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I Stand With Trolls

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Re: I Stand With Trolls

#31

Post by lucisferre »

michaelochurch wrote: post #19
zacharyvoase wrote: post #10

Just an anecdote, which I know is not the singular form of 'data', but still: I respect Mozilla as a company, but have no desire to work there (despite there being a lot of technology fit) because the CTO, Brendan Eich, made a donation of $1,000 to support Prop 8—a 2008 California ballot measure which banned gay marriage. Sure, I understood that his views were not those of his employer. But that doesn't make it easie…

Prop 8 was disgusting, but I would have more reservations about working for a company that fired someone over his political beliefs, than at one that happened to have a conservative CTO. If I work for a company that takes a cavalier approach to firing, I'm putting my career at risk. But as long as there aren't other character issues, I don't think a conservative CTO is damning. They might not even know; it's not real…

Actually, you are defending bigots, I'd hate to paint all Republicans with that same brush (despite there being a bit of an apparent pattern).

Re: I Stand With Trolls

#32

Post by smirksirlot »

lotharbot wrote: post #28
zacharyvoase wrote: post #10

Just an anecdote, which I know is not the singular form of 'data', but still: I respect Mozilla as a company, but have no desire to work there (despite there being a lot of technology fit) because the CTO, Brendan Eich, made a donation of $1,000 to support Prop 8—a 2008 California ballot measure which banned gay marriage. Sure, I understood that his views were not those of his employer. But that doesn't make it easie…

> "It’s about the message they give to potential hires: you’ll be working with these people on a daily basis." At any company larger than about 3 employees, you'll be working with at least some people who have opinions/ideas/beliefs you find disagreeable or even disgusting -- and, conversely, some of your coworkers will think the same of you. IMO the most important message to give to potential hires is "we won't put…

There's something that needs to be said about political beliefs that stomp on the very fiber of my being.

Sure. I would work with these people and execute what I need to do. But knowing what they believe in and the extent of which they would act to remove/restrict rights that I should have ultimately will prevent me from wanting to get to know them, to interact with them beyond a strictly professional capacity.

From experience, that doesn't go well - over time, it gets exhausting. Your company culture gets built up with walls between people because there's no trust.

So yes, having a difference of opinion/belief/diversity is important. But at the same time, there are certain core values that need to be stood for.

Re: I Stand With Trolls

#33

Post by aredington »

He got whacked because he was being dismissive of people's objection to a business decision.

He compared the business decision to engineering limitations (vacuums need AC out of plugs, mobile phones need cell towers in range), and was snide about people objecting to the business decision to have a console that only works when it is connected to the internet.

He wasn't having open an honest dialog, and he wasn't conducting that dialog politely.

I think most folks on HN know of some marginalized political philosophies such as anarchism or libertarianism. These political philosophies aren't popular, but there are polite and intellectually rigorous ways of discussing them, and there are immature and inconsiderate ways of discussing them.

You can discuss marginalized or unpopular things without being an asshole. But Orth was discussing them while being an asshole, and was doing it as a representative of Microsoft.

Re: I Stand With Trolls

#34

Post by onemorepassword »

michaelochurch wrote: post #19
zacharyvoase wrote: post #10

Just an anecdote, which I know is not the singular form of 'data', but still: I respect Mozilla as a company, but have no desire to work there (despite there being a lot of technology fit) because the CTO, Brendan Eich, made a donation of $1,000 to support Prop 8—a 2008 California ballot measure which banned gay marriage. Sure, I understood that his views were not those of his employer. But that doesn't make it easie…

Prop 8 was disgusting, but I would have more reservations about working for a company that fired someone over his political beliefs, than at one that happened to have a conservative CTO. If I work for a company that takes a cavalier approach to firing, I'm putting my career at risk. But as long as there aren't other character issues, I don't think a conservative CTO is damning. They might not even know; it's not real…

Maybe it's cultural context, but in my book homophobia has nothing to do with legitimate political beliefs. Being conservative has nothing at all to do with bigotry.

Promoting hatred and discrimination towards any group that is part of your (potential) employees and their friends and families would be good reason to fire someone as far as I'm concerned.

