Live data from Hacker News

Tim Cook Speaks Up

businessweek.com

531–540 of 1001 posts

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#531
post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several statements he made in this post seemed weirdly manipulative to me, and that was one of them. I mean, its great that he chooses and advocates the view that homosexuality can be a 'gift'. That it can be a positive thing! Props for that! But the phrasing...does he really believe that the imaginary being he worships chose for him to be gay? Like the creator of the universe is really sitting there saying "oh, I'll…

[deleted]

>> If he truly does believe in God, then, knowing for sure that he is gay, he has to believe that God made him gay.

No, not at all. This is only one very narrow view of how a deity may function, or the kind of relationship a diety may have with the universe, or the humans within it.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, he expressed his opinion about the gay marriage like Tim Cook did about his beliefs in God and society. What's the difference ? It's just opinions! And people have to respect both! Also anti means that you are against something, and Brendan never expressed that he was against gays or even hated gays. He was just against gay marriage. Suddenly being "gay" is cool and being "hetero" is not cool ?

Tim Cook expressing his beliefs does not deprive me of access to my rights as an individual. People are certainly free to not believe in gay marriage, but when they start donating money to groups dedicated to preventing gay people from getting married, that crosses a line. Put another way - Tim Cook believes in God, which is fine, that's his prerogative. However, if he started donating money to anti-atheist groups, n…

> If you're "okay with gays" and "not okay with gay marriage", it really means that you're not okay with gays.

That's not true. You're stretching a line between two distant things in hopes of having a nice neat world of bigots on one side, and everyone else on the other. "You're either with us, or you're with the bigots".

That's an unreasonable ultimatum that I don't subscribe to.

I might be "okay with gays" but I might be "not okay with the annual mardi gras." It's a festival that closes down the streets and has stupid giant penises and vaginas on floats to represent the "gay community"? If I were gay I would distance myself from that crap.

In your world, I'm a bigot because I HATE that overly-camp, sledge-hammer decorative approach with men in g-strings running around in heels and pink fluffy decorations everywhere and don't forget the awful gay dance music. That's what it is to be gay? I don't think so. The mardi gras (at least the one where I live) needs to die. But I can't say that because I'll be "anti-gay". I'm not anti-gay, I just hate the annual celebration of the "gay community" by erecting giant penises on floats and broadcasting it all on live TV.

Do you see the problem? Just because you see gay marriage as something only a bigot would oppose, doesn't mean you have the right to drag everyone else into that binary mindset.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#533
post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because Tim Cook is gay doesn't make him Mother Teresa. It's also completely irrelevant to the subject of Brendan Eich's support of bigoted TV ads. Which is why I found the arguments made by the poster above you to be not really interesting, or worth responding to.

Actually, exploiting the poor is one thing that Tim Cook and Mother Teresa could find common ground on.

This. I used to live in Kolkata (then Calcutta), where she had setup her place, and it was sick to see people being asked to pray to the Christ when they needed food and medicine instead.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eich participated in a public system in an approved way at a political level, did so without letting his politics get in the way of his personal or professional life, and made functional programming ubiquitous. There's nothing wrong with what he did given that he didn't let that view (in the abstract) color his personal interactions. And, let us note, it's all speculation on this point as to what or why he did it, be…

> Tim Cook continued contracts with Foxconn with the sole goal of minimizing production costs by using underpaid overworked labor I'm going to upvote you for this. Just because Tim Cook is gay doesn't make him Mother Teresa. He seems quite happy in promoting brutal Victorian style work-houses because it's "over there". Out of sight, out of mind. He's quite the hypocrite. He's also no better or worse then the operatio…

I am also bothered with the way workers are treated. I sickened by the way these companies are polluting the world. I've never been O.K. with this bottom line crap. It seems like people really don't care though? As long as they can have their comfortable life, exciting life, powerful life, and their electronic gadgets, etc., the're not loosing any sleep? Maybe it's just human nature to turn a blind eye to the real problems. Yes--Tim Cook coming out is a deal. Personally, I felt he should have came out a long time ago.(He was financially able to years ago?) If you have a deep felt issue and you are poor, or have no power in society; I understand why you hide, and don't try to make the world a better/fairer place. Tim Cook should have came out years ago. Why--because he was an American, and was wealthy. Being American and having the protection of wealth gives you a platform to really make a difference. O.K. Tim you are gay. The people around you(Bay Area demographics) never cared. Bring the manufacture of your products back to the United States, or to countries that don't exploit workers, and decimate environments. I'll get hammered for having an opinion on Hacker News, or any opinion other than a carefully scripted, beyond polite waste of words.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#535
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends on how you look at it. He's a "son of the South" and a self-described religious man, so this makes sense. But this also makes sense from a PR perspective because according to American political polls being an atheist is "worse" than being black, gay, a women, etc. It's apparently largely unforgivable to be godless. So, some may be surprised to learn he's gay, but then take some solace in the fact t…

I've never come across a poll that asks, "Which of these do you consider worst: being gay, black, female, or atheist?" but I doubt the answer to a question like that would be useful anyway. I'm a little amused by you guys trying to work out all the "PR" angles Cook could be trying to exploit by mentioning his faith without even considering that it's is a genuinely important part of who he is.

Per your first paragraph, they usually frame it as, "Would you vote for a candidate with the following background:" as a way to gauge personal feelings on a matter.

A Gallup one recently: http://www.gallup.com/poll/155285/atheists-muslims-bias-pres...

