Hacker News Reader

Comment by benjaminkiefl | Hacker News Reader

"Yes yes yes. Brave was founded by an absolute scumbag."

The linked source cites: "...a 2008 donation of $1,000 to California Proposition 8, which called for the banning of same-sex marriage in California, and donations in the amount of $2,100 to Proposition 8 supporter Tom McClintock between 2008 and 2010."

I assume Brendan Eich was already relatively wealthy at the time and that these donations represented a modest fraction of his income. Whatever happened to some nuance in public discourse? How do people who condemn someone’s character so categorically over donations made roughly 18 years ago function in a workplace with diverse opinions,...

... or for that matter, navigate society?

View on HN

In my case, I find it doesn't matter to me or, often, anyone I know. So the conclusion becomes I don't care and my only concern is if it is useful to me.

It's also why I avoid almost all social platforms and, if I land on one accidentally, I look at headlines alone--rarely the comments.

Oh! Damn it!

> a 2008 donation of $1,000 to California Proposition 8

The woke/cancel culture crowd (none of whom knew him personally) went after him with a vengeance in 2014, but there were LGBT and LGBT-allied co-workers of his at the time who were aghast at the outrage. Here are three examples I could find online just now [0][1][2]

[0] https://subfictional.com/on-brendan-eich-as-ceo-of-mozilla/

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150202162458/http://words.tofu...

[2] https://medium.com/@__davidflanagan/for-the-record-7645a4bf8...

None of the three authors you are citing here knew him personally, either, and none of them seem to be particularly 'aghast'.

I knew Christie and David and worked with both while at Mozilla.

It's called having values

Tbf opposing gay marriage is quite an extreme opinion in much of the developed world. I suspect Eich's position on the matter is tied to his Roman Catholic faith, so although he showed a certain level of remorse in 2014, he never actually came out in support of gay marriage. He then later spread misinformation about mask-wearing during COVID, including suggestions that people could die from wearing a mask.

I don't think it's fair to call it "extreme". Small minority in some countries, minority in most and about half of the population in some is imo a fair assessment. Even in USA it looks more like 70-30 if I am reading the polls correctly.

> I don't think it's fair to call it "extreme". Small minority in some countries

What does that matter? I would expect us to not care about a small minority doing something everyone else does. Not to actively legislate against their right to do it. If anything, this makes it more extreme.

It matters because it was a reply to someone indicating that it was an extreme opinion. The truth shouldn't only matter when it's on your side.

And when you convince somebody with a lie, and they later find out you were lying, you've probably lost them forever. Not smart.

I asked why the size of the minority matters, not why you care what that person is saying.

The point is that it's not an extreme position when significant minority in most developed countries (small in some, about half in others) doesn't agree. This was also majority position 2-3 decades ago. The world didn't change enough since them for mainstream majority moral positions back then to be called extreme today.

Prop 8, the anti-gay-marriage proposition that Eich donated money to support, passed with 52% of the vote.

Eich never clarified his position (nor did he retract it nor apologize) so we have literally no idea what aspect of this he supported along with 52% of the population of California.

> Prop 8, the anti-gay-marriage proposition that Eich donated money to support, passed with 52% of the vote.

I'm sure you'll eventually have someone chime in here that the proposition was "misleading" and there were "disinformation campaigns" that resulted in this 52% figure, AKA "doesn't count, we know what the vote 'should have been'." People forget that Obama famously stated "marriage is between a man and a woman" in 2008 (was he lying to appeal to more voters? Possibly, but the fact is he said it). It was a very mainstream opinion at the time.

> was he lying to appeal to more voters?

He very clearly was. He directed DOJ not to defend DOMA Section 3, and it fell in the courts, just like all the civil rights promoters wanted. If he hadn't been elected, it would have taken longer. That's why we forgive him for lying. We aren't stupid.

He also publicly identified as Christian, though he wrote that his parents and grandparents are nonbelievers.

So are we just going to ignore the reason why he felt like he had to lie about it? Because it was a very mainstream opinion at the time?

It is not a mainstream opinion anymore, but Eich still holds it, and unlike Obama, hasn't apologized for it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49886276

First, I think you're gonna find it's not exactly a sub-single digit opinion today either. Second, the left tends to be extremely selective about who they forgive. Chick-fil A has done their apologies, stopped their donations, the whole song and dance and there's still a burning hatred for them. What's he got to gain at this point? People have made up their mind on him and all the performative apologies in the world won't get him back in anyone's good graces.

> First, I think you're gonna find it's not exactly a sub-single digit opinion today either.

I never claimed otherwise. For that matter, a double digit percentage of people still think that interracial marriage should be forbidden. I'm smart enough to be on the right side of that debate. Eich isn't. Are you?

> Chick-fil A has done their apologies

They never apologized, and they famously kept donating to anti-LGBT political charities after they said they stopped in order to get a restaurant approved in Chicago in 2012.

> What's he got to gain at this point?

Self respect. It's normal to apologize when you've wronged somebody. Not apologizing shows you either think you didn't cause harm or you are too prideful to admit you were wrong.

Do moralities expire like tomatoes left on the counter?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com