Re: I Stand With Trolls

#35

Post by VLM »

michaelochurch wrote: post #18

Troll (mostly white-hat, these days) here. Had a gray-hat trolling habit as a teenager and in early 20s. Now I try to direct any hypergraphic tendencies to worthier causes. Denouncing idiocy is charity work that I do. However, I've "trolled for good" quite a bit and have really suffered for it, as the world unfortunately knows. The guys at the game company didn't deserve to be fired. They were engineers having a (som…

It makes sense to fire Orth. No one other than MS employees, a couple console game programmers, and their hired astroturfers wants an "always on" console. Therefore firing him means we're talking about Orth instead of a very unpopular decision by a monopolist.

The moral constitution and all that should be outraged at closed gardens and monopolist providers and assymetry in the market between a couple providers and a lot of consumers blah blah. Its not a "do no evil" company, and firing him is pretty small potatoes compared to their other issues. You're dealing with a criminal organization. Don't bother busting Al Capone for jaywalking, or in this case firing a crony.

Re: I Stand With Trolls

#36

Post by at-fates-hands »

smirksirlot wrote: post #32
lotharbot wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It’s about the message they give to potential hires: you’ll be working with these people on a daily basis." At any company larger than about 3 employees, you'll be working with at least some people who have opinions/ideas/beliefs you find disagreeable or even disgusting -- and, conversely, some of your coworkers will think the same of you. IMO the most important message to give to potential hires is "we won't put…

There's something that needs to be said about political beliefs that stomp on the very fiber of my being. Sure. I would work with these people and execute what I need to do. But knowing what they believe in and the extent of which they would act to remove/restrict rights that I should have ultimately will prevent me from wanting to get to know them, to interact with them beyond a strictly professional capacity. From…

From my experience of working in both large corporations and small start up companies, it's generally frowned upon to even discuss political matters no matter what side of the isle you sit on. The very reasons you cite is the main reason this is something you simply keep to yourself, period.

Likewise, most companies I've worked for don't engage in overtly political events so they don't self select out any candidates based solely on religious or political reasons.

Re: I Stand With Trolls

#38

Post by 1337biz »

Anonymous and Wikileaks might get ahold of Google’s entire email database and start publishing stuff.

Speaking of which ... is there any tool to swipe clean an Gmail inbox? Due to to the recent changes I finally got ready to switch over to my old pop3s. I plan on slowly fading out my Gmal account, so I would start by deleting all the past mails, etc. Any recommended way to do this?

Re: I Stand With Trolls

#39

Post by jiggy2011 »

smirksirlot wrote: post #32
lotharbot wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It’s about the message they give to potential hires: you’ll be working with these people on a daily basis." At any company larger than about 3 employees, you'll be working with at least some people who have opinions/ideas/beliefs you find disagreeable or even disgusting -- and, conversely, some of your coworkers will think the same of you. IMO the most important message to give to potential hires is "we won't put…

There's something that needs to be said about political beliefs that stomp on the very fiber of my being. Sure. I would work with these people and execute what I need to do. But knowing what they believe in and the extent of which they would act to remove/restrict rights that I should have ultimately will prevent me from wanting to get to know them, to interact with them beyond a strictly professional capacity. From…

Does it make a difference what the position of the person who's views you disagree with holds? I can sort of understand saying "I don't want to work to make our CEO richer because he will spend the money promoting causes I hate".

But what about co-workers or subordinates? Would you be disturbed because the guy who cleans the floor holds controversial views? Also bear in mind that employees will leave and be replaced with new ones who may be very different people.

Once you get past a certain size of company you're never going to get people who don't disagree on some divisive issue, whether it be gay marriage, gun rights or abortion. The test of your company culture is how well it can deal with that unless you want to start asking people political questions at interview (is these even allowed?).

Re: I Stand With Trolls

#40

Post by lubujackson »

Love this post. If we want an open and transparent world, which we are headed toward at breakneck speed, we need to ALLOW AND ACCEPT when people are stupid, say racist things when they were 15, say harmful things on Twitter, insult people and generally be the asses that people are at times. It isn't endorsement, it is a readjustment of cultural norms - these are some more Internet growing pains for everybody.

When EVERYTHING we say is attached to a megaphone, people either start to say a lot less or we need to accept a lot more. Personally I want to accept more and not be self-muzzled. I think we have to go in that direction, if no other reason than to accommodate that poor generation that grew up online and have a whole embarrassing history attached to their future lives before anyone understood that their history will no longer fade away from sight.

If one off-the-cuff personal comment can get you fired from a job, does that mean it should prevent you from getting hired too? Ever again? It is an easy decision to fire someone in the 5 seconds of Internet heat that these sorts of things can generate, but we need to consider what that is costing us all.

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