Social Justice out of control

[Angry Floof]

So what? Give your cardiovascular system a rest. At worst, it's a misguided use of programmers' time and effort. No one brutalized. No one unjustly arrested or imprisoned. No one's property stolen or damaged.

And when you think of how deeply influential language is on how we perceive the world around us (language runs deep in our neural pathways; it's not just a superficial layer of conscious, verbal thought-symbols), this action reflects a sensitivity to the more subtle, and therefore actually more powerful and insidious, ideological environment we create for everyone.

But I recognize that not everyone thinks more deeply into any situation than what is most immediate, inflammatory, and reaction inducing. (That is also the creative power of language in action.)

 

[Worldtraveller]

I don't believe that Twitter's overreaction to a somewhat misguided article on linguistic usage justifies the generalization that "the social justice warrior society is out of control". These efforts to reframe debates by changing language happen all the time, and they almost always go nowhere. The failed efforts of the Acadèmie Française prove that tails don't wag dogs when it comes to language change. Most people pay no attention to linguistic witch hunts.

Its just the latest example. I think it became pretty nuts a long time ago. Now it's just insane.

Yeah. It's really terrible that so many people are seeking social justice from the society in which they live.

What IS this world coming to?

 

[rousseau]

If anybody has doubts of whether the social justice warrior society is out of control, take a look at this.

"Social media platform Twitter is dropping the terms "master", "slave" and "blacklist" in favour of more inclusive language."

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53273923

This is in the code. It's not in communication material. It's in the code, which nobody other than programmers see. These are also terms that are standardised and universal within programming. They are also useful because they are clear and descriptive. If you have two thingy's on a network and one is called "the master" and the other "the slave" there's no doubt about which does what.

It's also going to be expensive. These kinds of code changes cost a lot of money to push through. I don't think they're thought this through. I think this is something the communication department came up with without fully involving the nerds, because this is just dumb.

I'm a lefty... but right now my chips are being moved over on the conservative side because this sort of lunacy has to be stopped. It's Newspeak. Reality is being replaced by virtue signalling symbols. Progressivism is being forced upon us in Moaist people's courts. While China just turned Hong Kong into an actual totalitarian Big Brother state, Putin became president for life, and the West worries about whether or not code might offend the handful of black programmers that come into contact with it. I suspect that most of their programming is done in India anyway, by people who have no reason to be offended by the term "slave".

One company has chosen to stop using coding language with obvious and strong associations with slavery and concepts of "white" = good, "black" = bad. Even if it's historical coincidence (and it may not be) that "blacklisting"/"whitelisting" have meanings perfectly aligned with white supremacist ideology, the similarity in meaning makes the psychological association real and strong.

Also, it is ironic that one of your arguments against this is that only "a handful of black programmers" even see that coding language.
So, you think that a company being sensitive (arguably over sensitive) to the objective semantic overlap between these terms and racist ideology and racist historical events is a a bigger problem for society than the fact that due to that ideology and events blacks in America continue to be so poor and receive such poor education that they represent only a handful (4%) of programmers. You think that the left's concerns with the objectively rampant racism and white supremacy in the US which may lead to some over-sensitivity to language concerns warrants leaving the left for the very conservatism that has and still does promote real white supremacist ideology. Unless you OP is just an off the cuff drunken rant showing you over-reacting to someone else's potential over-reaction, then you aren't close to a liberal let alone a lefty.

Yeah, thinking that changing some symbolic words can lessen the effects of racism is retarded.

Black/white terminology has perhaps more to do with illumination than skin colour, perhaps?

Lessening the effects of racism requires class analysis. Otherwise you're only removing the symptom. Not the cause. All I see is theatre. Not any genuine attempts to stop racism

My understanding is that this isn't being done to lessen the effects of racism, it's being done in an effort to be more inclusive of people of colour.

Originally I was on your side on this issue, but then I thought about how I'd feel as a programmer with African ancestry, constantly seeing the terms 'master/slave' every day. It might be subtle, but it's a concept that's had an overwhelming negative influence on these people's history. So getting rid of it certainly signals to people of colour that they're more welcome in the industry, and avoids an obvious trigger for their long, awful history.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don't believe that Twitter's overreaction to a somewhat misguided article on linguistic usage justifies the generalization that "the social justice warrior society is out of control". These efforts to reframe debates by changing language happen all the time, and they almost always go nowhere. The failed efforts of the Acadèmie Française prove that tails don't wag dogs when it comes to language change. Most people pay no attention to linguistic witch hunts.

