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Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

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641–650 of 1001 posts

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#641
post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two sides to that -- the first is that, yes, he absolutely has the right to hold any opinion he wants to, no matter how noxious I or others may find them. To paraphrase Hall on Voltaire, I'll defend to the death their right to be assholes. (Full disclosure: pro- gay marriage, anti-Prop 8, not a CA resident, so doesn't really affect me.) On the other hand, there's no absolute right to be a public-facing CEO, a…

To piggyback, there's an additional difference between being a public-facing CEO of, say, McDonald's, Exxon or Apple, and being the public-facing CEO of a non-profit which exists due to the donations of primarily liberal and libertarian internet people. The prior case might cost them a little revenue due to boycotts but if the person's effective, you can make a case for 'private views' and 'shareholder value'. When y…

>being the public-facing CEO of a non-profit

He was the CEO of the for-profit Mozilla Corporation, not a non-profit.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for saying so. I find the moral compass of a lot of HN posters rather baffling sometimes. Nice to know I'm not the only one :o)

> I find the moral compass of a lot of HN posters rather baffling sometimes. From what I can tell, pretty much everyone in this topic thinks that opposing gay marriage is immoral and donating money to Prop 8 is a bad thing. The divide is on whether it is OK to oust someone for their beliefs, given a lot of extenuating circumstances. And on HN, there are a large number of people who think yes, and a large number of pe…

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Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#643
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobodies' right to have different viewpoints is being taken away. Nobodies' right to donate to political causes is being taken away. The only people in this entire story that were/are trying to take away the rights of others were the people who pushed for Prop 8. The right to support legislation like Prop 8 remains intact. The right to not be criticized by others for doing so has never existed in the first place. The…

I'll tell you what we should do. We shouldn't give those rights to gay people and we should take away those rights from straight people as well . The status quo is a clear discrimination of people who choose not to marry, but may have others in their lives where it would be mutually beneficial to opt into an agreement where they share some of those rights/benefits. Each one of the rights currently afforded to people…

For the love of everything they aren't rights! They are privileges!

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who actually were directly and personally affected by Eich's actions in donating, of which there are quite few compared to the number of people weighing in on this? Is this the case? There are a whole bunch of LGBT people working at Mozilla, and in the wider tech community. On top of that, there are families and friends of these people, who while not being personally affected can certainly legitimately object…

"damage done to their close peers" Again, what damage, and how does that get traced directly back to Eich? The law was repealed, marriage reinstated, and everything's fine. The system worked, so what's the issue? And a "whole bunch"? How many? Numbers? Percentage? Let us not suspect--we are in the Information Age. Google your way to success. The only number we have is $1000 from Eich to support Prop 8--that's the onl…

That's a preposterous argument. Is there some kind of minimum damage level that must be achieved before publicly objecting to someone's views? How does one quantify social damage?

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#645
post #466
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobodies' right to have different viewpoints is being taken away. Nobodies' right to donate to political causes is being taken away. The only people in this entire story that were/are trying to take away the rights of others were the people who pushed for Prop 8. The right to support legislation like Prop 8 remains intact. The right to not be criticized by others for doing so has never existed in the first place. The…

It seems like most are ok with harassment and discrimination against Eich simply citing exercise of free speech. But if one-tenth of what happened to Eich had happened to someone with different sexuality or female, people would cry harassment and discrimination. Why is it ok for Eich to get huge backlashes, harassments and character assassination? I fully support same sex marriage, but I feel like treating Eich like…

If it weren't for double standards, most people wouldn't have any standards at all.

All you have to do is look at all the public figures who express views, and act on them in much more thorough ways, who get a free pass. Look at the all the famous Hollywood types with very sketchy behaviors in their backgrounds. Look at politicians as well, where it's even easier to find skeletons. Eich has been held to a standard that a whole lot of people in public life, CEOs, politicians, movie stars, sports heroes, would not live up to. Do we now move on to all of them?

The biggest problem I have with this situation is not that it happened to Eich, but that the mob has been so selective. There are plenty of people in the public life who have done far more than donate $1000 to a state referendum that, let's not forget, was popular enough to pass in one of the most liberal states in the Union, but haven't been hounded out their jobs for it.

