SELECT created_at, 'https://github.com/'||repo_name||'/issues/'||number AS url, event_type, actor_login, repo_name, title FROM github_events WHERE match(title, '\\bDEI\\b') ORDER BY created_at DESC
qingcharles 4 hours ago [-]
These developers have had to drop whatever projects they were working on to go back to previous code and spend time finding all of this, just to keep their jobs. Then they have to redeploy new versions everywhere, which also carries a significant cost. Really frustrating.
nimbius 3 hours ago [-]
IMO this is only going to be a thing for as long as:
0. it takes the reigning POTUS to realize its causing problems that are impacting wealthy elites (24 hours in the case of tariffs)
1. 4 years.
If i were product owner/manager of any of these teams id recommend we fork the codebase for 4 years and call it done. keep the forked version on standby with backports of major content updated in case you wind up with this sort of situation again, but dont start ripping all this stuff out of prod.
Or if on a longer timeline, build culture war into the release as a feature flag (culture=1, culture=0, etc..)
4ndrewl 1 hours ago [-]
> 1. 4 years
You're very optimistic that there are going to be elections in 4 years time. You have a king and a court with unfettered access to power now.
femiagbabiaka 1 hours ago [-]
The histrionics don't help:
If this is the case, incepting everyone with the idea in advance subconsciously lowers resistance right now, when nothing can be done, because this is all hypothetical.
And if it isn't the case, you can't be taken seriously.
Simply respond to the moment, in the moment. That is already enough.
Plus remember: he doesn't need to be a dictator, because he won a democratic election. If anything, liberals should be focusing on how to avoid JD Vance from simply winning in 2028.
panic 56 minutes ago [-]
It's not "histrionics"; they tried it last time and they'll try it again. This time they seem more organized, so I wouldn't be surprised if they succeed. If you care about the US remaining a functioning democracy, you should work in whatever way you can toward removing the current administration from power.
justonenote 9 minutes ago [-]
The FBI and 51 Intelligence officials signed a document saying Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation 2-3 weeks before the last election, when in fact it was actually Hunter Biden's laptop.
Is this a true statement or not?
acdha 48 minutes ago [-]
> Plus remember: he doesn't need to be a dictator, because he won a democratic election.
He was elected President, not king. The laws being broken applied to all previous election winners.
gerdesj 9 minutes ago [-]
King Charles III is many Kings and quite a few other head of states/dominions/Mann! He does not have many of the powers that Trump is deploying.
It may turn out to be ironic that you describe Trump and our Monarch (or any other) within the same breath.
Please recall (or look up) what happened to Charles I of England.
grajaganDev 37 minutes ago [-]
>he doesn't need to be a dictator, because he won a democratic election
So did Hitler.
cyanydeez 51 minutes ago [-]
You know the guy who was elected was prepared to stay in power had his insurrectionists been a little better planned.
Histerioinics and history are not associated with the same word.
Grow up.
SteveNuts 45 minutes ago [-]
Trump has already signaled he plans to run for a (as of right now) unconstitutional third term.
justonenote 48 seconds ago [-]
Where did he signal this?
Once you find the quote, go onto politco (a not exactly pro-trump site) fact-checking service to get the full context.
joshuanapoli 18 minutes ago [-]
Time is not on his side.
SteveNuts 7 minutes ago [-]
With the best healthcare in the world available, I definitely won't be getting my hopes up on that. And furthermore the order of succession isn't much better.
nonchalantsui 3 hours ago [-]
Culture war as a feature flag is so good. I’m definitely reusing that.
lenerdenator 3 hours ago [-]
> 1. 4 years.
That's optimistic.
We put a business executive in charge of the federal government. There's no such thing as term limits or checks-and-balances in the mind of a business executive, just taking a good horse out of the race and inefficiencies. On the first count, if Trump's still in relatively good health, I could absolutely see him making that case for scrapping the term limit on the Presidency.
ben_w 1 hours ago [-]
> On the first count, if Trump's still in relatively good health, I could absolutely see him making that case for scrapping the term limit on the Presidency.
He isn't. Even absent any impact that catching covid may have had on his body, he's visibly obese. More detailed reports on his health are hard to come by thanks to (a) that being private, and (b) the extremely noisy people who either want to demonise or deify him, but it's not unreasonable to think he's got a 25% chance of old age catching up with him fatally by the end of this term.
But if the term limits get scrapped, I wouldn't be surprised to see a return of Bush or Obama as alternatives. Or Bill Clinton. Bill, George, and Donald were all born in 1946.
(1946 was also the same year the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council started meeting. Coincidence, or the secret world government? Coincidence, obviously).
flir 43 minutes ago [-]
They're aiming for "scrap term limits, but only for Presidents who have served non-consecutive terms". (Or it's all just "notice me senpai" from the soulless minions in Congress. Maybe both.)
3 hours ago [-]
hypeatei 2 hours ago [-]
> I could absolutely see him making that case for scrapping the term limit
They're already working on a constitutional amendment to allow a third term[0] and right wing lawyers have suggested that there are legal strategies Trump could try employing to stay in power. That along with Trump himself "jokingly" saying that we won't need to vote again if he's elected does not inspire confidence.
Luckily a constitutional amendment has 0% chance of being ratified by enough states, even if they're somehow able to get a supermajority in both houses of Congress. Any legislation in that direction is just a distraction. It's the other strategies we need to watch more carefully.
kernal 3 hours ago [-]
2. 12+ years.
mschuster91 1 hours ago [-]
> it takes the reigning POTUS to realize its causing problems that are impacting wealthy elites (24 hours in the case of tariffs)
He didn't "realize" anything. All of the show we're seeing was planned posturing and "deal-making by leverage". We shouldn't be accepting even talking about the US annexing Greenland FFS - but here we are, with credible proposals for installing new US military presence on Greenland being discussed. That's alarming.
> 4 years.
Bold of you to assume there will be elections in four years, that these elections will be anywhere close to fair, or that the people who voted for the 47th won't just vote for him (or his successor, assuming the 47th goes six-feet-under) again.
rpmisms 4 minutes ago [-]
> We shouldn't be accepting even talking about the US annexing Greenland FFS
Genuine question: why? Expansionism may be out of style, but I don't see how it's inherently evil.
ty6853 1 hours ago [-]
There has been no revolutionary change in governance since FDR. The federal apparatus has been tightening the screws with ever vaster and more expensive compendium of regulations and laws. End result, about the largest incarcerated population of the world.
The parties in power failed to unwind any of this so instead they got an unhinged strongman who promised to do it with a sledgehammer. Trump is a symptom rather than a cause.
pjc50 5 minutes ago [-]
Last I heard El Salvador was offering to help expand the prison population.
netsharc 3 hours ago [-]
Four years? Oh, honey...
Where do I put money on the MAGA-Nazis pulling a Putin on future elections? I suppose Putin isn't the first one to do rigged elections, somehow he's the only one currently in my mind.
Sadly Wikipedia doesn't have an article entitled "List of Rigged Elections"...
bqmjjx0kac 3 hours ago [-]
I really do expect them to try. I am slightly hopeful that this clown show of an administration is too incompetent to pull it off. The judicial branch appears to be bought and paid for, so maybe my optimism is unfounded.
pc86 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
netsharc 2 hours ago [-]
Grandfather comment didn't mention anything being "complete"...
But ooh yeah, 3 out of 9 are clean, so there's a chance? Let's just ignore the 6 incompetent apparatchiks and "simple majority rule" shall we?
Don't be so obtuse, we know you're not that stupid.
pc86 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
Volundr 2 hours ago [-]
> My point was more that if "liberal" == "clean" and "conservative" == "incompetent apparatchiks" then you're (the royal you) a shill
If I consider all the ones who voted for Presidential immunity corrupt does that make me a shill? It's a decision with no constitutional basis (the constitution grants no presidential immunity, but does grant other immunities, implying if it was intended it'd be in there) and ahistorical (we can find plenty of examples of presidents assuming they or their predecessor could be prosecuted).
That still leaves us in the same place a Supreme Court where the majority is beholden to the current President, not the constitution.
netsharc 2 hours ago [-]
And this is you addressing my claims of you being obtuse... how?
Sure, typical whatever-you-are tactic of changing the topic when being attacked. Plus some "Won't somebody think of the site's rules?!".
pc86 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
miltonlost 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
ryandrake 4 hours ago [-]
This seems just as ridiculous and frustrating as a few years ago, dropping whatever they're doing to remove "master" and "whitelisting" from the code. Different team, same silliness.
azernik 3 hours ago [-]
1. This is removing actual content, not just changing internal naming. "Children/Families affected by systematic discrimination/bias/exclusion" will simply no longer be able to find grants targeted at them.
2. The amount of effort being put into this is much higher than GitHub changing their default for new repos to "main"
IshKebab 3 hours ago [-]
> The amount of effort being put into this is much higher than GitHub changing their default for new repos to "main"
Sorry but that's bullshit. This is just deleting a few words from static content. The whole `main` thing required:
* Github (and Gitlab etc.) to make `master` configurable - an entirely new feature.
* All tooling that previously could assume a default of `master` now can't have a sensible default. You have to specify every time.
