Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO • Hacker News Board

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#621

Post by TheCoelacanth » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 9:01 PM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #182

kylemaxwell wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. Any opinion is okay but if you are actively working to remove existing rights from other people, you can expect opprobrium. This applies especially when leading an organization with values like Mozilla's.

>but if you are actively working to remove existing rights from other people How is opposing redefining marriage (in the context of law) working to remove existing rights of people? Its framed in terms of removing rights/civil rights because it suits the cause. But this characterization is not supported by a dispassionate reading of the issue here.

Gay marriage was legal in California until Prop 8, so Prop 8 removed some people's right to marry.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#622

Post by wwweston » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 9:01 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #406

HillRat wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two sides to that -- the first is that, yes, he absolutely has the right to hold any opinion he wants to, no matter how noxious I or others may find them. To paraphrase Hall on Voltaire, I'll defend to the death their right to be assholes. (Full disclosure: pro- gay marriage, anti-Prop 8, not a CA resident, so doesn't really affect me.) On the other hand, there's no absolute right to be a public-facing CEO, a…

To piggyback, there's an additional difference between being a public-facing CEO of, say, McDonald's, Exxon or Apple, and being the public-facing CEO of a non-profit which exists due to the donations of primarily liberal and libertarian internet people. The prior case might cost them a little revenue due to boycotts but if the person's effective, you can make a case for 'private views' and 'shareholder value'. When y…

> When your whole company is an activist platform, it's a bit harder to say that political positions of the CEO don't matter.

I see the point that it's different for a non-profit than it might be for a for-profit, but I'd also think differences in primary focus matter too.

If I was looking at the conversation over the last week as a representative, I'd suppose that Mozilla is more of an LGBT standard-bearer than an open-web advocacy group.

One could argue that's a ridiculously narrow window to focus on, and that's probably correct, but it's no more narrow a focus than that turned on Eich's donations vs the whole of his behavior and what he had to offer as CEO.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#623

Post by Zigurd » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 9:02 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #209

dopamean wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with you but I think the problem here is that being against gay marriage is more than just a "political view." Being for low taxes is a political view. Being for smaller government is a political view. Believing a certain group of people don't deserve to live their lives like other simply because of who they love is not a political view. It reads as extremely hateful and that makes people uncomforta…

I support legalizing gay marriage. But two things, first, supporting prop 8 does not mean you "believe a certain group of people don't deserve to live their lives like others." It means you don't believe that the government should recognize same sex marriages as marriages. There are a large gradient of views here, and on one extreme are the bigots who hate homosexuals and on the other there are people who simply have…

> * It means you don't believe that the government should recognize same sex marriages as marriages.*

Perhaps his situation would have been better had he explained his views that way. But, like the people who think a functioning laissez faire market in medical care would spring forth if only the government would get out of the way, such views are unrealistic.

Unfortunately, his actions are indistinguishable from those of a bigot. As for growing up in a different environment, there is a vast amount of racism in some homogeneous societies. And there is no reason to give it any leeway.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#624

Post by chc » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 9:03 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #333

nostrademons wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of reasoning is very troubling to me, because 20 years ago it was pretty much unacceptable in the U.S. to hold the opinion that gays were entitled to full legal rights, let alone the ability to marry. That changed only because some very courageous people stuck their neck out, weathered all the flack and negative personal repercussions towards themselves, and gradually made the point of "Why not?" I fully su…

This is just moral relativism and reductionist analysis. It's easy to frame problems in a light where it's impossible to make an objective judgment. This is like saying that violence is wrong. Sure, in the abstract, but in practice there's an objective difference between the use of violence for oppression, personal gain, and domination and the use of violence as self-defense. Let's go to first principles here. Which,…

Your reasoning here is very similar to the rationale for oppressing Communist sympathizers during the Red Scare. They were opposed to the democratic principles of America and we ostracized them for it, and I'd thought the lesson we took from it was that we were very much in the wrong. I fully support gay rights, but I have trouble embracing what feels like a new form of McCarthyism (just s/Communist/homophobe/).

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#625

Post by ternaryoperator » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 9:03 PM UTC

If diversity does not include people with opposing political viewpoints, it's not diversity.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#626

Post by akerl_ » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 9:04 PM UTC

yohui wrote: post #598

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the way democracy works, though. If about 320,000 more conservative voters had turned out to vote in several swing states in 2012, we'd have a different President in the White House. That doesn't mean Romney should have won, though. It's the people who turn out to vote who get to decide. If you don't care enough to vote, tough beans!

