Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO • Hacker News Board

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#721

Post by protomyth » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 10:45 PM UTC

tdicola wrote: post #587

DangerousPie wrote: post #45

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 don't agree that he was bullied out of his position. He held a belief that wasn't in line with what the Mozilla organization believes is in their best interests. The most logical thing would be for him to not represent the company as the CEO anymore. It's no different than if he believed Firefox should be a closed source shrink-wrapped product or other view that is contrary to Mozilla's mission. edit: The statement…

"He held a belief that wasn't in line with what the Mozilla organization believes is in their best interests."

The problem now will be what is starting to happen on certain social media sites[1] with other employees of Mozilla. It looks like quite a few people are looking at what they have donated. So far, it looks like someone actually donated to Lyndon Larouche who has been accused of being an anti-semite. I would imagine if any employee of Mozilla has donated to questionable groups, its going to be all over the place now.

I wish Mozilla had worked all this out in advance and thought of the consequences. It is no fun having everything you've ever donated to put under a microscope. I wonder if it is just rumblings or will we see the typical "second wave mob" that generally happens in these situations.

You can say none of these people are CEO, but that really won't stop anything.

1) search for yourself, I'm not spreading these links and I'm not very fond of the behavior, and I could write an article on how it is taught on both sides of the political spectrum. Tit-for-tat is scary at a personal level.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#722

Post by quaunaut » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 10:46 PM UTC

veemjeem wrote: post #397

dopamean wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I saw no reason to believe that he would use Mozilla to further an anti-gay agenda. I agree. However, it's a little weird if you say you are a company who values diversity and different lifestyles but you have a CEO who is openly against a particular group of people. That kind of contradiction at the very top makes things weird.

People change too. You can't hold it against someone all their life because they donated $1000 to prop 8. For the rest of his life, people will look at Eich differently simply due to the small donation amount many decades ago.

And he can speak about it if he does? It's okay to change your mind. He's had all week to talk about it, if he has already. But he hasn't.

If you're worried about his future career, I understand. But if he changes his mind he can equally talk about it with potential employers/partners. If he doesn't, then he gets to live with the consequences of his choices the same way someone who is out about their sexuality does.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#723

Post by ubernostrum » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 10:48 PM UTC

return0 wrote: post #703

ubernostrum wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proposition 8 was not a campaign to change the political views of people. It had but one purpose, and that purpose was to declare a subset of the population legally unequal to everyone else.

Everything is political, unless you presume that laws come from nature or from god. If we 're all defacto equal vs marriage, then i could marry my 6-year old cousin.

If we 're all defacto equal vs marriage, then i could marry my 6-year old cousin.

Just so you know, the official slippery-slope argument is "I could marry my horse".

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#724

Post by phaus » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 10:51 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #209

dopamean wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with you but I think the problem here is that being against gay marriage is more than just a "political view." Being for low taxes is a political view. Being for smaller government is a political view. Believing a certain group of people don't deserve to live their lives like other simply because of who they love is not a political view. It reads as extremely hateful and that makes people uncomforta…

I support legalizing gay marriage. But two things, first, supporting prop 8 does not mean you "believe a certain group of people don't deserve to live their lives like others." It means you don't believe that the government should recognize same sex marriages as marriages. There are a large gradient of views here, and on one extreme are the bigots who hate homosexuals and on the other there are people who simply have…

>there are people who simply have hangups about the word "marriage" vs "civil unions."

And this 'hangup' is simply idiotic. Christians that speak of 'civil unions' are trying to hold homosexuals' rights hostage so they can pretend that they have carved out a small victory. Christianity invented neither the concept nor the terminology for marriage. Most of us at HN rave all day long about how stupid it is when a company tries to patent a generic English word, so why would it be OK for a religion to do the same thing?

That being said, I'm not entirely sure that he should have been forced out of his job. I mean, while we're at it, why not harass everyone that voted for Romney or Bush? Anyone that votes for either of them was basically voting to oppress homosexuals and atheists. What's the difference?

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#725

Post by bowerbird » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 10:54 PM UTC

SimHacker wrote: post #254

nostrademons wrote: post #199

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…

The difference is that the people who stuck their neck out for racial equality, gay rights and women's rights were objectively right, but Brendan Eich is objectively wrong. And that matters.

"surprising" is one thing.

but it's downright _scary_ how people get so _zealous_ once they firmly believe they are "objectively right".

i don't know if i'm happy or sad this tendency has been adopted by the leftwingers. of course it will help them to battle the rightwingers (who always felt "righteous"), and let me be crystal clear i want the rightwing crushed, but i can't help but think that something has been lost.

i'm unsure you can _beat_ intolerance _with_ intolerance.

-bowerbird

p.s. go ahead and downvote this; it will prove my point.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#726

Post by DerKommissar » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 10:57 PM UTC

crassus wrote: post #306

thinkpad20 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is abridging Eich's freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is the right to express yourself, not the right to have no one judge you for it.

