this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024
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Black/white as bad/good is a clear case where there is a clear logical reason to change IMO. That perpetuates unconscious bias.
Evil forces of darkness and good forces of light is engrained into our cultural DNA. Night=dangerous, day=safe is just something you have to learn early as a woman, it is a fact of society and we can't pretend it isn't.
Dark lord, black rider, white knight... why focus on whitelist/blacklist specifically?
Because allow/blocklist are just as old if not even older and are way clearer terminology.
"white" and "black" there are metaphors, the "master" in git branches and SCSI isn't.
See at some point you have to ask yourself the question whether you'd be opposed to the change if blue-haired college students really into performative politics weren't a thing. Imagine the idea coming from your slightly computer-illiterate 60yold shop floor boss saying "I don't want to think about the terms here, I want to do CAD/CAM. Speak English, whippersnapper".
You're probably right about that. It is irritating though that we've added more syllables.
I'm just grumpy because I don't like random change for no reason. I think I'm probably in the 99th percentile for how irritated I get when software or a website changes its layout. I also haven't seen any trustworthy anecdotes of people who find the term blacklist/whitelist offensive to them, but I don't really go looking either. Perhaps I should.