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Mozilla Moving Forward

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Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#231

Post by crystaln »

kourt wrote: post #61
crystaln wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read this twice, and I still have no idea what you are trying to say, which side of any issue you are on, or what makes you any different from over-reacting haters on either side.

"which side of any issue you are on" Maybe he's on everybody's side. What freedom is more important than the freedom to be true to one's self? What good is free speech[1] when the private, individual exercise thereof results in the professional equivalent of capital punishment? [1] Whether campaign contributions are always identical to speech in all contexts is immaterial here: in this case, they're close enough.

Sure, he could be on everyone's side and trying to clarify the issue. If so, he's doing a rather poor job.

However, it seemed rather obvious that he had an intention to take some sort of stance on an issue, something he also failed at.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#232

Post by MetaCosm »

zheshishei wrote: post #186
GuiA wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re-read my comment. I'm not saying it's better at all; just that you can't compare the two (and saying "If Houston had been at Mozilla..." is nonsensical). The kind of people involved with Mozilla, and the kind of structure Mozilla aspires to be, makes it logical for them to dismiss their CEO in the way they did. The kind of people involved with Dropbox, and the kind of structure Dropbox aspires to be, makes it logic…

Has Eich done anything else besides donating to Prop 8? It might just be me, but the way I'm parsing the postscript is that both Rice AND Eich have multiple actions that invoke disgust. Or is it that Eich's one action is on an equal level with any one of Rice'smultiple actions?

Three major points.

1. Eich's action had no complexity or other goals. Eich supported something where the SINGULAR purpose was to strip a class of people of a right they had only recently acquired. There was no complexity to it, no shades, it wasn't as part of his duties, it wasn't as part of a team, it wasn't as something he was forced into, it wasn't something he regretted. 2. Mozilla isn't Dropbox 3. CEO isn't Board Member.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#233

Post by patrickg_zill »

king_jester wrote: post #83
patrickg_zill wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your point is (paraphrasing), we canned a very productive engineer and manager over his un-PC views expressed in his personal life, but which no one at his organization was affected by; and in return, since none of the people criticizing him or pushing for his departure has the ability to truly replace his talent, we have the prospect of the unproductive people criticizing the people who actually get things d…

> but which no one at his organization was affected by; Uh what? There are most certainly LGBTQ folks who work for Mozilla in some capacity or another and they most certainly are affected by nationally focused political efforts to deny them access to a basic institution.

He didn't treat anyone differently as a result of their orientation, is what I meant to say; and there were many statements to that effect from inside Mozilla (of course, since I don't work there and don't have the inside scoop, this is based on what was reported). Sorry, I wasn't clear about that.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#234

Post by MetaCosm »

outside1234 wrote: post #99
nostromo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where do you draw the line? Are you going to defend people that oppose Women's Suffrage too? What about slavery supporters? These were just political opinions once too. But today you'll find that they get you fired as CEO. And for good reason: blacks and women (and gays) are your customers and employees and business partners.

I'm going to draw the line at conflating people's personal opinions with their professional ones. I totally disagree with Brendan's position on gay rights, but I completely support his right to have his own personal opinions. If we don't separate these issues, we are only enabling other corporations to fire leaders because they _DO_ personally support gay rights. That's not acceptable - but we can't have it both ways…

Bullshit, of course we can (and do) have it both ways. Look at interracial marriage.

If you are actively trying to ban interracial marriage, we CAN AND WILL run your ass out on a rail so you can't be CEO.

If on the other-hand -- you think two people of different races getting married is fine, yey for you.

This just -- insanely dumb -- fox news style -- belief that every issue has two EQUAL and VALID sides is nonsense. If you are a huge racist, you will be fired. THERE IS NO OTHER SIDE of the freaking racial issue. Just like there is no other side of the gay rights issue.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#235

Post by binarycrusader »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #56
binarycrusader wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"opinion of the masses" is a subjective interpretation of events; not a fact. As to "passed by a majority", I would say, that depends on how you define a majority. A majority in the context of voting laws, perhaps. But I sincerely doubt it was actually representative of the entire population of California as a whole. I also find it a bit ironic that someone would resort to name-calling in a thread attempting to defen…

that depends on how you define a majority So, if one is unhappy with the result of an election we can merely redefine what "majority" means by implying that certain parties who wanted to vote, didn't? Well that sounds democratic.

Note that I did not "redefine" majority, I was merely pointing out that the way the original poster used the word majority might imply different meanings to some people.

