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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?

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/


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  • 0
    This professional offence-seeking witch-hunt is absurd in all of its forms. Master-Slave when used in an engineering context is not offensive unless you go out of your way to find it so, and there of plenty of well-paid (some might say overpaid) idle minds around to do that it seems.

    How far down the road do we go with this?


    "See that black wire.........." Oops! We need to rename it to a BAME wire, same for that yellow wire too, just in case, mustn't offend must we?

    Can no one else out there see that the Emperor really is naked?

    I would suggest that you look up 'The Long March Through The Institutions' in order to understand what is really driving this nonsense.

    It is a free pdf download and is an eye-opening read.

    Intersectionality, if left unchecked, will destroy our society as we know it.

Reply
  • 0
    This professional offence-seeking witch-hunt is absurd in all of its forms. Master-Slave when used in an engineering context is not offensive unless you go out of your way to find it so, and there of plenty of well-paid (some might say overpaid) idle minds around to do that it seems.

    How far down the road do we go with this?


    "See that black wire.........." Oops! We need to rename it to a BAME wire, same for that yellow wire too, just in case, mustn't offend must we?

    Can no one else out there see that the Emperor really is naked?

    I would suggest that you look up 'The Long March Through The Institutions' in order to understand what is really driving this nonsense.

    It is a free pdf download and is an eye-opening read.

    Intersectionality, if left unchecked, will destroy our society as we know it.

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