* Users to remember which one to use for every repo.
This is still causing me pain. Repos I use are about 50:50 split between `main` and `master`. I sure do love having to retype `git switch master` half the time I do it.
This is dumb, but it definitely is less effort than the dumb `main` change.
knome 36 minutes ago [-]
Having to keep track of what branch has been arbitrarily tapped as the trunk in a repo is not reasonably comparable to stripping Americans of recognition and rights.
The former may annoy some folks until they standardize or figure out a way to tag the repos. The latter is actively aiming to be detrimental to people in a large way, and unless stopped, will very likely succeed in that goal.
pjc50 4 minutes ago [-]
You didn't have to do this, there was no EO.
_kst_ 54 minutes ago [-]
I deal with the main/master brouhaha by using a script I wrote that determines the name of the appropriate branch:
#!/bin/bash
git remote show origin | sed -n '/^ *HEAD branch: */s///p'
It's in my `$HOME/bin` as `git-master`, symlinked as `git-main`.
git switch $(git master)
(`git foo` finds and executes a `git-foo` command anywhere in $PATH, a handy feature if you want to implement your own extensions.)
(This is of course irrelevant to the topic of the top-level post.)
38 minutes ago [-]
EasyMark 1 hours ago [-]
It isn't though. This is the beginning of wiping LGBTQ from any federal government concerns, grants, programs, health data, etc. It's been pretty obvious for the past 2 weeks that Trump doesn't care about the law, nor do his acolytes or GOP Congress members who have failed to stand up for the very role of the Congress as a check to Presidential and Judicial power. They passed these laws, the President has to go through them to make changes to them, not do end runs around the law disguised as Musk and his minions
cbeach 21 minutes ago [-]
Why should people get grants because of who they choose to sleep with?
gchamonlive 19 minutes ago [-]
Why should people not get specific needs cared for, to exist for instance, because of who they choose to sleep with? I think that question precedes yours in priority.
Hizonner 2 hours ago [-]
Less effort on that repo? Sure. Less effort replicated over the entire US government? No, sorry, don't buy it.
... and the git changes were allowed to happen on a sane schedule.
Oh, and most of the people or projects affected by the git change got a choice.
amarcheschi 3 hours ago [-]
Except that replacing "master" with "main" probably didn't affect the lives of people subject to systemic discrimination. This might do
lucasyvas 3 hours ago [-]
I agree with the parent comment, but believe you have the more correct and important perspective in the current context.
They are both probably forms of overcorrection, this too far in the wrong direction where the former could have been too far in the more ideal direction.
Pandering is not as bad as discrimination, as you’ve pointed out.
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 13 minutes ago [-]
No. This is the idiocy that continues to undermine any argument from free speech or forced speech. You cannot just agree with the language you like. You have to be able to live with horrible, horrid language that you detest and then, maybe, we can have some semblance of sense come back. Words don't hurt people. People do. Case in point, it is not words that are deleting those words. It is actions.
You are part of the problem. Yes. You.
pipes 3 hours ago [-]
It does not seem fair to me to exclude
or include people in financial aid programs based on the colour of their skin. Individual circumstances seems like a much fairer and much less divisive system.
amarcheschi 2 hours ago [-]
I hope that this was valued in accordance to other values. Eg. A rich black kid in Washington probably wouldn't be eligible to receive this grants, while a poor white kid in Kentucky would. I also hope that "systemic discrimination" would take into account more than just skin color
This comments section seem to be full of the "Fuck Woke DEI" Maganazis and mentioning "systemic racism" will trigger them, but if you're still reading, look at George Floyd, in an alternate world, he'd be a wealthy person descendant of landowners, but in this reality, his grandparents' land was stolen, he grew up poor (and black) and ended up being yet another black-murdered-by-cop figure: https://dwkcommentaries.com/2020/10/08/a-moving-biography-of... . But snowflakes get triggered if there's an idea of better treatment for descendants of victims of systemic racism (another snowflake trigger word).
To the snowflakes: Hey, why care about all that, your continued violence has won you the ethno-supremacy fascism you wanted, where being white and incompetent doesn't matter, because you'll get that cushy job anyway!
gregates 3 hours ago [-]
No, those are identifiers that appear only in code. It's an IDE or git rename with no impact on the product.
In this case, the engineers are changing the functionality of the product, not just changing code identifiers.
pc86 3 hours ago [-]
So whether you agree with the policy aims or not, wouldn't that mean this is actually productive work while trawling through git histories changing "master" to "main" is just a nonproductive waste of time.
bjourne 53 minutes ago [-]
Did you tax money fund any master->main branch renamings?
miltonlost 3 hours ago [-]
"Whether or not you agree with the policy aims, wouldn't this mean that the death camps are actually doing productive work?"
You can't ignore the policy aims when determining what is "productive" as productivity is directly to the end result. It's WORSE that this is productive vs non-productive.
You're "Tired of nazi comparisons" when... Musk did two Nazi Salutes! He brought the comparison on by doing a Nazi salute! Twice! You're the one who refuses to see a salute for what it is.
tmnvdb 13 minutes ago [-]
Yes the case against death camps is not that they are a waste of time symbolic measure with no real world effects.
pc86 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
tbossanova 2 hours ago [-]
Curious as to how the Nazi salute thing is seen by you? Just a little forgivable misstep?
miltonlost 2 hours ago [-]
Probably looks like a good opportunity for a high five!!!
insane_dreamer 3 hours ago [-]
1) Were employees ordered to implement PRs to go through all code and auto-remove all mentions of "master" and "whitelist" from public facing code (not just internal identifiers).
2) False equivalency.
IshKebab 3 hours ago [-]
> Were employees ordered to implement PRs to go through all code and auto-remove all mentions of "master" and "whitelist" from public facing code (not just internal identifiers)
Please don't admonish people with a 1-hour old throwaway account, especially if you're not even going to say what you think "this" is.
Cornbilly 3 hours ago [-]
Most places only changed that terminology on external viewable materials and the requests for removing terms from the code were just dumped in the backlog for some intern to maybe get to one day.
I could go pull my company's JIRA ticket and I guarantee you it hasn't been touched since 2020.
These companies were only going to do enough work for a PR win and nothing more.
flir 31 minutes ago [-]
It's Microsoft. If they were serious they would have, say, refused to sell Office licenses to the worst-offending police departments. Instead they renamed master to main. If it was me (it's not, I'm a pasty white guy) I'd find it condescending. But it's also harmless, and shorter to type. It's not a hill I'm going to die on, and the false equivalency smacks of bad faith.
mplanchard 39 minutes ago [-]
In addition to what others have said about the very real effects on the people using these programs, one was mandated by the government, the other was companies being performative. There is a vast difference.
TheOtherHobbes 32 minutes ago [-]
One is about a set of words which have no practical effect on function, the other is about an unelected apparatchik with questionable foreign links deliberately destroying the administrative and constitutional integrity of a superpower.
It really isn't a both sides situation.
tehjoker 3 hours ago [-]
that was really stupid but mostly harmless, this will cause a lot of people to actually suffer
whamlastxmas 3 hours ago [-]
Removing racistly coded language isn’t ridiculous. There’s a reason we don’t use words like “negro” anymore, too.
pc86 3 hours ago [-]
You're completely right. It's a shame that instead of doing that people were worried about terms like "whitelist."
wwweb 3 hours ago [-]
Oh sure, this is 100% the same..
kernal 3 hours ago [-]
The corollary is that they were very motivated to do so.
tehjoker 4 hours ago [-]
i cant imagine having my boss tell me to do this shit. i would quit
freitasm 3 hours ago [-]
Some people still need to feed themselves and their families.
But if there was an option, they definitely should.
netsharc 3 hours ago [-]
Having people with integrity quit is a secondary goal. And with the compliant people remaining, they can do a slippery slope, with the people thinking "Well I've already done X, X+1 isn't that much worse". Slash they'll absorb the Nazi propaganda as "acceptable".
Gas chambers when?
blibble 1 hours ago [-]
imagine being told to spend a week re-doing builds to rename "master" to "main"
monkeydreams 24 minutes ago [-]
These are not exactly equal. I'm not saying that I am particularly triggered by such titles (even when they apply to my family history, genealogy, etc) but there are some people who are and accomodating them is not a huge impact.
Changing the names back because you were upset that somone changed them in the first place, with the express knowledge that some people may be affected by this, is a dick move.
One of these moves is a virtue signal, yes, but it has no real impact once completed. This current move from 'main' to 'master' is designed to both virtue signal and to upset/piss people off/etc.
PakistaniDenzel 3 hours ago [-]
Everyone had to do the same shit with the master->main thing
everybodyknows 3 hours ago [-]
A concurrent parallel in the private sphere: I see today that all the pride/heritage weeks or months have disappeared from my Google Calendar.
Digging into Settings (on desktop web) reveals options to turn on "Regional" and "Global religious" holidays e.g. "Start of Ramadan" -- but apparently no way whatever to recover the disappeared -- not even via menu button "Browse calendars of interest".
idunnoman1222 5 minutes ago [-]
Well, it went too far in one direction and now it’s gonna go too far and the other direction and I guess the only people we have to blame and the only ones who care are the ones who cared
daft_pink 1 hours ago [-]
Why has hacker news turned into politics central :(
saagarjha 29 minutes ago [-]
Because software engineers are being asked to perform political decisions.
sanderjd 39 minutes ago [-]
Because of the inauguration a couple weeks ago. That's how it goes. Don't worry, it will settle down.
