Torn and weary (on Brendan Eich and Mozilla)
christianheilmann.com
christianheilmann.com
The thing is that it works. I read some hate-inducing title and start to get worked up. My judgement is clouded and I might post some more inflammatory content. What is it that makes me react that way ? Every time I do it I don't even feel good after that. This primal instinct has come up and I feel stupid, angry and ashamed. Where did the noble sentiments like compassion and tolerance go ? I wish there was an antidote, peace-inducing titles to balance this out.
Has anyone experimented with meditation/mindfulness here? I imagine constantly being aware of your reactions and moods would help in situations like this.
And in regards to that, are there any studies on mob mentality in western vs eastern cultures? Or am I just barking down a pseudoscience rabbit hole
My issue is not that people protest. Society at large evolves and mentality change because some courageous people elevated their voices and raised opinions that at the time weren't popular. When people promote gay rights I believe the inherent goal is acceptance and better understanding of each-other.
I don't see that happening here. I don't see people reaching for each other, in fact each camp gets entrenched because of all the hate. Discussions become irrational. I understand why but it makes me sad.
How then do people protest en mass on the internet and boycott without being labeled an internet mob? Only if all sides reach for each other?
If that's the case, then what happens when one side doesn't do enough reaching? When do you place the blame more on one side, instead of apportioning blame equally across all participants? Since that's what I think you're doing.
I also apologize for my confrontational rhetoric. I don't know any way to question one's choice of vocabulary without sounding confrontational.
I didn't study sociology so take this with a grain of salt. I think the difference is in motivation and group dynamics.
An angry mob is motivated by fear or anger and doesn't think rationally. It's generally dangerous for both the actors in the group and the target. Also everyone can become part of a mob as it taps into our basic instinct. I think that a mob is formed when a critical mass of anger or fear is formed and resolved once the danger disappears.
This is in contrast with a protest. In a protest you're trying to promote an idea and in that sense you will try to advocate, talk to people and expose your point of view in the hope that they will adopt it. You still have a group of people but who are motivated by solving a specific cause. More noble sentiments are at play like compassion and respect. A good example of that would be advocacy of free speech.
It's entirely possible that you're seeing something different happening here. I felt anger transpiring trough the posts I was reading. My first post was equally a reaction to that and to other similar events that I saw happening in the past.
In this instance, I used your clarification and I see a protest. There was an single idea; Eich should not be CEO of Mozilla, for reasons we all know. Some core Mozilla people did talk to others, by posting why they did not want to be associated with a Mozilla with Eich as CEO. Organizations like OKCupid also posted their reasons for calling for a boycott.
In your previous postings you expressed an optimism of how people should resolve issues. Here too you continue, when you mention that "more noble sentiments are at play" in a protest.
My observation is that many protests are not based on compassion and respect. Rather, given that there are both pro-immigration protests and anti-immigration protests, and pro-gun and anti-gun protests, it's rather murky to figure out where the nobility is in each one. A classic example of the tension in the right to assemble is when the Nazis wanted the right to have a protest march in Skokie. I don't want to say there was nobility there, so I don't really want to use "nobility" as a guide to determine if something is actually a protest. If someone says they are protesting, then that's enough for me.
I also observe that there is a wide diversity in most protests. The core organizers often have to struggle to keep focus. The many interviews of participants in the early Occupy movement make that pretty clear. So while the core might be promoting a single idea, other perhaps less considered views also get into the mix. I've seen that a common opposition tactic is to do street interviews with the non-core supporters to show how ignorant/ill-informed/angry those people are, and paint the rest of the protesters with the same brush.
I think you see now why I struggle when I read people use terms like "mob", "bully", or "witch hunt"; I can't see what it's true, and have begun to believe it's mostly a rhetorical tactic to delegitimize opposition viewpoints - in your terms, to justify not reaching out. I do not believe you are using it that way.
Thank you for your followup and patience.
If Eich no longer believes what he believed, it's on him to make sure he makes that point. However, Eich never said anything to that effect, nor did he apologize, so we have no reason to assume that his opinion has changed.
You judge a CEO by the actions/decisions made in professional context. You don't use a personal decision to extrapolate what-if scenarios.
So the issue is not speech but rather thought. George Orwell had a term for punishing people for their thoughts:
He just couldn't accept a definition of marriage which includes same sex couples.
But those are subtle details for the liberal fascists.
Then he took it a step further and donated to group that was working to destroy human rights for homosexuals.
