whats his skin gozid, its ahrth. Or maybe even terekh.
Your proposal actually makes sense unlike the drivel forced in current age and that's why it won't be taken seriously :(
inventing new words is harder to do than using compound words/other words for old terms. like main and subordinate instead of master/slave is easy enough to change to but trying to get millions of english speakers to accept a new word just so that we avoid racist connotations with other contexts of black/white is nice in theory but difficult in practice. if you can get it to catch on then sure i support it but how would you practically go about this without some sort of government intervention - and in those cases you get into more difficulties with issues like censorship, and force (what if no one accepts these new terms? do you arrest people? isnt that a waste of funding? do you just spread propaganda? isnt that also costly? etc etc) tldr not practical in the reaal world sadly imo
This solution would eliminate so many problems, and I honestly wish this could happen. There are so many connotations built up after a few hundred years here in America about black and white skin; changing our terminology would be like turning a fresh page, and I'm 100% for it. People argue that changing a few words won't eliminate the reality of deeply integrated prejudices and preconceptions, but words have a huge impact on evoking emotions and thoughts. In words, there are a lot of nuances that connect ideas, either consciously or subconsciously. Asking any American to think on the word "black," just by exposure alone, that person will think on the history of hatred behind the word, and how our society looks down on the notion of darkness as a concept. Even if they themselves don't feel any certain way toward the color or the skin tone, if they're educated on the social climate then "black" will at the least evoke this knowledge. And if you are black, that can carry several psychological influences, knowing that you identify in this category and that there are way less positive connotations than negative due to how society views the minority or "other." We tie experiences and stories to words, as well as other words to words. Connotation is huge, and I wish people took the nature of words more seriously. A seemingly innocent word still has impact, and this nuance builds with context.
I know its not realllly possible. Just an idea. Only way I see this possible is if it becomes a really talked about thing and that official language takes it, meaning media and politics speaks using new words. But it would take many years for people to start prefering new term instead of black and white.
I agree. It worked with the word latino. We just need a name for the other races which isn’t tied to their country of origin.
I find it quite interesting that I never saw ‘whitelist’ and ‘blacklist’ as potentially having racist roots until I saw the thumbnail and title of this video. In hindsight it seems a bit obvious lol
I think it's related to good and evil, light and dark/shadow, ideas from medieval europe when skin colour wasn't a debate (because of much less diversity in those times). Black and white just happen to apply to both our terms for shades of human skin and opposite ends of brightness - and brightness has been correlated with "good".
That's because it has never had anything to do with race. Blacklist as a term came around in the 1600s and was popularised by the British military in WW1. It refers to leaving someone in the dark on something, not race
Exactly, because there's no racist connotation there. It's all made up in minds of people who think they can appear better to public by getting offended by trivial things.
I don’t normally comment but today I will. And I’m on mobile so my formatting will be bad. As far as wether or not it will break systems the tech community I’m involved with can’t agree if systems that break are a real concern or not. Lot of people say if that’s the case then the stuff was poorly set up but it doesn’t matter too much. The biggest thought in my opinion is making code easier to understand for the average person. In github the terms don’t do too much but in other aspects, like hard drives, the masters actually dictate how they other parts function. You can’t call them boss/employee drives because those are modern terms and can be confused in an email. But Master/Slave is very descriptive and explains the relationship between the inanimate objects very well. It’s very clear and concise in a way I cannot imagine other alternatives being any better. As for things like dummy variable. I think there’s actually a certain part of history we would lose if we changed them. Like how the word Gay meant happy at one point in time. There are lots of people who are actually confused by old poems because the terms are changed but that gives an opportunity to learn more about the time it was written. My first experience with Mark Twain was a Censored Huckleberry Finn. It made no sense because they censored out the very thing he was commenting about. Imagine if every copy became censored and we forgot how it was originally, we’d lose a major work in the public’s eye. I think, in a sense, using these words invokes thinking and historical context. Preserving them is like preserving ruins. Those are just my thoughts though. The language is not only concise and historical so I would be sad to see it removed entirely. In the end though, it doesn’t matter too much either. I just hope that our transitions are natural and not forced, like how language usually develops. Maybe change it moving forward but not the past.
I haven't seen anyone else comment this, but in my opinion it's an important point.
