The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid • Hacker News Board

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#261

Post by ralfn » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 10:08 PM UTC

yypark wrote: post #183

pyduan wrote: post #47

What is regrettable in all this is that no one seems to consider the possibility that people may have nuanced views about gay marriage. According to the mob you're either a saint or a bigot, and thus Eich's value as a human being was supposedly entirely determined by this one opinion he voiced in 2008. I'm staunchly in favor of gay marriage, which I consider to be a no-brainer -- but it seems to me the motivations of…

The reaction to Eich is best seen through a lens of human group power dynamics, as it isn't logically consistent with some supposed ideals (civil discourse, etc.). Geeks have a harder time understanding this social acceptability aspect, especially within a given group or tribe. For this particular political question, a "no gay marriage" opinion has passed into the socially unacceptable in the Bay Area tech crowd. I'm…

>2008 it may have been a serious political question in California and the United States as a whole

Mozilla operates in a much larger space though. Holland says hi!

>That's why saying it's "obviously wrong" or "there are no rational arguments" is a cop out - and the same denying civil rights argument can be applied to say abortion (denying women's right to choose! Murdering unborn infants!) or opposing affirmative action

Here's a rational argument why anti-gay people are at war with humanity, and why it is different from your examples:

- abortion concerns the interests of three parties: the mother, the father and the unborn child. The point of society is to streamline and govern the situation when individual interests overlap.

- human rights, the notion that any human being is equal, irregardless of their race, hair color or gender, implies no law should be passed mentioning gender. Hence any anti-gay bill, which can not be defined without mentioning gender, is a political action directly opposing human rights.

- in the constition of my country (Holland) as well as yours, equality of all individuals is considered to overrule majority opinion. This is also established in international law: Violators of human rights commit "crimes against humanity". This is all irregardless of majority opinion of some region.

I keep hearing the word civil debate and opinion. Financing human rights violations is not "having an opinion". It's active treason against humanity. It's partaking in a global civil war, that has been going on for centuries, and is often fought with bombs, guns, sanctions and boycots.

Remember when ..

- the people in the US went to war with each other over equality? (the Civil War)

- the US went to war against the Nazi's over equality? (As a dutch citizen i'm very happy they did)

- we all boycotted a whole nation because of equality? (South-Africa)

- your founding fathers put equality in your constitution, as it being more important than democracy itself?

- most nations in the world got together and established the notion of "human rights" as a notion stronger than the right of nations to self-govern?

Fortunately, democracy often seems to allow for a way to fight this war, without killing, but human rights are not up for civil debate or election. When majorities, dictators, elites or whoever try to violate human rights the common response is "over my dead body". Not "lets agree to disagree". We might often prefer civil debate over full-out-war, but that's out of practicality, not morality.

So, that's why all this cultural relativism is falling on deaf ears: One can not be a neutral observer, when it comes to human rights.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#262

Post by eropple » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 10:30 PM UTC

Xdes wrote: post #105

Karunamon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Eich said he supported equality. His actions show otherwise. I've said this before here, but I have much less problem with the (small) donation (to a failed cause) than I do his subsequent behavior. His subsequent hypocrisy proves beyond any reasonable doubt that those views are still very personal and very real to him, regardless of what comes out of his mouth. One does not abdicate a CEO position, something of gre…

>I see the behavior of people like Eich as a personal affront to me and people close to me. Yet you aren't going to get fired for having expressed those views five years ago. How would you feel if your boss decided to fire you over your personal beliefs, overlooking your professional merits? Do you really want McCarthyism again?

I know more than one transgendered person who was let go from a tech job because of "culture fit" when they decided to transition. So I'm not really sure what the difference is except that it's a white male under the gun.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#263

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 10:56 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #238

anonbanker wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a fantastic strawman you've constructed! Give me a minute to marvel at it. You do excellent work. Okay, now that the dazzle has worn off, perhaps you could tell me when I said that Anti-gay activists donating money to fund constitutional amendments would be a good thing? because I really don't remember saying that. However, I agree with your second paragraph. You can't be a good citizen for equality while donati…

What a fantastic strawman you've constructed! Give me a minute to marvel at it. You do excellent work. Please don't use aggressive sarcasm on Hacker News. It adds no information and corrodes civility. Consider how much better this comment would be if one deleted everything before "Perhaps". Editing out inflammatory language is the low-hanging fruit of optimizing for signal/noise ratio.