> He didn't tried or even thought to split any gay couple apart.
You're right, he didn't try to split a gay couple apart, he just sought to dissolve their marriage...
The problem is Eich doesn't see it as a human right. Indeed, to him, it may be the case he sees same-sex marriage as unethical. (We don't know what his objections are.) At any rate, he has no reason to find the support of gay marriage ethical or the opposition of it unethical.
There is no objective morality that tells us who is right or wrong here. There's no divine tablets we can all interpret listing out all our rights.
You can't stop at "same-sex marriage is a human right" and "opposing gay marriage is (ergo) unethical." That just leaves you talking right past people like Eich. It doesn't advance the argument or the cause - it just labels people as stupid or bad.
I'd also stop giving that company money.
Full stop. He had ample opportunity to speak out but he didn't. When someone says "I believe X" I assume that that person believes X until they either say "I don't believe X" or "I believe in Y" where Y is the opposite/different viewpoint on the same issue. Eich has made no such statement therefore I can only assume he is still anti-marriage equality, a homophobe, and not the right choice as the CEO of Mozilla.
Yes, you have free speech but just as codeoclock (and countless other HN'ers) said, you have to deal with the consequences. What you are proposing is a world where we can say whatever we want but never be held to what we say. I, for one, do not want to live in a world like that. I have said things in the past that I later changed my stance on and I have made every effort to make my change of view just as public as the original statement was. Sometimes this means talking to an individual or a small group and sometimes it means posting it to twitter.
I believe that if Eich had come out and said that his previous stance on marriage equality was wrong and he has since changed his view that this would not have ended the same way. Instead in both his blog posts [0][1] after this whole thing broke he drones on about how he will treat everyone fairly and how his personal beliefs will not affect his performance as CEO but he cleverly dances around the fact that he feels that homosexuals do not deserve the same rights as heterosexuals.
[0] https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/ [1] https://brendaneich.com/2014/04/the-next-mission/
Yes, and obviously that is completely orthogonal to the kind of treatment he has received over his beliefs about gay marriage. It is easy to criticize people who are afraid to speak their minds when you have an army of thought police standing with you ready to punish anyone who dares to disagree.
"If we were talking about a CEO that was racist and had donated to the KKK would you still rush to call foul when they were forced to step down by popular opinion?"
Here are the guidelines I would use:
1. What does the organization they are CEO of do? If it is an organization devoted to providing aid to oppressed minorities, obviously KKK membership would be a conflict of interest. If on the other hand the organization makes general purpose software, I fail to see the relevance.
2. Is the CEO trying to use the organization to promote the KKK's agenda? If so, there is a problem with his professional conduct. If not, then his KKK membership is something he does on his own time; hateful, sure, but I do not want to live in a world where people are not allowed to separate their personal and professional lives.
I find that over the top.
Also, everybody has to deal with the consequences. The open web is not a toy to be taken for granted. I dare say many of the recent successes of LGBT were in part enabled by something like an open web existing.
The practical effects of leaving someone who in the past donated money to an agenda which lost: zero. Sure, if you think about it and get angry about it, it has an effect on you -- that's why it's called taking offense I guess -- and in turn the "revenge" can feel good.
The practical effects of Eich leaving Mozilla: incalculable, assuming he would have done great things.. on the other hand, the practical effects of, say, OKCupid disappearing from the face of the Earth: zero, dating sites are a dime a dozen.
BTW, since HN doesn't seem to like this topic, the discussion on slashdot is quite good: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/04/03/1924250/brendan-eich...
Does that mean that it's also perfectly acceptable for somebody to lose his or her job merely for expressing a stance in favor of gay marriage?
Is it ok for someone to lose their job for being homophobic? Yes. Is it ok for someone to lose their job for not being homophobic? No.
Do people lose their jobs for being LGB or T? Yes. Do people lose their jobs for supporting LGBT rights. Yes.
If you think some people have less rights than other people just because of the way they were born, then you're a bad person. He wasn't born a homophobe, he became one, and it's just and right to make assessments of people for the things they chose to do.
Your logic is flawed. Group A defines group B, and group B defines group A. As a result, there is no way to define membership in group A or B.
Opposition to same sex marriage is 100% homophobic. Same sex marriage doesn't hurt anyone. It's prejudice, plain and simple.
Does this apply to all acts that don't hurt anyone, yet are not subsidized/supported by the government? Paying below minimum wage? Failing to buy health insurance? Cutting hair without a license? Failing to purchase a home?