2:36 - Honestly I don't think the terms "retard" and "retarded" actually *have* changed within the last 30 years.
While it is true that there was a point in time where "retarded" actually was a *clinical* term used to describe people with a mental handicap, replacing other terms which also started as clinical terms (things like "moron", for instance - which was a clinical term but also tied to eugenics movements) - "retarded" began as a more favorable term for people with these handicaps - it literally means their mental development has been hindered by their condition. That has changed, it is no longer used as a clinical term for the most part.
But colloquially, in my lifetime, it hasn't really changed. The everyday usage has always been an insult, and it has always been tied to the image of people with a mental handicap. What has changed is the prevailing attitude about whether this is OK or not, which has shifted largely (but not universally, of course) toward it not being acceptable. But the distinction there is important IMO - the colloquial use of the term, the image it's meant to convey, and its application as an insult - *none of that has changed*. We just started paying attention a little to the impact of this, and the idea that we should grant mentally handicapped people with a little more respect has gained a bit of traction.
This kind of thing tends to run in a cycle - new, "better" terminology is introduced, and over time that terminology becomes applied as a slur. We reach a point where the negative associations with the term start to outweigh the initial intent to be kinder, or at least more neutral and descriptive, so we throw it out and start again. I don't see this as a bad thing. Language evolves over time, and context matters. It is worth showing respect to people, and one of the ways we do that is to recognize when we've adopted behavior that hurts them, and stop it.
One that kind of surprised me, around a decade back, was when I first encountered "autistic" being thrown around as an insult. Autism covers a lot of ground, and a lot of that is the same ground that in decades past would have been covered by words like "retard". And what surprised me perhaps most of all was the extent to which the people weaponizing this word were aware of, and incorporated its true meaning. In one sense perhaps that speaks to the futility of it all - the Sisyphean undertaking of trying to guide people in a better direction when attacking people who stand out as different is kind of baked into human psychology. But at the same time I think that means it's something we've got to keep working at.
Those terms have never EVER hurt anyone that used them. No programmer ever has though of these terms as personally harming. This change is just a way for companies to make themselves as doing good, but its actually energy spent in the wrong place. There are much better ways to contribute to racial problems.
Exactly. Especially the point at the end I can imagine loads of GitHub things might break if they move from master to main such a big effort when time could be spend on new features.
People want a police reform and equality not changing words lol
Ikr. I'm pretty sure that nobody was holding up a billboard saying "Rename some computer programming terms" during the protests. If you think things like that are racist, then you obviously haven't experienced any actual serious racism issues before.
When considering that the "Slave/Master" terminology isn't even neseccarily particularly accurate, I think it would be fair to divulge from the terminology in the future.
While it is a strongly evocative image with notable tradition behind it, Actor/Director fulfills an all round more appropriate role in a lot of regards. Musician/Conductor seems a little further off base, but would also suffice.
Edit: Seeing as integrating such terms into an actual technological basis would be foolish and potentially make integration of a system difficult, such a change would likely only affect semantics, not disrupting any hardware relations.
Honestly the fact that blacklist and whitelist could be related to race never even occurred to me. It reminds me a little of how some Italian lubbabies refer to the "black man". My mind didn't think of "black" as in dark skinned I always pictured something along the lines of Darth Sidious (clad in black). At the end of the day, as you said, it's in the intent that makes a word racist or sexist not the term itself.
Ngl best of x’s channels
Why are people so fasinated with race?? You can't even say the names of the colour without people thinking about race
No
Yeah I also don't get why people straight away go to race when someone says a colour
people are not.
it just makes sense to update the language for better communication, it's always like that. I can't really get you an English example, but in my language ph used to have the same sound of f, now days we use f, cause it more simple to understand. You don't need to explain "blocked list" with the same history sense that you need to explain "black list", there is no one fascinated about anything, we're just more aware of the cultural sense of our lives and language.
Also, I could point out that Linus Torvald, the creator and developer of the Linux kernel, also made a chance to the code a few months back that changed the word "fuck" for "hugh", it's just better, there no problem with, why make it a big deal?
@@lucasbretana5915 sure it might be better for communication (I guess) but no one had an issue with that vocabulary until recently and I don't see why people decided to change it out of the blue (I don't watch news so I don't really know what's happening in the world).
