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Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

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Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#871

Post by devindotcom »

andrewguenther wrote: post #529
benched wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"for his political views" In this case, you cannot speak generally like this. In this case, it really matters exactly what those political views are, not just that they are "political". And that's why there was such an uproar, and why he's stepping down. People seem to be willfully misunderstanding this. It's not like, "Whoa! Guys! We can persecute people for their ''''political'''' views now? What's up with that?" N…

"And it really does not take a genius, or an orator, to see which side is the oppressing one." I only see one side that pushed someone out of a job here.

I only see one being denied a civil right...?

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#872

Post by drawkbox »

This is all wrong. Brendan was wrong, however others were wrong essentially forcing him out. I feel Mozilla will lose some in this, taking a few self-inflicted wounds because they are open and that is unfortunate. It is the reason CEOs are plastic.

Part of Mozilla's culture is now throwing someone who helped build it up under the bus. Yes his personal beliefs may be dated on this one issue, lots of people are on the wrong side of the issue but it had nothing to do with his contributions to Mozilla. This makes me more disappointed in Mozilla just when Firefox is really killing it with gaming.

Should a person's life work be wrecked because of one bad choice? Social changes of that magnitude will have people on the wrong side of the wave for a time, it takes time to educate. I think this is the wrong way to educate, it feels a little bit like a witch hunt.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#873

Post by marvy »

wpietri wrote: post #740
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…

Putting money behind Prop 8 helped strip a civil right from gay people. It's technically true that proves nothing about Eich's beliefs. Heck, maybe it was Eich's personal Opposite Day. But does it matter? Even the bible says, "You will know them by their fruits," meaning that it's reasonable to judge people by what they do. The pseudo-gotcha about tolerance is ridiculous, an accusation of hypocrisy based on a straw m…

Hey, if we're gonna go quoting that book, I believe there was something about throwing the first stone.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#874

Post by x0x0 »

smsm42 wrote: post #802
dopamean wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolutely reasonable for gay employees to be concerned. As CEO of a company guides company policy about a lot of things that have nothing to do with writing code such as health benefits.

Which specifically policy of Mozilla has any relation to gay marriage in California?

an obvious policy: since CA doesn't have gay marriage, it's optional to offer partners of gay employees health benefits

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#875

Post by poulsbohemian »

bethling wrote: post #826
phaus wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

But we can look to states like Washington - where there were 2 votes - 3 years apart on gay unions. One established domestic partnerships with all the state-granted rights and responsibilities of marriage. The other legalized same sex marriage. They both passed with nearly identical results. To me that indicates that a pretty large percentage (at least in Washington) of the electorate that opposes same-sex marriage,…

While everything you wrote is basically true, there's perhaps another detail of Washington and Oregon politics to consider - the west and east are completely divided politically in both states. For example, if you were to look at another divisive issue like the legalization of marijuana, you'd probably find that exactly the same counties in Washington voted against it as that voted against same-sex marriage. Eastern Washington and eastern Oregon are rural, agrarian, religious, and significantly Republican compared to urban, wealthy, etc Portland and Seattle. So, when you look at issues like this is isn't just "a pretty large percentage of the electorate" but rather a geopolitical divide that runs straight down the Cascades.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#876

Post by phaus »

incongruity wrote: post #735
phaus wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 compa…

Please don't paint all Christians with a broad brush. I, for one, support gay marriage, as do many others. Just say'n. On the other hand, I also think it'd be completely valid to say that the government shouldn't be in the 'marriage' business at all (gay or straight) and it should only handle contracts -- aka civil unions. One could then parse "marriage" to be something reserved for whatever church/belief system/pers…

>Please don't paint all Christians with a broad brush.

I'm not sure how I gave you the impression that I was doing so. I didn't say "Christians speak of 'civil unions'", I said "Christians THAT speak of civil unions."

I agree that the government shouldn't be in the 'marriage' business. I'd be OK with the government calling all marriages 'civil unions' for legal/tax purposes. That would be fair and impartial. Unfortunately, the subset of Christians that is currently arguing for a monopoly on the term 'marriage' would still be upset, because then it still wouldn't be able to stop homosexuals from using it.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#877

Post by xaa »

clavalle wrote: post #748
xaa wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me put it a different way, since the term "free speech" admittedly has many different connotations. My day job is as a scientist. In science, individual researchers put forth many different ideas, some right, some wrong. Over time, we come to a consensus on which ideas are right and wrong, and the right ideas are kept and the wrong ideas are dropped. However, we don't blackball people who had the wrong ideas: on…

>I don't want to live in a society where people have to fear for their jobs or a public mob action because they espoused an unpopular opinion. And I don't want to live in a society where we tacitly accept discrimination because it is labeled as political opinion. There is a huge difference between politics and science. It is a terrible analogy. Scientific hypothesis, by definition, can be tested. If someone is wrong,…

Fundamentally, law/politics are addressing an empirical question: how do we maximize the well-being of the population. I understand that this is a much more fuzzy and difficult question than those addressed by the hard sciences, but it is empirical, and we do see progress.