Somehow I don't think you actually believe your own argument.
> For a cynical person, this would be a great way out: “OK, I am not $x, so it is not my problem, you just claimed that I have no right to an opinion as I never experienced the suffering. Done.”
I'm not going to debate you: re-posting your opinion with no supporting arguments means you've obviously made up your mind.
I think it's rubbish that someone can't access their life partner in hospital because they're not married, and support gay marriage based on that idea. But know there's a lot of people who:
- May have grown up with the idea of a bride and groom for most of their lives. Eich is 52.
- May think of marriage as a framework for raising children, and believe children have a right to a mother and father.
- May be closeted homosexuals who find homosexual behaviour confronting
Or a number of other reasons.
You're going to respond to this post with: "no, all those people are homophobes" - like Heilmann wrote about, you're looking for the box to put your angry comment in. I get it, you don't care about any arguments that disagree with your stance, you've concluded your thought process already.
But I'm writing this for our audience, who may put more thought in.
Do christians think jews have no right to worship? Do methodists believe anglicans have no right to worship? Of course not. They all worship the same god, and they all seem to have no problem allowing the other group to have their own definition of what worshiping god means without it diminishing what they believe worshiping god means.
So why does one persons definition of marriage take precedence over someone else's?
I don't know what you're attempting to say with your third point, but then I don't think you've properly thought anything through, as evidenced by your childish gambit of "You can't call me a homophobe because I said you can't".
If you think it's ok to deny same sex couples the opportunity to marry, then you're a homophobe. Regardless of wether you argument against it is in support of some other persons beliefs.
Democracy.
> I don't think you've properly thought anything through, as evidenced by your childish gambit of "You can't call me a homophobe because I said you can't".
Do you genuinely think I said that, or an equivalent, are you trolling, or are you just so angry you want to lash out at someone, like Heilmann mentioned in the article?
I cannot imagine how anyone would call someone in favour of gay marriage a homophobe simply because they can see the other side of the argument. So no, I don't really feel much need to 'defend myself', anybody attacking me from that point of view would obviously not be thinking rationally.
I think you're so angry you didn't even realise I share your stand on the matter.
Which is as much of a problem as what happened to Brendan Eich.
"If you think some people have less rights than other people just because of the way they were born, then you're a bad person."
Careful with that; all it would take is some new research on sexuality and sexual orientations to completely undermine that point.
Some people have more pubic hair than others. We have to wait until puberty before we know which people will have lots of pubic hair and which ones wont. But by your logic, there's some external force that occurs during childhood that will determine how much pubic hair a person will have. You'd be an idiot to think that way.
The argument that some traits are influenced by socialization does not imply that all traits are influenced by socialization; your second paragraph is just inane.
Honestly not sure how you could read what I wrote and pick that up. It's the opposite of what I said.
You didn't provide the studies you base your opinion on, so I have no way to know if your claim that the two have been linked is true.
This turns out not to be the case, as shown by this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11501300
Am I going mad? Is the whole tech community homophobic? That is an outright lie.
The National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS) 1.51% of the population of the US identify as GLBT, whereas other studies put this figure as high as 8%. However, statistics for people abused in childhood are significantly higher that this, with reliable estimates given for child sexual abuse to be 16% for males and 27% for females in the USA (NRCCSA, 1994).
Therefore, if there is a causal link between childhood sexual abuse and identifying as GLBT later in life, then why aren’t the figures for the number of GLBT people in the population reflected by the abuse statistics? There are significantly more cases of sexual abuse than there are people that identify as GLBT (Macmillan, 1997), and furthermore, the vast majority of persons sexually abused as children are heterosexual (Keith, 1991).
In addition to this, virtually all statistics agree that females are more likely to be sexually abused in childhood than males are - and yet, and yet there are proportionally more men that identify as being gay than there are women who identify as lesbian (Hite, 1991; Janus, 1993, Jefferson, 2001).
It is not true. Where the hell are you getting all this nonsense from?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2009/06/05/a...
If marriage were a right, why are we denying it to so many groups - not only gays, but polygamists and relatives?
Also, do not equate racism and interracial marriages with homosexual marriages. The former is just a matter of skin color - a black man and a white man are the same. If we go by the racist logic, it would be OK to deny a tanned white man marrying a pale white woman.