@@lucasbretana5915 This will not improve communication. This will not change anyone's life for the better. In fact it won't change anything for the better. These companies just want to look good making these changes. They're a huge waste of time, and if the thousands of hours that will be spent changing this were used for other things, it could make a big difference
Peoples are upset about things like master and slave but not "kill" and "children". Those terminology are already used in a lot of system and it would cost a lot to change and re-learn everything, they are not broken and does not need fixing.
There is a video by mental outlaw where he talks about why he believes changing the terms is a bad idea. Main takeaway: changing terms create more difficulty to learn, and increases barriers of entry.
These changes are just distracting from actually doing anything about the real problems.
When I was in high school the language the our robotics team used was updated to use leader and follower instead of the old master/slave language
corporations will always give in to public opinion on symbolism, but as soon as you look at their business practices, you are going to see a lot more in the way of resistance
Context is key here. No one should percieve terms that have no association with race as racist.
I really like this channel it really gets me to think.
Hi, xisuma. I just wanted to give so more info from someone who has an internship at a silicon valley tech company. So I do a lot of busy work for some of the higher up developers at the office. Our group of 7 people mainly focus on kernel and hardware development and debugging. We have had 2 people for the last 2 weeks and counting removing words like blacklist/whitelist, slave/master from the UI but ONLY the UI those terms are still being used for kernel-level stuff. That's why im against it, its just for show and everyone still uses those terms the "problem" if you can call it that is still there. From what I've seen is that its a non-issue for 99% of the people that work here.
I think its important to see where the language we use has stemmed from, and why/where they were originally used (for example connoting "black" with evil and "white" with purity). Although these words are clearly not being used in the same way anymore, its quite shocking that our history of racism continues to live on through casual conversation. Most people agree that this isn`t a massive issue, but its a clear reminder of how deeply rooted discrimination is in our culture.
"Black" is associated with "bad" because it signifies darkness and danger, and humans mostly rely on their eyes. It's been like this for a very long time, and it has nothing to do with racism, I believe.
@@toomuchtime4896 That could be correct actually. I hadn`t thought of it that way, thank you for letting me know. At the same time, I think the links between "white" and purity/goodness might be because of a history of white supremacy and master-race type ideology
Are people actually getting offended by this?
Unfortunately.
it's not as much a fear of people being offended, but rather the fear that using it in this sense normalizes the institution of slavery and the White=good and Black=bad mentality.
While the argument could be made that we could rebrand those terms keeping them they way they are have "White=good Black=bad" be purely in exact coloring or reminiscent of day and night.
But as long as those terms are shared with the common terms for races, someone will connect the two along with the history backing up their views.
@@PowerOf47 I get that it can technically "normalize" it but, I think it's pointless to removed things from the past, because if we're "better" than we use to be then we can accept people use to think differently, this is why its a big problem with famous people getting "cancelled" from quotes 10 years ago, times change and stuff said now won't be acceptable later either.
No, people are trying to use it to signal submission to an ideology or to weild it for power.
It's quite possible that not a single person was ever offended by this however being absurdly progressive is trendy these days and people make up imaginary problems they could "address" - and after the "issue" became public, all the leftist sheep decided "oh, it makes sense, time to feel offended and change the sexist IT industry!!!".
The issue with replacing offensive, obscene or in other way "bad" words is that _those replacements_ may eventually become offensive or obscene.
Think of how people used to replace obscene words with animal names, and how those animal names became obscene, and now we use words like rooster, donkey and cat instead of... well... you know.
I absolutely agree. A bunch of people are saying that we should focus on the underlying issues, not computer terms like this. While it would be nice if everyone stopped being racist all at once and woke up thinking "this is wrong", this isn't going to happen right away. Not only would this change make terminology we don't want go away, but it would also raise more awareness. People's attitudes shouldn't be "Fix everything racist at once, or don't even bother." I didn't write this comment because I thought I would get lots of likes and everyone would stop posting comments telling us not to bother. I wrote this to make the tiniest difference because if I didn't, no one would.
People also overestimate how hard it would be to implement these changes. I won't go into much detail here, but here's why:
First, there is the possibility that you could change the button (or the command to invoke it) to something other than master and slave making it still work with older versions of git. Assuming this isn't possible, (it probably is possible), you should only have to change a very specific part, or layer of your computer.
