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OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

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Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#221

Post by agapos »

ignostic wrote: post #163
pvnick wrote: post #104

Eich has made it clear, both through promises as well as actions, that he is not going to force his beliefs on Mozilla. Does OkCupid seriously wish harm upon an organization that employs hundreds of innocent individuals, most of whom likely hold different beliefs than Eich? An organization that works for the open web everyday and defends our privacy against actual harmful actions by criminal organizations? Intentiona…

> "Talk about forcing your beliefs on others." What? How does OKC's use of free speech amount to "forcing" their beliefs on others? > "OkCupid is shamelessly exploiting this situation for attention." Care to back that up? Do you have the information necessary to say OKC is exploiting the situation for attention? Do you know their beliefs? Their intentions? Do you know their motivations and what they hope to accomplis…

This is my first time hearing about OKC, and I already saw at least six references to this act of theirs on HNews alone, until one of the mods (or their local counterparts) deleted those.

What you make out of this information is up to you.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#222

Post by dang »

eaurouge wrote: post #185
dang wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid you may have missed my point. I was deliberately intervening in this submission, because the thread sucked. Edit: it might be a bit better now. All: Unthoughtful comments should be downvoted. Have at it. Edit: I've mollified my wording slightly. Please downvote judiciously.

The problem with asking people to downvote is that some will downvote opinions they disagree with. What's your definition of "unthoughtful"?

We don't have a great answer to that yet, so I'm using general terms and asking everyone to apply their own best-faith interpretation to them.

We're going to solve this problem sooner or later, because so many of us are sick of it. But the specific form the solution takes has to evolve in the community. When systems are evolving, overspecification is a mistake. For that reason, I'm going to stick to commenting on particular examples for a while.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#223

Post by dhmholley »

sliverstorm wrote: post #164
dmazin wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. There are actions which should be applied to oppressors and not the oppressed. Publicly embarrassing bigots is necessary to show that such beliefs will not be socially accepted; public embarrassment of minority groups is hatred. Just a disclaimer: I fully support discrimination against bigots such as refusal of service.

So it's ok only when done to the people you don't like.

Action against those in positions of power who cause harm to others is meaningfully different to action against those who are already victimised. The first is a movement for social change that increases the net good in the world, the second is simple oppression.

In the same sense, one might say that overthrowing a fascist dictator is more morally justified than overthrowing a peaceful democracy to install said dictatorship. Both are violence against a government, but they exist in different moral contexts.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#224

Post by intslack »

daeken wrote: post #190
intslack wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More likely his (assumed) belief that marriage can only be between a man and a woman stems from ignorance and his religion instead of bigotry or hate. And while that doesn't negate the harm that his donation caused: please stop comparing him to racists. You don't know Brendan, I don't know Brendan, nobody in previous threads comparing him to fucking racists or the Nazis knows Brendan. It's disgusting, please stop. >S…

> You don't know Brendan, I don't know Brendan, nobody in previous threads comparing him to fucking racists or the Nazis knows Brendan. I know Brendan. I met him on a number of occasions while working at Mozilla and interacted with him on many more. I think the comparison to racism is completely valid. I don't think he's a bad guy (he was always quite cordial with me) but his actions caused harm to a large number of…

How is it valid? Have you talked to him personally about his beliefs? He's offered to share them with anyone he meets in person.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#225

Post by MrZongle2 »

gojomo wrote: 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…

I was not aware that OKCupid was so theophobic.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#226

Post by hkphooey »

scarmig wrote: post #204
intslack wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More likely his (assumed) belief that marriage can only be between a man and a woman stems from ignorance and his religion instead of bigotry or hate. And while that doesn't negate the harm that his donation caused: please stop comparing him to racists. You don't know Brendan, I don't know Brendan, nobody in previous threads comparing him to fucking racists or the Nazis knows Brendan. It's disgusting, please stop. >S…

Opposing gay marriage [1] is a sign of bigotry and hate, by that fact alone. It's akin to excusing white supremacists in the 1950's for segregating blacks and whites and underfunding black schools because their opinions were religiously motivated (and most claimed a religion as one of the reasons--children of Ham, and all that) and because they ignorantly believed blacks were inherently intellectually inferior. Nope,…

From a well-known gay British art critic, writer and broadcaster. Is he a hateful homophobic bigot too? Obviously he does not represent the whole gay community, but it does serve to highlight how the abusive language directed towards Brendan and the call for a boycott are a complete over-reaction.