Homosexual marriage is a whole other matter and a lot of people don't know where they stand. If you want the public to support your cause, no matter what it is, it would be wise to be positive, firm and unemotional. I am sure the media sh*tstorm that hit B.Eich has affected a number of people and undoubtedly turned some of them away from pro LGBT causes.
Polygamists are entitled to get married. You can't be a polygamist if you're not married. Everyone who has the right to get married has the right to be married to one other person at a time. Polygamists included.
As for relatives, they're free to marry people who are not close blood relatives for solid biological reasons that are well defined and well understood. You strain your argument to the point of ludicrousness to suggest anyone should be ok with close blood relatives marrying. Adopted siblings would be free to get married. A man would be free to marry his adopted mother. As abhorrent as that may sound to any people reading this (adopted or otherwise), the law isn't that you can't marry relatives, it that there are specific kinds of relatives you are not allowed to marry.
Also, do not equate racism and interracial marriages with homosexual marriages. The former is just a matter of skin color - a black man and a white man are the same. If we go by the racist logic, it would be OK to deny a tanned white man marrying a pale white woman.
What on earth are you talking 'bout willis? Are you saying that gay men are different to straight men? Because if that's what you think, then you are, without a shadow of a doubt, a fully qualified homophobe. In fact, you could get a job teaching homophobia at the international college for cunts.
If you want the public to support your cause
I don't care one jot wether the public support it or not. They sure as hell didn't support equal rights for black people. Where would black people in america be now if they had to wait for the white man to acknowledge their rights? This stuff isn't up for debate, this is the way the world is going to be wether you like it or not. If you think the world is waiting for you to say, "it's OK, gay people can have rights, I'll allow it", then you're delusional.
Also, there's a fundamental difference between the two views you juxtaposed. One suppresses the freedom of others, while the other promotes it. You can't really be intolerant by being against intolerance.
I'm pretty sure religious people can be intolerant of gay people who are intolerant of religious people.
-or-
Gay people can be intolerant of religious people who are intolerant of gay marriage.
I, for one, have no tolerance for all this intolerance.
If Eich hadn't been in a position where his views could adversely affect Mozilla employees (as he hadn't up until a few weeks ago) there would have been no problem (as there wasn't up until a few weeks ago).
I haven't made up my mind whether Mozilla should have fired Brendan.
[1] One of those is hate crimes against certain classes of people.
And going the other way, to something a bit broader/more mainstream, say he donated to the Republican Party. Ok to ostracize him?
To me it seems like people have some kind of dividing line that's not cut and dried, possibly depending on their own beliefs.
I see you are fairly new here: something that sets HN apart from other corners of the internet is that generally, we try and be tolerant, and give other people the benefit of the doubt. Snarky one liners are not always looked on very positively.
Naturally, there are heated discussions and these ideals don't always hold true, but one of the guiding principles here is to pretend you are talking to someone in person and think about how that would guide your interaction with them.
His poor response didn't help: "if you disagree with me you're oppressing the poor Indonesians who don't have a mouthpiece!". What an asshole.
The fact is, donating to support prop 8 is bigotry in and of itself. Many have said no one experienced overt discrimination, but all that really means is that he wasn't bigoted to the victims' faces, he quietly donated to a cause with the intent of stripping people he calls his friends of their rights. He apologized for hurting his LGBT friends, but stops short of actually apologizing and then justifies his beliefs with those of a 3rd world country.
Free speech has nothing to do with this, this is someone whose actions many people, both inside and outside of the organization, found incompatible with what they saw as Mozilla's values, and who can blame them?
Tl;dr opposing gay marriage is widely seen as a despicable and regressive cause that many people do not want to associate with
I can blame them. Mozilla makes a web browser. Gay marriage has nothing to do with Mozilla's mission or with the political issues Mozilla has to deal with as part of its mission. I could understand the uproar if Eich had donated to a "ban free software" cause, but that is not what happened.
You're right, this is not about free speech. Eich was not punished for what he said, he was punished for what he thought. The donation is irrelevant here, other than the fact that it revealed Eich's beliefs. There would be just as much anger and vitriol if instead of a donation someone revealed that Eich had voted in favor of proposition 8.
As an executive at Mozilla, Eich forced the organization to take a stance on the issue by donating.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A_same-sex_marriage_c...
They have decided that they do more than "make a web browser" and deal the political issues around that topic. They want to associate themselves not just with "don't be evil" but actually "doing good."
This is an advantage, because people will volunteer time to Mozilla in order to do good. This is a disadvantage when different people have different ideas of what "doing good" means. Which I think is the source of the commotion here.