This is how East Germany worked. You weren't usually harmed for holding non-communist beliefs, but you were blacklisted so that you would never work again.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but blacklisting was done by the government. It wasn't just some business owners that decides they weren't going to hire non-communists. Big difference.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#727

Post by quaunaut » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 10:59 PM UTC

muyuu wrote: post #395

matthewmacleod wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he firmly held the belief, and did not change his mind, then he shouldn't apologise. In that case, it's legitimate to complain about his personal views where they are not compatible with his position.

How so? he was a CEO not a politician.

Half a CEO's job is being a spokesman, representing the organization, and in Mozilla's place, representing the surrounding community.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#728

Post by DerKommissar » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 11:00 PM UTC

radicalbyte wrote: post #304

danudey wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. Sticking to your values of exclusion and divisiveness isn't really something I can respect someone for. 'Good for you for continuing to believe that gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry, even though it doesn't hurt you in any way if they do.' Preventing gay people from getting married really just seems like spite, like 'I don't like you so you can't have this'. I can't respect someone like that.

> even though it doesn't hurt you in any way if they do. He is no longer CEO of Mozilla, a job he quite clearly wanted to do. Sticking to his beliefs _HAS_ cost him. It's not spite. It's based on his moral framework. 15 years ago I shared that framework, so I understand why he feels that way. He is, in my opinion, wrong, and I hope that he eventually realizes that (like I did). But he stuck to his beliefs at a time w…

Would you say the same of people who hold opinions you've always thought were immoral? Do you respect the current remaining members of the KKK for sticking to their guns?

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#729

Post by phaus » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 11:02 PM UTC

amadeus wrote: post #478

gfodor wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support legalizing gay marriage. But two things, first, supporting prop 8 does not mean you "believe a certain group of people don't deserve to live their lives like others." It means you don't believe that the government should recognize same sex marriages as marriages. There are a large gradient of views here, and on one extreme are the bigots who hate homosexuals and on the other there are people who simply have…

Sorry, you're just wrong. There is no language in prop 8 that has to do with the concept of civil unions. All it DID do was define marriage as being between a man and a woman. Any debate about marriage and a government's role in it is sidestepping the issue. It's a civil rights issue, and he chose to put money in an attempt to create discrimination for a certain kind of people. There's no excuse, he doesn't deserve d…

>Sorry, you're just wrong. There is no language in prop 8 that has to do with the concept of civil unions.

Let me start by saying that I find both scenarios (pro-civil union/anti gay marriage and plain old anti gay marriage) equally reprehensible, but your logic is flawed. I'm an atheist married to a young-earth Christian, so I get to hang out with quite a few other young-earth Christians. The logic behind prop 8 is that if you clearly define marriage as a union between one man and one woman, with no exceptions, then you are leaving homosexuals with no other alternative than to form some kind of alternate terminology, such as the civil union. You have to look at the entire situation outside the context of the actual proposition, such as the views that Christians are openly expressing outside of the legislative process. There are Christians that are 100% against allowing homosexuals to form any sort of a bond with one another, but there is still a significant percentage that would be somewhat OK with a 'civil union.' There's no way to tell which view Mozilla's former CEO held without talking to him.

Like I said, I disagree with him either way, but its disingenuous for you to pretend that you know exactly what he's thinking.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#730

Post by cookiecaper » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 11:04 PM UTC

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #332

gfodor wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support legalizing gay marriage. But two things, first, supporting prop 8 does not mean you "believe a certain group of people don't deserve to live their lives like others." It means you don't believe that the government should recognize same sex marriages as marriages. There are a large gradient of views here, and on one extreme are the bigots who hate homosexuals and on the other there are people who simply have…

Support for Prop 8 has a huge age gradient, as does anti-homosexuality in general. Support for Prop 8 falls by about 0.75% per year Ages 18-24 voted overwhelmingly against it. 65+ voted overwhelmingly for it. Old people hate gays. Young people don't. Support for Prop 8 among young people in the SF Bay Area is negligible. These are the people Eich was supposed to lead as CEO of Mozilla. You can't lead people who think…

The problem is that support for Prop 8 has been misrepresented as "hate" of gays, and that gullible young people have been tricked to support the gay agenda in the first place, and also to believe anyone who disagrees with that agenda is a "reprehensible bigot".

If "gay rights" are really so self-evident, let's confront the haters and explain in a clear, concise manner why their beliefs are invalid. The thing is that reasonable people disagree, and shouldn't be shamed for that disagreement.

Pro-gay activists have gotten all progress by bullying opponents and teaching people that anyone who dares to question them is automatically a "reprehensible bigot", and foolish children have been flattered into accepting this patently ridiculous line of thought.