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Comment by angersock | Hacker News Reader

Here's the root of the issue:

"many felt was incompatible with his personal views"

Who all is "many" here? People at Mozilla? People in the tech industry? People who are LGBT? Angry people on the internet with nothing better to do than troll?

People who actually were directly and personally affected by Eich's actions in donating, of which there are quite few compared to the number of people weighing in on this?

It's easy to have an echo-chamber hollering for blood, but let's not pretend that those voices have any automatic credibility.

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People who actually were directly and personally affected by Eich's actions in donating, of which there are quite few compared to the number of people weighing in on this?

Is this the case? There are a whole bunch of LGBT people working at Mozilla, and in the wider tech community. On top of that, there are families and friends of these people, who while not being personally affected can certainly legitimately object to the damage done to their close peers.

I suspect that this affects more people than you are implying.

"damage done to their close peers"

Again, what damage, and how does that get traced directly back to Eich? The law was repealed, marriage reinstated, and everything's fine. The system worked, so what's the issue?

And a "whole bunch"? How many? Numbers? Percentage? Let us not suspect--we are in the Information Age. Google your way to success.

The only number we have is $1000 from Eich to support Prop 8--that's the only number we have. Somehow that one number is enough evidence to cost the man his job, but magically nobody else has to back up their assails.

Look, if the numbers for this act justify the outrage, sure, I'll recant--but that simply hasn't happened yet, and the bookkeeping is pretty shoddy.

That's a preposterous argument. Is there some kind of minimum damage level that must be achieved before publicly objecting to someone's views? How does one quantify social damage?

Well, they just cost a man his job--that's fairly quantifiable.

So, yeah, I don't think it's unreasonable that, in exchange, we be able to show both columns in the ledger.

How is that not enough evidence? He paid $1000 to the campaign. Since the outrage began, he has said nothing to nuance his position, nothing to talk about changing his mind, nothing to make his employees or contributors feel like he had their best interest at heart.

And furthermore, are you really trying to say we should have to directly tie how that money went into the Prop 8 bank account and then was spent to influence voters in California?

You're making completely irrational requests. Showing up at an anti-civil rights protest back in the 60s may not have directly influenced someone to keep their mouth shut out of safety(and how would you prove that it did), but it has an influence and to act like because you can't directly tie it to someone is to absolve people of any past wrongdoings short of force.

Changing your mind is okay. Saying you were wrong is okay. They need to be, as society grows and matures. But the same as the risks taken by those who try to push society's opinions ahead of itself, if you lag behind you're just as likely to get hurt.

It's rational to demand an apology or explanation for a vote held six years ago that actually passed? Are you going to collect apologies from the other seven million voters as well?

Sorry, and I hate to be the one to say it, but his view isn't that far from mainstream. In fact, it would seem less than a decade ago, it was quite popular.

Just because your opinion is currently popular, doesn't mean the people who disagreed with you six years ago owe you an apology or they can't have a job.

Yes. The "many people" here is a small but shrill collection of single issue voters/activists. Through slick PR these individuals were able to convert his employment status into a referendum on a political issue, even though one should have nothing to do with the other.

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