Surely you don't believe that the right of free speech means that people can never call for a boycott or participate in a picket when they disagree with the actions of an organization, or owners and employees thereof? The rights of speech and assembly are equally valued in the first amendment, with a long history in the US.
So far no one has been able to tell me how this is anything other than a successful boycott action by those opposed to Eich as a CEO.
But one can also appeal to a more general principle of free speech, which is ultimately what many people are doing. Scott Alexander has useful thoughts on this topic: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/29/the-spirit-of-the-first...
"A good response to an argument is one that addresses an idea; a bad argument is one that silences it."
The gay activists here are attempting to do the latter. It's no different from assorted people attacking Kathy Sierra [1] or Scooby1961 [2], except of course that we happen to like Sierra and Scooby's opinions.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Sierra#Harassment [2] Scooby is probably less familiar to the HN crowd, he's a bodybuilder/fitness guru who was doxxed by 4chan for no apparent reason. http://newmediarockstars.com/2013/07/4chan-bullies-fitness-g...
As your own [1] points out, "Robert Scoble ... temporarily suspended their blogs in a show of support for Sierra." By your appeal to a "general principle of free speech", you surely must chastise Scoble's actions.
It's also a false appeal, because free speech does not stand alone, not even in the first amendment. The amendment lists several other rights, including the right to assembly, which protects freedom of association. We have a right to boycott. We have a right to picket. We have a right to call on others to participate in the boycott and picket. Those are free speech rights.
We have a right to quit a company, or stop volunteering for a company, if we don't like what it does. OKCupid has the right to prevent Firefox users from connecting to their site. These are parts of the freedom of association.
See http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/ for the importance of freedom of association when talking about freedom of speech.
> Yet people often confuse these categories. It's one of the fundamental errors of free speech analysis that I like to write about the most. ... The foundation of "witch hunt" rhetoric is the notion that some free speech (say, Pax's) is acceptable, and other free speech (say, the speech of people criticizing and ridiculing Pax and his employer) is not. You can try to find a coherent or principled way to reconcile that, but you will fail."
I don't chastise Scoble using his blog to express his opinions. Nor have I called for anyone curtailing the freedom of association.
I'm merely calling out the gay activist movement as being a bunch of anti-intellectual jerks who want to suppress speech they dislike and attack their opponents. Kind of like the non-violent people attacking Kathy Sierra, Scooby, or the Hollywood system that created the blacklist.
And suppose unicorns had wings. You made a comparison and said they were equivalent. I showed they aren't equivalent. Now you want to compare a real-world event to a fictional alternative? Balderdash. And you're complaining about things being 'anti-intellectual'?
How is this action against Eich as CEO anything different than a call for boycott, a boycott, and picketing?
BTW, the Hollywood blacklist was effective because of state and national government involvement since the '20s. The blacklist only started after the House Un-American Activities Committee conviction of the "Hollywood Ten" on contempt of Congress charges for refusing to answer some questions by committee members.
If you're going to make that comparison, where's the heavy hand of government in this boycott against Eich as CEO?
For the record, I support that 12,000 Southern Baptists can call for and carry out a boycott of Disney-owned companies because they don't like that Disney has "Gay Days". I don't support the boycott, and I disagree with the premises which underlie it, but I support their right to free speech and assembly.
Just like I support the rights of free speech and assembly of those opposed to Eich as CEO to call for and carry out a boycott of Mozilla products.
P.S. I checked my memory regarding Sierra. It was specifically those threats of violence which "forced her to cancel a public appearance and suspend her blog". As she wrote, "I have cancelled all speaking engagements. I am afraid to leave my yard, I will never feel the same. I will never be the same." So your fictional world where she received no threats of violence would have been a very different world, and one we can't reasonably probe through hypotheticals.
Yes - I'm attempting to figure out what principle is being applied. As a result, I'm trying to find real or hypothetical cases as close to the dividing line of that principle as possible.
So again, I ask: are legal attacks (e.g., photoshopping someone's head onto a porn star's body, releasing someone's address, encouraging people to shun them) without threats of violence something we should accept?
Perhaps opponents of sexual promiscuity can create a registry of the name, photo, address and preferred sexual position of promiscuous women? And of course, list the employer's phone number of such women, and encourage people to call and advocate for firing her. If you find one particular act I described unacceptable but all the others acceptable (e.g., publishing favorite sexual position is ok but employers phone number is not), please explain why.