And also: There are an unusually larger number of actual HN angles going on in this particular new administration. This article is clearly relevant to this forum, and so is the recent Wired article about the DOGE employees.
Fraterkes 30 minutes ago [-]
Because it is part of the world
jefurii 47 minutes ago [-]
You could've just skipped over this page, but you're here commenting. Just sayin'
hk1337 4 hours ago [-]
Seems like it's just a PR for removing it from the government website?
Also, looks like they're adding a deletedAt field and soft deleting items in the database rather than hard delete.
Hizonner 3 hours ago [-]
> Seems like it's just a PR for removing it from the government website?
As a new crash priority ordered from outside by people who have probably never heard of the project. Not disruptive or anything. That's definitely how you manage a large organization.
Oh, and this particular "PR" does nothing to aid anybody or improve anything. There's that, too.
> Also, looks like they're adding a deletedAt field and soft deleting items in the database rather than hard delete.
Protecting themselves in case it gets rolled back, I imagine. When you get toddlers in charge, you can expect new "crash priority" rule changes on a daily basis, so you learn to prepare.
crooked-v 3 hours ago [-]
The word "just" there is doing a lot to gloss over the absurdity of government workers ordered to censor the word 'equity' instead of doing actual work.
based redditors are now in control of trillions of critical infrastructure. surely this will go well and not result in untold damage and predictable backfire
wwweb 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
jjkaczor 4 hours ago [-]
"Land of the free" != "Forbidden words & phrases".
TimTheTinker 3 hours ago [-]
"Forbidden words & phrases" is a pragmatic way to express "how to follow orders at this moment", but it's not an apples-to-apples comparison against worldview-level ideals like "land of the free". One could just as easily say that removing phrases like "final solution" is against freedom -- which it clearly isn't.
bsimpson 3 hours ago [-]
I'm sure how the government functions on a technological level qualifies for "things hackers might find interesting," but the comments on these Trump/DOGE-reactionary threads are really disappointing. Too many of them are just signaling the author's ideological affiliations without adding anything substantive/curiosity-inspiring.
Fraterkes 21 minutes ago [-]
If someone sharing their view on an issue isn't curiosity-inspiring to you, isn't that mostly
an indication of your own incuriosity
FrustratedMonky 4 hours ago [-]
Seems like there are more important things to do than code clean up
lucasyvas 3 hours ago [-]
Indeed - doesn’t seem very “Efficiency” based does it.
trhway 4 hours ago [-]
How it was done when GitHub didn't exist yet - my uncle's story about his time in the school in USSR : Children, open the history book at page 54, you see the photo titled "Soviet Marshal, Hero of Revolution ...". Now take the ink bottle and pour the ink over that photo as he is an enemy of the people.
insane_dreamer 4 hours ago [-]
It's still that way in China -- I saw high school or college textbooks with pages glued together or removed.
sweeter 3 hours ago [-]
Okay 404, its evil that you put a fake hair on the github screenshot lmao...
Side note, I really don't give a single shit what anyone thinks about Diversity equity and Accessibility initiatives (though, I do think being opposed to requiring businesses to have wheel chair ramps and such, comically cruel) I don't know how anyone can support having 18 year old randoms having access to Federal databases and direct access to the governments pocket book, and support going far past judicial processes to illegally gut the minuscule, nearly non-existent, social safety nets that we do have. Idk how anyone in their right mind can say the wealthy deserve a trampoline, and everyone else can't even get a safety net.
pizzafeelsright 1 hours ago [-]
I can support a diverse (young) and diverse (unknown, hired from the outside) team.
If the database is so insecure that anyone from Texas can just walk in, I would hope we find a way to secure our data.
I would assume a full audit is taking place. If not then demand it. We cannot allow people to spend our taxes without oversight.
cantstopmenow 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
belter 4 hours ago [-]
"..The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward..."
- Adolf Hitler - Mein Kampf (1925)
34 minutes ago [-]
skywhopper 4 hours ago [-]
After years of nonsense complaints about non-existent “cancel culture” and “censorship” campaigns, here we have the real thing happening right in front of our eyes. Literal “forbidden” words being deleted from government documents and already-published material. This is truly disgusting, disturbing, and vile.
IshKebab 2 hours ago [-]
> non-existent “cancel culture”
Wow I've never heard anyone deny the very existence of cancel culture before. Or is this some kind of semantic distinction-without-a-difference?
pjc50 7 seconds ago [-]
The word got used to mean everything from "complaining about a bystander using a rude word on twitter" to "finally prosecuting somebody after enough credible rape allegations went public".
dragonwriter 2 hours ago [-]
“Cancel culture” as a distinct novel thing doesn't exist; ostracism of people that diverge from a group’s values has existed forever, “cancel culture” is just a name applied to it by those indulging in certain beliefs that had previously been unquestionably dominant after they had become sufficiently controversial that those opposed to them were a significant-enough group that the ostracism that that previously dominant group had previously applied to its opponents sometimes had substantial impact in the other direction.
tbrownaw 29 minutes ago [-]
> “Cancel culture” as a distinct novel thing doesn't exist
Remember that something being a culture is about pervasiveness and normalization. It's not a mob harassing your employer because you posted photos with the wrong brand of political attire; it's it being culturally acceptable for a mob to harass your employer because you posted photos with the wrong brand of political attire.
Sure people protesting things is old, like you say. As are groups deciding to not associate with certain people.
But that is not in fact the same a nominally-impartial authorities encouraging protests for the purpose of having an excuse to impose a hecklers' veto on things they don't like.
And it is not the same as targeted harassment of anyone outside the ostracising group who doesn't bow to their demands.
tshaddox 1 hours ago [-]
It exists in the same sense that "pie attack culture" exists. Some people certainly have been pied in the face, so how could you deny that "pie attack culture" exists?
tbrownaw 26 minutes ago [-]
> Some people certainly have been pied in the face, so how could you deny that "pie attack culture" exists?
By not being obtuse enough to conflate "this has happened at least once" with "this appears to be widely considered culturally acceptable".
thrwthsnw 3 hours ago [-]
It’s kind of lame that these guys are blacklisting words based on some master list. Normally these things get grandfathered in but I guess they’re just blindly following orders after getting sold down the river. It seems like an insane waste of manpower if you ask me. I’d hate to be the low man on the totem pole slaving away at this kind of bitchwork and getting ragged on by the bossman if I missed a word.
darkwater 3 hours ago [-]
Why didn't you use the n-word as well?
Also, do you really think it's the same? I mean, the parody you wrote with what's actually happening?
1shooner 3 hours ago [-]
I don't support any of this reactionary nonsense, but there are certainly lists of forbidden words that grew along with the DEI movement. Of course they were forbidden for different (I'd say better) reasons, but it was ultimately also asserting power through control of language.
dragonwriter 2 hours ago [-]
> the DEI movement.
"DEI" is not a movement, it is just a rebranding of Affirmative Action to emphasize the goals and break the association with (long explicitliy illegal, but often popularly associated with Affirmative Action) quota systems.
tbrownaw 19 minutes ago [-]
I don't recall AA coming with affinity groups and explicit celebration and centering of differences.
cantstopmenow 3 hours ago [-]
How much of that accompanied foreign dissolution of Congressionally-mandated institutions?
azernik 3 hours ago [-]
How much of that was actually removed in a crash effort, and how much was just fliers saying "please use this other word in the future"?
throwaway984393 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
zachanderson 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
Devilspawn666 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
mehh 3 hours ago [-]
> In the UK people were arrested for saying thay all lives mattered.
ahh just seen your account was just created, so wasting my time, but no, no one in the UK was arrested for saying that.
Devilspawn6666 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
Angostura 3 hours ago [-]
> In the UK people were arrested for just saying that all lives ma*ered.
You need to have a think about how you were convinced of that, and who told you it. because it isn’t true.
n4r9 3 hours ago [-]
> In the UK people were arrested for just saying that all lives ma*ered.
Any reference for that? And why start out the t's?
Your link talks about two people being arrested at a protest of 300, presumably for being involved in one of the "minor scuffles" mentioned. Not for saying "All lives matter". Or are you really suggesting that at an "All lives matter" protest these two were the only ones saying it?
n4r9 16 minutes ago [-]
But are there any cases where someone was arrested for saying all lives matter?
throwaway_2494 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
biddit 4 hours ago [-]
You're assessing them with the wrong criteria.
You don't hire architects to execute a demolition and you also don't hire anyone heavily invested in keeping the building standing. But you DO hire people loyal to you to perform the work, who will receive staunch opposition the latter group of people.
throwaway_2494 2 hours ago [-]
This is the bit I don't get. Why are there so many people ready to line up to defend the powerful against the weak, the rich against the poor?
What a brave and noble purpose! I'm real proud of people like that...