Its just the latest example. I think it became pretty nuts a long time ago. Now it's just insane.

Yeah. It's really terrible that so many people are seeking social justice from the society in which they live.

What IS this world coming to?

Its not social justice. Its an act. Its preserving racism by pretending you care when you don't. Instead of doing things that work we do symbolic actions intended to preserve the status quo. I don't think any of these social justice warriors and BLM activists actually want to stop racism.

I think it's just outrage culture. People like being angry. People like being victims. Why else is all focus on absolute bullshit, and bullshit alone?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Yeah, thinking that changing some symbolic words can lessen the effects of racism is retarded.

Black/white terminology has perhaps more to do with illumination than skin colour, perhaps?

Lessening the effects of racism requires class analysis. Otherwise you're only removing the symptom. Not the cause. All I see is theatre. Not any genuine attempts to stop racism

My understanding is that this isn't being done to lessen the effects of racism, it's being done in an effort to be more inclusive of people of colour.

I call bullshit. Inclusivity comes from giving people jobs and civic responsibilities. Not magical words.

Originally I was on your side on this issue, but then I thought about how I'd feel as a programmer with African ancestry, constantly seeing the terms 'master/slave' every day. It might be subtle, but it's a concept that's had an overwhelming negative influence on these people's history. So getting rid of it certainly signals to people of colour that they're more welcome in the industry, and avoids an obvious trigger for their long, awful history.

I don't think it works. I'd like to see something that backs it up. I think the logical chain to support it is exceedingly weak

 

[fromderinside]

Addressing racism isn't about embracing arms akimbo to those abused. It's about natural examples from authority of inclusion and brotherhood. We are moving forward. Veeerry slowly but forward nevertheless. Face it. They're holding the balls. NFL and FIFA acceptance of bended knee are powerful examples.

When NFL and NCAA take the field this fall in empty television equipped stadiums symbols of inclusion will be featured in a standard way at every game. It will be about those participating, not about those watching and screamng at the stadium.. That focus will be by advertisers and it's obvious where they are going. After all a customer is a customer regardless of color, ethnicity, sex, age, or faith.

 

[bigfield]

Its not social justice. Its an act. Its preserving racism by pretending you care when you don't. Instead of doing things that work we do symbolic actions intended to preserve the status quo. I don't think any of these social justice warriors and BLM activists actually want to stop racism.

It seems to suit Twitter, and the other companies making these symbolic changes, to preserve the status quo. That would explain why they are doing it. They aren't going to do anything substantial that might threaten their profits.

I suppose what we're seeing here is the intersection of social justice and capitalism.

 

[rousseau]

I call bullshit. Inclusivity comes from giving people jobs and civic responsibilities. Not magical words.

Originally I was on your side on this issue, but then I thought about how I'd feel as a programmer with African ancestry, constantly seeing the terms 'master/slave' every day. It might be subtle, but it's a concept that's had an overwhelming negative influence on these people's history. So getting rid of it certainly signals to people of colour that they're more welcome in the industry, and avoids an obvious trigger for their long, awful history.

I don't think it works. I'd like to see something that backs it up. I think the logical chain to support it is exceedingly weak

That is a fair critique but a bit aside from the issue. It's still a positive step with largely no down-side. Not having done [y] isn't really a solid argument as to why not do an unrelated [x].

Language matters. It might not be trans-formative, but it matters.

To your point I can feasibly see this type of action being taken too far, but getting rid of the term 'blacklist' doesn't strike me as such an example. In this we'll probably have to agree to disagree.

 

[fromderinside]

I don't think you'll find racist stigma attached to 'white out' or 'white wash' or 'pink sheet' or even 'yellow journalism'.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I call bullshit. Inclusivity comes from giving people jobs and civic responsibilities. Not magical words.

