I'm a bit shocked that this article even made it to HN's front page.
(However, I do appreciate the technical and business model explanations later in the article about Brave.)
> because he silently donated to causes seeking to strip rights from minority groups instead of directly harassing them, the outrage was unjustified. Okay, Brendan.
Davenport wrote only 4 sentences on the topic (two of which I quoted), plus the section title, and the topic is never mentioned again. The quote from Eich is longer than what Davenport wrote.
How do you get "proclaimed evil for that" from that? I thought it seemed even-handed.
How would you answer the question "Why was appointing Eich as CEO [of Mozilla Corporation] so controversial?"
The title of the section, "the hateful browser", tells you the appropriate lense through which to view the entirety of the content. The reader is primed to assume bad faith everywhere.
He reenforces the view with his commentary, the disbelieving and sarcastic "okay Brendan" which further primes the reader into a bad faith view of his accomplishments and life.
It's not a rebuttal that directly addresses any of Mr Eich's points. If we assume good faith on the part of Eich's quote, then an entirely different approach to the points is warranted.
You see where I'm going right? Just because someone feels hatred doesn't mean that the person who hates is evil. Nor that the browser is evil.
The disbelieving "okay Brendan" occurs after giving a direct rebuttal to Eich's second point.
It highlights how the argument "the donation does not in itself constitute evidence of animosity" is incomplete, because the action does not stop at the donation.
Eich knows this, hence using the phrase "in itself" to, as you write, '[tell] you the appropriate lense through which to view the entirety of the content'.
As Davenport (correctly, IMO) characterizes it: "he silently donated to causes seeking to strip rights from minority groups instead of directly harassing them".
Or, as Lehrer characterizes the von Braun defense: "Once the rockets are up / Who cares where they come down? / That's not my department".
Again, how would answer the question "Why was appointing Eich as CEO [of Mozilla Corporation] so controversial?"