Layer 1: The BIOS (or basic input output system) controls everything in the system and is almost hardware. This has tweak-able settings accessed by spamming a key the moment you press the power button. This is specific to each computer/motherboard and cannot be safely swapped out for something else.
Layer 2: The kernel is the purest form of your OS. This is contained via your storage drive (HDD or SSD usually) and can be swapped out from a usb drive. (Like everything else ahead of this)
Layer 3: The OS (or operating system) is programs necessary for the computer to run as normal.
Layer 4: Programs, which are everything else. (Firefox, Chrome, Minecraft, Steam, Discord etc.)
The BIOS (and hardware) have no concept of master and slave, so no need to update them. The kernel doesn't either. The OS might need to be updated if you're using a rarer version of linux or a non-windows non-mac non-linux non-android non-iOS non-ChromeOS OS though. Normally, you'll just have to update git or another program with slave and master in it, if that.
For whitelist/blacklist, you'll just need to update your programs that use it, (if that) unless you're a server manager like xisuma is.
Is it more important to change the terms slave and master than stop the slavery used to obtain cobalt for the devices using the terms?
I personally have never saw those terms under this light... I think that it is right to change them, but I also think that they (the ones that named) didn't mean to offend... And I think they used those terms to explain themselves better to their team or whatever
Censorship doesn't exist to protect anyone, it's to show you who has power.
Being offended by a word isn't a good enough reason to ban it, because anyone can be offended by anything.
Having a better word _is_ a good reason to change it. Block/denylist is often a better description so it should be favored.
Master-slave is very well understood terminology and all alternatives I've seen have problems so I'm against changing it. It's also typically used in some very low-level stuff, even hardware, so it's going to be near impossible to get rid off.
To reiterate my point, I don't think this is about the word. It's about giving power to the people who want it banned. Assuming this comes from people who feel marginalized, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to give them more power, I just think it's for the wrong reasons.
Messing with words is a left-extremism thing. We've seen the potential of the damage it can do. I fear it's going to do more damage than right-extremism.
I honestly believe the US doesn't have a racism problem, but a social economic problem. Most minorities, immigrants etc. are not well off, which reinforces the stereotype. The US in particular (of all developed nations) has really dropped the ball on that. They've tried to ignore the problem, or contain the problem, thinking all problems can be solved if you just give cops more power. That hasn't worked. It's time for a different approach. Break up neighborhoods of minorities, spread them around. Give everyone the same level of access to opportunities and services. It's going to take some time, things like this don't disappear over night, but give it a few generations and it will balance out.
The US has a lot of catching up to do. If you live in the US, for the sake of everyone in the world, VOTE!
I think that they should probably let the old commands still function to avoid breaking something but teach the new ones in schools. I haven’t done much research into this, though, so I’m not particularly qualified to say this
I moderate a discord server called “the whitelist” and whenever I mention it or invite someone, people comment on it being a racial term, the members had to vote on a new name because it cost us gaining multiple new members
In what appears to be an unpopular opinion in the comments, as an analyst/developer I agree with this change.
I notice a lot of comments saying things like:
“No one could ever be offended by these terms.”
and
“You would have to be stupid to be bothered by this.”
To those comments, I respectfully disagree, and suggest that just because an individual is not offended, doesn’t mean all people are not offended.
The fact of the matter is that these aren’t even new discussions- Ruby & Python made similar changes 2 years ago. It’s getting more press now, but frankly there are better terms to represent these concepts.
It’s easy to say that whitelist doesn’t have racial origins- and some will claim it could, some will claim it couldn’t, and you’re deadlocked in opposing perspectives.
What is very difficult to argue is that “whitelist” is a CLEARER term than “allowlist.” Blocklist/denylist are simply more intuitive terms than blacklist, and are therefore superior in building a language which we control.
As a programmer, if my boss said,
“You need to change the names of two objects used throughout your code.”
and my response was,
“That’s ridiculous, it’ll take forever and my code could break.”
I’d be fired. Quickly. Regardless of whether he gave me a reason for the change.
