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OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

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Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#121
post #16
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8% of the relationships we’ve worked so hard to bring about would be illegal" I don't know much about Eich, but I don't think he was working to make same-sex relationships illegal (like Uganda or nigeria). it does okcupid no credit to infer that he does (using weasel words like "people like Mr eich".) saying "eich wanted to prevent 8% of our customers from enjoying the fulfillmen…

Marriage is a possibility for a relationship if you're straight. To deny that for gay people is to deny them the full legal potential of their relationship. edit: added legal before potential

What you get down is really a question about what marriage is about. Is marriage about giving government benefits (property transfer benefits, tax treatment changes, certain treatment under health insurance regulations, adoption miscellaneous other things) to two people who like each other a lot? Or is it about giving government benefits to people who might found a family with children and things (notwithstanding the fact that not every heterosexual couple actually does or plans to do this?)

That's the real question here. This issue isn't about hate and dehumanization -- I mean, there's way too much hate and dehumanization, certainly, but not enough to drive electoral victories we've seen. The question is just an extension of the social upheaval of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. The real remarkable thing is that it's been simmering for so long without coming to the forefront yet. Probably many people thought that it was substantially settled, on account of this quiet, but it looks more like the two camps just quietly went their separate ways.

This is also why religious groups outside of Westboro mostly talk about focusing on the family and the social problems associated with single-parent households and divorce. (If you are not a member of these groups or do not have friends and family who are members of these groups, you are probably unaware of what this advocacy looks like. See also: the entire public policy of the Catholic church on this matter.)

FYI: This is how you can have an eminently nice person with nothing but respect for the intrinsic human rights and dignity of homosexuals, but who still votes for Prop 8 or Amendment 1 or a similar measure.

And you know what? What goes on between two people in private of their bedroom is nobody's business. What benefits the government makes available to people, through spending the public purse or giving people tax breaks or mandating certain sorts of treatment... that kind of is peoples' business. It's a public-policy question, and structuring public policy one way or another impacts society in several ways - including, in some jurisdictions, making your ability to operate as a business contingent on you performing some services that you might not want to perform (cf. New Mexico photography etc etc).

(Postscript. No particular stance for or against Proposition 8, or for or against Amendment 1, or any other public policy recommendation, is hereby endorsed. The following ideas are hereby endorsed: Gay people are human beings and deserve a substantially identical set of human rights and dignity as any other human being is entitled to receive. People who treat them otherwise may be some sort or another of monster. The extent to which these rights overlap with public policy in the matter of issuing marriages is controversial. Voters who support Amendment 1 or Prop 8, electorally or fiscally, are not monsters for doing so. Pluralism is good and it would be great if we all had some way to get along. Maybe we can start with more understanding.)

(Post-postscript. Added adoption to the list of misc. benefits as it is of special relevance as a way for a married gay couple to raise children.)

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#122
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because while he may have invented Javascript, many people have contributed to it, so that's not really the same issue. We should assume there might be racists/biggots/etc working at Google on Chrome, at Apple on Safari and at Microsoft on Internet Explorer, too. That's not the point. The issue is with Mozilla placing him as their executive leader; the endorsement that makes and the message that sends to the…

> technical community & the wider world Hah, wider world. For most people, a browser is "the internet". They don't even care that it is made by a company. They certainly don't care about the CEO of this company who gave some money to some thing sometime in the past.

I think that is not how this is working out. Go to Google News, enter "eich" and see how much coverage this is getting in the international mainstream press.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't OKCupid take a bolder stance and give a button to all their users when they sign in, asking, "Do you support marriage equality?" If they click "no", it deletes your account. I mean, as long as you've decided this is the sort of thing your business ought to be concerning itself with...

Although that situation you outline might seem pretty extreme, spare a thought for those who suffer far worse discrimination in real life, where it actually matters. Cf. the bed and breakfast owner who asks "Are you gay?" and if the answer's "yes", shuts their door on you.