[deleted]

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#264

Post by yypark » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 11:14 PM UTC

ralfn wrote: post #261

yypark wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reaction to Eich is best seen through a lens of human group power dynamics, as it isn't logically consistent with some supposed ideals (civil discourse, etc.). Geeks have a harder time understanding this social acceptability aspect, especially within a given group or tribe. For this particular political question, a "no gay marriage" opinion has passed into the socially unacceptable in the Bay Area tech crowd. I'm…

>2008 it may have been a serious political question in California and the United States as a whole Mozilla operates in a much larger space though. Holland says hi! >That's why saying it's "obviously wrong" or "there are no rational arguments" is a cop out - and the same denying civil rights argument can be applied to say abortion (denying women's right to choose! Murdering unborn infants!) or opposing affirmative act…

There are some good points in here that make us question what human rights are and how we treat them.

All human rights are up to majority vote or dictatorship decree at some point. (Who created the UN, or whatever international body you want to use? Who elected the officials who appointed the courts?) And if human rights are truly universal, who gets to decide? Is it you? Or me? Is it Holland? Or the US? China? Iran?

By your definition, the right to own firearms is also a human right as defined by the US constitution. Similarly, in the United States there is a human right to free speech (including offensive speech such as Holocaust denial), but in Germany this is illegal. Would this be a human rights violation by Germany?

Similarly, one can say pro-choice people are at war with humanity, by denying the human right of the unborn child to life (the right to life is in all constititions) - stripping that right via an abortion is essentially murder. How do we reconcile these differences in moral systems?

One can say Muslim nations operate in a much "larger" space as it comes to rights. Hello sharia law!

Maybe some differences are worth going to war over, to settle the score. Is the right to vote or the right to free speech also in this category? Some agree, and have invaded countries on this basis and attempted to set up a democracy. Others disagree, and only apply sanctions. Or less. Usually, countries are not as idealistic, and require their own group to be threatened militarily for this to happen. See the US not partaking in WW2 until attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor. Or the US invading Iraq to gain advantages of oil and Middle Eastern control. And ignoring human rights violations by Saudi Arabia because it's politically expedient.

If no bill can be passed without mentioning gender, we should remove the US "Violence Against Women" act as being anti-male as well.

Basically the idealistic black and white moral analysis, while noble, fails to explain what happens in the world.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#265

Post by davidgerard » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 11:18 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #152

bp123 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the world would be a better place if all anti-equality people had donated $1000 to fund constitutional amendments preventing gay marriage. Please. You can't pretend to be a good citizen for equality while donating $1000 to a cause whose only purpose is anti-equality. And look, he could of just apologized and he would have been fine. He didn't. That is why I find this backlash backlash to be just "mob justice" th…

And look, he could of [sic] just apologized and he would have been fine. He didn't. Would his apology have been reported by the media if he did? I don't recall any discussion of asking for clarification from Mozilla or Eich.

He was asked repeatedly, over and over, privately and publicly. He consistently demurred, leaving the only thing to go on being his past actions and his lack of repudiation of them in any manner.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#266

Post by wodenokoto » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 11:24 PM UTC

anonbanker wrote: post #223

krainboltgreene wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is not the CEO of Javascript. He has no brand or direct authority over javascript engines. It's perfectly fine to boycott Firefox and not boycott Javascript.

You seem to have a contradiction within your three sentences. Eich was CEO of a company called the Mozilla Corporation. Mozilla Corporation employs people to work on free projects. one of these projects, Firefox, is governed by The Mozilla Foundation, a completely different entity that Brendan Eich is not a member of. Javascript is handled by ECMA, which is a completely different entity that Brendan Eich is not a mem…

You have the mozilla governance structure a little wrong. Mozilla owns the Firefox brand and license it to the Mozilla Corporation which in turn are responsible for development and deployment of Firefox.

