> But if it isn't... what's the harm?

Well for one thing it teaches people to be confused about the idea that meaning depends on context. Look at the dictionary definition of 'master' and you'll see that it doesn't exclusively represent the idea of a person who enslaves people. Consider:

    * master of disguise
    * grand master
    * master's degree
    * master tape

I would say that "master" as used in git is closest to the "master tape" definition: "an original movie, recording, or document from which copies can be made". That isn't quite what a master branch is, but "common name given to the main branch of a Merkle tree" probably isn't going to show up in your average dictionary.

It also creates conflict for no good reason between people who are comfortable with multiple meanings of words and people who view any objection to their interpretation of the English language as evidence of racism.

Well, what else has been accomplished? What policies are being passed that are helping materially black people? Sure, some cities have passed legislation to defund their police, and consequently murder rates are sky-rocketing (and probably not so much in wealthy white neighborhoods of those same cities nor in other more conservative jurisdictions). There are some colorblind reforms that something like 90% of Americans supported in one form or another; hardly anything controversial, but this is the most substantial thing that I can think of that can be credited as a consequence of the movement, but it's far too soon to figure out whether that will have an impact on any disparities. What am I missing? I'm guessing there are some negative effects that no one is bothering to measure, like the extent to which these vapid measures nudge people to the right or make them unsympathetic to the movement.

> What policies are being passed that are helping materially black people?

Mostly nothing. Corporations can largely only avoid harming various groups, and engaging in fair business practices. They're not set up, by their incentive structure, to do work that reforms society at large.

Even non-profits need to focus on a specific mission, and they're usually most successful by putting people in touch with each other.

Because, especially if you look at it through the lens of "material" help, the further an action is from the control of the individual being helped, the amount of good that can be done per unit effort drops off dramatically.

We normally view individualism as a normative claim, that "the rugged individual" ought to help himself. But you can cast it as an observation: most help in your life is only effective (again, in terms of return for the effort involved) if it comes from you personally or someone quite close to you.

Political capital has proven to be finite, it is similar to time being zero sum. Using political capital in a non-smart way is equivalent to wasting time.

I believe it trivializes the movement because it injects unimportant issues like git branch names into the realm of conversations about racism, police violence, harmful stereotypes, discrimination etc. It also gives ammunition to those who seek to discredit the movement for social justice. This isn't a situation like e.g. affirmative action, which demonstrably creates opportunities for minorities at the cost of some resentment from people who feel like affirmative action is unfair. In the case of "master" to "main", nobody gains anything, all it does is act is a flashpoint for bad faith actors.

I keep looking at it all and thinking "the cost of all the developer hours both inside and outside github to make this change is a depressing amount of money considering how many non-profits working for real change could've done with extra funding".