[OscarDC]

I agree with the most part of what you wrote and I don't want to turn this even more into an unconstructive flame war than it already is. I just wanted to reply on the following point:

> I knew HN had a bunch of conservative and libertarian tech bros but…holy shit. This whole thread is unhinged.

Many people on that thread seem to not be american so thinking of them through a US political lens may not be pertinent - the politically-loaded, US-centric, source of the change may also be the source of the frustration with it in the first place (see the bottom of this reply).

Just on this point, I consider myself left-leaning (and from what I can see, US democrats would mostly be at the center - and Biden center-right - of the political spectrum in my country), yet I share the point of view of the other commenters regarding the "master" change and the ways it is pushed.

> In what universe is master/slave not racist

For the "master" part at least, I would say most people do not link it to slavery because most people are not from an english-speaking country.

For me, when I read master I may just think about master recordings. That does not mean that it may or may not have a racism-linked origin (I have no idea about that) but understand that many people around the world don't do the connection. Then, as it is mostly US people that push for other to change that name vehemently, this make many people think that those are americans that want to push their current political ideology down someone else's throat (which has a completely different cultural and political background) and may elicit a strong response.

[dangus]

I’m speaking purely from the context of the US, and I wouldn’t want to shove our terminology down anyone else’s throat. That said, the US does drive a lot of software culture since it’s the industry epicenter, so I guess it’s unavoidable at some point.

Maybe I could have used less politically-charged language, but in my eyes it was necessary to surface the connection. I think that in the US, a very specific political group rallies around opposition to social justice, and that group has a tendency to try and hide their underlying motivations (e.g., using dogwhistling).

[anon373839]

> I think that in the US, a very specific political group rallies around opposition to social justice, and that group has a tendency to try and hide their underlying motivations (e.g., using dogwhistling).

Talk about dog whistling! Why don’t you actually say what you mean: “I think people who disagree with my beliefs are unworthy and their opinions don’t count.”

[dangus]

You’re basically headed straight to the tolerance paradox.

If you disagree with my desire to not harm others, the inverse is that you want to harm others. No, that opinion doesn’t count, and is unworthy. My intolerance of that opinion is not hypocrisy.

[anon373839]

This has nothing to do with the tolerance paradox.

The comment tried to smear opponents of the social justice movement as dog-whistling bigots. But the social justice movement is not, in many people’s very legitimate opinions, the right way to achieve fairness. It also doesn’t enjoy the kind of broad consensus its proponents like to pretend they have.