So while the corporation do have to answer to the foundation, they are not just a bunch of developers hired to "work on Firefox", they are very much responsible for everything Firefox, both day to day development and marketing, but also most long term stuff you can think of is the responsibility of the corporation.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#267

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 11:25 PM UTC

otterley wrote: post #55

The difference between these cases is that Mr. Yagan donated to a Congressperson's election fund, while Mr. Eich gave directly to supporters of a cause many find abhorrent. The degree of separation is important: although Rep. Cannon was anti-gay-marriage, we don't know whether that was the motivating factor for Mr. Yagan's donation. It could have been for some other reason: perhaps Mr. Cannon helped him or his compan…

[deleted]

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#268

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 11:27 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #227

briantakita wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You and everyone else I've asked this question to seem to dance around it. How is this any different than supporting any other kind of anti-equality thing? He has not said anything hateful. In many ways, I think his opinion is not conducive to equality. In fact, the notion of marriage is unequal. It's unequal to people who don't want to get married or are polyamorous. Also, there are many natural inequalities. Ther…

He has not said anything hateful. No, he just gave them money. Given the choice, I'd rather he stand outside of Mozilla's corporate office holding an allcaps sign covered in slurs ala Westboro Baptist than financially support them. At least his personal actions don't contribute to further oppression in that case. doesn't mean he should be the target of a smear campaign What smear campaign? Every criticism of Eich tha…

[deleted]

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#269

Post by bane » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 11:48 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #247

bane wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between a secular and a religious "marriage". Religious institutions have always been allowed to marry or not marry as they see fit. Quite a few religions and religious factions have provide same-sex marriages long before it was ever explicitly allowed in law. When most people get a regular 'ol marriage, it's actually two events. Their religious marria…

> Religious institutions have always been allowed to marry or not marry as they see fit. Correct me if I'm reading this wrong [0], but it seem that a New Jersey court ruled in 2012 that a religious facility could not deny usage to homosexual couple for civil union ceremonies. From my quick Googling, it seems this is a big concern for Christian groups in the US, but I don't know how credible their concern is. [0] http…

It is a major fear for religious groups that belong to a religion that won't recognize/perform same-sex marriages.

But it won't likely happen (or won't be upheld on challenges up to SCOTUS if it does happen at a local level). Religious freedom includes religions that sometimes hold beliefs that may not be popular.

For example, most Zoroastrian organizations forbid conversion to Zoroastrianism and won't permit marriages to outsiders. However, it's highly unlikely a law would be passed stopping this kind of ethnic discrimination. Many Christian preachers go on about the evils of paganism, but outlawing speech against Wicca or Hinduism or whatever is unlikely to happen as would a law forcing believers in those religions to convert to an acceptable non-Pagan religion.

> which would (I assume) apply to churches being used for ceremonies.

Churches or other houses of worship have a special protected status different from that of businesses. They're kind of like a private club. They aren't free from all laws, human sacrifice is not permitted for example.

More importantly, people are free to leave and join other religions as they see fit (or no religion), or spin out their own sect that allows for whatever they want as they wish.

This was seen as important enough that it's actually the first part of the first amendment, before speech, press and assembly.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It'd be very hard to pass such a law and not have it run afoul of this.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#270

Post by bane » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 11:50 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #250

baddox wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Religious institutions have always been allowed to marry or not marry as they see fit. Correct me if I'm reading this wrong [0], but it seem that a New Jersey court ruled in 2012 that a religious facility could not deny usage to homosexual couple for civil union ceremonies. From my quick Googling, it seems this is a big concern for Christian groups in the US, but I don't know how credible their concern is. [0] http…

It's become a big issue in Britain - but that's mostly because they have a state church. It's certainly not outside of the realm of possibility, but I've heard of mixed race marriage ceremonies being explicitly denied by churches in the US, and don't ever remember any recourse that the couples had other than the court of public opinion.

Well they always had a recourse. Get married someplace else. Go to a different church, or if your sect forbids it, get to a different sect, and if your religion forbids it, make your own sect, and if that's too much work, just get a civil marriage.

I know it's not quite that simple, people get very hung up on where they spend their Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays, but people usually have options of some sort.