The richest man on earth in charge of cost cutting. Go and bathe in a jacuzzi of cash Musk, and stop acting like a sore winner...
Hizonner 3 hours ago [-]
If you hired Trump's idiots to handle a demolition, they would:
1. Bring the building down on their own heads, with bystanders inside.
2. Destabilize the neighboring buildings to the point where they also had to be demolished.
3. Flood the site and cause a giant gas leak.
dmonitor 3 hours ago [-]
4. Use the self-made catastrophe as evidence that more buildings are dangerous and need to be demolished
anigbrowl 3 hours ago [-]
It's a mistake to dismiss them all as idiots. MAGA people have very different values from you, and you need to consider the possibility that they are comeptent and malicious.
0x3444ac53 49 minutes ago [-]
Seconding this. Their reasoning is unsound to the point of comedy, their arguments are nonsense, they have a fundamental misunderstanding of science, technology, society, etc.
Because they don't fucking care. They have an agenda. Sometimes it's rooted in bigotry, religion, or just antisocial beliefs, but they have an agenda and they can (and will, and are) execute it.
cantstopmenow 3 hours ago [-]
4. Pat yourself on the back while people complaining about egg prices cheer as their kids die of measles.
cantstopmenow 3 hours ago [-]
Cool. Now address the fact that all of this is an unconstitutional coup.
gonzoflip 3 hours ago [-]
How is the executive branch directing a department under their authority a coup? Please be specific.
anigbrowl 3 hours ago [-]
Because they're simply upending/ignoring Congressional mandates in the form of law. For example, Congress directed the creation of USAID as an independent agency in 1961. It cannot simply be abolished by executive fiat.
Hizonner 3 hours ago [-]
Actually in 1961 it was purely an executive thing. I think it was either 1978 or 1998 when Congress put it into statute.
gonzoflip 2 hours ago [-]
>abolished
That doesn't seem to have happened, it looks like Rubio is now in charge of it. So again, how is this a coup?
zippothrowaway 4 hours ago [-]
DEI = Don Jr, Ivanka and Eric.
Was always so, even back on the TV show.
3 hours ago [-]
TylerE 3 hours ago [-]
They are also pretty much exclusively white males. Look how people like Vivek got thrown in the trash as soon as he took actual power.
AlexandrB 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
floatrock 4 hours ago [-]
Removing categories like "whitelist/blacklist" is trying to create a more inclusive environment where people don't internalize "white = good, black = bad".
Removing categories like "Children/Families affected by systematic discrimination/bias/exclusion" is pretending uncomfortable and unfair realities don't exist.
So sure, superficially both are cases of "some words are naughty", but one of those spreads love, the other denies some people's harsh lived experiences.
Which world do you want to be part of?
lelanthran 3 hours ago [-]
> Removing categories like "whitelist/blacklist" is trying to create a more inclusive environment where people don't internalize "white = good, black = bad".
Maybe that was the intention. The result was that it normalised language policing to such an extent that a backlash was inevitable.
Your intentions don't matter when you are banning words. Your actions do.
The road to hell ...
eastbound 4 hours ago [-]
Is there even a correlation between removing white-related vocabulary and better performance of black people (removing other biases such as density)? Are you removing white terms by racism against whites, or is it a honest attempt at performing better?
Because honestly it doesn’t feel like the world has improved, seen from Europe, in the 15 last years. Like, not at all.
floatrock 4 hours ago [-]
Can we just leave it at "allowlist/denylist is declarative terminology without any attached baggage, and declarative is always better"?
It's like the bathroom fearmongering... don't show your junk to people who don't want to see it, and wash your hands. Just be kind and be a decent human being.
lo_zamoyski 4 hours ago [-]
But there is no baggage, and this attempt to police innocuous language based on someone's pet paranoias is bullying.
darknavi 3 hours ago [-]
The cronut was invented in 2013, so we have that going for us. Which is nice.
lo_zamoyski 4 hours ago [-]
> Removing categories like "whitelist/blacklist" is trying to create a more inclusive environment where people don't internalize "white = good, black = bad".
This is preposterously pseudoscientific. Even the dumbest person has a basic a grasp of equivocity. The inability to do so suggests mental illness.
The same person who uses the word "blacklist" is very much capable of preferring the elegance of a black suit or the sleek beauty of a black sports cars or a dark pair of slacks, and dislike white suits and white sports cars or white jeans. He may prefer brunettes over blondes.
According to this reasoning, "Enlightenment" should also be renamed, as the association of "light" with good and "darkness" with evil "exclusives people" (I, too, would rename the Enlightenment, but for much more substantive reasons).
It is insane to think that the use of words like "whitelist" and "blacklist" somehow "excludes" anyone.
insane_dreamer 4 hours ago [-]
Whether you like it or not, or whether you think it's insane or not, the words we use are important and impactful in themselves.
floatrock 4 hours ago [-]
Suits, sports cars, women, and whatever other precious alpha status symbol you seem to judge your sense of self-worth by and make metaphors with come in all the colors of rainbow, so yeah, of course that's all taste. Whitelist and blacklist is pretty dual. Black-and-white you might say. Maybe there's a third default/unspecified/null/not-quite-binary state.
But seriously, we're a bunch of engineers here... why is this so threatening to your sense of masculinity when "allowlist/denylist" are unambiguously better for no simpler reason than they're declarative?
eatenfill 3 hours ago [-]
wtf
zigglezaggle 4 hours ago [-]
Yes.
This change has user facing implications in that it is removing application data and/or functionality.
Your example is that people changed the name of some internal constants and private methods. Nobody notices except the developers.
ncr100 4 hours ago [-]
They're the same in the sense that they both are topics around sensitivity of other humans experience. And I feel there are significant differences because while slavery and racism are kind of (1) a settled topic ethically and societally, LGBTQ+ acceptance ( exclusion and insensitivity acts are happening today ) are not "settled" (sadly), given the popular support of openly anti-LGBTQ+ rights by the recently winning USA political regime.
I feel there is significance in the details, especially since this is an area of human sensitivities.
Master and slave and blacklist, and all that are related to historical United States' participation and exploitation of its (now citizen), black population as slaves. There are people today, who are alive who are descendants of people who were enslaved by literally (barf) my American ancestors.
Getting closer to your question, that's a little different I think context wise than a trans person being denied their major life-changing, hopefully freeing identity, assertion by government edict, today.
And it's important to note I'm not a trans person currently. I'm very sloppy with these subjects. I have a concern inhumanity is on the rise amongst humans.
You could argue that removing some of these phrasings went too far, sure, but it came from a good place. We casually use master/slave metaphors for databases; it's not the #1 thing that needs to change but it's a move in the right direction. Again, aside from a slight eye roll, who is hurt or offended by us saying the phrase "master/slave" less?
This attack on anything DEI is meant to terrorize and strike fear into anyone who isn't a straight white male. It's weaponizing decades of progress for marginalized folks into racist dogwhistles.
Additionally, the original changes were optional and grassroots. This is a government directive. They're very different.
arwhatever 4 hours ago [-]
I suspect that the place these removals came from was the desire to dictate other's behavior and/or to feel more enlightened than you, masquerading as protecting from hurt or offense, which is not really a very good place.
gkoberger 4 hours ago [-]
Would you consider that... some people actually care about making the people around them more comfortable, especially if it comes at exactly zero cost to themselves?
wombatpm 4 hours ago [-]
It’s not just an attack on DEI, it’s a return to cultural attitudes that were prevalent in the 1970’s. The new attitude is that anyone who is not a straight white male in any position of any responsibility must be a DEI hire and should be assumed to be incompetent until proven otherwise. All they need now is to bring back the 3 martini lunch and open sexual harassment and my 78 year old father would feel right at home.
dingnuts 4 hours ago [-]
master in the sense of a db or branch is not a master/slave metaphor, it's the meaning of master that is an antonym for "copy" or "replica" as when one creates a master from which to form a mold -- the whole issue is based on a linguistic misapprehension
maximilianburke 4 hours ago [-]
So then when talking about database replication, why are the non-authoritative servers called slaves?
stanleykm 4 hours ago [-]
and what about slave?
ihsw 4 hours ago [-]
[dead]
NoMoreNicksLeft 4 hours ago [-]
>Again, aside from a slight eye roll, who is hurt or offended by us saying the phrase "master/slave" less?
If you add up all the discomfort caused by being forced to change vocabulary. The man-hours wasted changing documentation everywhere. The time wasted, re-learning which were words weren't suddenly taboo. Then this is not some small quantity, however you want to quantify it. You basically taxed all of us... and though the tax was perhaps small per person, the total wasn't.
Effort better spent elsewhere. Political capital wasted on nonsense. If you only saw eye rolls, it was because those rolling their eyes knew better than to say anything then. They picked their battles, and now what we see happening right now is a consequence of all that.
>This attack on anything DEI is meant to terrorize and strike fear into anyone who isn't a straight white male.
I'm reminded of the study that said something like 95% of the jobs created in the DEI era went to those who weren't white. Which might make sense if they were only 5% of the population. Thank goodness that the election tally wasn't predicated on that same notion of "fairness".