> That's the way democracy works, though. > It's the people who turn out to vote who get to decide. If you don't care enough to vote, tough beans! Democracies with more complete voter participation don't seem generally worse off for it.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that. The point being made is that the people who come to vote are the ones who make the decisions. If people are being prevented from casting their votes, that is a serious problem, but if people choose not to exercise their right to vote then whatever vote they would have cast doesn't count towards the outcome.

Saying that a vote would have gone differently if more people on the losing side voted is obvious. It's also not constructive, except in the context of wishing more people would participate in the political process in the future. Amusingly (or perhaps not), the fervor against Brendan Eich is based in large part around his participation in that process.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#627

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 9:04 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #459

Aloha wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an openly gay male, I came out at 15. Why should there be social or employment consequences - in my mind this is just as bad as when employers fire employees for being gay.

http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/ describes it well: > Speech is designed to invoke private and social consequences, whether the speech is "venti mocha no whip, please," or "I love you," or "fuck off." The private and social consequences of your speech — whether they come from a barista, or your spouse, or people online, or people at whom you shout on the street — represent the free speech an…

[deleted]

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#628

Post by blisterpeanuts » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 9:04 PM UTC

OpieCunningham wrote: post #371

Touche wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter what Eich thinks. History isn't going to reverse course so there's no need for those who are wrong to fall to their knees and beg for forgiveness. Being graceful in victory is about letting those who opposed you to get away with their mistake.

How many lives need to be ruined before an oppressed community can fight back? Sainthood should not be a bar that everyone must meet in order to avoid being labeled with a black mark. This guy attacked a large group of people and that group defended itself by explaining their displeasure at his recent privilege. He then suffered the consequence of having his privilege removed. Good.

@OpieCunningham - How many lives need to be ruined...

That's a great question, actually. How many lives were ruined by Prop 8? (which, by the way, was overturned by the Supreme Court)

Are there gay people in jail in California as a result of Prop 8? Are there broken marriages? Was there an increase in anti-gay violence? Not that I've heard of.

Prop 8, which apparently very few people seem to know (or care), was about preventing legal recognition of same-sex marriages, not about preventing those marriages per se. Legal recognition means next-of-kin and hospital visitation rights and some taxation differences. Really, other than that, people could perfectly well exchange vows and call themselves married, and the state has no authority to change this.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#629

Post by Uehreka » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 9:04 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #199

danpalmer wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think 'integrity' in the face of an opinion that is becoming more and more unacceptable to hold in our culture is a good thing. Changing your views, and admitting you were wrong is the best thing you can do.

This line of reasoning is very troubling to me, because 20 years ago it was pretty much unacceptable in the U.S. to hold the opinion that gays were entitled to full legal rights, let alone the ability to marry. That changed only because some very courageous people stuck their neck out, weathered all the flack and negative personal repercussions towards themselves, and gradually made the point of "Why not?" I fully su…

> If they weren't allowed to hold unpopular opinions, then pretty much all the social progress we made in the last century - racial equality, feminism, gay rights, etc. - would never have happened.

Back in the day, they weren't allowed to hold unpopular opinions. The history of civil rights is a story of many people going to jail for their beliefs, and then being force-fed when they performed hunger strikes and being lynched by roving mobs. The righteousness of their ideas became apparent because they clung to those beliefs and refused to budge until physical force moved them, and because they never renounced their beliefs despite the torment of their oppressors. To paraphrase Ghandi "You can kill me if you want, and you will have my dead body. But you will not have my obedience."

I'd argue that the stakes are not nearly as high here. We're not talking about sending Brendan Eich to jail. He is free to move about the world and continue making boatloads of cash at whatever firm is willing to hire the foremost JS expert on the planet. We just don't want him running this particular organization.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#630

Post by bzbarsky » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 9:05 PM UTC

danpalmer wrote: post #111

nostrademons wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It speaks a lot to his integrity that he didn't. Would you rather have a CEO who says one thing in public and then goes and does another thing surreptitiously, or one who stands up for his beliefs even when they're unpopular?

I don't think 'integrity' in the face of an opinion that is becoming more and more unacceptable to hold in our culture is a good thing. Changing your views, and admitting you were wrong is the best thing you can do.

Note that phillmv is not suggesting changing views, but just lying about changing them. Changing views can be done with integrity. Not changing them can also be done with integrity. Simply lying about what your views are, on the other hand really can't.