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How Software Companies Die (1995)

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Re: How Software Companies Die (1995)

#131

Post by aaronem »

rmc wrote: post #66
yummyfajitas wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your characterization of OSC is incorrect. He only believes sodomy laws should be used carefully to make sure people don't "shake the confidence of the community", and that most homosexuals should not be jailed. http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html I don't agree with OSC, and I doubt he'd like me very much due to my propensity for casual sex and my desire to abolish state marriage. That said, I do share…

I do share his distaste for the gay rights movement's propensity to attack and attempt to blacklist and attack their opponents. I have a dislike for the anti-gay rights movement's attempt to kill gay people. Communism has been far more harmful to the world than opposition to gay marriage. Spoken like a breeder.

And people wonder why I don't mind passing for straight.

Re: How Software Companies Die (1995)

#132

Post by grammaton »

127 wrote: post #70
ghshephard wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference here, is that it's not the 1800s, and OSC continues to not just hold, but evangelize his hateful positions. See: http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html for one of the reasons people find him repellent. Choice quote (after he had a chance to reflect on the response to his essay): "...it has become clearer and clearer to me, since writing this essay, that gay activism as a movement is no long…

This is not a hateful position. It is a political position and a stance of how society should operate. I see no gay hatred there. Simply the strong need for family and society building. Just because you can't understand his reasons and emotionally react to some of his opinions does not a bigot make.

Sure, but it's really, really hard to believe it's all so sterile and impersonal.

"Hey, i'm sure you're a really nice person, I just think you should be legally discriminated against and denied certain rights solely on the basis of your sexual orientation because I have some ill-informed and antiquated ideas about The Sanctity Of Marriage (tm). Beer?"

Doesn't really seem realistic to me.

Oh, let's hear what he has to say:

"Furthermore, if we allow ourselves to be intimidated by our fear of the world's censure into silence in the face of attempts by homosexuals to make their sin acceptable under the laws of the polity, then we have abandoned our role as teachers of righteousness."

"The repentant homosexual must be met with forgiveness. Even hypocritical homosexuals must be treated individually with compassion. But the collective behavior of the hypocrites of homosexuality must be met with our most forceful arguments and our complete intolerance of their lies."

"That a few individuals suffer from tragic genetic mixups does not affect the differences between genetically distinct males and females."

Yheaaa, sorry, but he actually is a bigot.

Re: How Software Companies Die (1995)

#133

Post by aaronem »

127 wrote: post #64
SwellJoe wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One shouldn't feel obligated to be tolerant of intolerance expressed by people with power and privilege against those who have less power and privilege (like a wealthy, straight, white male attacking LGBTQ folks). That's a very common tactic of bigots to claim that being told they should stop oppressing people is oppressive toward them. Demanding an end to oppression is not oppressive toward those who currently benef…

Yet we should be tolerant of intolerance expressed by people who are not wealthy, straight, white or male?

Exactly! The modern progressive in a nutshell.

Re: How Software Companies Die (1995)

#134

Post by tokenadult »

keithpeter wrote: post #114
ColinWright wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did have, but it's been permanently disabled. I got too much grief over it. I have scripts to assist, but all these posts are "by hand". They don't take much time, and occasionally during the search and confirmation phase I stumble across other things that are interesting, so there is some reward.

Script assisted manual commands are something I use a lot as well, I can hack up scripts and cope with minor changes in data format &c. I'm interested in the reaction to automated posting but the comparative acceptance of 'by hand' posting. Is that simply frequency? Are you selecting which historic threads to run searches against?

I deeply appreciate Colin's posts about previous submissions and routinely upvote them. What I like about them, as someone who has been on Hacker News 1838 days now, is that they answer the "Haven't I seen this before?" question that often pops into my mind when I see a recurrently posted story. Because this site's name is Hacker News, after all, I expect to see new stories submitted here, so when an old story is submitted it's helpful to know where the previous discussion is.

Re: How Software Companies Die (1995)

#135

Post by aaronem »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #44
barking wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should consider what you just wrote and and what it says about you.

It says that I believe a man who holds violent* and irrational hatred in his heart is unlikely to be a rational thinker, and his words on any subject should be give careful consideration. I stand by that, thank you very much. *Yes, violent. Card has literally advocated armed revolution against any federal government that legalizes gay marriage.

Having once had my arm broken by words on the subject of armed revolution, I unreservedly endorse your use of the adjective 'violent' in this case.