>It's weaponizing decades of progress
Progress towards what, exactly? And why would I want to progress towards whatever that is? It's only progress if it happens to be the "direction you want to go", but I don't think I want to go in that direction.
gkoberger 4 hours ago [-]
"Progress towards what, exactly?"
It wasn't until the 1960s that segregation in public places was made illegal. 1990s that the ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. It wasn't until the 2010s that gay marriage was legalized, and 2020s that it was ruled you can't discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
It took decades for many marginalized communities to be legally even allowed to have certain jobs due to their gender or color of their skin, and now those qualities are yet again being used to prevent them from employment under the implication that anyone who isn't a straight white male is a DEI hire.
NoMoreNicksLeft 2 hours ago [-]
>It wasn't until the 1960s that segregation in public places was made illegal. 1990s that the ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. It wasn't until the 2010s that gay marriage was legalized, and 2020s that it was ruled you can't discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
All of that sounds wonderful to you, I'm sure. I don't even know what "gender identity" is supposed to mean though... it's one of those shared cultural delusions that is opaque to those who aren't a part of the culture. You believe it to be a real phenomenon because others believe it with you, and you wouldn't really fit in if you didn't. And "gay marriage" is laughably sad. That's your victory of progress? It will be nice to see it all rolled back. Pendulums swing.
WhyIsItAlwaysHN 60 minutes ago [-]
The year is 2025. You have an internet browser. Look up the concepts you don't understand.
How are you so certain about a phenomenon not existing when you have no idea about it? Do you apply the same filters to everything else you don't understand?
Also be careful with wishing for "progress" to be rolled back. First it's other peoples' freedom to live their lives how they want to and then it's yours.
sanktanglia 3 hours ago [-]
Lol what do you define as the "dei era" ? I think if during any timeframe 95% of new hires were non white people would notice. This is the real nonsense
gkoberger 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah, the lack of a source makes it clear this is BS.
It's based in a bit of truth. Yes, there were 300,000 jobs created in 2021, and 94% did go to people of color. However, these were non-professional roles (service workers, laborers) that were coming back as COVID died down.
As far as new executive, managerial and professional roles, the share of people of color increased by just 2%.
Does wanting to keep master/slave and white/blacklist while also keeping information and resources for people historically (and to some extent currently) disadvantaged by systematic oppression mean that basically everyone will be mad at me? What do you call this position?
Edit: The Google admin panel won't even populate the "allowlist" when you search whitelist which is frustrating. I'd at least like it to show up, even if it's believed to be important enough to change.
Etheryte 4 hours ago [-]
I'm from a group of people that was historically oppressed in slavery, can I keep using master/slave or do you decide that it's offensive for me? Of all the things that are a problem in the world, this is by far one of the weirdest and silliest hills to die on.
kfrzcode 4 hours ago [-]
If you're a person you're likely from a group of people that was historically oppressed in slavery. The list of peoples who were not oppressed, historically, is very short. Humans have treated each other horribly for many, many generations.
9283409232 4 hours ago [-]
> What do you call this position?
Being reasonable. The master/slave thing is silly.
readthenotes1 4 hours ago [-]
To you maybe.
I worked with a woman whose relatives didn't make it out of Auschwitz.
She objected to us initializing System Services.
Silly?
9283409232 4 hours ago [-]
Yes.
wvbdmp 4 hours ago [-]
Germans are a bit touchy on this. There are a bunch of two-letter or two-digit combinations you can’t have on your license plate, for example. Somemore far-fetched than others. At some place I recently heard about they use two-letter initials (extremely collision prone, but whatever), except for people like Nadja Schmidt.
It’s definitely silly, but otoh I guess all culture is silly…
justsocrateasin 4 hours ago [-]
I also had relatives that didn't make it out of Auschwitz. I could not care less.
zer8k 4 hours ago [-]
The silliest.
ncr100 4 hours ago [-]
Regardless, it would be nicer to keep our improved education so that people do understand the power dynamics implied in certain terms.
Some people living today, working in and around a "git default repo setup" are descendants of slaves.
Would it be better if public education simply discussed power dynamics, inclusion, and sensitivity?
janalsncm 4 hours ago [-]
Changing “master” to “main” is exactly the kind of empty symbolic gesture corporate America loves.
If you want to talk about real power dynamics, walk down the street in San Francisco. Visible poverty everywhere, in one of the richest cities on Earth. If you want healthcare, food, shelter, or political representation, you need to pay.
That’s the relevant power dynamic, and because it is so intractable these activists have conceded it and instead resort to virtue signaling (“we can’t change the system but at least we want to!”). Who the hell cares. George Floyd’s problem wasn’t that not enough software engineers were aware of American chattel slavery, his problem was that being poor is effectively illegal.
eej71 4 hours ago [-]
There's a chance this is an example of Poe's Law. But I'm unsure!
Edman274 4 hours ago [-]
It's pretty obviously sarcastic, but it's interesting because ChatGPT thinks it's sincere. It appears that sarcasm detection is still outside the capabilities of large language models, which is surprising because people have been manually annotating sarcastic remarks on internet forums for the past 30 years. How could it get simpler than that to create a training set?
AlexandrB 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
simonw 4 hours ago [-]
I don't understand, what does that have to do with master/slave terminology?
dgfitz 4 hours ago [-]
My interpretation of the GP (my personal views on the debate have no bearing) is that the whole master/slave debate meant a whole lot to a few thousand people in one specific country, and absolutely nothing to the rest of the world.
They then go on to mention a term that they find offensive, that seems like it shouldn't be offensive, and imply that under the same rules that master/slave was abandoned, we should abandon the term "equity" as well.
AlexandrB 4 hours ago [-]
Admittedly this applies less to master/slave, but certainly applies to terms like whitelist/blacklist.
lo_zamoyski 4 hours ago [-]
What do you think communism was ideologically about if not a system of "imposed equity"? In the name of what were people persecuted and killed if not "equality"?
For him, the celebration of these is offensive and excluding.
ncr100 4 hours ago [-]
I'm a descendent of a grandmother who, as a child fled the brand new Soviet regime when my great grandpa was being shuffled off to the Gulag on the train in the cold North. I'm sorry that your family died by those same people who shuffled off my great grandpa. Hello.
Is there a problem / disadvantage / critical misleading with using my context as a lens to understand what's the right way to appropriately address unfair power dynamics?
AlexandrB 3 hours ago [-]
What I struggle with is this: the rules that govern which words are "problematic" are often arbitrary and based on the US political landscape. These decisions have little to do with how many people were affected globally, yet these rules are broadly applied to (at least) all English-speaking countries.
The linked article wants me to be outraged (or at least upset) that references to equity are being removed from government software. Why should I be? As I mentioned in another comment, some of these tactics are broadly similar to what left-leaning movements did or wanted to do. The positions being taken are often presented as objective and empathic (for example based on historic power imbalances), but power imbalances are dynamic and regional.
LPisGood 4 hours ago [-]
>The power dynamics you're talking about are always in the context of North America, specifically the USA
Well that’s where the people are that are having these discussions for the most part. People from other parts of the world would be wise to have their own discussions and ignore the American cultural context of our discussions.
insane_dreamer 4 hours ago [-]
equity has nothing to do with communism
mola 4 hours ago [-]
How is equity communist?
fourseventy 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
stanleykm 4 hours ago [-]
The fact that people who think they are smart blame cultural shifts on a “woke cult” is amazing to me.
cglace 4 hours ago [-]
People from the left who think they are smart have names for the people who represent this new cultural shift. It's natural to blame things you don't like on the other "stupid" group.
stanleykm 2 hours ago [-]
I think there is plenty of room to critique what this person is calling “woke” terminology but the “warblgarbl woke cult” from the right is just absurd. Hacker News is apparently a place we are supposed to be able to have more technical and higher minded discussions than say Reddit but every time a cultural issue comes up we revert to cave man.
Actually thats not fair to cave men, we revert to reactionary nonsense.
alxjrvs 4 hours ago [-]
Every accusation is a confession from the Red Hat crowd.
goatlover 4 hours ago [-]
The fact that people don't realize the same word can have multiple meanings and not just the meaning it had in some previous century is amazing to me.
stanleykm 2 hours ago [-]
well look if people wanted to be able to use the words master and slave all over the place they should have thought about it earlier and not had masters and slaves to start with. i dont know what to tell you.
bastardoperator 4 hours ago [-]
Nope, you can use git symbolic-ref to get the remote default branch.
sagolikasoppor 1 hours ago [-]
So when we have to use main instead of master everyone is fine with it but now it's bad to purge words?
I think this is great news. Well done Trump & co.
kobelb 1 hours ago [-]
This is false equivalence. Not using the phrase master was meant to create a more inclusive environment.
stevetron 4 hours ago [-]
What I don't seem to understand, and I haven't found anything about, is this: How did Elon Musk and his staff obtain log-in credentials to the databases? Or log-in credentials for anything, especially given that the people in-charge were not willing to cooperate? And after all this purging is done, can't the databases be re-loaded from the backup-tapes?
BryantD 4 hours ago [-]
It's sort of hard to piece it together because there's not a ton of transparency about what's going on. However, there have been a number of well-sourced stories on access at the Treasury Department. David Lebryk, who previously oversaw the payments system, was placed on administrative leave after refusing to cooperate. It only takes one person to say yes.
