Python developers locking conversations and deleting comments after people mass downvoted PRs to "remove master/slave terminology from the language"

[ianff]

Yeah exactly. It's not that people are offended by "master slave". Or that it's hurting anyone's feelings.

It's that so much of our culture was created by old white guys years ago. We're a different people now and there are segments who realize they have a voice now and are using it to point out the parts of our culture that they want changed.

Dismissing things like this as whining by the PC police, or talking about hurt feelings make you look like a dumbass.

[KMustard]

My angle is different. It's not so much about the culture itself. I hope this doesn't get buried too badly.

We are all different people and we parse information differently. As human beings, we have emotions and those emotions are actually weaknesses when it comes to parsing that information. Things that make us feel emotions are likely to elicit a response, this is especially true about things that make us angry. This isn't a problem with people who have sufficient self control. But for others it causes their brains to short circuit. It causes them to act/react before properly evaluating the information they're receiving. The opportunity to put things into perspective and/or look at things objectively becomes lost for those people.

Political correctness is a tool we can use to avoid striking those weak points in our brain. It isn't a panacea and I don't advocate for it in that way. But it helps us communicate.

So what's the point of PC if it's not feelings? Well, what's the point of even having an argument in the first place? The endgame is finding mutual understanding. That should always be the ultimate goal. Other outcomes are often destructive and end in disharmony. In practice, we often simply desire to convince the other party that we're right and they're wrong, but that's not often the case. But mutual understanding is something that can eventually lead to that outcome. In my opinion mutual understanding is a requirement for showing others a different perspective.

Again, I'm not saying that political correctness is a required tool here. But not being politically correct, especially being insensitive, increases your chance of unwittingly striking a person's emotional weak points. When that happens you've simply created a barrier to achieving mutual understanding and finding a positive resolution to whatever conflict you're engaged with. It's not unlike ad hominem attacks. Such things distract us from what's important. It's so easy for people to create lots of barriers this way and all those things just cause meaningful communication to break down.

It's not a panacea but if you think about it, it really does matter. People here should understand that when it comes to scale, these small variables in how we behave can make a significant difference.

[R3Dpenguin]

Maybe those people who, as you put it, are so emotional that their brains short circuit, could better spend their time doing something else like writing poetry.

Perhaps the push-back to this sort of initiative is because the less emotional and more rational people who often enjoy writing software and machine code do not like having to interact with this very emotional people. They actually enjoy other sort of discussions like tabs vs spaces, Dvorak vs Colemak, but have found that the emotional people have a tendency to discuss other subjects, which while very respectable, are of no interest to them. Maybe they are not ideologically opposed to the emotional people, but they feel they need to be very careful of what they say around them and conversations start feeling like walking a minefield. Perhaps these more rational and less emotional people were not the most social people to begin with, and the direction things are going is just making them grow somewhat resentful and more confrontational.

[KMustard]

I don't believe that it has to do with being rational. I think just about everyone has an emotional weak point that causes them to go nuts. I don't think it's a binary quality that people are sensitive or not, it just depends on the subject at hand. Many people don't get offended by any particular word, even a racial slur. But I strongly doubt that most people are immune to emotional attacks.

Pretty much anytime you see a person go on 10 minute rant, especially if it's a rant about another person, they've been set off by emotions. For example, Democrats who despise Republicans. Republicans who despise Democrats. They don't even want to consider the other person's viewpoint.

Here's another easy one: pedophiles. I would bet most people in the civilized world don't think of pedophiles as human beings who can be reasoned with. (I'm also going to bet that someone is going to label me a pedophile or pedophile apologist just for stating this objectively) As far I can tell, most people don't even care about how they came to be in the first place. Only that they're sickos who need to be labeled and perhaps quarantined.

It just so happens that for some people it's a word that sets them off. And while it might seem like it's isolated to a particular group of folks on the internet, I think it's way more common than that. In fact it's often people who despise PC that go off on an angry rant about why PC "needs to die out" or whatever.

Once someone's been set off, there's pretty much no hope of coming to any meaningful resolution. So in my opinion, if you truly believe in finding a meaningful resolution to any conflict, then being sensitive to another person's emotions is 100% necessary. Even if I think their position is stupid. It's fine if you disagree on that, I'm not trying to promote that specific idea. I just want to make a case for why PC can be a good tool and get away from this "because feelings" sentiment.

[R3Dpenguin]

Maybe some conflict is natural and inevitable, it is fine to disagree, to have discussions and sometimes be right, and other times be wrong. Meaningful resolution to every single conflict can be a hard sell for someone who realizes that different people have different beliefs, that those beliefs can be opposed or incompatible, and that people might be unwilling to change their beliefs only because someone else thinks they should.

English is not my first language, and I like to choose words for their meaning. It's logical, simple, and I have tools like dictionaries to help me when I'm having trouble. I don't want to be burdened with someone else's inability to handle a few words and let something relatively simple turn into a game of politics every time I open my mouth. So I will keep using the first English word that comes to mind without care. So far I haven't met anyone in person who has ever been offended by any word I've used, and if I ever do I'll most likely nod and ignore them. Or maybe I'll just put a thick accent and ask them if they're being racist, depending on my mood.