Re: How Software Companies Die (1995)

#136

Post by sologrrl »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #2

We all know that OSC is a horrible bigot, right? I feel like any sort of fatherly advice he emits needs to be suffixed with "...unless you're gay, then you should be in prison."

This whole subthread is a perfect example of why collapsible comments are badly needed on HN. All heat and no light.

Re: How Software Companies Die (1995)

#137

Post by grammaton »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #69
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The time has come now to the point where anyone who holds an anti-gay position is criticized and/or boycotted. "The time has come now to the point where anyone who holds an anti-black position is criticized and/or boycotted." "The time has come now to the point where anyone who holds an anti-woman position is criticized and/or boycotted." "The time has come now to the point where anyone who holds an anti-Jew positi…

The time has come now to the point where anyone who holds a pro-Obamacare position is criticized and/or boycotted. The time has now come to the point where anyone who holds a pro-privacy position is now criticized and/or boycotted. The time has now come to the point where anyone who holds an anti-polygamy position is now criticized and/or boycotted. Yes, lets all give up reasoned discourse and simply attack those who…

I disagree with who you are as a person, and on that basis, I think you should be denied rights that are routinely given to the rest of the population. Additionally, I find you personally foul and repulsive, and your very nature disgusts me. But it's nothing personal!

Wait, what? You're upset? You want to fight back? You think that just because you're a human being you should be given the same basic consideration under the law as anyone else? HOW DARE YOU PERSECUTE ME BECAUSE OF MY BELIEFS!

Just so you know, this is what you - and Orson Scott Card - sound like when you try to use this "argument."

Re: How Software Companies Die (1995)

#138

Post by Udo »

aaronem wrote: post #130
xmonkee wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you're purposely misinterpreting his point. He's not saying what should be, he's saying what probably was. You might have been saying that homosexuality is unethical a hundred years ago with the same certainty with which you denounce Card. I'm sure nobody here actually thinks that being gay is unethical.

I've found presentism to be an all but impossible concept for those whose ideology drives their historiography.

So you guys are calling me either stupid or malevolent, thanks for that. Aaron, there really isn't a lot of ideology in my posts - but how about yours? I've tried, patiently, explaining why I think homosexuality is not unethical in any historical context, and why I believe militant homophobia is. One is behavior which is deemed unacceptable but doesn't negatively affect anyone, and the other one is about harming and denigrating people who are not like you. There is no contest. If you really believe this is "presentism", there is not a lot left to talk about.

Re: How Software Companies Die (1995)

#139

Post by grammaton »

sanoli wrote: post #37
nashashmi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that wrong again?! It is true that they are trying to gain legitimacy. It is no longer about rights but now it is about acceptance. The time has come now to the point where anyone who holds an anti-gay position is criticized and/or boycotted. Now we have not just reached giving gays equal treatment but making changes to accommodate a different lifestyle. The second point OSC makes is sourced in a discomfort fr…

Is this different from, say, the black movement? What if there were no longer segregated schools and bathrooms, but african-americans were prohibited to adopt children and black history were not allowed to be taught in schools? edit: I'm not from the U.S. so I don't know everything as far as minority rights go over there. In my country there are laws agains racism, and they're trying to pass anti-homophobia laws too.…

It's not really any different from the black movement. People who defend institutionalized hatred of gay people don't seem to understand this, and are forever perplexed as to why people affected by it feel so strongly about the issue.

To go a step further, to those who want to continue denying gays rights on the basis of their sexual orientation, they think that allowing gays to marry is just as bad as jailing someone for expressing a racist opinion. They literally do not understand the difference between these two things, hence the virulence of argument.

Re: How Software Companies Die (1995)

#140

Post by Udo »

xmonkee wrote: post #119
Udo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if people during Turing's time actually thought that homosexual behavior was unethical (which I think is not too far from the truth)? First of all, I assert being gay is not unethical. And it never was. Sure, it was considered amoral, but that's not the same. Could you elaborate on why you think an ethical argument could be constructed in favor of being militantly anti-gay?

It seems like you're purposely misinterpreting his point. He's not saying what should be, he's saying what probably was. You might have been saying that homosexuality is unethical a hundred years ago with the same certainty with which you denounce Card. I'm sure nobody here actually thinks that being gay is unethical.

While we're accusing people of purposeful misinterpretation, let me pass that right back at you. I wanted to hear the rationale for calling being gay unethical. I wasn't about to allege anything. But if someone asserts that there might be an ethics argument against homosexuality, I'd really like to hear it.
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