And reloading databases isn't simple if you have to account for legitimate changes that have occurred post-backup. Given that we're talking about some of the core software that runs our government, I'd be extremely nervous about the whole thing.
simonw 4 hours ago [-]
This particular story isn't about Elon's team - the PR is authored by the regular project maintainers, presumably in response to the executive orders that are flying around right now.
wwweb 3 hours ago [-]
The new Treasury Secretary gave them to him. Or Trump did. It's not complicated, it's just a coup.
redcobra762 4 hours ago [-]
Probably some version of this (with threats instead of drugs): https://xkcd.com/538/
skywhopper 4 hours ago [-]
The “people in charge” ie career government employees who refused to comply were walked out by security and fired. The political “people in charge” are lackeys of Trump and Musk, and they’re the ones who insisted on handing over the credentials.
AlgorithmicTime 4 hours ago [-]
[dead]
cdme 4 hours ago [-]
Fascist othering in the digital age.
zer8k 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
TylerE 3 hours ago [-]
This is _actual, for real, fascism.
TimTheTinker 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
EasyMark 54 minutes ago [-]
How ignoring the law not fascism? Mandates do not supercede law, nor allow the executive branch to operate outside branches of government that are not under it's control, and yet Congress does nothing, that's is actually how fascism really does start, when what "dear leader" says is acted upon even though it is clearly illegal
TimTheTinker 45 minutes ago [-]
Which actions that Trump has taken were illegal?
EasyMark 38 minutes ago [-]
1. closing USAID, he can't do that, it's has to go through Congress
2. Given Musk and minions full access to federal and private records, breaks FISMA and CFAA
3. The "buy out" of employees, violates Administrative Leave Act and Anti-Deficiency Act
4. The Spending Freeze that he backed out of, the one that would have required an Act of Congress
5. his upcoming attempt to end the Department of Education and defund it, without Congressional Laws behind it.
6. Firing inspectors without giving Congress 30 days notice to review the action
I could go on, but I have a feeling it won't matter to those who think he can do no wrong.
dragonwriter 37 minutes ago [-]
> The Spending Freeze that he backed out of
OMB rescinded the memo, but the freeze appears to have continued (in defiance of a court order against it, which is another level of illegality.)
amarcheschi 3 hours ago [-]
Mussolini was elected too
At least, at the beginning
He later had his power gave to him by the king which should have put him under arrest
TimTheTinker 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
amarcheschi 2 hours ago [-]
I do not have to wait 4 years, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is most likely a duck.
The fact that he is "governing" through EOs, - many of those will be challenged in court, I guess, but in the meantime they still stand valid - is not being done in a respectful way. An example, regular citizens working for Trump having access to not only read but also write on the federal payment system https://www.crisesnotes.com/day-five-of-the-trump-musk-treas...
Another example - denying multiple times actual science, since the scientist are amongst one of the groups he blames
He's definitely on the way for being a good mussolini 2
TimTheTinker 2 hours ago [-]
One of the president's main jobs is to direct how the executive branch is run. That's an authority vested on him by the constitution. So writing EOs directing various executive branches in particular ways (and in ways that aren't contradicting federal law) is entirely within his mandate as the elected president.
What we're witnessing is the weakening (and potential removal) of an effective 4th branch of government (what some call the "deep state"). I don't see that as a bad thing, as structurally speaking, this 4th branch does not govern according to the will of the people, since they are not accountable to the people.
What boggles my mind is this -- Democrats complained for decades about how Congress was ceding its authority to these unelected officials. I grew up in a Democrat family and cheered as Bill Clinton was elected. And now Democrats, who call themselves the "party that defends democracy", are acting as the primary proponents of these unaccountable officials and agencies. Make it make sense.
amarcheschi 1 hours ago [-]
Probably the other times they didn't appoint someone so connected with the dark enlightenment ideologies and that spews lies continuously on a media channel he owns. It is important the who, but it is important also the what (as in, what's he/she if appointed for).
Not being American, I can't really comment on what the democrats appointed before musk. However, I do not believe it has happened before to have someone access with write permission the payment system, to access personal sensitive data of federal workers[1], and so many other things I wouldn't even know where to start complaining about
1. Musk wasn't elected.
2. Musk's merry band of misfit incels wasn't elected.
3. Government offices are created by statute, and they're terminated by statute.
My God, you people are exhausting and terrible.
TimTheTinker 2 hours ago [-]
As I've said elsewhere, Musk and the Doge employees only have audit power - not executive. There's a very big difference between those types of powers.
Musk is not terminating any executive departments or agencies. Neither is Trump (except perhaps some that are not statutory).
USAID still exists. It clearly wasn't obeying its statutory mandate -- that's what gives Trump the authority to bring its current activities to an end and fire a lot of its employees. It will likely be ended by Congress after what's been revealed, but we'll have to wait and see.
TylerE 32 minutes ago [-]
> Musk and the Doge employees only have audit power - not executive.
You've said this, but it's obvious that's not what they're doing, and no one is attempting to stop them. Literally unchecked corruption. Musk should be in prison for this - it's very close to treason.
TylerE 3 hours ago [-]
Giving their billionaire buddies feee reign on us government systems does
TimTheTinker 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
mmcwilliams 3 hours ago [-]
This doesn't appear to be strictly what is happening. Musk posted on Twitter yesterday that he "deleted" the group 18F. That is neither an examination, a report or a recommendation.
TimTheTinker 2 hours ago [-]
I think he's overstating what he's actually doing for political points. The group is not deleted - but he's recommending such an action to Trump.
Yes no one is stepping in to stop him when he is obviously doing quite a bit more than that.
TimTheTinker 2 hours ago [-]
> obviously doing quite a bit more than that.
Any examples? Just based on what he and @DOGE have reported, they're basically doing a systematic financial audit. (And Trump is firing those who don't allow the audit to occur.)
Febra33 3 hours ago [-]
LMAO. You clearly need to read more about Hitler's rise to power and how he was actually elected. You people really do not understand politics nor democracy.
TimTheTinker 2 hours ago [-]
Hitler and Mussolini weren't fascist dictators at first. They became that gradually (though in retrospect, biographers have identified such ambitions early on).
Comparing Trump to those guys 2 weeks in, when Congress and the Supreme Court are very much alive and able to pounce on him, is rather early, no?
CamperBob2 40 minutes ago [-]
Four years and 2 weeks.
There's sufficient evidence. He has shown us who he is, and what he is.
buttercraft 39 minutes ago [-]
Uh, if you wait until he's a fascist dictator, it's too late.
Rendered at 23:37:03 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
The SQL query:
0. it takes the reigning POTUS to realize its causing problems that are impacting wealthy elites (24 hours in the case of tariffs)
1. 4 years.
If i were product owner/manager of any of these teams id recommend we fork the codebase for 4 years and call it done. keep the forked version on standby with backports of major content updated in case you wind up with this sort of situation again, but dont start ripping all this stuff out of prod.
Or if on a longer timeline, build culture war into the release as a feature flag (culture=1, culture=0, etc..)
You're very optimistic that there are going to be elections in 4 years time. You have a king and a court with unfettered access to power now.
If this is the case, incepting everyone with the idea in advance subconsciously lowers resistance right now, when nothing can be done, because this is all hypothetical.
And if it isn't the case, you can't be taken seriously.
Simply respond to the moment, in the moment. That is already enough.
Plus remember: he doesn't need to be a dictator, because he won a democratic election. If anything, liberals should be focusing on how to avoid JD Vance from simply winning in 2028.
Is this a true statement or not?
He was elected President, not king. The laws being broken applied to all previous election winners.
It may turn out to be ironic that you describe Trump and our Monarch (or any other) within the same breath.
Please recall (or look up) what happened to Charles I of England.
So did Hitler.
Histerioinics and history are not associated with the same word.
Grow up.
Once you find the quote, go onto politco (a not exactly pro-trump site) fact-checking service to get the full context.
That's optimistic.
We put a business executive in charge of the federal government. There's no such thing as term limits or checks-and-balances in the mind of a business executive, just taking a good horse out of the race and inefficiencies. On the first count, if Trump's still in relatively good health, I could absolutely see him making that case for scrapping the term limit on the Presidency.
He isn't. Even absent any impact that catching covid may have had on his body, he's visibly obese. More detailed reports on his health are hard to come by thanks to (a) that being private, and (b) the extremely noisy people who either want to demonise or deify him, but it's not unreasonable to think he's got a 25% chance of old age catching up with him fatally by the end of this term.
But if the term limits get scrapped, I wouldn't be surprised to see a return of Bush or Obama as alternatives. Or Bill Clinton. Bill, George, and Donald were all born in 1946.
(1946 was also the same year the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council started meeting. Coincidence, or the secret world government? Coincidence, obviously).
They're already working on a constitutional amendment to allow a third term[0] and right wing lawyers have suggested that there are legal strategies Trump could try employing to stay in power. That along with Trump himself "jokingly" saying that we won't need to vote again if he's elected does not inspire confidence.
0: https://ogles.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-ogles-propo...
