[R] The "--slave" option

Richard O'Keefe r@oknz @end|ng |rom gm@||@com
Thu Sep 19 10:55:36 CEST 2019


One of my grandfathers was from Croatia.  Guess what the word "slave" is
derived
from?  That's right, Slavs.  This goes back to the 9th century.  And then
of course
my grandfather's people were enslaved by the Ottoman empire, which was only
defeated
a little over a hundred years ago.  My other grandfather was from the
British isles,
where to this day followers of the same prophet are enslaving people like me
(except for being female).  So I'm sorry, but I'm not impressed.

How many computers are "servers"?  There's that whole client-server thing.
Guess what "server" comes from?  That's right, the Latin word "servus",
which
means guess what?  You got it again: "slave".  Are we to abolish the word
"server"?  What about the word "client"?  Ah, that's part of the
client-patron
system from Rome, so what about the patriarchy, eh?

We are dealing with something called "the genetic fallacy".
"The genetic *fallacy* (also known as the *fallacy of origins* ...)
 is a *fallacy* of irrelevance that is based solely on someone's
 or something's history, *origin*, or source rather than its
 current meaning or context."  (Wikipedia.)

Context matters.



On Thu, 19 Sep 2019 at 17:10, Abby Spurdle <spurdle.a using gmail.com> wrote:

> > Personally I much prefer backwards compatibility to political
> correctness.
>
> I agree with Rolf, here.
> And as someone that's planning to write a Linux Terminal Emulator, in
> the medium-term future, I *strongly* defend this approach.
>
> And to the original poster.
> Haven't you seen The Matrix?
> (Second best movie ever, after the Shawshank Redemption).
>
> I would prefer the technology to be my slave, than I be a
> prisoner/slave to the technology.
>
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