[OT] master/slave debate in Python

[Ian Kelly]

On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 3:18 PM Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 7:05 AM Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > You're objecting to people trying to do *something* positive on the
> > grounds that they're not doing *more* while you yourself are doing
> > *nothing*. That's pretty hypocritical.
>
> You're assuming that it's something positive that's being done. That
> is an unproven assertion. I'm objecting to people creating churn on
> the grounds that they're not accomplishing anything.

The goal is promoting respect and dignity within the workplace, and
more generally within our field. If you can't see how this advances
that, then I have nothing further to say. You might ask yourself,
though: why are you so invested in this that you would not only refuse
to change anything yourself, but also would throw up a resistance when
others try to make a simple documentation rewording?

One other thing. This is difficult for me to respond to, but I feel it
has to be done:

> Actually, if a human slave is being treated as someone who has no
> will, no autonomy, no power to choose anything, s/he IS being treated
> as a computer, and my point is to highlight that. Think about how you
> treat your computers - you have the power to discard them if they do
> not work correctly, or even if you just want to get a newer one. You
> have the power to kick them across the room and nobody will arrest
> you. Maybe you don't do those things (I would hope you don't kick
> computers around), but the computer has no say in that. Am I
> trivializing slavery? Or am I using a descriptive term that is
> actually more accurate than you dare acknowledge?

Yes, you can kick your computer across the room if it's not working.
The difference with a computer is that you don't have to; computers
are never willfully disobedient. Computers never have to be "broken"
in order to have value. Computers also don't have feelings or
experience pain. You can't punish a defiant computer by whipping it,
or starving it, or preventing it from sleeping, or making it sit in
its own waste. You can't punish it by separating it from its family or
keeping it in total isolation. You can't even just sell its family to
another computer-owner without even considering how it will feel about
that. You can't force a computer to adopt your own religion. You can't
lie to your computer in order to manipulate it. You can't make it a
promise of freedom that you know you will never keep.

If you think that a slave just means somebody who has no choice but to
do what they're told, then yes, I think that you're trivializing the
condition of slavery, and by comparing the victim to a simple object
like a computer, the very language that you're choosing is
dehumanizing.