He didn't "realize" anything. All of the show we're seeing was planned posturing and "deal-making by leverage". We shouldn't be accepting even talking about the US annexing Greenland FFS - but here we are, with credible proposals for installing new US military presence on Greenland being discussed. That's alarming.
> 4 years.
Bold of you to assume there will be elections in four years, that these elections will be anywhere close to fair, or that the people who voted for the 47th won't just vote for him (or his successor, assuming the 47th goes six-feet-under) again.
Genuine question: why? Expansionism may be out of style, but I don't see how it's inherently evil.
The parties in power failed to unwind any of this so instead they got an unhinged strongman who promised to do it with a sledgehammer. Trump is a symptom rather than a cause.
Where do I put money on the MAGA-Nazis pulling a Putin on future elections? I suppose Putin isn't the first one to do rigged elections, somehow he's the only one currently in my mind.
Sadly Wikipedia doesn't have an article entitled "List of Rigged Elections"...
But ooh yeah, 3 out of 9 are clean, so there's a chance? Let's just ignore the 6 incompetent apparatchiks and "simple majority rule" shall we?
Don't be so obtuse, we know you're not that stupid.
If I consider all the ones who voted for Presidential immunity corrupt does that make me a shill? It's a decision with no constitutional basis (the constitution grants no presidential immunity, but does grant other immunities, implying if it was intended it'd be in there) and ahistorical (we can find plenty of examples of presidents assuming they or their predecessor could be prosecuted).
That still leaves us in the same place a Supreme Court where the majority is beholden to the current President, not the constitution.
Sure, typical whatever-you-are tactic of changing the topic when being attacked. Plus some "Won't somebody think of the site's rules?!".
2. The amount of effort being put into this is much higher than GitHub changing their default for new repos to "main"
Sorry but that's bullshit. This is just deleting a few words from static content. The whole `main` thing required:
* Github (and Gitlab etc.) to make `master` configurable - an entirely new feature.
* All tooling that previously could assume a default of `master` now can't have a sensible default. You have to specify every time.
* Users to remember which one to use for every repo.
This is still causing me pain. Repos I use are about 50:50 split between `main` and `master`. I sure do love having to retype `git switch master` half the time I do it.
This is dumb, but it definitely is less effort than the dumb `main` change.
The former may annoy some folks until they standardize or figure out a way to tag the repos. The latter is actively aiming to be detrimental to people in a large way, and unless stopped, will very likely succeed in that goal.
(This is of course irrelevant to the topic of the top-level post.)
... and the git changes were allowed to happen on a sane schedule.
Oh, and most of the people or projects affected by the git change got a choice.
They are both probably forms of overcorrection, this too far in the wrong direction where the former could have been too far in the more ideal direction.
Pandering is not as bad as discrimination, as you’ve pointed out.
You are part of the problem. Yes. You.
This comments section seem to be full of the "Fuck Woke DEI" Maganazis and mentioning "systemic racism" will trigger them, but if you're still reading, look at George Floyd, in an alternate world, he'd be a wealthy person descendant of landowners, but in this reality, his grandparents' land was stolen, he grew up poor (and black) and ended up being yet another black-murdered-by-cop figure: https://dwkcommentaries.com/2020/10/08/a-moving-biography-of... . But snowflakes get triggered if there's an idea of better treatment for descendants of victims of systemic racism (another snowflake trigger word).
To the snowflakes: Hey, why care about all that, your continued violence has won you the ethno-supremacy fascism you wanted, where being white and incompetent doesn't matter, because you'll get that cushy job anyway!
In this case, the engineers are changing the functionality of the product, not just changing code identifiers.
You can't ignore the policy aims when determining what is "productive" as productivity is directly to the end result. It's WORSE that this is productive vs non-productive.
You're "Tired of nazi comparisons" when... Musk did two Nazi Salutes! He brought the comparison on by doing a Nazi salute! Twice! You're the one who refuses to see a salute for what it is.
2) False equivalency.
Uhm, yes. Yes they were.
Here's one example:
https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/09/renaming-whi...
I could go pull my company's JIRA ticket and I guarantee you it hasn't been touched since 2020.
These companies were only going to do enough work for a PR win and nothing more.
It really isn't a both sides situation.
But if there was an option, they definitely should.
Gas chambers when?
Changing the names back because you were upset that somone changed them in the first place, with the express knowledge that some people may be affected by this, is a dick move.
One of these moves is a virtue signal, yes, but it has no real impact once completed. This current move from 'main' to 'master' is designed to both virtue signal and to upset/piss people off/etc.
Digging into Settings (on desktop web) reveals options to turn on "Regional" and "Global religious" holidays e.g. "Start of Ramadan" -- but apparently no way whatever to recover the disappeared -- not even via menu button "Browse calendars of interest".
And also: There are an unusually larger number of actual HN angles going on in this particular new administration. This article is clearly relevant to this forum, and so is the recent Wired article about the DOGE employees.
Also, looks like they're adding a deletedAt field and soft deleting items in the database rather than hard delete.
As a new crash priority ordered from outside by people who have probably never heard of the project. Not disruptive or anything. That's definitely how you manage a large organization.
Oh, and this particular "PR" does nothing to aid anybody or improve anything. There's that, too.
> Also, looks like they're adding a deletedAt field and soft deleting items in the database rather than hard delete.
Protecting themselves in case it gets rolled back, I imagine. When you get toddlers in charge, you can expect new "crash priority" rule changes on a daily basis, so you learn to prepare.
Side note, I really don't give a single shit what anyone thinks about Diversity equity and Accessibility initiatives (though, I do think being opposed to requiring businesses to have wheel chair ramps and such, comically cruel) I don't know how anyone can support having 18 year old randoms having access to Federal databases and direct access to the governments pocket book, and support going far past judicial processes to illegally gut the minuscule, nearly non-existent, social safety nets that we do have. Idk how anyone in their right mind can say the wealthy deserve a trampoline, and everyone else can't even get a safety net.
If the database is so insecure that anyone from Texas can just walk in, I would hope we find a way to secure our data.
I would assume a full audit is taking place. If not then demand it. We cannot allow people to spend our taxes without oversight.
Wow I've never heard anyone deny the very existence of cancel culture before. Or is this some kind of semantic distinction-without-a-difference?
Remember that something being a culture is about pervasiveness and normalization. It's not a mob harassing your employer because you posted photos with the wrong brand of political attire; it's it being culturally acceptable for a mob to harass your employer because you posted photos with the wrong brand of political attire.
Sure people protesting things is old, like you say. As are groups deciding to not associate with certain people.
But that is not in fact the same a nominally-impartial authorities encouraging protests for the purpose of having an excuse to impose a hecklers' veto on things they don't like.
And it is not the same as targeted harassment of anyone outside the ostracising group who doesn't bow to their demands.
By not being obtuse enough to conflate "this has happened at least once" with "this appears to be widely considered culturally acceptable".
"DEI" is not a movement, it is just a rebranding of Affirmative Action to emphasize the goals and break the association with (long explicitliy illegal, but often popularly associated with Affirmative Action) quota systems.
ahh just seen your account was just created, so wasting my time, but no, no one in the UK was arrested for saying that.
You need to have a think about how you were convinced of that, and who told you it. because it isn’t true.
Any reference for that? And why start out the t's?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bris...
There was also another case where the police launched an investigation, which by itself is ridiculous:
https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2020/6/23/uk-police-investi...
You don't hire architects to execute a demolition and you also don't hire anyone heavily invested in keeping the building standing. But you DO hire people loyal to you to perform the work, who will receive staunch opposition the latter group of people.
What a brave and noble purpose! I'm real proud of people like that...
The richest man on earth in charge of cost cutting. Go and bathe in a jacuzzi of cash Musk, and stop acting like a sore winner...
1. Bring the building down on their own heads, with bystanders inside.
2. Destabilize the neighboring buildings to the point where they also had to be demolished.
3. Flood the site and cause a giant gas leak.
Because they don't fucking care. They have an agenda. Sometimes it's rooted in bigotry, religion, or just antisocial beliefs, but they have an agenda and they can (and will, and are) execute it.
That doesn't seem to have happened, it looks like Rubio is now in charge of it. So again, how is this a coup?
Was always so, even back on the TV show.
Removing categories like "Children/Families affected by systematic discrimination/bias/exclusion" is pretending uncomfortable and unfair realities don't exist.
So sure, superficially both are cases of "some words are naughty", but one of those spreads love, the other denies some people's harsh lived experiences.
Which world do you want to be part of?
Maybe that was the intention. The result was that it normalised language policing to such an extent that a backlash was inevitable.
Your intentions don't matter when you are banning words. Your actions do.
The road to hell ...
Because honestly it doesn’t feel like the world has improved, seen from Europe, in the 15 last years. Like, not at all.
It's like the bathroom fearmongering... don't show your junk to people who don't want to see it, and wash your hands. Just be kind and be a decent human being.
This is preposterously pseudoscientific. Even the dumbest person has a basic a grasp of equivocity. The inability to do so suggests mental illness.
