Loaded terms in free software

They are the people pushing for this change, obviously. The people that think they care about this terminology, that think it is important that it (this terminology) be changed. Who else would I be referring to? I didn't realise that I had to spell it (the meaning of the phrase) out every time. Pronouns are a linguistic universal, so I--obviously mistakenly--assumed that you'd understand my usage of them (pronouns).

If you'd like me to write out the referent of every pronoun I use (other than first and second person singular pronouns) in future, be sure to let me know. First and second person singular pronouns have such obvious referents even _you_ should be able to understand what they (the pronouns) mean without explanation. :)

>The descendants of slave trafficked Africans are (quite understandably) asking for terminology relating to the slave trade to be reconsidered.

This is incorrect.

Firstly, they're not the ones asking for this, white activists are.

Secondly, the terminology is not 'relating to the [Atlantic] slave trade'. 'Master/slave' is derived from its usage in relation to slavery as an institution in general, not specifically the instance of slavery that Americans are still hung up about because of the terrible inequality in America today. Slavery has existed everywhere, but because America refuses to make amends they're still much more hung up about it than elsewhere. Nobody is going on about Maori slavery or Norse slavery (thralldom) today. 'Master' has wide variety of meanings other than just its usage in the context of slavery, and even then see above. 'Blacklist' has literally nothing to do with race or the slave trade *at all*.

It's also not 'quite understandable' why they'd want terminology relating to the Atlantic slave trade to be reconsidered. I'm not offended or upset about terminology that relates to famines or blights or potatoes despite having Irish citizenship and a lot of Irish ancestry. It was a terrible time in history, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get upset about the term "resource starvation" for example. It's just ridiculous. It's in a totally different context.

>People who are suffering various kinds of discrimination because of their ethnicity are asking for terms like "blacklist" to be reconsidered (amongst many other changes - changing terminology is one of the /least/ of those changes).

'Blacklist' has literally nothing to do with race and never has had anything to do with race or racial discrimination. 'Black' is not a derogatory term or an offensive one.

>Women have asked that the usage of male terms as generics ("that all men are created equal") be reconsidered. Trans people are asking that the default assumption of binary gender is reconsidered.

Blatant derailing...

>Historically the Jews have spent many years asking for the same kind of consideration, and for the most part have been granted those requests. We don't normally refer to the Roma as Gypsies for the same reasons, and in both cases we've (mostly) retired the use of derogatory language tied to those groups because it was clearly harmful (you don't hear the phrase "jew down" any more, nor is "gypped" common usage, and I hope I don't have to explain why that's a good thing).

'Gypsy' isn't universally considered derogatory. There are lots of gypsies that prefer to be known as gypsies, especially common amongst the ones *that aren't Roma*.

'Gypped' is derogatory because it plays on an association between gypsies and stealing, underhandedness, cheating, etc. It comes from the term 'gypsy' as referring to the groups of people known under that term. On the other hand, 'blacklist' has nothing to do with black people. It isn't a racial term or one that has its origin in racial stereotyping or anything like that.

So no, 'gypped' and 'blacklist' are not comparable at all sorry.

>Each of those groups have entirely reasonable justifications for their requests - they're not asking because they're weak spineless creatures who can't handle a bit of wordplay, they're asking because they're suffering actual harm. The fact that the world is apparently being besieged by similar requests doesn't demonstrate that everyone has suddenly become snowflakes, it demonstrates that there's a hell of a lot of this stuff out there, and the more people recognise that these things can be addressed, the more people are actually standing up and asking.

>"They" may never be sated, because it's hard to know if we'll ever reach the kind of utopia that would leave everyone satisfied with everything, and until we reach that state there will always be people who desire change. But by the same token, why should people pretend to be satisfied when they're not? Why should people accept the status quo if it makes them unhappy? Why shouldn't they ask for changes to be made which might make them more satisfied with their lives?

Gypsies are suffering harm when they're associated by proxy with stealing and stereotyped in that way. Black people aren't being harmed by a 'master' branch or 'device blacklist' at all.

The problem is that there is no actual problem here to be solved because it's an ever-expanding pool of things that are now 'offensive' for no reason. Now it's 'master' next it will be 'resource starvation', abort(3), kill(1), orphan processes, or something else. No more 'black pepper' and 'white pepper'.

And the problem, as I have said, with this, is that it doesn't accomplish anything. It's like smoking. It might temporarily relieve stress but really it's *creating* stress by creating these strong negative associations. If you are in the social justice movement for long enough you find yourself automatically negatively reacting to words and ideas that are actually harmless. I realised I was feeling this and that's when I stepped away from that kind of stuff: the social justice language police train themselves to be offended and outraged by stuff and then they're outraged by it. It's psychologically addicting to be outraged. But it doesn't actually do anything or help anyone or make anyone's life any better.