as an aside, one does not "stick" one's .signature file in a NNTP feed.
Author likely wasn't there, back in the day.
I Stand With Trolls
51–60 of 155 posts
Re: I Stand With Trolls
#52Just 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…
Mozilla is one of the safest and most welcoming places to work in software, regardless of your sexual orientation or gender identity. Their actions, collectively as an organization, speak for themselves.
But yeah, one of their employees happens to hold personal beliefs you disagree with. That means he should be fired regardless of job performance? How does that make any sense? It's one thing to say that he directly took actions to make a workplace unsafe, or has openly said harmful, awful things in public. But neither of those things are true of Brendan Eich. An employer has no more right to fire someone for being anti-gay marriage than it does to fire them for being pro-gay marriage. And that's a good thing, because there are plenty of staunchly conservative employers out there that would love to force all their employees to support their own pet political agendas.
Re: I Stand With Trolls
#53Just 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…
I believe I read that adding up all the Mozilla donations, the "against prop 8" donations vastly outweighted the "for" donations. I can't say whether that makes up for anything, but I get the impression that Mozilla as a community is very much not socially regressive.
Re: I Stand With Trolls
#54...but we are moving more and more to a transparent society...
This key issue isn't whether or not things are changing (they are) or whether it's good or bad (that's debatable).
The key issue is who gets to decide.
If I want to tell the world a million things about myself, that's my business. But if someone else wants to tell the world things about me (especially if they know it's personal or private), then that's definitely not cool.
It's not that much different for institutions, companies, or any group in general. None of us should be surprised at the reaction of another whose digital cherry we popped on-line.
This reminds me of the old tale about the man with a gossiping problem who went to a sage for advice. The sage told him to slice open a feather-filled pillow, shake it outside his house, then come back tomorrow. The next day the man asked the sage what to do about his gossip problem. The sage said, "Go gather those feathers."
Re: I Stand With Trolls
#55Just 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…
+1.
> I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it
-- Attributed to Voltaire.
IMO, that perspective is one of the keystones of our culture, and not to be thrown away lightly.
Re: I Stand With Trolls
#56Just 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…
Mozilla is one of the safest and most welcoming places to work in software, regardless of your sexual orientation or gender identity. Their actions, collectively as an organization, speak for themselves. But yeah, one of their employees happens to hold personal beliefs you disagree with. That means he should be fired regardless of job performance? How does that make any sense? It's one thing to say that he directly t…
>But yeah, one of their employees happens to hold personal beliefs you disagree with.
Holding personal beliefs and acting on personal beliefs are two different things entirely. In my arrogant opinion, being anti marriage equality should be held in the same level of disrepute as someone being against racial equality or similar.
You're free to hate whatever you want, but when you give money to organizations that cause people to kill themselves, you've directly supported that action. Some things I can see a company wanting no part of.
Re: I Stand With Trolls
#57Just 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…
I'm pretty sure that you are someone I would not want to work with, because while I may disagree with Eich politically, I find your inability to separate the personal and professional spheres much more alarming. I'm not referring to your personal dislike for working with someone who supported prop 8, I'm referring to your internalizing and remembering that one particular non-politician supported it, and taking the ti…
Interestingly I’ve found repeatedly through my career that there is very little separation between personal and professional spheres.
I will give you that there’s a giant difference between a public persona and the person. But I find when working closely with someone - particularly in 80hour crunch time weeks - you don’t end up dealing with their public persona, but with a version of them much closer to their "personal life". So day to day your experience with your co-workers is very personal, and frequently in an unprofessional mode.
I think that when making choices about who I will work with, I'll lean heavily on what I know about them personally, and treat their public persona with a great deal of distrust.
Re: I Stand With Trolls
#58Just 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…
There's a lot I am not clear on here. What if Brendan didn't donate any money? What if Mozilla employees net donated against Prop 8? What if you discovered Brendan's donation after working with him for awhile? What if Brendan changed views while you worked there? What if Brendan (work with me) was hired after you worked there?
What if you never knew of Brendan's views during your entire tenure at Mozilla? This is a situation I believe you have already experienced because it is so likely.
Re: I Stand With Trolls
#59Love 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 EV…
Totally agree. People are probably saying a lot of stuff in daily conversation that, if transcribed, could get them fired.
Thanks to social media, these conversations stop happening between two people and include me on the other side of the globe, too. I like that. I want to hear people's real opinions, get a sense of their real personality, from the internet.
Firing someone over their tweets sends a powerful message to everyone to filter what you tweet.
Re: I Stand With Trolls
#60Just 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…
To some of the sub-comments to this:
Not at all (AT ALL) defending Prop 8 here, but where do you draw the line in cutting these people out of your life? Take the issue of abortion, which is easier to see that there are no easy answers. You either believe that abortion is MURDER or stopping abortion curtails PERSONAL LIBERTY for all women. Either way, people are defending a highly moral position and you can argue against their conclusions but you should at least try to respect their personal opinion, especially if they afford you that same respect.
I look at the new Lincoln movie and that makes a lot of these points for me. Everyone is entitled to shun bigots and work only with people they agree with, but there is an opportunity to improve things for everyone by sitting down at the same table with people we disagree with rather than vilifying their existence.