Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

okcupid.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 410 posts

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#281

Post by jebblue »

na85 wrote: post #184
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…

>from ignorance and his religion instead of bigotry or hate I am not one of the fedora-tippers, and I have no problem with individual faith, but it's been my experience that organized religion (of any sort) tends to discourage critical thinking and encourage ignorance. A byproduct of this is prejudice which leads to the dark side. I don't believe you can quite so easily separate religion from discrimination.

Acts 8:26-40 Read it. I don't know how you conflate religion with racism. It is not the truth.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#282

Post by foolrush »

kevinpet wrote: post #238
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…

Thinking that marriage is by definition between a man and a woman is not the same as thinking there's anything wrong with being gay. You can't claim someone is oppressing someone's rights by participating in the public debate about what exactly those rights should be. I disagree with Eich, but I reserve my moral disapproval for those who seek to shame anyone holding an opinion different from that currently politicall…

However, as is often overlooked, this isn't purely a debate about one's personal ethics and morals; marriage extends into the legal domain, and brings with it a plethora of complex legal ramifications. So, in fact, preventing marriage does impact an individual's rights.

I would also point out that “politically correct” is about as dismissive a term as can be found today.

Cultural attitudes may shift, and at some point a marginalized concept dismissed as “politically correct” becomes simply “correct.”

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#283

Post by intslack »

zorpner wrote: post #279
intslack wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying you should respect his beliefs. I'm saying you should stop calling him a bigot because you don't know what he actually believes, and don't have any evidence that he's homophobic. All we know is that he donated $1000 to reaffirm, in law, that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. Perhaps he believes that the state should remove all recognition of marriage and just recognize civil unions going…

> Perhaps he believes that the state should remove all recognition of marriage... Just a heads-up, this is a strawman developed by anti-same-sex-marriage proponents to provide a possible (though not plausible) reason other than denying people their rights why someone might oppose same-sex marriage (and you also have to buy that someone who wanted to grant same-sex couples those legal right would vote/donate/campaign/…

I used the modifier "perhaps", which was followed by acknowledgment that we don't know his beliefs (because he won't talk about them except in person.)

Brendan is (or was at the time of donation) ignorant, there's no sense in disputing that. I'm just tired of people labelling him as anti-gay, bigot, homophobe, etc.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#284

Post by honksillet »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #9
honksillet wrote: post #6

This is petulant and abrasive. Eich's personal politic's is only tangentially related to OkCupid business and not at all related to Mozilla's business. Also it should be obvious that Eich != Mozilla. It is very off-putting to have a company bludgeon it's user with the personal politics of it's runners.

The takeaway is that businesses and non-profits don't operate in a vacuum, and there are real consequences for having a bigot as the head of your operation. I find it highly disingenuous to call supporting equal rights "petulant and abrasive".

> I find it highly disingenuous to call supporting equal rights "petulant and abrasive". It is "highly disingenuous" for you to state that I made such a claim because clearly I did not. The point I was making is that we don't want to live in a world where every time a company hires an executive with a divisive political opinion, executives from another company feel the need to denounce that individual/company publicly as a means to enforce an ideological orthodoxy. Those kind of societies become rather scary places to live in very quickly. I believe we should push back against politics intruding into parts of our daily lives where it doesn't belong. That's what I object to with OKCupid's statement.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#285

Post by ronaldx »

vacri wrote: post #94
foolrush wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Mr. Eich's “silent” support of legislation that discriminates against individuals is precisely the type of societal friction that Foucault hinted at. It is everyone's business. The sooner the culture makes an othered minority issue socially repugnant and less some sort of innocuous personal political belief as you hint, the greater the chance for longer term change.

Conversely, hurting Mozilla is not just hurting Eich, but hurting all the other people who work there, including the very people that OKC is defending. So despite Eich's personal politics, Mozilla is a place where healthcare is extended to transexuals, and staffers have come out in support of Mozilla org's friendliness to non-straight sexualities, even though they don't support Eich's personal view. http://subfiction…

As an international viewer, this is difficult to understand.

Employment discrimination on the grounds of sexuality is illegal here. By saying that they offer healthcare equally to gay employees[0], Mozilla seem to be doing what would here be considered a minimum.