English evolves quickly, but computer languages evolve faster- it’s extremely common for major updates to intentionally be backwards incompatible for a variety of reasons, especially security.
We’re already in a constant state of development and innovation in this field- to suggest that I would be unduly burdened by changing some terms while adding new functionality is both lazy and insulting.
Finally, I prefer to lean towards compassion over indignation.
I have never been personally discriminated against due to race, but I have witnessed it happen firsthand.
If black colleague bristles at the term “slave” while I’m teaching them how to code, I am in no position to get annoyed at them and tell them to get over it. I haven’t experienced the things they have, and I shouldn’t blindly support a stagnancy within a system simply because it doesn’t harm me directly.
I’m not offended by these terms, but I have seen people who are- most smarter than I am. It would be an incredible personal and social disservice to invalidate their feelings simply because my skin is a different color and I haven’t felt the same pain.
I would rather be open to new ideas, and I don’t find “but this is so stupid” to be adequate food for thought.
Nor am I swayed by “we’ve always done it this way” or “that sounds like a lot of risky work.” Those to me are antithetical to work as a developer. We work in automation and perpetually seeking increased functionality and elegance.
Our drive should be innovation, and society should be following our example- we shouldn’t be shepherded into change.
Honestly, I have heard people make valid complaints against these terms for a long time now- there are clearer and less offensive alternatives.
We should’ve implemented changes years ago- it’s embarrassing to hear people claim that it’s too difficult or time consuming. We constantly revise our code to meet new standards. That’s what development is. If you’re not capable of that, then this is already a rough field for you to work in.
If you are that person, though- keep trying, I believe in you, and whether you agree with these changes or not, it’s our job- and we can do it together, personal opinions aside.
if you want to keep black/whitelist using colours, you could reference a stoplight and use redlist/greenlist, red for stop, green for go
Or just keep the functioning system that we have that isn't racist but only perceived to be due to oversensitivity
idk its a decently difficult change to make and what for? I wouldnt think anybody gets offended by words like blacklist. it just seems pointless to me and almost kind off like they are trying to look progressive without taking any real actions
You would need a bios update to change the master and slave terms, bios updates can brick your system if your USB disconnects or you have a power cut
The thing with language is that everything about it depends on context.
The word ball only means something because we all agreed it means that in English. So I dont think that you can simply ignore words which have gained a negative connotation through historical events, even if at some point they did not mean anything wrong.
I mean, about 100 years ago the hooked cross was a symbol that meant peace and good fortune, but then it got a very different new meaning, so now we all agree that carrying it on a flag is simply not done.
From Github “Regardless of origin, allow/deny are simply clearer terms that does not require tracing the history of black/white as representations of that meaning. We can simply use the meaning directly.”
IMO there's no drop in replacement for Master/Slave in tech still. Having read a list of replacements, none of them cover all cases like a find and replace type thing. However, there is generally a good enough alternative for each specific case. I think the confusion for me is that a computer being a slave is not inherently bad due to its lack of free thought. It seems almost like reaching some Black Mirror territory to assume that a computer being a slave is bad?
I think changing whitelist and blacklist make sense. There are many synonymous words that come to mind that could replace those.
Slave and master, there aren't many that come to mind (mainly due to availability of thought over the terms). They are such clear words that differentiate what's going on. One is in charge and answers only to the OS installed. The other does the work the main one tells it to do without question. It is nearly by definition the slave of the first one which makes the main drive the master.
There is no abuse of the slave with whips or anything and it's not based on color. The one who builds the computer decides which is slave and master.
These are very accurate definitions for the behavior of the drives.
“If people can’t control their emotions, then they try to control others’ speech” - Robin Skynner
See, I feel like this request is innocuous enough that it’s hard to argue with. However, it’s emblematic of a larger push to oust people that don’t conform to liberal opinion. I.e. Bari Weiss, Dave Rubin, Coleman Hughs, Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, and Milo Yinopulis.
I have seen arguments saying “it’s free speech if you’re winning and cancel culture if you’re loosing” However, what Im talking about is different. Cancel culture looks to prevent people from speaking. If the ideas are wrong, put them in an open forum for discussion so people can find out why they’re wrong. Don’t just ban them from speaking on twitter or college campuses for saying something different.
