this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
620 points (88.9% liked)

Showerthoughts

29839 readers
894 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. Avoid politics
    • 3.1) NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out
    • 3.2) Political posts often end up being circle jerks (not offering unique perspective) or enflaming (too much work for mods).
    • 3.3) Try c/politicaldiscussion, volunteer as a mod here, or start your own community.
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

It sounds way less offensive to those who decry the original terminology's problematic roots but still keeps its meaning intact.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 75 points 3 months ago (71 children)

I personally think the whole backlash against master/slave in the computing world is people looking for something in their sphere of knowledge to be offended about so they can feel like they are part of "a movement". Even if some mustache twirling racist was the first "computer guy" to come up with the term and meant it to be offensive, that is not how sane people view it today. So some of the advocates for changing it should stop trying to build it up into some Pizzagate-like conspiracy against black/brown people.

Having said that, I also don't have any strong attachments to the phrasing either. Phase it out in favor of something that makes everyone happy if that keeps the peace. It is just a term that made sense at the time to describe something. There is nothing stopping us from changing it to something else now if we so choose. It is not erasing heritage or some such nonsense. If anything, people having strong hangups about it if there are better or equally as good terms out there that doesn't make people uncomfortable is far weirder in my opinion.

The only thing I have somewhat strong opinions about is making it some high priority to go back and erase those terms from solutions that already exist. Change them as you update things, sure, but why create extra work to update something old that is currently working if the only change is not functional and just verbiage. Seems like wasted effort that could be better directed and solving functional issues to me.

[–] funkless_eck 3 points 3 months ago (32 children)

while in some ways I can see your point, I would just have a hard time saying this in a work meeting here in the deep south with black colleagues present

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (25 children)

Whitelist and Blacklist is on that stack as well.

[–] ultramaven 3 points 3 months ago

Bro I fucking said “whitelist” in a meeting and got so many glares, fuck all of these fucking uneducated pieces of shit that can only punch down because they know nothing except “DATS RACIST”

load more comments (24 replies)
load more comments (30 replies)
load more comments (68 replies)