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As a non-American, I find the recent US trend of publicly punishing high-ranking tech people for their private, legal political speech scary. (The previous exam

As a non-American, I find the recent US trend of publicly punishing high-ranking tech people for their private, legal political speech scary. (The previous example is Brandon Eich being forced to leave Mozilla.) The prospect of successful tech being filtered by the political opinions of its creators does not appeal.

dalke 10y ago
What do you think of the tendency of publicly punishing high-ranking politicians and government employees for their private, legal sexual behavior? For examples, the resignation of David Petraeus and the censure of Mark Sanford. Then there are the CEOs who are fired, err, "step down" for having an affair - which again, is entirely legal. For example, Ashley Madison's CEO Noel Biderman, and GE's CEO Jack Welch. Plagiarism is not illegal. (Copyright infringement is illegal, but it's possible to plagiarize without infringing on copyright.) What do you think of the trend in Germany of punishing high-ranking politicians for plagiarism in their published works? Because it seems to me that the US tech industry is not all that unusual. I suspect it's more that we know it better because we're tech people.
- danarmak 10y ago
  I favor strictly sticking to the law. The law is the explicit consensus of society on what is permissible. Everything else is personal opinion. If a person does something which is indisputably legal, in their private capacity, that should not be allowed (by the law) to affect their public standing or their job. Otherwise everyone will enforce their own morality and we'll end up with segregation. One company will censure employees for having affairs, another will censure them for being gay. That said, when it's the employer (or company board, commander-in-chief, etc.) who is censuring, they have a legal right to do so (up to the laws about firing without cause). It's different from public pressure demanding they be censured. Engaging in such pressure is of course legal (and properly so), but I think it's it's both unproductive and ethically wrong. Politicians are a special category: they are judged by voters on pretty much everything they do. People vote for them based on large part on their public personas, and if their private behavior is found to contradict their public statements, that's valid information for voters to act on. However, nobody was going to buy Oculus because of Luckey's persona or behavior; they're punishing the company not because the company is at fault but because it's a way to punish Luckey by proxy. Finally, I don't know how much the US tech industry is different. I have a feeling it's more polarized than European or (in my case) Israeli tech, simply because US politics tends to be more polarized. Regardless, as a techie, I both care more and can influence more the tech industry than any other, and I'm more upset by such behavior in the tech field. Especially since tech and open source has a standard (among others) of judging people by the quality of their work, and not by who they are. "Shut up and show me your code" - unless you're a Trump voter, in which case I don't want your pull request?
  - dalke 10y ago
    The law is a very blunt tool. I do not let it override my sense of morality. I see it more as a visible but incomplete and faulty consensus. I think "Shut up and show me your code" is another way to enforce a morality, and it ends up with a different form of segregation, expressed well be Alan Cooper's book "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum". I prefer egalitarianism over the false promises of meritocracy. As such, we have very different views of how the world works, much less should work. They cannot be resolved in HN comments.
stephenr 10y ago
When you're the ceo/founder of a reasonably well-known company and donate money to bigoted, racist, sexist/etc political causes, you need to expect some blowback from the community that knows your company. No one said these people can't have those opinions. People simply take action (i.e. saying they will boycott mozilla products/services) based on their opinions about the issues.
- danarmak 10y ago
  Do you want to live in a world where people don't dare to support political causes (even privately or in secret) because, if discovered, a constituency opposed to that cause can successfully demand they be punished? Even when the political cause they support is as mainstream as the official candidate of one of the two big parties, or one side of a public vote as in the case of Eich? Even if you personally oppose Trump, there are enough Trump supporters to boycott organizations whose leaders are known to donate to Hillary Clinton. The natural outcome of such boycotts is segregation - a VR company catering to Democrats, and a different VR company catering to Republicans. More concretely: you can boycott Oculus for the private actions of its CEO. And other people can boycott a local cafe because its owner is known to donate to Planned Parenthood or because they agreed to make a cake for a gay wedding. Do you prefer both things to happen, or neither? One of the key principles of democracy is freedom of political association. The usual saying is "I'll defend to the death your right to say it". Those who don't hold to this norm, apart from being IMO unjust to their political opponents, risk being on the losing side in their turn.
  - stephenr 10y ago
    When the two examples you have are a guy donating for a bigoted discriminatory and unconstitutional law, and a guy donating to a group supporting a racist, bigoted, sexist sociopath who wants to play mr president, it's not much of an argument. Even in the hypothetical: freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences of speech. I did say, no one says they cant do what they do, they just shouldn't be surprised when they get a reaction.
    - 10y ago

