The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid • Hacker News Board

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#221

Post by sentenza » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 8:16 PM UTC

Aqueous wrote: post #121

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…

So many on the left (including myself) revere the style of politics of Nelson Mandela and yet when it comes time to actually behave like Mandela would in a given situation they completely fail, and conduct the same style of embittered, vengeful politics when they are asked to treat the other side with an attitude of forgiveness and reconciliation. Do you think Mandela systematically purged all those whites who once s…

You make an important point, but I want to add a caveat. We know a lot about how long we have to wait to deal with "regime crimes" in order not to jeopardize the political system of the successor state.

It seems that in the case of maximum scale crimes, the right number is somewhere around 30 years (one generation). That was approximately the time between the end of WW2 and the 1968 student revolts in Germany, and the Bonn republic survived it. As another example, given the divisive nature of the incredibly bloody Spanish civil war, societal "digestion" of the Franco dictatorship also had to wait for almost 30 years.

What happens if winners rapidly turn on the former suppressors can currently be observed in Egypt.

So far, so interesting, but what it doesn't tell us, is what the time scale for a (comparatively small) intrasocietal adjustment of morality is (gay marriage = sin -> gay marriage = fundamental right).

One decade? Five years? Fifteen? I can't think of any precedents that can truly be compared to the gay marriage situation.

My personal feeling is that the reaction to Eich was not appropriate considering where he stands on the currently applicable bigotry scale.

But that is also just a gut feeling. The question remains: What is the right time to wait before a step of progressive change in society should be "enforced", so that the backlash remains minimal?

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#222

Post by baddox » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 8:17 PM UTC

jerryr wrote: post #150

baddox wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing a lot of disagreement over the facts of Proposition 8. Several people are saying that homosexual couples in California already had a legal partnership with all the same rights as "married" heterosexual couples.

Okay, let's take the facts in question off the table and say that there are absolutely no differences between marriage and domestic partnerships besides the name. At best then, Prop 8 kept us "separate but equal". History has shown that doctrine to be discriminatory and oppressive. There's an inherent inequality in my inability to say that I'm married.

I don't think it's appropriate to invoke separate but equal if the only difference is the legal term used. Separate but equal was about separate physical facilities. And as far as I know, it was never illegal for any couple to claim that they were married. It's just that the official legal term would not be "marriage."

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#223

Post by anonbanker » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 8:19 PM UTC

krainboltgreene wrote: post #181

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…

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 member of. Brendan Eich was instrumental in the creation of both, but he has no brand or direct authority over either Firefox or Javascript.

So while your first two sentences were technically correct, the further understanding makes the third sentence a contradiction. Why is it perfectly fine to boycott a brand Eich has no authority over, but not ban another one for exactly the same reasons?

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#224

Post by baddox » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 8:19 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #151

baddox wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do both "separate but equal" if the only difference is the legal term used ("marriage" for heterosexual couple, "civil union" for homosexual couple) and not the rights associated with it. Separate but equal was about physical segregation of minorities, not just about using different legal terms for the same thing. And, by the way, something that a ton of people don't know about the separate but equa…

> It has nothing to do both "separate but equal" if the only difference is the legal term used ("marriage" for heterosexual couple, "civil union" for homosexual couple) and not the rights associated with it. It's the exact same theory: "different legal regimes but the same rights" and "different physical facilities but the same quality".

"Legal regime" sounds fancy, but if it's just a word difference I wouldn't see much of a problem. Similarly, we have word differences like "brother"/"sister" that are descriptive but which don't involve any difference in rights.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#225

Post by baddox » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 8:21 PM UTC

mikeryan wrote: post #126

baddox wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do both "separate but equal" if the only difference is the legal term used ("marriage" for heterosexual couple, "civil union" for homosexual couple) and not the rights associated with it. Separate but equal was about physical segregation of minorities, not just about using different legal terms for the same thing. And, by the way, something that a ton of people don't know about the separate but equa…

if the only difference is the legal term used ("marriage" for heterosexual couple, "civil union" for homosexual couple) and not the rights associated with it. Which was not, is not and has never been the case in any of the gay marriage cases across the country.

I'm not disputing that. I'm not an expert in California marriage law. I'm just saying that if the only difference is the legal term, and there were no difference in legal rights, then the situation is not as simple as "bigotry" vs. "equal rights."

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#226

Post by bluntly_said » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 8:22 PM UTC

AlexMax wrote: post #216

bluntly_said wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And my response to the separate but equal argument is literally sitting in my comment above, and part of my argument, remove rights from the word marriage. There is ONLY civil unions. There is no separation. You yourself claimed that appropriating the word marriage was a band-aid, and yet you ignore that a band-aid was in place, and a much more rational argument would have been to remove rights associated with marria…

> Come back when you can intelligently make an argument that is internally consistent. I have to agree with the others commenting on your posts, you have some serious cognitive dissonance. Could it be that you've managed to ferret out hypocrisy in their mental model in just a few short minutes? Or are you (and others) just straw-manning their position to be "Discrimination is bad no matter what!" so you can tear it d…

No, his cognitive dissonance is that he claims to only want the word marriage for the rights, ignoring they are already present.

He then claims the because the rights aren't present, co-opting the word marriage is ok, because it's only to gain those rights.

He's essentially trying to force marriage to mean what he thinks it should, while expounding how terrible those who support prop-8 are when they do the same.

That's internal inconsistency. He rejects and demonizes one group for taking the same actions he is.

