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The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

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Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#31

Post by waterlesscloud »

Karunamon wrote: post #21
briantakita wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And yet elsewhere in this thread you're saying a man who literally made laws negatively affecting gays should be able to keep his job because hey, the economy.

There's some serious cognitive dissonance here.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#32

Post by mkr-hn »

Prediction: those who insisted that political actions and professional life should be separate will call for Sam Yagan's head, completing the ouroboros of hypocrisy.

The author's basis for the claim that this was a PR stunt is that Sam Yagan made a donation similar to Brendan Eich's. Like Brendan Eich, he has the opportunity to say he's changed his mind on the issue in the years since, or provide more context for the donation. Brendan Eich's mistake was avoiding the issue entirely.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#33

Post by Karunamon »

bluntly_said wrote: post #25
Karunamon wrote: post #14

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.

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" arg…

I'm not qualified to tell the other side of the story.

What a cop out. You're, like everyone else who disagrees with this, downplaying Eich's behavior and trying to turn activists into the "real" monsters for speaking out.

Why the double standard? Why does one man, Eich, get a pass on speaking out for his personal political beliefs (with cash), but you demonize the the (hundreds? thousands? more?) people who did nothing but say that it was unacceptable?

You want pathetic? Look at your own post. Realize what you're defending. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#34

Post by Ygg2 »

esdfsadfa wrote: post #13
lingben wrote: 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…

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

How does using Firefox help Brendan Eich (especially now)?

Hint: it doesn't.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#35

Post by briantakita »

Karunamon wrote: post #21
briantakita wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Eich's behavior impacted a hell of a lot more people than the backlash did

The backlash affects everybody. It creates a hostile environment where your opinion can cost you your job. That coupled with ever growing levels of transparency means everybody needs to have a politically correct opinion or face consequences.

The ends do not justify the means.

Also, what does firing Eich achieve for the gay rights movement? Nothing. This is revenge politics. This is the dark side.

As Ghandi said: "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind".

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#36

Post by bluntly_said »

Karunamon wrote: post #21
briantakita wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The other side of this coin is that marriage has religious significance to many people, and by forcing the definition to change, pro-gay rights groups are also codifying personal belief into law.

Both sides fucked it up. The only proper response should have been to remove all legal rights associated with marriage, and force all couples to get a civil union. Tax that instead. Churches are welcome to marry people all they desire (on both sides, gay or straight as they please according to their beliefs)

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#37

Post by Karunamon »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #31
Karunamon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And yet elsewhere in this thread you're saying a man who literally made laws negatively affecting gays should be able to keep his job because hey, the economy. There's some serious cognitive dissonance here.

If you'd stop willfully misinterpreting my posts, you'd know that was not what I was saying at all. The whole point there was that certain things are more important than other things at certain times.

And I did say five years ago, which you conveniently omitted from your little summary here.

I am not a single issue voter.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#38

Post by Ryel »

I doubt this means very much, or is worth anything but FWIW...

I had arranged for myself and 2 friends to go have lunch with 2 people from OkCupid specifically about whether or not we would be a good fit into the company and what they would be able to offer. I'm only looking for an entry-level front-end dev position so my time isnt nearly as valuable, but out of the other 2 friends one is an ex-Googler, the other from Morgan Stanley, both as back-end engineers.

After this stunt by OkCupid we cancelled the lunch and will not continue on with OkCupid.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#39

Post by datapolitical »

kevingadd wrote: post #11
[deleted] wrote: 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 got primaried three times by guys even more right wing. My bet is that someone said, let's preserve sane republicans while we still can.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#40

Post by anonbanker »

So, bottom line: Eich was forced out by an astroturf campaign led by professional boycotters (waving the gay rights flag this time) and sleazy opportunists/publicity addicts like Yagan.

If Eich is a homophobe, I would like to replace the rest of the world's homophobes with him. While he may have disagreed in private, his public persona was inclusive and friendly. There are multiple testominies from people that never knew he harbored wishes to limit their rights before the controversy came out. Even the LGBTQ* Mozilla employees/volunteers spoke up to say this. Meanwhile, in Montana/Utah, if the CEO learns you're gay, you're likely to be found dead in the middle of the night.

But the mob had already formed, and they wanted blood. Blood is what they got. And the Mozilla project suffers as a result.

The Eich story, and the lynch mob that followed it, permanantly reduced my respect for HN. While I would not ever donate to a campaign (let alone one that denied equal rights to human beings), this made the gay community of HN (and their supporters) look like easily-influenced livestock. I used to click on the HN comments link before actually clicking the story it was about, because I could rely on the spin being kept to a minimum. I no longer have that guarantee. Similarly, I no longer have the guarantee of fair discourse, and fully expect future comments to be downvoted to oblivion (much like reddit) when one has a dissenting opinion. If someone says you hate gay people (correctly or not), the HN community has proven they will prosecute before a proper inquiry has been made.

Even more disturbing, I have now learned that the militant LGBTQ* members in Silicon Valley are just as easily-influenced, and as easily driven to boycott, as members of Stormfront, or the AFA, or the PMRC. This seems to be such a big issue in the Silicon Valley that I'm now solid in my decision to stay out of SV for any new startup ventures. Intolerance (even intolerance for bigots) is not something I want to immerse myself in.

(disclosure: this pseudonym is owned and operated by a lgBtq*)

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