Would anyone seriously argue that our political system, despite all its flaws, is not better now than when we had slavery, only white male landowners voting, regularly massacred Native Americans and invaded neighbors, and had no union rights or worker protection laws? Would any nitpicker say that because we cannot precisely quantify the degree of betterness that it isn't better?

Every one of those progressive ideas started out as a niche, minority opinion, and many of them were repressed, not by the government, but by social mores. Liberals who seek to repress the opinions of social conservatives -- who, by the way, have lost the war, long-term -- are being profoundly shortsighted, not to say hypocritical.

Finally, I'm not saying that individuals should suspend their judgement. You should feel absolutely safe to speak publicly in favor of gay rights, and, say, donate $1000 to your favorite gay rights organization without the fear of losing your job. But you cross a line when you seek to repress other viewpoints.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#878

Post by hippoman »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #522
andrewpi wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Barack Obama, the President of the US, was against gay marriage in 2008; I'm confused as to why he gets a pass here, but the head of Mozilla doesn't?

Who said he gets a free pass? Our election system is deliberately designed and maintained so that only two parties--only two candidates--matter. That sucks, and I'd change it if I could, but in the meantime my options are to either stay home, which accomplishes nothing; vote for a third-party candidate, which shows admirable idealism but is also unlikely to accomplish anything; or vote for the lesser of two evils, wh…

This is the fallacy that maintains the system you complain about. Voting for a 3rd party supports that party and gains them publicity. Just because they don't win (this time) doesn't mean it's wasted. By your reasoning, any vote for a losing party is wasted, so you should only vote according to the latest poll figures. However all options are guaranteed to produce many of the results you want. The greater of two evils still outlaws murder and theft and still enforces contracts, and all sorts of useful laws, just like the lesser of two evils does.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#879

Post by devindotcom »

byuu wrote: post #591
devindotcom wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to minimize the issue, but receiving death threats is rapidly becoming part of being a public figure on the Internet. Columnists, reporters, celebrities, and many others receive them all the time. It's definitely unacceptable, but it's not like we have shown an ability to control it, and I can't think of any assassinations of high-profile Internet figures. I'm surprised you're surprised at people, though! Death t…

> Not to minimize the issue, but receiving death threats is rapidly becoming part of being a public figure on the Internet. Indeed, I've gotten quite a few death threats myself over the years for my radical cause of trying to improve the quality of video game emulators. The problem with the internet is that you can't really judge a person's mental state from a text post. Quite often the person on the other end making…

>my radical cause of trying to improve the quality of video game emulators.

God's work. Thank you for this.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#880

Post by vacri »

joe_the_user wrote: post #849
vacri wrote: post #842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the bible says, "You will know them by their fruits," meaning that it's reasonable to judge people by what they do. The bible also says "Turn the other cheek", meaning that you should give people a second chance, and to treat them kindly despite their actions. The bible has a ton of stuff in it, for example during times of slavery was used as a basis for both pro- and anti- slavery arguments. Drawing on a slogan…

The bible also says "Turn the other cheek", meaning that you should give people a second chance, and to treat them kindly despite their actions. Yes, people have asked him nicely and politely to resign rather than threatening or berating him. I think it's sort of telling the way ideas like "freedom of speech" or "turn the other cheek" get abused in this particular instance. "Freedom of speech" says the state won't ab…

I don't agree with his (apparent) personal views. But he has made an expression of sorrow for hurt (it's still an apology, though it might not be as strong as you want), and he has clearly stated that the position of Mozilla won't change. Folks like wpietri ignore these things and keep on stating that one event of six years ago is all we need to know of the man. I think Eich's (apparent) position is wrong, but I also can't condone the strawman that's been built up around him, which is being used as a proxy for a witchhunt.

Basically I'm saying: it's fine if you judge the man on his merits. It's not fine if you turn who he is into a strawman, and then treat him as if he is that strawman.

Re: the bible stuff, I'm just saying that just pulling a slogan from the bible is pointless, because you can always find a counter from the same. Also, 'forgiveness' does mean no consequences (or significantly reduced consequences). That's the whole point of forgiveness. If you make someone suffer consequences, you haven't actually forgiven them. These are not orthogonal concepts.

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