Look how Silicon Valley folks treated Brandon Eich when he made a donation to the majority side in a California proposition.
It's not just academia where you can't speak freely.
It's not just academia where you can't speak freely.
Free speech does not mean freedom from having your speech acts criticized (quite the opposite; it includes freedom of others to criticize your speech acts.) And, yes, it means that your speech acts may affect your ability to hold a job where you are one of the major public faces of an organization (such as its CEO) and are not capable of dealing with the PR resulting from the association of those speech acts with a public face of the corporation (the same as it would if you couldn't deal with any other PR issue affecting the corporation, even if it wasn't resulting from your speech acts.)
Of course, there is a fundamental right to have (and express) a dissenting opinion or voice.
There is also a fundamental right to have (and express) displeasure with an opinion or voice, whether dissenting or not.
And there is no fundamental entitlement to a job whose responsibilities include managing the public image of a corporation, and if you are unable to do that in the real circumstances and public image problems the corporation faces, whether or not your own speech acts are the source of that PR problem, you shouldn't expect to continue to have that job.
In reality, though, I think a jury would be very skeptical of a company's claims that someone was fired for promoting the gay agenda (which would be legal) and not for being a gay person.
Technological advances such as social media make vilifying dissenting views (and the people who express them) cheaper and more effective than ever before. There must be some kind of a balance between the right to dissent and the right to "have a displeasure with an opinion" as you said, and I feel like the way things are going now, it doesn't look like we have found that balance. Ultimately a healthy society will need both.
As currently stands, you can stand in the town square and promote affirmative action it would be very risky legally to fire you. But if you get up and argue for the repeal of some affirmative action legislation you can be safely fired with no objection from legal.
Legally, promoting either of those opinions is subject to exactly the same degree of protection. The willingness of a particular employer to accept the legal risk maybe different between them, but that's a different issue than the law itself.
In what specific, concrete ways does it not work out the way you think it is intended?
> One way would be to say that all behavior "off the clock" and all attributes of a person not related to the job are protected. Another way would be to say nothing is protected.
Those are obviously potential rules, but I don't see that either of them is closer to any reasonable interpretation of the intended result that antidiscrimination laws are intended to serve.
I think we are starting to go in circles, but: It has the effect of cancelling out free discourse which is important to a functioning "democracy". A trivial example is that a business owner cannot be vocally anti-same sex marriage, because if she is, and a gay employee is fired for a "legitimate" reason, her behavior will go a long way towards convincing a jury.
Where this is going is why we are expanding the number of protected classes over time is that the real "intended result" is that you should not suffer at work for attributes that have nothing specifically to do with the job you are hired for.
Since we're not talking about the constitution, which strictly relates to government and public property, then we're talking about private entities and private property.
You do not have the right to speak on my property. Forcing that is in direct contradiction to a free society that has a concept of private property.
I am all for fostering tolerance to offensive speech, but not at the expensive of destroying the concept of private ownership. It is absolutely not a fundamental right. It should be a social norm, but that's all it should be.
> It seems to me that it's up to all of us to tolerate non-extreme dissenting voices
Who gets to define what is and is not extreme?
Freedom of expression means tolerating something offensive by definition. If it's not offensive, it doesn't need to be tolerated.
Then again, if you keep chopping off the edges of the bell curve, everything that doesn't precisely match the middle is extreme by comparison.
Except a lot of private entities receive a lot of money from the federal government - either as subsidies, tax breaks or programs. So they should abide by the rules of the government too. Giving public money to entities that not view the first amendment as obligatory for them - that is wrong for me.
But, IMHO, the threshold for taking arguments outside the political arena and into the realm of boycotts and demands for resignations should be a lot higher than it seems to be today. Otherwise vibrant, productive arguments don't happen, since everyone's concentrating on bankrupting the other side of money, "platforms", or legitimacy.
Online, that's a fairly easy thing to manage. In real life, it means I really have to walk on eggshells a lot, and I seldom participate in voicing my opinions (or supporting certain causes) in which I'd otherwise participate, solely out of fear. In many cases, you can keep your personal views and professional life isolated, but not always. Maybe it's an irrational fear, but then again, in today's political climate it seems foolish not to worry about that.
And if that need to self-censor isn't cause for concern, I don't know what is.
Of course most of the sparse comments I make here are dumb jokes...
