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Ethics: Are we misusing the terms "master-slave". Do we even have a community / forum in which we can discuss this?

The recent world wide considerations of the diversity challenges in our society has highlighted that we in Engineering can be perpetuating some of the derogatory terms implicit within our use of "Master-Slave" for purely inanimate technical control scenarios. [1 - N]


We have policies on slavery that every volunteer, staff member and Trustee must read and abide to, but it appears we haven't noticed, to any significant extent, our own continued use of "slave" in our writings.


Do we even have a community or forum in which we can discuss this ethical, and publishing issue?


Philip Oakley

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53273923

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3243656.stm

[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53050955

[4 ] http://www.jstor.com/stable/40061475   "Broken Metaphor: The Master-Slave Analogy in Technical Literature"

[5] https://www.theiet.org/involved/volunteering-for-the-iet/volunteer-hub/our-policies/anti-slavery-policy/


Aside: Is there some tick box to get notifications of replies sent?
Parents
  • The primary usages of the terms 'master' & 'slave' in electronics are for the SPI bus. Whilst SDI and SDO suffer the same lack of clarity as TX/RX for a UART, MISO & MOSI give clarity of direction and purpose. Erasing the word 'slave' from our vocabulary in no way benefits those who have suffered or do suffer under slavery, instead sweeping it under the carpet. I see no benefit, quite the opposite, from this proposal.
Reply
  • The primary usages of the terms 'master' & 'slave' in electronics are for the SPI bus. Whilst SDI and SDO suffer the same lack of clarity as TX/RX for a UART, MISO & MOSI give clarity of direction and purpose. Erasing the word 'slave' from our vocabulary in no way benefits those who have suffered or do suffer under slavery, instead sweeping it under the carpet. I see no benefit, quite the opposite, from this proposal.
Children
  • As someone who has been subjected to recent generational trauma, I don't understand this point of view in the slightest.

    In some ways I think therein lies the answer. It would help stop irritating me whilst I work on products that use this sort of language.

  • As was commented further up this thread, to those coming from a white western perspective it's easy to see these as just words describing a fact of life. If you haven't been on the receiving end of the issue then it's hard to appreciate that the words describing that issue are emotive. (And if you have been on the receiving end, it's hard to appreciate that for others those words aren't emotive.)

    An interesting exercise would be to propose the words bully/victim in place of master/slave. I suspect that some (although not all) who were happy with master/slave would suddenly feel uncomfortable with bully/victim - it's closer to home. 

    I wouldn't normally respond to an old post, but since I know Alex is still around, and since it's very rare that we disagree on matters (I always enjoy Alex's posts), I will say for once I do disagree on this point. For me it's absolutely not a question of banning the words or sweeping them under the carpet - by raising this issue it's quite the opposite: it's (should we choose to do so) making people think about what those words actually mean, and then considering whether we are using them in an appropriate context. And further (and perhaps most concerningly) whether using them in this way normalises the idea of a master/slave relationship. It may, it may not (although I suspect it does), but it's worth discussing. Which was the point of this thread at the start.

    It's not straightforward, language does evolve, and sometimes words take on new meanings in different contexts, so I can see an argument that the technical use of Master/Slave is now a separate use of language from the human use. But I suspect we're not at that point, my feeling is that the terms simply haven't been around enough for the link to be broken. Interesting article here:

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236752849_Broken_Metaphor_The_Master-Slave_Analogy_in_Technical_Literature/link/5469f9170cf2397f78300c7f/download

    (I found it while trying to find out how long the term had been in use.)

    Thanks,

    Andy