Again, let me reiterate that I'm not asking whether this violates the US constitution. I explicitly stated in my first post that it doesn't. I'm asking whether we should accept it when people engage in such actions.
Consider your hypothetical about "opponents of sexual promiscuity". It's reminds me of the real-world situation of the American Coalition of Life Activists, who posted pictures, addresses, etc. of doctors who would carry out abortions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#Physicia... . "In an en banc rehearing, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the ACLA could be held liable in damages because the website made a threat unprotected by the First Amendment." (Quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Coalition_of_Life_Acti... )
Your example of getting multiple people to call the employer and advocate dismissal likely falls under misdemeanor harassment. Here's an example of one such law: http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/13/02921.htm .
In general I support the right of private person X to call for others to shun person Y. Don't you? That doesn't mean I can't nor shouldn't shun person X in turn.
The photoshopping example may count as libel or criminal defamation. Without actual details, it's hard to say anything for certain. This is why hypotheticals are lousy.
"I'm asking whether we should accept it when people engage in such actions."
No. The underlying premise is silly. Of course you could/should protest. Write HN comments. Blog about it. Boycott. Picket in front of Mozilla's offices. Do whatever you want (within the bounds of law) if you don't like what others are doing. Why would you have to accept it?
I fully support that people can boycott Mozilla for selecting Eich as CEO.
I fully support that people can boycott Mozilla now that Eich is not CEO, and complain that Eich was forced out by a witch hunt. I just wish they would explain how "witch hunt" is different than "boycott and picketing".
I find this whole thing troubling because it's an attempt at suppressing ideas. I always found the movement intellectually vacuous (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7537168). But now they seem to be demonstrating a fear of rational arguments and simply attack those who disagree. I find that a bit scary.
Any more than boycotting Coors because of the anti-immigration policies of the Coors family suppresses ideas.
Any more than boycotting Disney because of its support for Gay Days suppresses ideas.
Any more than disinvestment of South African goods suppressed the idea of apartheid.
It comes across like you think every boycott is an attempt at suppressing an idea. If that's what you believe, then know that I stand with the oppressors.
Otherwise, is there any boycott you like which was done for social or political reasons and which didn't somehow "suppress ideas"?
By "demonstrating a fear of rational arguments and simply attack those who disagree".
More in general, can't all social or political boycotts, ranging from the boycott against Boycott and absentee landownership, to the Indian boycott of British goods and British colonialism, to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and race discrimination, to the anti-apartheid boycott, to the US boycott of Cuban goods be interpreted as "suppressing" a disliked idea?
If so, then I can understand how someone who uses that definition of "suppress" can object to any social or political boycott. While I do support the right to boycott, as part of the right to free association, so I don't have the same definition.
Many of them are in fact attempts to suppress ideas they dislike. Not all.
For example, if I boycott Cuban goods, I'm boycotting the people currently in control of Cuba for their actions. If I boycott opponents of the embargo I'm attempting to suppress ideas.
I object far less to the former than the latter. But I admit, I don't fully understand this issue, which is why I'm asking questions to people who claim certainty.
You can say that it's actually boycotting them for specific actions, and not for the general expression of ideas. That seems like a weak distinction - "faith without works is dead". Ideas, without the ability to act on those ideas, have no power or influence. They are dead.
Your counter-example, where you "boycott opponents of the embargo", is hard for me to understand without an example. An opponent of the embargo might buy and import a Cuban cigar, in order to protest the embargo. That's an action. Under your action/idea distinction, it's therefore okay for me to boycott that person's action, no?
Going back to Eich, Eich did a specific action - donate money to a political cause. That action is the prime, and really only, stated reason for opposition to Eich as CEO.
Under your action/idea distinction, don't you find that perfectly acceptable? OKCupid isn't suppressing an idea, only boycotting someone for a specific action.
I asked if there was a social or political boycott which you agree with. I'm trying to get a sense of if your objection is to boycotts in principle. You mentioned the Cuban embargo, but I can't tell if you support it, and you haven't said why you support it - that is, which actions/ideas you are against.
To take it to an extreme, the First Amendment wouldn't mean much if every single individual in society ostracized you for something you said. It would be small comfort that you weren't imprisoned even though you could no longer work, find shelter, eat, etc.