I've only ever used Parent and Child in my coding. The issue with Primary and Secondary is that they imply a 1-2, but with master/slave or parent/child it better represents the likely possibility of a 1-n.
Does anyone else remember when we said "male and female" instead of "plug and socket" for the different ends of connectors? There's no real difference in the technology, we just change the words. We could easily swap out "master and slave" for "manager and worker" to be every bit as clear about what the technology is doing (we do this for program threads already), and the "blacklist and whitelist" terms are already synonymous with "allow-first and deny-first" security policies.
A blocklist of games would include stuff like Minecraft and Terraria for sure.
Whitelist and Blacklist do have one advantage for memorability, they're the same length and feature directly contrasting common words. While block and allow are still easy, they're comparatively less common. "nolist" and "yeslist" could a simpler form. "You weren't yessed on this server" is a great replacement for "you are not whitelisted on this server". Though they sound strange because they're not adjectives like colours are. (Go/stop are similar.)
These days master/slave terminology still exists in certain semi-common formats, such as with Nvidia's SLI tech. Primary/secondary/tertiary certainly can work as well. Or "priority" replacing master. Boss/employee but if the employee doesn't have any recourse to overrule the boss.
The code itself generally doesn't have these names in it (I think) after it's compiled (except with stuff like HTML or batch files where it's not pre-compiled), unless they're referencing a filename or outputting text. They're primarily aimed at the humans for easy, concise word recognition. That's why I would focus on making the replacement words memorable and informative as well.
why did we choose master and slave? there are so many options you could do first and second, Alpha and Beta, primary and secondary, dad and son (or mum and daughter) etc..
I get the slave and master getting changed but blacklist and whitelist has been around for so long that it will be hard to get rid of, they can be associated with skin color but there also just colors like the text that's white, I think I could see both sides of an argument but it's all about context.
I can see how it is fairly easy to re-name things primary and secondary. I can’t think of better terms for ‘black list’ and ‘white list’ but I think if we can come up with one it should definitely change
I never tought of that.... but yes, there are lots of saying about black and white, good and evil like EVERYWHERE, old and new, books ect. Light is either on or off, it shouldn't ever be about skin color.... man, its weirdddd
i found on google "master is a Medieval Latin magistrare. Meaning "acquire complete knowledge of, overcome the difficulties of, learn so as to be able to apply or use" as for slave.... yea i only found it getting linked to slavery
Well I guess I can't make a post about the change in word meanings without it getting deleted. I'm not sure why I ever try to engage in intelligent conversation on this platform.
I don't exactly know about the political side but.
It's must be gonna make some problems to programming language I think..
Nope. Programing language updates. Also this only changes surface and base code doesn't change. Master and slave word for us not computer . Computer doesn't understand words direct.
good talk
If you want to talk about Slave terminology, the master bedroom was for well, the slave master. I suggest a change to the name to be the premier bedroom or something similar
We can change “Master and Slave” to “Major and Minor”
For a number of these things, it’s helpful to look at the origin. I heard something talking about git. The origin of master in this context is a reference to master of skills. Like being really talented. Generally a master is the one that disseminates information to the pupils. Which makes sense when working in git. The information of the main branch is disseminated.
As for black and white list. If feels the same as what’s happened with magic the gathering. White magic is associated with holy magic, and black magic is associated with things like necromancy (caves and such literally being dark). All of these were created with a different reference in mind, so saying that those phrases are now racist gives them emotional weight that they don’t need to have.
As for master and slave in the case of drives. I’m going to be honest, I’ve never heard this one before, but it’d one that I understand changing. The idea is rooted in the concept of slavery, and that’s quite a touchy subject for some.
I'm a computer programmer, so I've come across a bunch of these terminologies. I always thought master/slave was awkwardly ironic when I first heard of it as a teenager (early 90s), which begged they question then, "If you needed a driver for the 2nd hard drive, would that be a slave driver? :/". There's also other terminology like male and female connector (umm, yeah... that's a visual, but I think that's more an electronics term), and "killing the child process". I've always thought that PC terminology was a little violent. heh Also, I think in conversation, you normally say "Main Harddrive" and "Secondary Harddrive".
Like someone said down in the comments, the blacklist/whitelist feels more like a binary terminology (I mean, skin tone is technically beige).