Is that really considered good in the US? To me personally, this comes across as a very weak statement that actually makes me more concerned. It sort of reads like: gay employees are treated equally here, but we were aware that this is not legally required, so we had to think about it and now we're make a big deal out of our decision. It reads like a homophobic CEO approved the message.

Furthermore, there is a body of employees reporting discomfort and distress at having Eich as CEO, e.g. [1],[2], and you can start a reasonable link chain from those if you're interested to read more.

[0] https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2014/03/mozilla-statement-on-...

[1] http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/03/28/Mozilla-employees-...

[2] http://incisive.nu/2014/thinking-about-mozilla/

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#286

Post by tzs »

webwright wrote: post #113
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…

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…

> 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?

It depends.

If it were, say, 100 years ago, when racism was the norm, I probably wouldn't take the racial views of the CEO into account when deciding what to buy or where to work. When a small group shuns a business, it generally hurts the small group more than it hurts the business. Heck, it may even help the business if people who agree with the CEO start doing more business with the company in a show of support for his racist views.

If it were today, where racism is much much much less acceptable than it was 100 years ago, I'd consider it. The people shunning the business for racism would very likely outnumber those who might increase spending to support it.

When 95% of the population believes something, it is pretty silly to shun a business whose CEO believes that. When 5% believes something, then shunning might make more sense. The interesting question is where is the crossover point?

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#287

Post by jebblue »

zorpner wrote: post #210
sliverstorm wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you're accusing him of "not liking" bigots, you're probably correct. Why, specifically, is it okay for Eich to fund the oppression of homosexuals and not okay for people to say that they find that upsetting and therefore would prefer not to use or serve products he's associated with? What level would his bigotry have to ascend to before people were no longer obligated to use these products or, at least, not tell a…

Google says this about bigotry:

"big·ot·ry ˈbigətrē/Submit noun 1. bigoted attitudes; intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself."

Gays who want to oppress anyone for not thinking like them are also being bigots by that definition. Marriage has been between a man and a woman throughout the history of humans. I think Gays should have legal equality. They can not usurp a word that has had such a clear meaning throughout the core existence of humankind.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#288

Post by dragonwriter »

hkphooey wrote: post #253
waterlesscloud wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My anecdotal experience has been that the older generations of gay men haven't cared a lot about gay marriage as an issue. Civil unions give them what they needed legally, and "marriage" as a concept separate from that didn't mean much to them. I'm completely theorizing as to why, but it's a topic I've discussed with many of them and thought about some on my own. The following impressions apply to older gay men I've…

In Britain today, there is a millionaire gay couple who are suing the Church of England because they want to have a wedding in a church. Is this about symbolism, acceptance or poking a finger in the eye of Christians?

One of many problems with the absence of the separation of Church and State is that discrimination by the Church is discrimination by the State, which makes things unacceptable uses of state power that would be legitimate in an Church that wasn't an integrated part of the State.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#289

Post by shadytrees »

kevinpet wrote: post #238
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…

Thinking that marriage is by definition between a man and a woman is not the same as thinking there's anything wrong with being gay. You can't claim someone is oppressing someone's rights by participating in the public debate about what exactly those rights should be. I disagree with Eich, but I reserve my moral disapproval for those who seek to shame anyone holding an opinion different from that currently politicall…

People, also, used to define marriage as being between two people of the same race. Let us dispense of this tangent once and for all: Marriage is a civil right. It is the cornerstone of this civil rights movement, as it was to the last one, and the one before that, and all the ones that haven't happened yet. The cry "marriage for all" is not politically correct; we would like it to become politically correct -- what a milestone that would be. We aren't shaming Eich because he's politically incorrect. We are shaming him because he chose to join a long line of people who have circumscribed marriage in the name of tradition or fear or ignorance. People who use their money and resources taking something that requires nothing of them to give. People who have been proven wrong, time and time again. People who we, regretfully, did not shame at the time.

Re: OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox

#290

Post by dlss »

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.

Why is this downvoted? Choosing where you spend your money based on moral beliefs isn't wrong...
Post reply on HN