GitHub reveals how software engineers are purging federal databases

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 simply winning in 2028.

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.

> 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.

> 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).

> 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.

0: https://ogles.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-ogles-propo...

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.

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> 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.

> 2. The amount of effort being put into this is much higher than GitHub changing their default for new repos to "main"

The buck didn't stop with that useless piece of wokeism that, oh so curiously, didn't go after master degrees.

The funniest thing when red is in power instead of blue is how all the blue people pretend their crap was good and the crap of red is bad and how it's not about the action but about who does it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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)

Uhm, yes. Yes they were.

Here's one example:

https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/09/renaming-whi...

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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.

If the people with integrity quit, they have less overall capacity. An alternative is to get your union to be political and strike over this shit. If you don't resist in some capacity, you are just helping them.

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.

That was stupid, but not evil.

Say there are two kids: little Billy and little Cody.

Billy has been pampered all his life. He was from a rich family who gave him everything, including the best education. He had ample free time to be a kid. He was personally escorted to school on a horse and had private tutors on call. His final grade was 80/100.

Cody lived in the slums. His family barely got money to eat most days. Cody had to work to help support his family but through struggle was still able to attend school. He had to do his homework on the bus. His life was full of hardship and out of necessity he did little else than work and study. His final grade was 79/100.

One day they both apply for the same job. The employer says “Well, grades don’t lie. I’m sorry Cody, but I’ll hire Billy”.

How is that a meritocracy?

The goal of these initiatives is not to give an unfair advantage to other groups, it’s to even the playing field and combat the systemic bias. If you are truly for meritocracies and are able to see past what’s right in front of your nose, you’ll realise the status quo is inherently racist. To live in a true meritocracy you have to mitigate multiple generations of harm.

"I was just following orders" is not an excuse to most moral people who learn from history. Soldiers cannot commit war crimes because their superior offices tell them to. Federal workers swear an oath on the Constitution to defend it from enemies both foreign and domestic.

It would have taken you just a few more seconds to actually explain how this is the case.