Is that something I'm allowed to say, even as a hypothetical? It seems like anyone saying that could be viciously attacked. Yet if we want to reason about the world objectively we need to consider all shades of truth and possibility, not blindly latch on to one particular idea and walk on eggshells while talking about it. The victimhood culture is completely stifling to any kind of discussion about such things.
Now, maybe we shouldn't have discussion about that on HN. I don't know. A lot of them have sure been interesting though. For example, I've found contributions by yummyfajitas particularly thought-provoking to read. He frequently challenges the "popular wisdom" and gets downvoted for it despite making what seem to me like reasonable, fair, respectful arguments that go against the popular activist narrative and victimhood culture. I don't know where I really land on these issues, but I've not been satisfied that there is adequate thoughtful analysis of them in mainstream culture (even arguably on HN).
I am hoping that this victimhood thing, and that attempts at social justice by creating privileges for special interest groups, are phenomena that are ultimately temporary as our society evolves to a greater level of egalitarianism and liberty. That is, I hope that what we're seeing now are the growing pains as old prejudice is put down, as we as society we eventually move past this (in whatever subdivision you care to name). We've seen huge strides for equality in recent years such as with recent US Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. But it feels like for every two positive strides, we take a step back with victimhood culture or by fighting injustice with more injustice (e.g., changes to Mormon Church doctrine on gays, to pick a totally random example).
What would be helpful, is if you would post actual objective findings--studies, analyses, etc. Cold hard facts. Otherwise you're just adding to the heat. Even my reply is not adding much right now, being primarily opinion.
I'm willing to admit that all I think about various minorities is completely wrong. I'll be happy to, when presented with evidence (and I've been adjusting my views every time I stumbled upon something that looked even little like legit research). Personally, I'm not arguing for any side of the issue. I'm arguing against using bad methodology, bad science, logical fallacies, lies and propaganda. I'm arguing for civility and detached behaviour in discussion. Only when people calm the fuck down we'll be able to figure out where the truth lies and how much we have to adjust at personal and societal level.
As long as you don't say that Angular is better or anything else that might be construed as you supporting meritocracy...
In today's climate, you can't really even propose a thought experiment or discuss a hypothetical without being accused of holding that position yourself, and criticized as such. I don't even really have strong convictions about most of the things I discuss, except the desire to analyze them rationally and objectively, and the willingness to challenge both conventional wisdom and new radical positions.
Even while posting under an anonymous username, I still find myself self-censoring because of the risk that my identity could someday be connected. HN administrators can certainly trivially connect me, since they see the origin of my traffic for my two accounts, and I have not taken pains to anonymity the traffic for this one. However, HN admins themselves like pg have been posting under alts (and probably still do, for the same reasons), and seem to support this.
I have been wanting to propose that HN or some site like it offer a feature where you can switch your post to "Anonymous Coward" later, if it proves to be too controversial. Or post as "Anonymous Coward", and later assign the post to your name if you feel OK about how the discussion turned out. I think this would be better than having people feel like they can't post at all, or that they need alts to post. Having an alt is kind of like Anonymous Coward, except that you can't claim credit for just a single post that you turn out to feel OK about later.
The thing is, I think, that humans "try on" ideas like they try on clothes. We don't necessarily mean everything we say all the time (unless we take great pains to ensure it). The public discourse seems to expect that people have their minds firmly made up about everything, and a completely firm viewpoint that can be understood and criticized, but the reality is much more fluid. Or to put it differently: writing something that you can firmly stand behind requires a lot of time and energy, and a bar of quality and thoughtfulness and judgment that can rarely be met for Internet forum comments. Sometimes I'd just like to have a conversation, without fearing that something I say can be taken out of context and used against me years later when random-topic-of-the-day becomes a hot-button issue.
1. I've thought about this too.
2. I don't think it's possible because Google indexes these comments at lightning speed.
3. I used to wonder why HN only allows a user to delete for a specified period of time(a few minutes?). I think it's because of Google?
4. I have never used my real name on the Internet. Wait, I did have a Facebook account, but changed my real name years ago. I would like to use my real name, but just don't want to be taken out of context. Or, never forgiven fir having a bad day.
5. I would like to see the day where the IP owner can delete anything indexed by Google, or any database, but that will probably never happen.
6. People on here know the risks of posting under your real name, but the average person doesn't have a clue. They post away with a false sense of impunity.
7. What scares me most about the Internet never forgetting is what if a website decided to post your IP to your house number?
8. Then again 99.99 percent of the stuff I say, I believe strongly. It's just we need to play the phoney game in real life.