To Sum:

------

Prop-8 "Marriage is only between man and woman"

Karunamon: "Marriage is between any two adults"

Karunamon: "How dare they say marriage must mean that, it's not what I believe, they are bigots."

------

Rights are not involved, California offered equal rights to both groups. At best he can appeal that separate but equal is not a good state, and I agree with him there.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#227

Post by Karunamon » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 8:22 PM UTC

briantakita wrote: post #196

Karunamon wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has his past. If that was truly the case he would have explained this when asked about it. He did not. He quit his job rather than do this. Prop 8 had 52% of the vote. It is a mainstream opinion. With ads like this [1] I'm not surprised. His money went to support those, by the way. And you probably meant was . "ok" to be kneejerk judgmental. You and everyone else I've asked this question to seem to dance around it…

> 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 that I've both read and given focuses on 3 objective and concrete things.

1. He donated money to a group that can be charitably described as a "hate group". This alone wouldn't be so bad, but:

2. He had a chance to walk that back, say that he changed his mind, say that was a long time ago, and did not. In fact, he quit his job rather than do so. Which leads into:

3. He poorly handled this entire event, which calls his credentials for being a CEO in the first place into question.

That's not a smear campaign by any conceivable definition of the words.

That's why I'm rejecting the gay rights movement's online bullying tactics.

Again, 3 facts. Not opinions, facts. Facts cannot be bullying, else any critical analysis of something important to a person becomes "bullying".

He did not turn the blame around to say your perception is wrong.

He went well out of his way to avoid directly confronting anything that would have confirmed or denied this verbally. But, his actions did that for us.

He is the target of your hate

I appreciate your zen, but I do not hate Eich. I think he was a poor choice for CEO and is a hypocrite. He's not someone I'd care to work with or under since he demonstrably dislikes me for who I am, having never met me.

That is not hate. If I have any vitriol at all, it's directed at his defenders and those that want to make him a martyr for "freedom of speech".

It's not proven that he behaved badly

Donating $1000 to a hate group is not "behaving badly"? This is a matter of public record.

Express how much pain Prop 8 caused. Express why this is an inequality & how that affects you. Don't act with vengeance

Which I've gone well out of my way to do. Yet somehow, just be repeating facts about Eich's observable actions, I am acting with "hate" and "vengeance".

Sorry, but I do not see it.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#228

Post by anonbanker » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 8:23 PM UTC

dfc wrote: post #219

anonbanker wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you take the Scumbag Steve hat, and photoshop it on Sam Yagan's head, then place the text I mentioned. I invite you to look into image-based memes, as it seems you're confused on their execution. sound bytes are almost intentionally inaccurate. if you could take such a complex issue and fit it into twenty words or less, you're probably losing a lot, or it wasn't a substantial issue. As far as PR nightmare backlash…

I don't know what Yagan looks like and my mom has no concept of image based memes. That being said my mother can understand: OKCupid blocks firefox over anti-gay Mozilla CEO That sound bite works, and it works across a lot of demos.

Right. And your mother is on OKCupid, and understood the Firefox message that popped up on her browser.

Further, your mother uses Firefox and not whatever is included with her computer.

Further, your mother is paying attention to tech news.

Can we switch Moms? Yours sounds awesome.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#229

Post by eropple » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 8:23 PM UTC

briantakita wrote: post #71

Karunamon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It creates a hostile environment where your opinion can cost you your job. It would probably already cost you your job to publicly declare (let alone financially support) similar non-equality views of both blacks and women. Why is this so much worse? Oh no, one more particular flavor of bigotry becomes socially unacceptable. However will I cope. >Also, what does firing Eich achieve for the gay rights movement? An ob…

Eich said he supported equality. He supported taking care of domestic partners. If you have issue with his "support" then have a respectful dialog. If he is wrong, then that will become obvious. Instead, the movement acted like a bully & does not have the moral high ground anymore. You are conflating the state not recognizing gay marriage with a human rights issue. Not everyone agrees. Besides, the notion of marriage…

> Eich said he supported equality

He gave money to Prop 8, Pat Buchanan, Thomas McClintock, and Linda Smith. His actions make me not believe what he says.

If you want to support equality, you don't give money to people who make "homosexuals are subhuman" a part of their political worldview.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#230

Post by bane » Sun, Apr 06, 2014, 8:26 PM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #176

Karunamon wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Marriage has historically been a religious ceremony This is patently false. Religion does not hold a monopoly of any kind on the concept of matrimony. There is a massive problem with your view. You think a religious belief holds any legal sway. It does not. Laws based on religious overtones are absolutely forbidden by the supreme law of the land. This might be different in other countries, but here? No law concerni…

>Religion does not hold a monopoly of any kind on the concept of matrimony. Neither does government, so why does it matter what government calls it?

Because in quite a few cases since 1888, SCOTUS has specifically recognized "marriage" as a fundamental right or all people. Rights recognition like this is specifically granted in the U.S. Constitution (Amendment IX).

Simply put, if 2 same-sex people wish to partake in "marriage" they have a fundamental, unquestionable right to do so. They also have a right not to do so and partake in some other formal or informal coupling agreement at their discretion.

However, there are a tremendous number of laws which grant specific allowances, rights and responsibilities which are specifically tied to the legal meaning of "marriage", which as a fundamental right same-sex people can choose to exercise, is the only coupling agreement that will qualify them for those things.

In terms of efficiency, changing thousands of laws, and the U.S. Constitution to allow for some other separate but equal coupling agreement is less efficient than just ensuring that same-sex couples can exercise the rights they already have.

There's some argument that the government shouldn't be in the marriage business, but it's what we have to work with right now.