Though I initially sympathized with the name change from master to main (cause I don't care what it is called), I am now more of the opinion that this kind of window-dressing might actually be harmful as it distracts from addressing the root cause. It is a bit complicated as the name change in itself is not bad, but given the context, and that it distracts from addressing real issues it actually is.
Same thing with plastic recycling, in and of itself it is better than landfill, but as it allows us to feel good and look away from the real problem (plastic is cheap because most impacts are externalized) the recycling of plastic contributes more to the problem than to the solution. I know people who traveled around the world about once a year, own a big house and altogether have a pretty big impact that could easily be reduced, but they do recycle plastic and think of themselves as somewhat environmentally responsible.
> I am now more of the opinion that this kind of window-dressing might actually be harmful as it distracts from addressing the root cause
Came here to express similar opinion and your articulation has succinctly and perfectly captured it so I'll just add to it.
Over the years I've come to realise that effecting real change to address the root cause is hard. It almost certainly won't be done by private corporations; the changes need to be enforced by (and at) institutions that are answerable to communities e.g., right to quality education, a humane law enforcer. Not only is change going to be hard but slow as well. However with more and more institutions getting privatised (private jails, contracted police force etc.,) whose sole motive is to earn more profits I don't see how anything is going to improve in the near future. So what ends up happening is every atrocity against oppressed community gets hijacked by these private mega-corps as they sense PR opportunity.
To take another example; Diversity & Inclusion. We do all the song and dance at the workplace to make it more diverse. But when you actually see the process from the inside you see how optical and ridiculous it is. The entire program is a joke. No matter what one does the top of the funnel is so ridiculously non-diverse that it's excruciatingly difficult to hire a diverse person. The reasons are obvious, the entire education system (and society to an extent) is so rigged against oppressed community that it takes a miracle for one of their community to even make it to resume-writing stage. Instead of addressing the problem at the root cause (make it easier for them to get high quality education, lead a decent life) every corporation makes a big PR-noise around D&I while in reality the work place continues to be non-diverse. Net result is we end up having debates like "why should we reduce interview bar", "it's unfair to the deserving candidates" while completely being blind to the root cause of the problem.
> But when you actually see the process from the inside you see how optical and ridiculous it is. The entire program is a joke. No matter what one does the top of the funnel is so ridiculously non-diverse that it's excruciatingly difficult to hire a diverse person.
I agree based on my personal experiences.
One of the concrete suggestions by the author of the blog post really strikes me as a step that we could implement, but we don’t: drawing from non-traditional backgrounds. And it’s because it’s an uphill battle. Much easier to do some low hanging fruit.
I’m not a minority in tech, but coming into my current job I had a semi-traditional background. Even getting first rounds was a struggle, only ameliorated by having a professional network of tech people, which is very much not something that you can expect a non-traditional candidate to have.
Seriously, my “get to phone screen” rate without network referrals was around 2-3%. With referrals was about 60%. That’s how bad it gets. So now when it’s in my direct control I go out of my way to look for non-traditional backgrounds in the pipeline and give them the benefit of the doubt during resume screening, paid for in hours I spend interviewing instead of programming
This would imply that people are capable only of doing one thing at a time and, potentially, that they're only capable of doing one thing full stop. I would honestly be amazed if a single person, anywhere[1], looked at this change and thought "yep, I don't have to think about slavery now".
> think of themselves as somewhat environmentally responsible.
Well, I guess they're more environmentally responsible than if they weren't recycling plastic. It's better to do something, however small, than nothing, surely? (And I doubt their environmental footprint even registers in the grand scheme of things - it's industry we need to shame, not individuals for the moment.)
[1] Who wasn't already heavily invested in ignoring the repercussions of slavery, etc., I suppose.
There is a chasm between “doing something like this distracts from more effective options for change” and “people can only do one thing at a time”, and arguing the latter when someone says the former feels disingenuous.