For example;
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/bd-anonymous-posting...
But we need something similar on sites like Hacker News and Reddit as well.
Can't help but quote:
--
The Emperor summons before him Bodhidharma and asks: “Master, I have been tolerant of innumerable gays, lesbians, bisexuals, asexuals, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, transgender people, and Jews. How many Tolerance Points have I earned for my meritorious deeds?”
Bodhidharma answers: “None at all”.
The Emperor, somewhat put out, demands to know why not.
Bodhidharma asks: “Well, what do you think of gay people?”
The Emperor answers: “What do you think I am, some kind of homophobic bigot? Of course I have nothing against gay people!”
And Bodhidharma answers: “Thus do you gain no merit by tolerating them!”
-- (http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...)
That freedom of speech includes freedom of speech criticizing others' speech acts does not mean that all speech is morally equal.
Nor, in any case, was the Hollywood blacklist a speech act; it was a conspiracy in restraint of trade.
Especially, IMO, in the case of a ballot issue. Are we trying to coerce people to vote the way we want them to? That's unconscionable to me.
Yes, there is, and what Eich experienced was not only not a lynching [0], it was quite far from the line that separates criticism from lynching.
[0] in case there is a lack of clarity, this is a lynching: http://abhmuseum.org/2012/01/an-iconic-lynching-in-the-north...
Where do you believe that line is? He certainly experienced mob justice in some form.
Depends where you draw the line. Many people feel that when Eich chose to support groups that were running bigoted TV ads (beyond simply expressing an opinion as to a ballot issue) he effectively crossed that line.
https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/
...I know some will be skeptical about this, and that words
alone will not change anything. I can only ask for your support
to have the time to "show, not tell"; and in the meantime
express my sorrow at having caused pain. ...
I'm pretty sure they didn't send the ads out for the approval of every campaign contributor before they aired them.
He could have done more, by addressing the issue of the TV ads directly. By not doing so, people had reason to believe he was sidestepping that key issue (and that he may not really understand why people were offended by those ads).
[1] Proposition 8 had been struck down by the time of Eich's appointment to CEO
People had just gotten very, very, VERY tired of the pseudo-tolerant stance he was endorsing [1], and didn't want to feel that they were lending credibility to it, by having him at the head of an organization they were a part of. The message they were trying to send was simply, "we're really tired of this shit, and we want it to stop."
[1] "Love the sinner, hate the sin". Those aren't his words, but that's the gist of the religious-based opposition to gay marriage. You have to understand that at some point, people just get sick of hearing it -- or being a party to it.
Eich's stance was "pseudo-tolerant" because the activists were demanding that he renounce his religious beliefs. At least he had the stones not to say something he didn't believe just to keep his job. So instead he was cast out. Should a Catholic CEO be subjected to the same treatment if they personally oppose abortion? A Republican one for opposing Affirmative Action?
They did no such thing. Why do you think it is helpful to base your arguments on overtly counterfactual assertions, such as these?
But even removing that point from my comment the rest stands. You wrote that people were "sick of hearing" about his views on gay marriage. Well all they had to do to stop hearing about it was to stop asking him about it.
No, that's not what I said. Or even close to what I said.
I'd continue with you further on this, but it seems there's been a lot of gratuitous word-bending and insinuation in what you've been saying of late. That's not my style of communicating, and I don't see what I can learn from it -- but if you want to continue to feel the way you feel about the issue, that's fine with me.
People had just gotten very, very, VERY tired of the
pseudo-tolerant stance he was endorsing [1], and didn't
want to feel that they were lending credibility to it,
by having him at the head of an organization they were a
part of.
[1] "Love the sinner, hate the sin".
The two phenomena are very different. You understand this - yes?
And so then we're back to demanding that a defeated political opponent repent. "Here is our political issue, you advocated against it, you lost, so now you must beg our forgiveness or lose your job which is completely unrelated to the issue."
Like I said, that's not the world I want to live in. If others like it they are welcome to it, but then they shouldn't start complaining if abortion-rights advocates are fired from their jobs in the American South.
True, it wasn't the exact quote you cherry-picked. But it was the main point of what I was saying, if you look at my remarks collectively.
No one claims it wasn't. You're missing the point.
But hell no you should not deserve to get fired for donating to the Republican Party. You have the right to donate to whichever LEGAL organization you want.