We are certainly free to call for boycotts and resignations, but we should use that freedom very, very carefully. That's how I saw it - I was often frustrated by the very many posts (not so much on HN) that essentially equated free speech totally with the First Amendment and then noted that it only protects you from censorship by the government. Of course! That's not what the argument is. Freedom of speech is enshrined in the First Amendment to protect us from government overreach, but that doesn't mean threats to free speech come solely from the government.
Nor do I think that protections from anything but the government should be enshrined in law - you couldn't do so without threatening freedom of speech and association, because all the speech, for and against Eich, was everyone's right. But in an ideal society I would hope for strong social norms that reserve such speech for truly outrageous and heinous behavior.
Of course, it is clearly the case that some people regard Eich's donation as truly outrageous and heinous (rather than just deeply wrong, discriminatory, etc), but that's a different debate.
Can I be a racist if I'm a CEO? Am I free from criticism for my horrible beliefs just because I run an organisation that people like? Does donating $1000 to a movement that campaigns to take rights away form black people have any reflection on me? Can I be trusted to not let my world view have any effect on my work?
Can a cop be a homophobe, or a racist, and still be trusted to do their job without letting their world view interfere with the application of the law?
I'm genuinely sickened by the people here on HN clamouring to pardon Eich and blame those with a strong moral compass for the downfall he inflicted on himself.
I'm pro LGBT and I think this is a loss for the cause. I'm pro LGBT because I don't think that people should get persecuted for being different. I want to promote peace, tolerance and compassion. Bullying someone into stepping down from his role is contrary to that belief.
Do you really think that Eich staying in his post would have made a difference to the LGBT cause ?
In your mind, is being against interracial marriage just an opinion people shouldn't be held to account for... or like me, would you say "of course fire the racist asshole".
I believe people should be held publicly accountable for their actions, not their thoughts/opinions, no matter how strongly I may disagree with their ideas. I wouldn't be too worried about a CEO of Mozilla who had at some point contributed $1000 to a group trying to stop interracial- (or gay-, or plural-, or cats-and-dogs-) marriage by itself, if it were the person's own money. There are benign reasons a person may support such views, however misguided they may be, without being motivated by hate. So nothing in that contribution alone to makes me suspect the person would behave unfairly in the workplace towards the group of people supporting such marriage or trying to be married. To bring it back from the thought experiment to the current situation, I'm pretty sure a lot of people worked with Brendan at Mozilla, and I haven't heard of anyone coming forward with complaints of homophobia against him after working with/for him... so yeah.
So I guess we simply disagree on this issue.
If it were 1875, and if by "fine", you mean fine with the donor becoming a CEO rather than fine with them as a person, then I'd be fine with it. Change that to 2014 and I would not be fine with it.
These judgements need to be made in context of the times. I find it hard to fault individuals for thinking like and acting in accord with the large majority of their contemporaries, even if I think the majority is not taking the right position.
61% of young Republican leaning voters support marriage equality, the issue is over, just waiting out those who haven't yet realized this is no longer a debate, like Eich, to catch up.
But I'm not going to judge someone based on a single thing. Who am I to say that Eich is homophobic based on a single variable ? I don't know that person. The only person qualified to say something are the ones working with him, all the rest is noise and disrespectful.
It's tragic in some way. The LGBT movement is trying to raise awareness by fighting against prejudice. Because you're gay/lesbian/... people will expect you to behave in certain ways. And it hurts because you're denied of just being a human and yourself. And now Eich has been judged with prejudice. I don't this it's fair. People place him into the anti-gay camp and so by definition he becomes all the wrongs that this group represents and nothing rational comes out of this.
Also who are we to take justice into our own hands ? This feels very wrong to me. Going back to the dark ages, just declare someone anti-gay and make him burn. I understand that it's not possible to be impartial on every subject but isn't it possible to elevate ourselves above that ?
I don't think people unfairly ascribed a perspective to him. He is against marriage equality. He got called out for it, and driven out of town.
And again, as external people who don't know anything about the person we can only have a simplistic view of him. And judging him on this is also a prejudice.
It isn't so much about the specifics of gay marriage, or Eich's donation, or him losing his job because of his opinions.
The real issue is hypocrisy, contradiction and double-standards.
We've seen one group (in this case the pro-gay-marriage crowd) act in a way towards others (Eich and the anti-gay-marriage crowd) that the first group would think is absolutely abhorrent were they the target, yet they consider perfectly acceptable when they direct it towards others.
On one hand, we've seen arguments like, "There is no right to free speech without consequences." and, "he had views that the community was overwhelmingly against" used in this very submission's discussion to justify Eich losing his job merely for expressing an opinion that may be construed as against gay marriage.
