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Comment by henriquez | Hacker News Reader

Sorry for being too ambiguous there. Yes, anyone can choose to remove “master / slave” terminology from their own project. The issue I take is a bit bigger than a matter of individual choice.

I have a problem with companies adopting extremist political policies in an effort to cater to a growing population of hostile young puritans who want to LARP as activists but lack any meaningful civil rights issue to worry about and have thus resolved to make up shitty, fake civil rights battles.

In order to not be considered “problematic” in this modern landscape we’re expected to play along with these shitty, fake civil rights battles. That’s a game I’m personally tired of playing and I think it ends when everyone, including its own vocal proponents, are burned by it.

I didn’t choose to get rid of the “master” repo, but now we’re changing terms. Literally the terms of service have changed.

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So my understanding of the legal requirements of terms of service (which are generally not strongly enforced either way) is that if it changes you just have to sign the new one, or decide that you disagree enough with the changes that you won't sign it.

To the "extremist" point, I have to say I really don't see it. Changing "master" to "main" doesn't seem like an extreme political position to me. Extreme would be someone murdering protesters, tweeting someone chanting "white power", or hanging black people from trees in Texas. Those are pretty easy things to not want in your society. The same with people setting businesses on fire or brandishing weapons in public. But I don't see how someone trying to reduce their harm externalities by changing words is particularly extreme.

This may come down to the difference between the ideas and the people holding the ideas. I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea. I think we can both agree that we wouldn't want people harassing each other for either making or not making this change, as anyone should be free to make whichever decision they feel is right. To the extent that the "left" is the cause of the harassment, I can agree I'd rather those people deal with this more calmly. But again, they're not the ones murdering people.

And now we’re talking about left vs. right, dragging in unrelated injustices to construct our web of systemic oppression, and posing the false dichotomy. Do I accept the new terms or do I support lynching black people in Texas?

No, what I’m saying is it’s a game, it seems you are trying to play it right now, and I’m saying I reject it.

I was only trying to respond to the political claims you brought up. I'm not sure how you can read what you wrote and not see that you're making claims about political extremists on one side. I'm not the one who brought that up, and in my post I mentioned both the burning business and the harassment that the left is doing that I disagree with. Lastly, it's not a game. People are oppressed. People are dying. The specific problem of wording in git repos may seem unimportant, but the conflation of that with the reality of what "extremist" means is what I take issue with.

I don't really care about what political side you're on (I'm an independent), I don't even really care about the git repo thing (people can choose whatever they want, it doesn't really affect me) but your claim of what is "extreme" is quite frankly not reasonable.

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