As the CEO of a large organization, you are not. You are the face and voice of an organization. You speak for its employees and you are accountable to its shareholders. You are held to a higher standard and your every word/action is scrutinized. If your shareholders are afraid that your speech/actions will hurt the bottom line of the company, you will be removed from your position.
Profit != Justice
If you have strong views, you can express them in private, or you can head an organization that is dedicated to/aligned with those views.
Freedom to say whatever you want, whenever is not justice either.
So yeah, it's obviously relevant and I doubt they were making any specific point.
Will anyone who defends Eich or is critical of his detractors come out and say that Sterling should not have received the wrath of the media and public and should not have been punished for expressing his views?
Or does your position shift based on the opinion being expressed by either man? Are there materialistic differences between these men and their beliefs?
[1] I know about the housing discrimination lawsuit; I'm leaving it out of this analysis because the NBA clearly didn't care about it until the secret recording made Sterling a pariah.
Absolutely. Both men were pilloried by mob justice for PRIVATELY holding unpopular opinions.
Brandon Eich is not an example of anything this article is about. It's much more straightforward: if you do things people don't like, those people won't like you.
note:I am for Gay Marriage but I am against bullying people who are not for it.
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat...
Q: Was Brendan Eich forced out by employee pressure?
A: No. Mozilla employees expressed a wide range of views on Brendan’s appointment as CEO: the majority of them positive and in support of his leadership, or expressing disappointment in Brendan’s support of Proposition 8 but that they nonetheless felt he would be a good leader for Mozilla. A small number (fewer than 10) called for his resignation, none of whom reported to Brendan directly. However media coverage focused disproportionately on the small number of negative comments — largely ignoring the wide range of reactions across the Mozilla community.
Mozilla’s culture of openness extends to encouraging our staff and community to be candid about their views on Mozilla’s direction, including during and after Brendan’s appointment as CEO. We’re proud of that openness and how it distinguishes Mozilla from most organizations.
It's interestingly how strong your opinion is when it could be easily improved upon by just reading wikipedia[3]. Here are states that actually passed SSM by popular referendum:
* Maine [1]
* Washington State[2]
* Maryland
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Question_1,_2012 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Referendum_74 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_Question_6 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_Unite...
I also disagree with how the Brendon Eich was handled and it's important to have a diversity of views within an organization. Ultimately I think if Eich had been a stronger leader he would have been able to move past the incident, but there were already issues of confidence in his leadership BEFORE the incident happened.[5]
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Mozilla
"On March 24, 2014, Eich was promoted to CEO of Mozilla Corporation. Gary Kovacs, John Lilly and Ellen Siminoff resigned from the Mozilla board after the appointment, some expressing disagreements with Eich's strategy and their desire for a CEO with experience in the mobile industry."
Post Prop 8, we've seen some massive enlightenment on the subject.
[1] http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Obama-opposes-proposed-ba...
If you're still not clear as to the distinction, please see: https://xkcd.com/1357/
Note that Eich was NOT opposed by his employees. He was opposed by outside activists.
I don't see the current CEO of Mozilla resigning because they are meat-eaters, which, as a Firefox user, I find deeply offensive.
Turing's suicide is merely a distant memory.
The "association" that you speak of is a different concept: figurative association (how people compare or liken groups one to the other).
I do not think that it is right to conclude something about the one based on the other.
I'm absolutely supportive of gay marriage, but the people pillorying Eich find it necessary to contort their logic in the strangest ways.
...this would of course be in no way analogous to the activity Eich was supporting.
Firing people for having wrong opinions on important things that are not directly related to the job is more controversial.
Congratulations, you just lowered the value of the rest of your comment significantly.
Do there exist any social circles where the use of the term "Ugh" is reflected positively?
Just that people who think that his "freedom of speech" was in some way violated -- or that the anger directed against him was simply about his being on the wrong side of a ballot issue -- are at least very misinformed about certain things.
Not just his freedom. There is a chilling effect that makes people more afraid of expressing their opinions for fear of losing their jobs.
Of course, I'm not arguing about the legal definition of freedom of speech, I'm making a moral argument.
>the anger directed against him was simply about his being on the wrong side of a ballot issue
What was it about? If his opinions on gay marriage make everyone involved in Mozilla look bad, then certainly the reputational effects of firing someone for his political opinions have to be taken into account as well. People might start being less enthusiastic about working for Mozilla if they feel they have to walk on eggshells all the time.
Freedom of Association is the right to join or remove yourself from a group for the sake of collective right.