For example, in California, due to long term drought, urban water usage legislation was enacted. Urban water usage in California accounts for less than 10% of the state’s total usage, so a 20% reduction, at significant personal impact to urban residents, has a sub 2% impact on total use. However, it also gives the appearance that the legislature is actively engaged in addressing the problem of water conservation to under-informed voters without compelling those legislators to address agricultural and manufacturing uses (and their organized lobbying efforts).
The problem with “every little bit helps” mentalities is that they enable perverse outcomes when coupled with limited information decision making, finite resources, and multiple concerns to balance. All of this leads to the politically optimal (and thus career sustaining) option set being deeply suboptimal application of resources.
> I would honestly be amazed if a single person, anywhere[1], looked at this change and thought "yep, I don't have to think about slavery now".
Surprisingly, human minds do seem to work that way. After doing a "good" deed, we're liable to believe that we've done our part, and owe society no further action. Even if our good deed didn't actually change anything.
> After doing a "good" deed, we're liable to believe that we've done our part, and owe society no further action.
Yet people keep on recycling and switching their lightbulbs after they do the first one (a "good" deed.) People keep protesting even after they've succeeded in one protest. etc.
People will naturally continue with their existing behaviour, but I think the GP was saying that once people have adopted a behaviour to aid cause X they sometimes stop looking for other "gooder" behaviours addressing the same issue.
> I would honestly be amazed if a single person, anywhere[1], looked at this change and thought "yep, I don't have to think about slavery now".
This is exactly what people do. WAY too many people do "feel-good" charity work. They just pick something that's visible, easily partaken and then decide they're "helping" and go about their lives feeling better.
Like donating clothes to Africa, which actually harms the local economy[1][2]. As does dumping tons and tons of food without proper end to end oversight.
Or having a demonstration in a public location, bothering the end-users or workers of a business. Because it's easy and good publicity. They don't attack the people on top who actually make the decisions, because it's hard and boring work.
> imply that people are capable only of doing one thing at a time and, potentially, that they're only capable of doing one thing full stop
A lazy and overused argument. No one said only one thing can be done. Fact is time and attention are resources and by doing some thing you allocate less of them to other things.
To turn it into a specific example, in a large enough company, to make the master->main change you have to: announce it, update the repo, update the documentation, update the CI, update any automation around code, then everyone has to update their local copies. It takes time that costs the company real money. You can calculate that amount and ask the company to donate it to an organisation which can influence real change instead of renaming.
Furthermore, it's human's psychology that once you've done such "token good deeds", you feel good about yourself and less inclined to do some real thing, right now. Not everyone is subjected to that mentality, but I think most do.
Americans at large are heavily invested in ignoring the repercussions of slavery.
Our President still lives in a house built by enslaved peoples. Our Congress still legislates in a Capitol built by enslaved peoples.
That fact remains true, and is the prima facie evidence that all Americans have profited from our legacy of slavery, and that we aren't all that concerned with tearing down that legacy and eliminating the harms to folks that those monuments contain... instead a plaque or statue explaining the role of the enslaved peoples is enough.
Ironically, the solutions prescribed here are themselves virtue signaling: in that they do nothing to actually right the wrongs of the past.
As a practical way to help, I want to call out organizations like DonorsChoose. Find a Title I school or one with high economic need, and chances are high that a) more of the students are people of color; b) they don't have an effective or well-resourced PTA; c) their asks for resources are for basics that you'd assume would already be provided for. For those who want to make an actual difference, I'd highly encourage supporting an organization like this, and I'm pretty sure their communities would appreciate it more than tearing down the White House. https://www.donorschoose.org/donors/search.html?moderateHigh...
I didn't prescribe any solution- I'm not advocating tearing down the structures in a symbolic act to try and placate people. I'm pointing out the fact that all Americans stand today on the shoulders of an ancestry which enslaved peoples, and which we bear the onus of eliminating the traces of that power imbalance from our society, not just saying "hey, we don't mean master THAT WAY, you know?"
You don't. Nobody does. The plastic you "recycle" gets turned into lower grade plastic and so on until it gets landfilled. For plastic, the only way is down.
