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Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

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Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#741

Post by [deleted] »

phaus wrote: post #724
gfodor wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>there are people who simply have hangups about the word "marriage" vs "civil unions." And this 'hangup' is simply idiotic. Christians that speak of 'civil unions' are trying to hold homosexuals' rights hostage so they can pretend that they have carved out a small victory. Christianity invented neither the concept nor the terminology for marriage. Most of us at HN rave all day long about how stupid it is when a compa…

[deleted]

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#742

Post by akerl_ »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #559
akerl_ wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there? I don't think we want to take the stance, as a society, that it's ok to have unpopular opinions as long as you don't advocate for your opinions.

Why not? I don't care if my neighbor believes aliens built the pyramids and some deity created all animals in their present form in six days. I do care if they pressure the school board to teach those things to my children. In the same way, I don't care if somebody believes that different races shouldn't intermarry because of dilution of racial purity or that people of the same sex shouldn't marry because of Adam and…

This is the same logic that was used to justify policies like Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

We are not perfect beings; we make mistakes, we believe things that end up being false, and we do things that we (or the rest of society) will regret later. As such, advocating that opinions other than the current prevailing set should be suppressed is a dangerous game to play. I know that like most of the people advocating it are doing so out of a desire to see the world become a better place. But since we've been wrong before about what "a better place" looks like, we should exercise utmost caution in telling others to be silent about their own views.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#744

Post by rglullis »

phaus wrote: post #724
gfodor wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>there are people who simply have hangups about the word "marriage" vs "civil unions." And this 'hangup' is simply idiotic. Christians that speak of 'civil unions' are trying to hold homosexuals' rights hostage so they can pretend that they have carved out a small victory. Christianity invented neither the concept nor the terminology for marriage. Most of us at HN rave all day long about how stupid it is when a compa…

And you're pinning this on Christians, which is also idiotic. First, I could introduce you to more than a handful of non-christians that do not support gay marriage. Second, take a look at other countries, specially theocracies, see how they treat gays.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#745

Post by vacri »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #132
27182818284 wrote: post #25

Holy crap, I thought the OKCupid thing was an April Fool's joke. I had no idea. Whoa.

Will we get a new "it's ok that you're using Firefox page from them now"?

Nope. Just checked, and it silently takes you to the regular login page.

Poor form, OKC.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#746

Post by wpietri »

JasonFruit wrote: post #713
bowlofpetunias wrote: post #521

I am stunned at how many people on HN seem to thing Eich should not be judged on his personal so-called "political" views. If he was a racist in favor of segregation would people still take that position? I seriously doubt it.

I would absolutely take that position. How is it relevant to his position? Can't someone pragmatically act as is appropriate to the world that is, while working to remake it as they believe it should be?

If Mozilla appointed, say, a KKK Grand Wizard to the post of CEO, that would definitely be relevant. First, because every non-white person would immediately have rational cause to fear discrimination. Second, because every anti-racist employee, partner, and donor would have incentive to reevaluate their willingness to help Mozilla along. And third, it would be an enormous PR nightmare, an unending distraction from Mozilla's actual work.

All companies are human institutions. And nonprofits basically all make a deal with their employees: You may not get paid as much, but you'll be doing something you believe in. It's immensely powerful, but it does mean you have to keep it a place that people can believe in.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#747

Post by wpietri »

Aloisius wrote: post #533
Dirlewanger wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this "unrepentant bigotry" directly affected how many peoples' lives? No one's?

The thousands of gay couples who wanted to get married but couldn't because of donations like his? The denial of rights of gay couples who were married before prop 8? There are actual people who have been denied inheritance, denied the right to visit their partner in the hospital, denied the ability to go their loved one's funeral by their family because of prop 8.

Whoever's downvoting you should be ashamed. The exact effect of Prop 8 was to strip marriage rights from people. And part of why it worked (until struck down in federal court as the civil rights violation its opponents always knew it to be) is the well-funded campaign in favor of it.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#748

Post by clavalle »

xaa wrote: post #699
clavalle wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech doesn't mean no consequences for your speech -- it means the government cannot interfere with your speech (within reason). When you make political speech it is necessarily public not a privately held opinion. He made a political donation showing that he supported a law that curtailed a group of people's natural Right. That donation was used to try and affect public policy. That is not some theory he holds…

Let me put it a different way, since the term "free speech" admittedly has many different connotations. My day job is as a scientist. In science, individual researchers put forth many different ideas, some right, some wrong. Over time, we come to a consensus on which ideas are right and wrong, and the right ideas are kept and the wrong ideas are dropped. However, we don't blackball people who had the wrong ideas: on…

>I don't want to live in a society where people have to fear for their jobs or a public mob action because they espoused an unpopular opinion.

And I don't want to live in a society where we tacitly accept discrimination because it is labeled as political opinion.

There is a huge difference between politics and science. It is a terrible analogy. Scientific hypothesis, by definition, can be tested. If someone is wrong, that can be proven. Even if an entire body of work has been built on a wrong hypothesis, that work can be tossed out or modified in the face of new evidence. It can be painful, sure, but there is a mechanism in place for just such an occurrence.

Law and policy are made of pure, sloppy human thought-stuff. Some things might be testable but, in general, that is not the rule. If we allow a body of work to develop under bad ideas they take on a life, an inertia, of their own. We do not have any generally agreed upon or foolproof mechanisms to dismantle such an edifice. In fact, most of the mechanisms are designed to make them as permanent as possible -- to bolster the image of institution and consistency. We do not have the luxury of suspending our judgement in the political realm.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#749

Post by wpietri »

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.

Untrue. If you read Judge Walker's decision against Prop 8, or the recent judgment against the Michigan Marriage Amendment, you'll see that both Prop 8 and the MMA failed because they violate the 14th Amendment's grant of equal protection: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause

In particular, both Prop 8 and the MMA failed to meet the Rational Basis test: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review

That is, both courts found that there was no rational basis for keeping gay people from getting married. The rationales offered by proponents didn't measure up.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#750

Post by bronson »

smsm42 wrote: post #673
bronson wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the project employs gay people, some of whom would be in a position to receive marriage benefits from said project.

So what? The project can also employ gun-owning people, marijuana-smoking people, birth-control-using people, healthcare-using people, etc. Those issues are hot issues because they interest a lot of people, and since big project employs a lot of people, it is inevitable that the intersection between people affected by the issue of the day and people working at big company is significant. And among them inevitably wou…

Um, the project would not give gun or marijuana benefits to its employees.

Yes, government-sponsored birth control is a hot issue and many CEOs are having a hard time reconciling it. And, yes some people have quit over it. So, yes, it's similar.

Being pro-diversity does not mean being morally obligated to accept racism or hate-induced views. That's pretzel logic.

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