All the folks celebrating that a moral victory has been won with Mozilla ought to consider what happens if this considerable power is put to an evil use, or a use for which they personally find objectionable. Don't think it can't happen. 100 years ago, Fascism was the big thing because it allowed the leaders to Get Things Done, and in fact, many good things were done in that era by dictators with tremendous power to make sweeping changes. But some other stuff happened, too.

Of course, I'm speaking in a political climate where I heard many people state in 2009 that they wished President Obama weren't limited by the Constitution so he could _really_ fix things. I've never heard such a frightening thought from an American in my life, yet I heard it from a number of people back when the President was elected. That isn't a political thing either, because it would scare me equally no matter who the person was talking about. Sure, I don't like President Obama, but I wouldn't want that kind of power in the hands of someone who was the combined reincarnation of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, Winston Churchill, and the Buddha himself either.

If we are living in a country where people are that ignorant of history and of human nature, then this society isn't long for the world anyway.

Maybe the tide is changing and this the start of a new era of populist activism. I guess you have nothing to worry about as long as you hold popular opinions... and, of course, those _never_ change.

Mob rule is a powerful thing and genies never go back in the bottle after they've been let out.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of reasoning is very troubling to me, because 20 years ago it was pretty much unacceptable in the U.S. to hold the opinion that gays were entitled to full legal rights, let alone the ability to marry. That changed only because some very courageous people stuck their neck out, weathered all the flack and negative personal repercussions towards themselves, and gradually made the point of "Why not?" I fully su…

There's two sides to that -- the first is that, yes, he absolutely has the right to hold any opinion he wants to, no matter how noxious I or others may find them. To paraphrase Hall on Voltaire, I'll defend to the death their right to be assholes. (Full disclosure: pro- gay marriage, anti-Prop 8, not a CA resident, so doesn't really affect me.) On the other hand, there's no absolute right to be a public-facing CEO, a…

> It's obvious that a significant number of board members weren't happy with Eich's promotion on strategic grounds

What makes this obvious? I haven't heard any statement to that effect from any of them.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#647
post #589
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobodies' right to have different viewpoints is being taken away. Nobodies' right to donate to political causes is being taken away. The only people in this entire story that were/are trying to take away the rights of others were the people who pushed for Prop 8. The right to support legislation like Prop 8 remains intact. The right to not be criticized by others for doing so has never existed in the first place. The…

> He remains free to be a CEO. Given the content of the OP, this is demonstrably untrue. He attempted to be a CEO and was effectively prevented from doing so.

He still has the right to be a CEO. He does not now, and never had, the right to not be asked to step down. He does not now, and never had, the right to be respected as a CEO.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#648
post #589
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobodies' right to have different viewpoints is being taken away. Nobodies' right to donate to political causes is being taken away. The only people in this entire story that were/are trying to take away the rights of others were the people who pushed for Prop 8. The right to support legislation like Prop 8 remains intact. The right to not be criticized by others for doing so has never existed in the first place. The…

> He remains free to be a CEO. Given the content of the OP, this is demonstrably untrue. He attempted to be a CEO and was effectively prevented from doing so.

Mob rule is fine as long as the mob is always right. That's usually the case, right?

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#649
post #513
post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, when your partner dies and the State doesn't recognize your marriage, you don't get survivor benefits. The lack of survivor benefits is ridiculous. But it is (or could and should be) completely orthogonal to how government defines the term "marriage."

Well, it's the world we live in, not as it should be. The government definition of marriage and the rights it confers (not just survivor benefits, but substantial tax/program eligibility economic advantages, among others) are real and should not be withheld on the basis of sexual orientation. And the priority should be addessing this clear violation of the 14th amendment before addressing the relationship between the…

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Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#650

I am a strong supporter of gay marriage, but I have to say that I find this very unfortunate and worrying. Apparently many Mozilla supporters seem to think it is okay to bully a qualified person out of his job only for his political views, even if they had absolutely no effect on his qualification or his actions on the job. I can't help but feel like this campaign has done a lot more harm to him than his $1000 donati…

I can't help but wish that the gay community would focus its attention on asshats like "Supervisor" Eugene Delgaudio, instead of Brendan Eich. Delgaudio is an elected official with a virulent anti-gay rhetoric (in addition to being ethically challenged, and having avoided criminal prosecution by the narrowest of loopholes in Virginia law).
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