I have never in my life been asked if I was gay before any business transaction.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't OKCupid take a bolder stance and give a button to all their users when they sign in, asking, "Do you support marriage equality?" If they click "no", it deletes your account. I mean, as long as you've decided this is the sort of thing your business ought to be concerning itself with...

Although that situation you outline might seem pretty extreme, spare a thought for those who suffer far worse discrimination in real life, where it actually matters. Cf. the bed and breakfast owner who asks "Are you gay?" and if the answer's "yes", shuts their door on you.

I have never in my life been asked if I was gay before any business transaction.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#125

I disagree with the comments saying the CEO's personal beliefs are irrelevant. I believe OKC's message is both relevant and appropriate. I'll grant that the "8% of relationships... would be illegal" argument is a little weak, but the CEO IS paid by Mozilla. In the past he has donated to anti-gay-marriage causes, and may continue to do so in the future enabled by Mozilla's money. Firefox users help Mozilla make money.…

> but the CEO IS paid by Mozilla. In the past he has donated to anti-gay-marriage causes, and may continue to do so in the future enabled by Mozilla's money.

Going by this logic, we should be vetting every person who works at a company whose product we use, because they may have contributed to some cause we don't agree with.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#126
post #118
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not that Eich's beliefs are a deviation from a norm (whether they are or not is irrelevant). His beliefs are hateful. The reason for this particular message is because it is part of a greater campaign to show Mozilla that users and producers on the internet are not in support of Eich's appointment.

Given that his beliefs in 2008 were echoed by a majority of Californian voters, it's hard to argue that they're a deviation from the norm.

At thin majority and this is a weak argument anyway.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#127
post #107
post #2

Edit: this link works for everyone (it is provided in another submission): http://www.okcupid.com/home?mozilla_message=1 Edit 2: the Internet Exploder typo is theirs. Here is the text (for those who don't use Firefox): Hello there, Mozilla Firefox user. Pardon this interruption of your OkCupid experience. Mozilla’s new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples. We would therefore prefer that o…

OkCupid is for creating love. Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure. There is an irony that an entity that declares it is for creating love is going around declaring enemies, and wishing them failure. This clearly undermines their own message, and shows them to be of a similar us vs them hateship. There are Sides to be take…

That's not really irony. It's generally okay to have a self-referential asterisk in rules like; Tolerance, except for intolerance. Free will, except where it impedes that of another. Peace & good will, except where you're about to punch me in the face. Etc. When people argue inconsistency in those cases, it's usually sophistry.

That's not to defend okcupid's tactics in this case. I'm just saying that it's not really an example of hypocrisy.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#128
post #78

And if this doesn't work, eventually when you try to message a Catholic, Mormon, Muslim, or other religiously-observant person from a denomination whose leaders publicly disapprove of homosexuality, you'll see a message from OKCupid like: Religion isn't normally the business of a website. But you've expressed an interest in dating someone whose religion denies equal rights to gay people. Sure, this person may seem OK…

This is not about what's right. It's about attention, meaning user growth and ad revenue. OkCupid's leadership does not actually care about Eich's appointment.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#129
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there a false dilemma fallacy? Who invented all these fallacies? They seem to be unavoidable.

There's the fallacy fallacy, which says "just because you can match an argument to a fallacy doesn't mean you've proven anything": http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fallacy_fallacy

It seems to be saying "you can't prove the conclusion of the argument is false", not "you can't prove anything". You can still prove the argument is invalid.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#130
post #110
post #31

Mozilla released a blog post on Saturday clearly stating: > Mozilla supports equality for all, including marriage equality for LGBT couples. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/03/29/mozilla-supports-lg... There's no evidence that Brendan Eich will bring any of his political views to the workplace; this continued backlash feels unwarranted.

The issue I, and I think others, have with this appointment is what the appointment implies: in a world where many hateful people hold power, yet another hateful person should hold power (in, of all places, an organization seemingly rooted in progress).

But if we discriminate against him purely on the basis of his beliefs (and not his actions on the job), we are no better than he.

(If his personal beliefs do pollute his work then do as you will, run the guy out of town on a rail if you must)

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