Originally I was on your side on this issue, but then I thought about how I'd feel as a programmer with African ancestry, constantly seeing the terms 'master/slave' every day. It might be subtle, but it's a concept that's had an overwhelming negative influence on these people's history. So getting rid of it certainly signals to people of colour that they're more welcome in the industry, and avoids an obvious trigger for their long, awful history.

I don't think it works. I'd like to see something that backs it up. I think the logical chain to support it is exceedingly weak

That is a fair critique but a bit aside from the issue. It's still a positive step with largely no down-side. Not having done [y] isn't really a solid argument as to why not do an unrelated [x].

Language matters. It might not be trans-formative, but it matters.

To your point I can feasibly see this type of action being taken too far, but getting rid of the term 'blacklist' doesn't strike me as such an example. In this we'll probably have to agree to disagree.

The Saphir-Worff hypothesis was false. When they studied various languages they projected exotism and racist bullshit onto them. Yes, words matter. But human brains are sophisticated. Just removing a racist word doesn't lessen racism. Nobody becomes a racist from reading Mein Kampf, nor a Christian from reading the Bible. They exist in a larger context.

Nixon used welfare to break apart black communities and made them depend on government hand outs. To make them easier to control. He did this while claiming he was trying to help them. The actions matter more than the words

 

[rousseau]

That is a fair critique but a bit aside from the issue. It's still a positive step with largely no down-side. Not having done [y] isn't really a solid argument as to why not do an unrelated [x].

Language matters. It might not be trans-formative, but it matters.

To your point I can feasibly see this type of action being taken too far, but getting rid of the term 'blacklist' doesn't strike me as such an example. In this we'll probably have to agree to disagree.

The Saphir-Worff hypothesis was false. When they studied various languages they projected exotism and racist bullshit onto them. Yes, words matter. But human brains are sophisticated. Just removing a racist word doesn't lessen racism. Nobody becomes a racist from reading Mein Kampf, nor a Christian from reading the Bible. They exist in a larger context.

Nixon used welfare to break apart black communities and made them depend on government hand outs. To make them easier to control. He did this while claiming he was trying to help them. The actions matter more than the words

Because again, removing the words has nothing to do with lessening racism, and everything to do with it's impact on real people in everyday usage. It's the same reason we collectively stopped using the term 'mentally retarded'. I don't think anybody believed the term led to an increase in discrimination, but it does infer and imply a specific belief about the disabled, largely that they're 'not as good' as people without disabilities. We don't change the term to fundamentally change the world, we change it because there are better terms to use, and doing so isn't a big deal.

Similarly, I don't think anyone believes that Twitter changing a few words is going to seriously impact racism, because the point isn't to impact racism at all, it's to use more inclusive language.

You may have a point that there are more fundamental things we can do, but that in itself isn't a good reason not to use more inclusive language. It's an easy step to make, so why not make it.

Now you may disagree with me that these terms are problematic, and that's ok. But you're completely misinterpreting the point of taking this action.

 

[ruby sparks]

...then you aren't close to a liberal let alone a lefty.

You nailed it, imo.

 

[ruby sparks]

But you're completely misinterpreting the point of taking this action.

By twitter? I haven’t looked closely and I don’t use twitter, but corporate virtue signalling would be high on my list of suspects.

Which is why the OP is making a point about the sort of cynical capitalism that that represents.

No wait, social justice warriors are the problem.

No wait...

 

[rousseau]

This issue isn't only confined to Twitter, it's been an issue in tech for a while. For example, similar terminology was removed from the Python programming language.

One can still be cynical about the intentions of Twitter, but however you want to look at it the intent is to be more inclusive, which isn't in itself a bad thing.

 

[ronburgundy]

If anybody has doubts of whether the social justice warrior society is out of control, take a look at this.

"Social media platform Twitter is dropping the terms "master", "slave" and "blacklist" in favour of more inclusive language."

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53273923

This is in the code. It's not in communication material. It's in the code, which nobody other than programmers see. These are also terms that are standardised and universal within programming. They are also useful because they are clear and descriptive. If you have two thingy's on a network and one is called "the master" and the other "the slave" there's no doubt about which does what.

It's also going to be expensive. These kinds of code changes cost a lot of money to push through. I don't think they're thought this through. I think this is something the communication department came up with without fully involving the nerds, because this is just dumb.

