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The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

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Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>because people find it easier to heap hatred on someone they've never met, than to act with dignity and respect. Turn it around. Eich found it easier to treat millions of people he's never met as second class citizens, than to act with dignity and respect. There are two sides to this story, and you seem to be very eager to tell the one and handwave the other for a "why can't we all just get along" platitude.

> There are two sides to this story, and you seem to be very eager to tell the one and handwave the other for a "why can't we all just get along" platitude. We should treat people with respect. Not create a sensationalist backlash. Not punish people for having their opinions & being politically active on a gray area. Most of all, a rational discourse should take place. Not these sensationalist headlines that are desi…

I'd say a fundamental portion of respect is not encoding your personal beliefs of other people's personal lives into law.

If you want to make the purely numeric argument, Eich's behavior impacted a hell of a lot more people than the backlash did.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#22

I find the entire Eich scandal disheartening. A man lost his job (one he was undoubtedly qualified for) because people find it easier to heap hatred on someone they've never met, than to act with dignity and respect. We have some serious issues in this country, and our inability to compromise or respect a person we don't agree with is frightening. Life is filled with shades of grey, compromise is not "that nice thing…

OR... You could recognize that his action stands directly against the values of Mozilla and will only lead to less diversity at the top of Mozilla, which even further runs against it's values. Not to mention his politically impotent non-appology appology, where he neither stood up for a separation of personal views nor identified his reasoning and how it has or hadn't changed.

i don't get that sort of thinking. nobody even suspected he made this donation until someone digged through the records. he founded mozilla among his peers for fucks sake. FOUNDED.

he was there for the manifesto. He was there when Mozilla compensated lgbt couples and the law/taxes didn't. He was there helping them daily.

And all of a sudden, he's fucking satan because his personal views on marriage were different. Views which he never let into his professional world.

And for the other side: because he's not as strong as some, he resigned. So that must be bad too. it must be mozilla who fired him and thus don't accept diversity.

Are you all fucking nuts?

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#24

I find the entire Eich scandal disheartening. A man lost his job (one he was undoubtedly qualified for) because people find it easier to heap hatred on someone they've never met, than to act with dignity and respect. We have some serious issues in this country, and our inability to compromise or respect a person we don't agree with is frightening. Life is filled with shades of grey, compromise is not "that nice thing…

I'm gay, and I would classify my feelings towards Eich more as fear than hatred. Eich very directly donated towards a cause that was bent on restricting my rights. Though fear often breeds hatred, I truly don't bear Eich ill will. I'm not happy to see him lose his job--on the contrary, I share your sadness that a talented, qualified man lost his job. However, I am relieved that a man who feels that I should not be allowed to marry is no longer in a very influential position at an influential company.

Now, whether or not OkCupid should have been casting stones is another matter. But that seems to have been thoroughly discussed, so I'll end this here.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#25

I find the entire Eich scandal disheartening. A man lost his job (one he was undoubtedly qualified for) because people find it easier to heap hatred on someone they've never met, than to act with dignity and respect. We have some serious issues in this country, and our inability to compromise or respect a person we don't agree with is frightening. Life is filled with shades of grey, compromise is not "that nice thing…

>because people find it easier to heap hatred on someone they've never met, than to act with dignity and respect. Turn it around. Eich found it easier to treat millions of people he's never met as second class citizens, than to act with dignity and respect. There are two sides to this story, and you seem to be very eager to tell the one and handwave the other for a "why can't we all just get along" platitude.

I'm not qualified to tell the other side of the story. I don't know why Eich made that contribution. Neither do you.

It might have been family pressure, it might have honestly been that he's religious and doesn't believe the word "marriage" can be applied to same sex couple (who had Domestic partnerships available in California, which provide the same legal rights as marriage, so I find the "second class citizen" argument entirely lacking. [although now I'll wait to be attacked for simply stating that, even if you have no idea what my personal beliefs on the matter are])

Again, life is filled with shades of gray. Hell, maybe mozilla even benefited from the donation in ways that aren't clear (and they didn't want to put out in the media) You just don't fucking know. Instead you've decided this man should lose his livelyhood based on hearsay and rumor, and outrage on the internet.

That's fucking PATHETIC.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#26
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does using Javascript financially benefit opponents of gay equality? Hint: it doesn't.

Neither does using Firefox. You can easily disable google search, which is their only source of revenue other than donations.

Yeah, the "boycott" always struck me as misguided. Being annoyed at one particular person in a company doesn't preclude you using their stuff, moreso if that use doesn't imply any kind of support.

Lars Ulrich might be the biggest asshole in music, but that doesn't mean he doesn't make great music.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#27
post #5

The hypocrisy of okcupid was evident even before this little bit of info (Yagan's past political contribution) was shared. As I and others pointed out, okcupid went on using javascript! As for okcupid occupying the moral high ground, I still remember when, right after their purchase by match.com, they removed one of the most interesting posts on their blog. It was about why you should never pay for dating web sites a…

To be fair, he could simply decide to step down voluntarily.

I doubt he will and I don't like searching people's donations like this, but he could do that to preserve his personal integrity to some degree.

EDIT: Curious about the reason for downvoting? I do say that I oppose this sort of thing, but that's no matter who is on the other end of it. If he believes that anyone who made donations like that should step down from a C-level position regardless of whom, he has here an opportunity to prove that here.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#28

The other point to make is that OkCupid's protest cost them nothing. If they really cared, their registration page could have the usual checkbox: I hereby agree to blah blah terms and conditions, and a second checkbox saying: "I affirm my support for gay marriage rights." Failing to select both boxes would bounce the user off of the OkCupid side. But no, they wouldn't do that, because that might cost OkCupid business…

It's worse than that. Central to OkCupid's algorithm are the match questions, several of which are explicitly about homosexuality.

Not only does OkCupid make money from the homophobic, they are precisely aware of exactly how much of their income is derived from the homophobic market.

Perhaps they could write one of their famous data-driven blog posts, showing the world exactly how much money they make from anti-gays, creationists, climate-change deniers and the like.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#30
post #7

[deleted]

I don't think you get a pass on a politician with a record like this. http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Chris_Cannon.htm#Civil_Righ... It's like saying 'well, he's a white supremacist, but he has pretty good views on economic policy!' - if those issues are important to you (and they probably should be!) it's not reasonable to overlook them. You have to draw a line somewhere, even if you are occasionally willing to all…

He also voted for warrantless wiretapping, just sayin
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