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Tim Cook Speaks Up

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Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#791

Post by zak_mc_kracken »

notjackma wrote: post #396
angersock wrote: post #380

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…

> Just because Tim Cook is gay doesn't make him Mother Teresa.

It's depressing to see this myth perpetuated that Mother Teresa was a good person.

She was a horrible human being who denied poor and sick people the help and medicated relief they needed just because of her religious beliefs. Of course, she also denied abortion, contraception and all other kinds of medical help that were not in line with her religious beliefs.

She was convinced that suffering brings you closer to god, so she made sure everyone under her care suffered as much as possible.

She was a sick and twisted person and the faster she gets forgotten, the better.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#792

Post by creamyhorror »

narrowrail wrote: post #728
melvinmt wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what's wrong with that statement (I'm also not a native speaker). Please let me know how I could have worded it better. (In my native language, Dutch, it's common to refer to people of mixed race as having "mixed blood". I can find similar statements made in English on Google)

As a native English speaker (not the OP), I'll take a stab at this explanation: No 2 males could have a biologically conceived child (i.e. you must have a female carry your baby). I may be waaay behind on current reproductive technologies, so please correct me if I am wrong. Therefore, the 'blood' of the child (aka DNA) will be not be a combination of the parents (i.e. the people raising the child).

If I'm understanding the whole situation right, silencio is female, and your comment doesn't quite apply. rglullis was probably complaining about the political correctness of melvinmt's statement.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#793

Post by ScottBurson »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #413
cdr wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't overestimate the progressiveness of young men. Look at how terrible so many of the HN comments are whenever there's a submission relating in any way to women.

I feel there is a big difference between gay equality and what a lot of young men feel like is a shrill feminism that seems to be much more about axe grinding, political correctness, censorship, and entitlements than any sort of drive towards a true equality. After you've been called a potential rapist several times in an academic or workplace setting just for your gender, you stop sympathizing with the modern femini…

> LGBT movements empower both genders, feminism empowers only one.

I suppose this is a common misconception, but it is not true. Feminism also frees men from restrictive gender roles. It is feminism that says that men are allowed to cry, to hug one another, to have dreams and hopes and fears.

Giving up some privileges -- privileges which are not right for us to have anyway -- is a small price to pay, I believe, for becoming whole human beings.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#794

Post by Karunamon »

downandout wrote: post #571
thenmar wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brendan Eich donated money with the sole goal of denying equal rights to people based on their sexuality. There's nothing wrong with having an unpopular opinion, but I think there is something wrong with that. And I suspect you would too if it were you whose rights were being taken away. Edit: Eich supported Proposition 8 which was _ruled unconstitutional_ for violating the Equal Protection Clause. Yes, his support w…

So you're saying that stifling political discourse by firing people (or forcing them to quit) - as long as you really, really, disagree with them - is acceptable. Got it. For the sake of yourself and your loved ones, I hope you never voice an unpopular opinion.

Eich was not fired or forced to do anything else.

Here's what often gets missed in this debate: Eich's handling of the outrage, demonstrated incompetence at his job. An exec is a leadership position by definition - the entire Mozilla thing showed us that Eich is not fit to lead.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#795

Post by smsm42 »

icebraining wrote: post #720
downandout wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was forced out, as everyone is well aware. You are advocating for a society where political intimidation is acceptable. There are many examples of such countries around the world. None have worked out well.

You are advocating for a society where political intimidation is acceptable. There are many examples of such countries around the world. None have worked out well. All countries have some level of acceptable political intimidation; that you think otherwise just means your views are sufficiently mainstream. Try embracing more fringe ideologies in a public way. I suggest supporting and donating to Wahhabist movements a…

If you donate to organizations that are not linked to terror, exactly nothing would happen to you. If they are linked to terror, it's completely different league.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#797

Post by EGreg »

srean wrote: post #754
EGreg wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you mentioned Hindus and being stabbed in the back I remembered reading about Thugs http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee Didn't they go around stabbing and strangling people?