Nevermind that in English, the meaning of the same word can change based on context, or in speech, based on tone of voice.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#236

Post by jessriedel »

Crito wrote: post #141
jessriedel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The classic reference here is "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mills. http://www.bartleby.com/130/ He persuasively advocates that the line shouldn't be drawn based on the acceptability or reasonability of the opinion, but on whether the behavior is mere communication (i.e. leaflets, speeches, opinions, blogs, TV ads) or actual action . In particular, when the causal influence of the alleged wrong doing propagates through…

Eich's right to say what he wants remains intact. Nobody has attacked it, and it has not been eroded in any way. What he does not have is 'a right to not have people respond to his speech with speech of their own' . In fact, any speech in response to Eich's speech is just as protected as his speech. If this were not the case, then conversation/debate would not be possible. In other countries with hate speech legislat…

What humanrebar said. The importance of free speech goes beyond just restrictions on the government. If that's not intuitive to you, I highly recommend Mills.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#237

Post by smsm42 »

bunderbunder wrote: post #229
smsm42 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 8 was not about civil unions. If you want to discuss it, at least get your facts right. Benefits equality, etc. that is commonly understood under civil union umbrella existed in California long before prop 8, and prop 8 was not going to change that. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_Califo... For people for whom prop 8 is a big deal it would be a good thing to at least know what it…

Well, it depends on what you mean by "commonly understood under civil union umbrella". A lot of people mistakenly believe that civil unions are just a separate-but-equal version of marriage. That version of civil unions is a fairy tale. Speaking as one member of a couple that finally gave up on making a civil union work and went ahead with an actual marriage a few years back, I can say that there's a night-and-day di…

Whatever you understand under "civil union", prop 8 was not about it. It was specifically about "marriage". All the rest was already covered by California law. You can say it looks like "separate but equal" and benefits and other equality measures in domestic partnerships are not enough and only full recognition of same-sex unions as "marriage" is true equality. That's fine. But that doesn't make those who supported prop 8 opposition to civil unions or domestic partnerships as they are called in CA - in fact, domestic partnerships by that time in California were done deal and had the same status with regard to all law and benefits as marriage. But they could not be called marriage and were separate and different status. That was what prop 8 was about, not opposition to civil unions. Those are just different things.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#238

Post by ubernostrum »

overcyn wrote: post #226
ubernostrum wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, many people believe what happened to Eich was unethical, however legal. Presumably from your description those people believe he was fired. He was not. He clearly stated that he had resigned; his choice, his action. I am unsure whether people so often assume he was fired because that's what fits the narrative they want to push (bullying intolerant liberal witch-hunting mob action... choose from any of…

> (the difficulty being that making someone feel unwelcome through overwhelming social pressure can't be labeled wrong in the "Eich was wronged" worldview, because then the overwhelming unwelcoming social pressure of Proposition 8 comes into play as a "well, he did wrong") And why can't they both be wrong? Just because you did something unethical, doesn't mean I get to do something unethical to you. And the idea that…

And why can't they both be wrong?

The general argument I've seen has been that Proposition 8 was "just an opinion" or "just freedom of speech", while the people speaking out against Brendan were "a lynch mob", on a "witch hunt", an example of "lefty liberal intolerance", etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

So the people making the argument typically need to have a position where Brendan supporting Prop 8 was not bad, but Brendan being called out/pressured to step down over it was bad, because for some reason they need him to be a victim of "bullies" in order for their worldview to work.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#239

Post by overcyn »

ubernostrum wrote: post #238
overcyn wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (the difficulty being that making someone feel unwelcome through overwhelming social pressure can't be labeled wrong in the "Eich was wronged" worldview, because then the overwhelming unwelcoming social pressure of Proposition 8 comes into play as a "well, he did wrong") And why can't they both be wrong? Just because you did something unethical, doesn't mean I get to do something unethical to you. And the idea that…

And why can't they both be wrong? The general argument I've seen has been that Proposition 8 was "just an opinion" or "just freedom of speech", while the people speaking out against Brendan were "a lynch mob", on a "witch hunt", an example of "lefty liberal intolerance", etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. So the people making the argument typically need to have a position where Brendan supporting Prop 8 was not bad, but Brenda…

> The general argument I've seen has been that Proposition 8 was "just an opinion" or "just freedom of speech"

> need to have a position where Brendan supporting Prop 8 was not bad

The second statement _absolutely_ does not follow from the first. You can consider Prop 8 immoral and wrong, and still want it protected by freedom of speech.

And calling the internet's behavior "a lynch mob" or a "witch hunt" is not interfering with anyone's freedom of speech, so you don't have to worry about that.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#240

Post by arrrg »

bzbarsky wrote: post #122
arrrg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think that makes the difference? Some decide to stick with it, others don’t. That’s the only difference I can see. And I don’t think either decision is always the right one. I think it’s important to be consistent in how you apply your principles and to be willing to listen to people telling you your principles suck and to change your principles if their arguments are convincing. That, to me, is the bar…

> So far so completely harmless. For a start, you're ignoring the death threats a number of people received, no? This wasn't just about people organizing boycotts; this was about a media-circus-fueled full on hate mail campaign.

The death threats really, really suck. That’s obvious. Absolutely no one should receive those. If he did receive any that’s awful. All of that is quite obvious.

However, you shouldn’t use the reaction of a minority to invalidate the reaction of the majority. (I obviously don’t have number but do you really think any kind of majority sent hate mail?) I think your characterisation of this makes no sense at all. I also think that an organisation and a CEO has to stand above some death threats. It was obviously just a few people. Most of the reaction was completely harmless. And you can’t use those few people to drag the others through the mud.

I think this is some weird game of telephone where those who object translate the harmless reaction into some sort of hate storm that never really existed. Look at what people actually wrote. It’s really, really harmless.

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