Why I will never be converted to gay marriage

...the recent institution of civil partnerships seemed to be the final necessary reform, giving homosexuals the right to inherit each other’s property, just as may a man and his wife; and if they want a family, there is now no barrier to their adopting children – in the case of homosexual men, so long in error bundled together with paedophiles and pederasts, an astonishing recognition of moral responsibility.

Why then do they and lesbians demand the right to marry? Indeed, how many of us have made that demand? One in 20? One in 10? Most of us... are content with civil partnerships and have not pleaded for gay marriage. But every minority has within it a core of single-issue politicians and protesters who are never satisfied and always ask for more, and homosexuals, both male and female, are no exception.

Since the institution of civil partnerships there has been no impediment to their celebration with a party as extravagant as any wedding, but not all homosexuals are so exhibitionist. Most of us are content with what we now have within the law, and are happy to respect the deeply-held belief of sincere, thoughtful and informed Christians for whom marriage is the one sacrament in which we cannot share.

We have wasted our resources on the wrong campaign – the battle still to be won is against prejudice, the most insidious of enemies.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10729717/Brian-Sewe...

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#227

Post by shitgoose »

ignostic wrote: post #172
adamors wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, and I wish we could. But given the size of companies and products available, we obviously have to do the best we can. It makes sense to start with the company itself and its top leader.

Wow! I am speechless...

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#228

Post by adamors »

dotBen wrote: post #206
adamors wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There are plenty of companies I boycot and avoid patronizing based on concerns I have with their owners, executive leadership or company's position on issues important to me. I don't think that is that uncommon, actually.

So, I'm guessing you don't watch movies made by 20th century fox, you don't read the Wall Street Journal, you don't shop at Kohl's, you don't eat any fruit from Dole, you don't eat at a Dairy Queen etc.

And if you take into account the whole wage-fixing cartel of Apple and co. you don't buy Apple products, you don't visit pages that display ads from Google etc. etc.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#229

Post by matt_heimer »

sentenza wrote: post #151
webwright wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today, it's being anti-gay-rights is acceptable to lots of people. 50 years ago, being a racist was acceptable to lots of people. Would you work for or buy products from a CEO who was an unapologetic racist just because his beliefs were a product of his family/community? A good question to ask: If you think we will evolve to the point where gay rights are a given, what should we do right now ? Should we be respectful…

Wait. The guy is also the inventor of Javascript. Shouldn't everybody be boycotting that? I mean it has a lot more to do with him than Firefox does. After all, he's the CEO of Mozilla Corporation (not the Foundation), which is only indirectly connected to Firefox, but he _invented_ Javascript! What am I missing here?

JavaScript is something he produced, think of it as a work of art. The language itself doesn't portray his personal beliefs on topics other than language design. Putting him in charge of people who lifestyle he is not accepting of is different. It will influence the choices he makes in dealing with people and in how the organization behaves.

If the language had something like logging levels which were labeled by derogatory terms for a subset of people that'd be another issue but it doesn't.

Imagine if Ted Bundy had created a cure for cancer. Would you want to boycott it? Would you put him in charge of people? Now admittedly Bundy might be a bigger danger to a specific subset of people than Eich but Eich is still a danger in some way to a subset of people.

Boycotting FireFox isn't about the product, it is about sending a message to the organization that puts him in a position of power over people.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#230

Post by [deleted] »

hetman wrote: post #168
qdpb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he have any control over future development of javascript and how this future development will affect a wider community? I don't think he does. But he is the CEO of the company, and what the company does going forward does depend on him a lot. I think this is the key difference between boycotting the browser and boycotting the language.

And has he been directing Mozilla in a way that would reduce equality for all its users? Is this even remotely likely?

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