Steel, aluminium and glass are examples of materials that are recyclable.
I separate plastic so it can be either burnt together with my other trash, or shipped to Turkey where god knows what environmental crime is committed with it. An extremely small percentage might be melted into some low grade park bench. Absolutely zero plastic will be turned into high quality plastic pellets for industrial as a substitute for new plastic. It does not make me feel good, but not doing it makes me feel worse.
I just voted today for real change. Voting matters, plastic "recycling" doesn't*
* if you live in a place where you have meaningfully different options, not just two flavors of the same
> this kind of window-dressing might actually be harmful as it distracts from addressing the root cause
The root cause can't be addressed by the same people who reap the benefits of this system, because it's so deep in its core that it would require substantial change, possibly breaking the system itself.
I have the same issue and it's frustrating, but I understand. Last time I checked we don't even recycle the plastics here in the US. They get packed up and sent over seas which is even worse.
Less so since many of the target countries stopped accepting it. But the issue is that the stuff you could make by recycling these categories is of such low quality that nobody wants to buy them.
Off-topic, but I really enjoy products whose packaging I can dispose of well because it's all paper and/or metal. I buy Celestial Seasonings tea because there's no foil, and I can compost the tea bags. But there are still plenty of products that I only find in plastic, like frozen fish. I mainly shop at Wal-Mart because I'm poor. Does anyone have any tips for someone on a low budget?
I think such a change generates awareness. A lot of problems linger in the tech sector I'm not really aware of. The write up of the article author sheds light again on biased recruitment in the tech sector. Something that appears to be a fundamental problem with the education sector in the US being broken.
But it is good awarness? The major awarness people get from this cases is not about actual problems, but about very questionable wording-problems and behaviour of certain people. Not sure whether this at the end not creates more hate&blind eyes than important awarness.
The hate I've seen generated by ham-handed thought-and-speech policing is hate against the people doing the policing and hate against people standing up against the policing, not hate against the people the policing is ostensibly protecting.
So no, it's not revealing existing hate. It's actively generating new hate.
The hate against the people "doing the policing" and the hate against the "people standing up to the policy" were already there. Hate doesn't spring parthenogenically from the void, it has to be seeded and nurtured and cultivated and be vomited out only when the time is right.
Voicing a disagreement does not require or beget hate.
I really don't think so. Most obviously because those two groups did not even exist as entities most people were conscious of until recently.
> Hate doesn't spring parthenogenically from the void
Of course not. But it sure can be seeded and nurtured, as you note, by actions people take. And far too many people have been taking various actions that look to me as if they are designed, intentionally or not, to seed and nurture hate. And fear, for that matter. Which are not unrelated things: hate and fear are deeply intertwined and beget each other.
> Voicing a disagreement does not require or beget hate.
That is most certainly true. At the same time, a disagreement _can_ be voiced in a way that begets hate, and all too often is (e.g. via attacking the person, not the idea). And suppressing disagreement can absolutely beget hate. I feel like both are on the rise, unfortunately.
If someone decided they don't care about bias in the tech sector because the default git branch name was changed, they weren't going to and didn't care to start with.
This feels like a strawman - the issue isn't people deciding they don't care about bias because of this change, but rather that if tech companies are bending over so much as to make such an insignificant change to avoid seeming biased against minorities then how could bias in the tech industry exist at all?
I'm confused by this question, aren't you essentially asking, "how can a problem exist if some people are presently taking actions that try to mitigate that problem?"
For smaller scripts, this is trivially resolved. For larger scripts, this is a bug, and the script should be updated with a more flexible solution that doesn't rely on hardcoded branch names.
Same thing with plastic recycling, in and of itself it is better than landfill, but as it allows us to feel good and look away from the real problem (plastic is cheap because most impacts are externalized) the recycling of plastic contributes more to the problem than to the solution. I know people who traveled around the world about once a year, own a big house and altogether have a pretty big impact that could easily be reduced, but they do recycle plastic and think of themselves as somewhat environmentally responsible.
For the record, I do recycle plastic.