dalke 10y ago

What do you think of the tendency of publicly punishing high-ranking politicians and government employees for their private, legal sexual behavior? For examples, the resignation of David Petraeus and the censure of Mark Sanford. Then there are the CEOs who are fired, err, "step down" for having an affair - which again, is entirely legal. For example, Ashley Madison's CEO Noel Biderman, and GE's CEO Jack Welch. Plagiarism is not illegal. (Copyright infringement is illegal, but it's possible to plagiarize without infringing on copyright.) What do you think of the trend in Germany of punishing high-ranking politicians for plagiarism in their published works? Because it seems to me that the US tech industry is not all that unusual. I suspect it's more that we know it better because we're tech people.

danarmak 10y ago
I favor strictly sticking to the law. The law is the explicit consensus of society on what is permissible. Everything else is personal opinion. If a person does something which is indisputably legal, in their private capacity, that should not be allowed (by the law) to affect their public standing or their job. Otherwise everyone will enforce their own morality and we'll end up with segregation. One company will censure employees for having affairs, another will censure them for being gay. That said, when it's the employer (or company board, commander-in-chief, etc.) who is censuring, they have a legal right to do so (up to the laws about firing without cause). It's different from public pressure demanding they be censured. Engaging in such pressure is of course legal (and properly so), but I think it's it's both unproductive and ethically wrong. Politicians are a special category: they are judged by voters on pretty much everything they do. People vote for them based on large part on their public personas, and if their private behavior is found to contradict their public statements, that's valid information for voters to act on. However, nobody was going to buy Oculus because of Luckey's persona or behavior; they're punishing the company not because the company is at fault but because it's a way to punish Luckey by proxy. Finally, I don't know how much the US tech industry is different. I have a feeling it's more polarized than European or (in my case) Israeli tech, simply because US politics tends to be more polarized. Regardless, as a techie, I both care more and can influence more the tech industry than any other, and I'm more upset by such behavior in the tech field. Especially since tech and open source has a standard (among others) of judging people by the quality of their work, and not by who they are. "Shut up and show me your code" - unless you're a Trump voter, in which case I don't want your pull request?
- dalke 10y ago
  The law is a very blunt tool. I do not let it override my sense of morality. I see it more as a visible but incomplete and faulty consensus. I think "Shut up and show me your code" is another way to enforce a morality, and it ends up with a different form of segregation, expressed well be Alan Cooper's book "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum". I prefer egalitarianism over the false promises of meritocracy. As such, we have very different views of how the world works, much less should work. They cannot be resolved in HN comments.

stephenr 10y ago

When you're the ceo/founder of a reasonably well-known company and donate money to bigoted, racist, sexist/etc political causes, you need to expect some blowback from the community that knows your company. No one said these people can't have those opinions. People simply take action (i.e. saying they will boycott mozilla products/services) based on their opinions about the issues.

danarmak 10y ago
Do you want to live in a world where people don't dare to support political causes (even privately or in secret) because, if discovered, a constituency opposed to that cause can successfully demand they be punished? Even when the political cause they support is as mainstream as the official candidate of one of the two big parties, or one side of a public vote as in the case of Eich? Even if you personally oppose Trump, there are enough Trump supporters to boycott organizations whose leaders are known to donate to Hillary Clinton. The natural outcome of such boycotts is segregation - a VR company catering to Democrats, and a different VR company catering to Republicans. More concretely: you can boycott Oculus for the private actions of its CEO. And other people can boycott a local cafe because its owner is known to donate to Planned Parenthood or because they agreed to make a cake for a gay wedding. Do you prefer both things to happen, or neither? One of the key principles of democracy is freedom of political association. The usual saying is "I'll defend to the death your right to say it". Those who don't hold to this norm, apart from being IMO unjust to their political opponents, risk being on the losing side in their turn.
- stephenr 10y ago
  When the two examples you have are a guy donating for a bigoted discriminatory and unconstitutional law, and a guy donating to a group supporting a racist, bigoted, sexist sociopath who wants to play mr president, it's not much of an argument. Even in the hypothetical: freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences of speech. I did say, no one says they cant do what they do, they just shouldn't be surprised when they get a reaction.
  - 10y ago