Yet imagine the uproar if somebody lost his or her job for merely expressing an opinion in favor of gay marriage, and those exact same arguments were used to justify it.
It's difficult to take people seriously when they claim to support "equality" and "tolerance", or when they claim to be against "discrimination", yet they act in a way that's completely contradictory to all of those ideals.
If one group of people is going to hold another group of people to a certain set of standards, they really should make sure that they're willing to live by that exact same set of standards, too.
What Eich did was not illegal. It was disagreeable to many. But tolerant people would chose instead to strive the more for their position without directly attacking him and his career. That is what the intolerant do. Intolerance says "I disagree with your actions and your thoughts therefore I must prevent you from having any power or influence in our society." Tolerance says, "I disagree with your thoughts and actions, therefore I will work to persuade you otherwise. Failing that I will find a way to coexist with you, despite our disagreements. We will build a society that that respects the differences, and protects the weak from abuse by the strong, regardless of their beliefs."
No one expects Eich to get married - he wanted to prevent other people from getting married because they are gay.
His personal actions were not illegal, but the movement he supported (banning same sex marriage) was deemed to be unconstitutional.
> We've seen one group (in this case the pro-gay-marriage crowd) act in a way towards others
Who exaclty? Which crowds? Because from where I'm looking it looks like people in the Mozilla organisation were responsible for this.
> If one group of people is going to hold another group of people to a certain set of standards, they really should make sure that they're willing to live by that exact same set of standards, too.
No. Society as a whole decides who's in, who's out. For centuries the gays were out and all the same sex marriage opponents were fine with that. Now the tides have turned and the homophobes are out. And good riddance because we lost some good people under the old tyranny.
Not everyone on this side of the argument is a tree hugging vegan liberal who thinks everyone should get along and form a consensus. I'm personally little more than an angry lump with fists and a strong sense of right and wrong. Appealing to some sense of balance you think I should have is a non starter. Show me a point in history where society was balanced and then we'll talk. I'm just hoping the people who hate unconditionally have to live under the tyranny of those who believe in real world fairness and real world equality.
That's not fully correct. Equality usually extends to religion, and people have some control over which religion and church they belong to. In the US, veteran status is also a protected class, even though membership in the military is voluntary. Others say that single and married employees should be treated the same, even though people have some say over their marriage status.
I think it's not a good idea to focus on the "no control over" aspect in arguments concerning homosexuality since some believe that homosexuals choose to be that way, and because equality doesn't depend only on intrinsic attributes.
The same holds true here. Homophobic is as homophobic does.
Being in opposition to same-sex marriage does not make one a homophobe (even some gays are against it).
What's does the "even some gays are against it" mean?
A position against SSM does not imply homophobia because it is not necessarily based on hatred or aversion towards homosexuals. For instance, there is no justification in calling Eich a homophobe.
What bothers me is a tendency of LGBT activists to put a homophobe label on everyone with an opinion they do not like. That is a witch hunt.
Just another witch hunt.
His donation has been well known for years, and Mozilla has had no apparent problem hiring or keeping gay developers even through he held an executive position and had massive influence there. Given that, and the fact that there have been gay Mozilla employees who supported his appointment to CEO, it seems unlikely that Mozilla would no longer be able to attract gay people.
With that permanently at the back of our minds, how can we ever trust his actions towards others are "fair and unbiased"?
The only way to ensure any equality in this situation would be to have a committee review his every action, which undermines his role as CEO.
This is a classic case of your prior actions coming to bite you in the ass later in life. Which is why you probably shouldn't post photos of you smoking pot, videos of you speeding in your moms car - or anything else thats reckless we do in our youth.
Seriously? A rich old white guy has a lot of newfound free time. Who cares?
Life must be so rough for Brendan Eich right now. Wow, maybe he feels like a transgender person does every day!
What is wrong with people? We should respect his political opinion? Bull-fucking-shit. His political opinion just adds suffering to already shitty lives. The first thing I ever did after getting a credit card was donate to Mozilla. That's how much I like that organization. I can never digest the fact that he became a CEO.
I waited to see if he had changed his opinion. All I wanted to hear from his mouth was, "I am sorry that I have hurt many LGBT people by donating to prop 8. I made a mistake." He never said that. Deep down he still considers us as subhumans. I am very sure that he would be a great CEO. But If he were the CEO, Mozilla as an organization has let me down.
Sorry for bad English