Ummm... not quite sure what you mean here. They were, you know, thugs or highwaymen. Not what I would call historical representative of Hindu political ambitions. My point was that there have been many bloody wars fought by Hindu rulers motivated primarily / singularly by political ambition. Thus I find this much popularized universally pacifist portrayal of Hinduism a little dishonest. Short of political ambition, t…

I just mean you reminded me of it when you said "you know what I mean ..." and I remembered reading about that.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#798

Post by smsm42 »

smtddr wrote: post #592
downandout wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe in the cause that Eich donated to. But taking away someone's job over a political donation is preposterous and disturbing. If he had donated to a liberal cause and was forced out because conservative employees had a problem with it, the entire media would have come down on Mozilla like a ton of bricks. Instead his resignation was celebrated. Chilling political discourse by threatening the livelihoods…

>>I don't believe in the cause that Eich donated to. But taking away someone's job over a political donation is preposterous and disturbing. Let's keep in mind nobody legally kicked him out. He left because he couldn't deal with the consequences of his actions. The law protects your free speech, but does not protect you from the consequences of it. http://xkcd.com/1357/ Also, let's not forget how nasty the whole prop…

>>> He left because he couldn't deal with the consequences of his actions.

This is incredibly misleading way of putting it. He left because he had no other choice, and an organized personal destruction campaign against him was what did not leave him this choice. Of course, you can claim this campaign was result of his actions, and it is true, that this campaign was triggered by his actions and wouldn't happen if he did not donate to what he donated. However, this campaign was not an inevitable consequence of his actions - it was a voluntary act of his political opponents, in order to send a message to him and his supporters and achieve political goals. It's like if somebody says something you don't like to you and you beat him up, the beating is a consequence of the saying, but it doesn't remove the blame of the beating from you, and you can't just say "he's in hospital because he couldn't deal with consequences of his actions". No, he's in hospital because somebody beat him up. And Eich left because of the campaign against him, despite no proof that his opinions have ever interfered with his professional judgement or that he ever did anything inappropriate. Except for expressing a private opinion.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#799

Post by Karunamon »

wldcordeiro wrote: post #579
Crito wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To most Americans, $1k is not a "minor" amount of money. Furthermore, the exact amount of money that he donated is fairly irrelevant anyway. The donation, no matter it's magnitude, serves to illustrate what he believes. If I made a $1 donation to the local KKK group, would you make excuses for me because $1 is a trivial amount of money? Of course you would not.

Comparing donating to an active hate group to a campaign doesn't make sense. The amount is irrelevant, I'll give you that but in my opinion something someone did six years ago isn't going to determine my opinion of something now. In six years time Brendan could have gone through a lot of experiences that changed his opinion on marriage and based on his statement I would have given him the benefit of the doubt.

Do you have a better definition for a confluence of people that uses irrational FUD to tilt public policy away from certain people having rights?

The commercials sponsored by this group are freely available on YouTube. I suggest you go watch them, and then re-evaluate whether you feel the campaign doesn't qualify as a hate group. Violence is not the only or most important qualification in defining what a "hate group" actually is.

Re: Tim Cook Speaks Up

#800

Post by Karunamon »

Crito wrote: post #591
wldcordeiro wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing donating to an active hate group to a campaign doesn't make sense. The amount is irrelevant, I'll give you that but in my opinion something someone did six years ago isn't going to determine my opinion of something now. In six years time Brendan could have gone through a lot of experiences that changed his opinion on marriage and based on his statement I would have given him the benefit of the doubt.

Feel free to substitute "KKK" with "campaign to ban interracial marriage" in my above comment. Frankly I think the later is even worse anyway; the KKK only wishes they still had enough political influence to pass unconstitutional laws in a state like California. If Brendan had publicly released a sincere apology I would consider forgiving him. All he did was issue a bunch of "It doesn't matter, you guys are wrong for…

And this is the other important fact, right here, what you just said. Not only is Eich a bigot who supports other bigots with his own money, he very obviously still has those views because he didn't do even the slightest thing necessary to defuse the outrage. He could have said "Yeah, that was a long time ago", thrown a symbolic $1,000 at GLAAD, and it would have literally wall went away overnight.

In the face of that, his repeated assertions that he can somehow keep his personal and professional lives separate (yeah, the human mind does not work that way) ring very hollow, at best.

Here is a person, incredibly talented, well paid for his work, that decides his personal beef with LGBTs takes precedence over his professional life and everyone else at Mozilla.

That, right there, shows a tremendous lack of decision making and prioritization skills. Kiss of death for a C-level position.

I think that if he hadn't resigned, he'd have eventually been asked to leave anyways. You do not, as a company, go out of your way to promote an image of inclusiveness and togetherness, and then hire an unrepentant bigot for a high level position. Mozilla would have lost huge amounts of credibility.

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