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#536

Excellent news. I am from India where being gay is a crime in this country. Leaders of this country believe that being gay is a disease and it can be 'cured'[0]. According to Indian Penal Code 377[1], if you are gay you can be imprisoned for life. I had a friend and two years ago he committed suicide because he was gay. In India it's not easy to be gay. Parents and societal pressures can make anyones life living hell…

While what you say is true, for the benefit of the readers not very familiar with India I would like to add a few things for context. If from the name of the politician linked by the parent comment you come to the conclusion that homosexuality is frowned upon only by muslim politicians, you couldnt be more wrong. India is an incredibly high variance country. In some metros you would find gay pubs and bars, open kissing on the streets among gay partners with no one bothered a bit (if your state is one of the right wing ones then YMMV). Then again there are states (correlated with Hindi and Haryanvi speaking regions) where parents and family would kill their children, subject them to community sanctioned gang-rape because they married or proposed to marry someone considered different. Note that these 'punishments' and 'corrective measures' have popular sanction within the community and the perpetrators often voluntarily surrender after the incident.

It is as if India remains frozen in different centuries in different regions, ranging from the modern to the grotesquely medieval. If you ask your local hindu rightwinger, its of course all the muslim invaders fault that they have to keep continuing these practices. Hinduism of course has done nobody no wrong, just been stabbed in the back (this should sound familiar).

Anal sex (in fact anything apart from missionary position) continues to be a crime according to law but it is not something that gets enforced unless the enforcer has some specific axe to grind. That law certainly does not represent practice. Indian legal system is another weird thing. Most of the laws were set down by the colonizers, not to set a framework for justice but to facilitate control. We as Indians have done little to dispose that baggage, rather it has been actively embraced by those in power to exercise similar control, often with a lot of popular support.

Quite interestingly, a marginalized community would see nothing wrong in cruel treatment of another marginalized community, often happily taking the lead in the harassment. A low caste person in a caste'ist state would see nothing wrong in hounding someone just because he is muslim, or belongs to a caste that is even lower. A gay person in such a state may see nothing wrong in persecuting other minorities.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eich participated in a public system in an approved way at a political level, did so without letting his politics get in the way of his personal or professional life, and made functional programming ubiquitous. There's nothing wrong with what he did given that he didn't let that view (in the abstract) color his personal interactions. And, let us note, it's all speculation on this point as to what or why he did it, be…

> by using underpaid overworked labor Underpaid in what way? Are there many other jobs those people could be doing which pay them better? They're not paid much by US standards but the alternative is subsistence level farming. Is anyone who puts their production into China (and let's remember that's basically everyone in hardware before we single out Apple) being nasty by offering people a better income than they can…

The reason this is placed at the door of Cook is because he's very likely one of, if not the most responsible person for those choices at Apple. He played a very large role in operations at Apple. He also sits on the board of Nike, partly because he is very well regarded in supply chains and operations. Are you going to sing Nike's praises as well for worker treatment?

Whether or not those choices are moral is certainly up for debate. Whether or not Time Cook was largely responsible for them is not.

And as for the "market rate" you are talking about a country that does not allow it's currency to float on the exchanges, heavy subsidizes or outright controls much of the industry and denies workers access to information online about working conditions and pay. Playing into a regime that intentionally abuses workers to ramp up their industrial output wouldn't be something I would be particularly proud of and most definitely would not be something I would consider controlled by market forces.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#538
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where the homesexual agenda in Disney movies? I'd prefer specific examples rather than just handwavey nonsense.

The last two Disney movies I watched (Frozen and Maleficent) both were resolved not by romantic love of a man and woman, but with the the love between two women. I am NOT saying Ana and Elsa were lesbians, but that Disney seems to be moving away from the prince/princess formula - that the ultimate feat of existence is getting married to someone of the opposite gender. If this is a "homosexual agenda" or not, I say go…

Sure - frozen has fantastic messages for girls. But a 1 second glimpse of a family and the love between two sisters is very far from Disney making a statement on homosexuality.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you? Whether it's good or not, aren't you pushing homosexuality on everyone, saying, "It's not OK to disapprove of our lifestyle"?

The context of someone saying "homosexual agenda" is generally "they're trying to convert our children!" paranoia, not just general disapproval.

You list two contexts.

a) "they're trying to convert our children!" paranoia

b) general disapproval.

There are at least two more:

c) dispassionate acknowledgement

d) outright support

I absolutely, strongly support the LGBT community's agenda of making gay marriage legal, everywhere.

Just because one hateful group of people uses a phrase in one particular way, doesn't mean we need to give them ownership of it, nor assume that everyone using the same term feels the same way they do.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#540
post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a person's entire exposure to a group consists wholly of a few bad members, they are likely to figure that sample representative. They are not likely to keep re-sampling until they find a desirable sample. It's irrational to expect otherwise. Why do you expect otherwise? Why do you feel compelled to couple it with insults?

> When a person's entire exposure to a group consists wholly of a few bad members, they are likely to figure that sample representative. But Feminism isn't a group; it is an idea. If some of the followers misbehave, you should still be able to believe and support in the idea. To me, supporting ideas only when you "like" the (majority of?) people supporting them is akin to supporting free speech but only for the posit…

Feminism is an idea. Feminists, or the people who adhere to that idea, are a group. If every single adherent of an idea you encounter is an abhorrent person, most people will stop and consider if they want to associate with those people. Typically the answer is "No".

Most people will also wonder if something about the idea turns people into abhorrent people or if something about the idea is only attractive to abhorrent people. In either case, it is not something to which our notional person is likely to be attracted.

In short - the people who adhere to an idea are seen as commentary on the idea.

Post reply on HN