Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 45 replies
  • Subscribers 19 subscribers
  • Views 5537 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

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

Philip Oakley
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
  • 0
    Alex Barrett:

    ...banning the word does nothing to help those past or present who suffer under slavery. 




    Alex,


    I am with you on this. There is absolutely no point in banning the word as we would just need to come up with another word to describe the concept. If I write about Roman society in the time of their empire I can't avoid using the words 'Slave' and 'Slavery', as that is the way society was then.


    Similarly if we have a master-slave technical scenario I admit we could change the name (to perhaps leader-follower) but why should people be upset by that any more than by reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?


Reply
  • 0
    Alex Barrett:

    ...banning the word does nothing to help those past or present who suffer under slavery. 




    Alex,


    I am with you on this. There is absolutely no point in banning the word as we would just need to come up with another word to describe the concept. If I write about Roman society in the time of their empire I can't avoid using the words 'Slave' and 'Slavery', as that is the way society was then.


    Similarly if we have a master-slave technical scenario I admit we could change the name (to perhaps leader-follower) but why should people be upset by that any more than by reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?


Children
No Data

Community Rules & Guidelines