I'm a lefty... but right now my chips are being moved over on the conservative side because this sort of lunacy has to be stopped. It's Newspeak. Reality is being replaced by virtue signalling symbols. Progressivism is being forced upon us in Moaist people's courts. While China just turned Hong Kong into an actual totalitarian Big Brother state, Putin became president for life, and the West worries about whether or not code might offend the handful of black programmers that come into contact with it. I suspect that most of their programming is done in India anyway, by people who have no reason to be offended by the term "slave".

One company has chosen to stop using coding language with obvious and strong associations with slavery and concepts of "white" = good, "black" = bad. Even if it's historical coincidence (and it may not be) that "blacklisting"/"whitelisting" have meanings perfectly aligned with white supremacist ideology, the similarity in meaning makes the psychological association real and strong.

Also, it is ironic that one of your arguments against this is that only "a handful of black programmers" even see that coding language.
So, you think that a company being sensitive (arguably over sensitive) to the objective semantic overlap between these terms and racist ideology and racist historical events is a a bigger problem for society than the fact that due to that ideology and events blacks in America continue to be so poor and receive such poor education that they represent only a handful (4%) of programmers. You think that the left's concerns with the objectively rampant racism and white supremacy in the US which may lead to some over-sensitivity to language concerns warrants leaving the left for the very conservatism that has and still does promote real white supremacist ideology. Unless you OP is just an off the cuff drunken rant showing you over-reacting to someone else's potential over-reaction, then you aren't close to a liberal let alone a lefty.

Yeah, thinking that changing some symbolic words can lessen the effects of racism is retarded.

Black/white terminology has perhaps more to do with illumination than skin colour, perhaps?

Lessening the effects of racism requires class analysis. Otherwise you're only removing the symptom. Not the cause. All I see is theatre. Not any genuine attempts to stop racism

I didn't say changing these words would meaningfully reduce racism, and in fact said they may reflect "over-sensitivity to language".
But the semantic connection to racist practices and ideology is real, and even if white-black positive-negative have their metaphorical origins to illumination, the same concept being foundational to racist notions is still real.
You're not in the context of the US where slavery and white supremacy aren't things of the distant past, but where 45% of the population and 80% of conservatives want to preserve monuments created entirely by, for, and in favor of slavery and white supremacy.
That's the real racism, not coding language, but that's the highly racist social context that makes it not "insane" to imagine that those handful of black programmers who manage to get past all the extra hurdles in their way might cringe when they have to deal with language about master and slave and equating white with good and black with bad. In fact, it was a black programmer at twitter who spearheaded the issue. And maybe even so, it isn't worth the distraction or hassle, and it's silly or "retarded", but it's nowhere near the demise of society you make it out to be, and nowhere near as bad as the racism-motivated denial of any societal racism by the conservatives you suggest are becoming a better alternative to the left.

 

[ruby sparks]

Does anyone on the actual left use the term social justice warriors as a pejorative? If so, I was not aware of it.

 

[steve_bank]

Does anyone on the actual left use the term social justice warriors as a pejorative? If so, I was not aware of it.

Haven't heard it especially, but the rhetoric here in Seattle is one of war.

Guns were being handed out in the autonomous zone and self appointed armed security patrolled.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In manufacturing the word jig was common for mechanical fixtures. It was phased out because it is also a slur.

What's wrong with jig? I've never known any other meaning besides the manufacturing one.

 

[skepticalbip]

Does anyone on the actual left use the term social justice warriors as a pejorative? If so, I was not aware of it.

Haven't heard it especially, but the rhetoric here in Seattle is one of war.

I haven't heard the term 'social justice warriors' as a pejorative by the left but I have heard the term used by the left as a title of honor and, figuratively, as a call to arms.

Guns were being handed out in the autonomous zone and self appointed armed security patrolled.

With a few shootings resulting in two killed and several wounded.

 

[steve_bank]

In manufacturing the word jig was common for mechanical fixtures. It was phased out because it is also a slur.

What's wrong with jig? I've never known any other meaning besides the manufacturing one.

When I was a kid there was a black slur 'jig a boo'. Heard it from an uncle.