The same person who uses the word "blacklist" is very much capable of preferring the elegance of a black suit or the sleek beauty of a black sports cars or a dark pair of slacks, and dislike white suits and white sports cars or white jeans. He may prefer brunettes over blondes.
According to this reasoning, "Enlightenment" should also be renamed, as the association of "light" with good and "darkness" with evil "exclusives people" (I, too, would rename the Enlightenment, but for much more substantive reasons).
It is insane to think that the use of words like "whitelist" and "blacklist" somehow "excludes" anyone.
But seriously, we're a bunch of engineers here... why is this so threatening to your sense of masculinity when "allowlist/denylist" are unambiguously better for no simpler reason than they're declarative?
This change has user facing implications in that it is removing application data and/or functionality.
Your example is that people changed the name of some internal constants and private methods. Nobody notices except the developers.
I feel there is significance in the details, especially since this is an area of human sensitivities.
Master and slave and blacklist, and all that are related to historical United States' participation and exploitation of its (now citizen), black population as slaves. There are people today, who are alive who are descendants of people who were enslaved by literally (barf) my American ancestors.
Getting closer to your question, that's a little different I think context wise than a trans person being denied their major life-changing, hopefully freeing identity, assertion by government edict, today.
And it's important to note I'm not a trans person currently. I'm very sloppy with these subjects. I have a concern inhumanity is on the rise amongst humans.
(1) "Kind Of Settled [that Racism is bad]" - https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6112317/2025/02/04/nfl-end-... - :-(
You could argue that removing some of these phrasings went too far, sure, but it came from a good place. We casually use master/slave metaphors for databases; it's not the #1 thing that needs to change but it's a move in the right direction. Again, aside from a slight eye roll, who is hurt or offended by us saying the phrase "master/slave" less?
This attack on anything DEI is meant to terrorize and strike fear into anyone who isn't a straight white male. It's weaponizing decades of progress for marginalized folks into racist dogwhistles.
Additionally, the original changes were optional and grassroots. This is a government directive. They're very different.
If you add up all the discomfort caused by being forced to change vocabulary. The man-hours wasted changing documentation everywhere. The time wasted, re-learning which were words weren't suddenly taboo. Then this is not some small quantity, however you want to quantify it. You basically taxed all of us... and though the tax was perhaps small per person, the total wasn't.
Effort better spent elsewhere. Political capital wasted on nonsense. If you only saw eye rolls, it was because those rolling their eyes knew better than to say anything then. They picked their battles, and now what we see happening right now is a consequence of all that.
>This attack on anything DEI is meant to terrorize and strike fear into anyone who isn't a straight white male.
I'm reminded of the study that said something like 95% of the jobs created in the DEI era went to those who weren't white. Which might make sense if they were only 5% of the population. Thank goodness that the election tally wasn't predicated on that same notion of "fairness".
>It's weaponizing decades of progress
Progress towards what, exactly? And why would I want to progress towards whatever that is? It's only progress if it happens to be the "direction you want to go", but I don't think I want to go in that direction.
It wasn't until the 1960s that segregation in public places was made illegal. 1990s that the ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. It wasn't until the 2010s that gay marriage was legalized, and 2020s that it was ruled you can't discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
It took decades for many marginalized communities to be legally even allowed to have certain jobs due to their gender or color of their skin, and now those qualities are yet again being used to prevent them from employment under the implication that anyone who isn't a straight white male is a DEI hire.
All of that sounds wonderful to you, I'm sure. I don't even know what "gender identity" is supposed to mean though... it's one of those shared cultural delusions that is opaque to those who aren't a part of the culture. You believe it to be a real phenomenon because others believe it with you, and you wouldn't really fit in if you didn't. And "gay marriage" is laughably sad. That's your victory of progress? It will be nice to see it all rolled back. Pendulums swing.
How are you so certain about a phenomenon not existing when you have no idea about it? Do you apply the same filters to everything else you don't understand?
Also be careful with wishing for "progress" to be rolled back. First it's other peoples' freedom to live their lives how they want to and then it's yours.
It's based in a bit of truth. Yes, there were 300,000 jobs created in 2021, and 94% did go to people of color. However, these were non-professional roles (service workers, laborers) that were coming back as COVID died down.
As far as new executive, managerial and professional roles, the share of people of color increased by just 2%.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-black-lives-matter-e...
Do you think that all white people are executives and professionals, such that they don't need laborer/service jobs?
Edit: The Google admin panel won't even populate the "allowlist" when you search whitelist which is frustrating. I'd at least like it to show up, even if it's believed to be important enough to change.
Being reasonable. The master/slave thing is silly.
I worked with a woman whose relatives didn't make it out of Auschwitz.
She objected to us initializing System Services.
Silly?
It’s definitely silly, but otoh I guess all culture is silly…
Some people living today, working in and around a "git default repo setup" are descendants of slaves.
Would it be better if public education simply discussed power dynamics, inclusion, and sensitivity?
If you want to talk about real power dynamics, walk down the street in San Francisco. Visible poverty everywhere, in one of the richest cities on Earth. If you want healthcare, food, shelter, or political representation, you need to pay.
That’s the relevant power dynamic, and because it is so intractable these activists have conceded it and instead resort to virtue signaling (“we can’t change the system but at least we want to!”). Who the hell cares. George Floyd’s problem wasn’t that not enough software engineers were aware of American chattel slavery, his problem was that being poor is effectively illegal.
They then go on to mention a term that they find offensive, that seems like it shouldn't be offensive, and imply that under the same rules that master/slave was abandoned, we should abandon the term "equity" as well.
For him, the celebration of these is offensive and excluding.
Is there a problem / disadvantage / critical misleading with using my context as a lens to understand what's the right way to appropriately address unfair power dynamics?
The linked article wants me to be outraged (or at least upset) that references to equity are being removed from government software. Why should I be? As I mentioned in another comment, some of these tactics are broadly similar to what left-leaning movements did or wanted to do. The positions being taken are often presented as objective and empathic (for example based on historic power imbalances), but power imbalances are dynamic and regional.
Well that’s where the people are that are having these discussions for the most part. People from other parts of the world would be wise to have their own discussions and ignore the American cultural context of our discussions.
Actually thats not fair to cave men, we revert to reactionary nonsense.
I think this is great news. Well done Trump & co.
And reloading databases isn't simple if you have to account for legitimate changes that have occurred post-backup. Given that we're talking about some of the core software that runs our government, I'd be extremely nervous about the whole thing.
2. Given Musk and minions full access to federal and private records, breaks FISMA and CFAA
3. The "buy out" of employees, violates Administrative Leave Act and Anti-Deficiency Act
4. The Spending Freeze that he backed out of, the one that would have required an Act of Congress
5. his upcoming attempt to end the Department of Education and defund it, without Congressional Laws behind it.
6. Firing inspectors without giving Congress 30 days notice to review the action
I could go on, but I have a feeling it won't matter to those who think he can do no wrong.
OMB rescinded the memo, but the freeze appears to have continued (in defiance of a court order against it, which is another level of illegality.)
At least, at the beginning
He later had his power gave to him by the king which should have put him under arrest
The fact that he is "governing" through EOs, - many of those will be challenged in court, I guess, but in the meantime they still stand valid - is not being done in a respectful way. An example, regular citizens working for Trump having access to not only read but also write on the federal payment system https://www.crisesnotes.com/day-five-of-the-trump-musk-treas...
Another example - denying multiple times actual science, since the scientist are amongst one of the groups he blames
He's definitely on the way for being a good mussolini 2
What we're witnessing is the weakening (and potential removal) of an effective 4th branch of government (what some call the "deep state"). I don't see that as a bad thing, as structurally speaking, this 4th branch does not govern according to the will of the people, since they are not accountable to the people.
What boggles my mind is this -- Democrats complained for decades about how Congress was ceding its authority to these unelected officials. I grew up in a Democrat family and cheered as Bill Clinton was elected. And now Democrats, who call themselves the "party that defends democracy", are acting as the primary proponents of these unaccountable officials and agencies. Make it make sense.
Not being American, I can't really comment on what the democrats appointed before musk. However, I do not believe it has happened before to have someone access with write permission the payment system, to access personal sensitive data of federal workers[1], and so many other things I wouldn't even know where to start complaining about
https://www.govexec.com/transition/2025/02/robbery-progress-...
My God, you people are exhausting and terrible.
Musk is not terminating any executive departments or agencies. Neither is Trump (except perhaps some that are not statutory).
USAID still exists. It clearly wasn't obeying its statutory mandate -- that's what gives Trump the authority to bring its current activities to an end and fire a lot of its employees. It will likely be ended by Congress after what's been revealed, but we'll have to wait and see.
You've said this, but it's obvious that's not what they're doing, and no one is attempting to stop them. Literally unchecked corruption. Musk should be in prison for this - it's very close to treason.
https://www.barrons.com/advisor/articles/elon-musk-18f-irs-d...
Any examples? Just based on what he and @DOGE have reported, they're basically doing a systematic financial audit. (And Trump is firing those who don't allow the audit to occur.)
Comparing Trump to those guys 2 weeks in, when Congress and the Supreme Court are very much alive and able to pounce on him, is rather early, no?
There's sufficient evidence. He has shown us who he is, and what he is.