5 ms·

The Brendan Eich situation is really interesting. I've personally cited it as a gross overreach into his personal life. But it has been really fruitful to play

The Brendan Eich situation is really interesting. I've personally cited it as a gross overreach into his personal life. But it has been really fruitful to play out scenarios with it and explore my own ethics system, perhaps exposing some gaps. I personally tend to break conservatively in my views, but I would be equally outraged if a liberal were fired for supporting, say, communist revolution. I certainly understand why people who hold certain views would want that person fired, but I have no problem separating that from their work. I wouldn't want them running my country, but Mozilla is fine. I ultimately arrived at the outcome that in order to be consistent, I don't think it's OK for any _position_ someone takes to be considered for work performance. Actions, sure, but a position must have absolute freedom. So, if my CEO were to consider people who vote for republicans subhuman (not an entirely unlikely scenario today), but otherwise conducted themselves fairly, I'd be OK with it. So, did Eich take a position, or an action? Are you really allowed to have a position if you aren't allowed to support it? I'll say action, despite my bias urging me to say position. Was this action taken to support his desire to preserve something, or to deny someone else of something? If you're one of the people impacted by this action, does it matter? These questions make it easy to see the tough position Mozilla was in. I'm not sure what conclusion I'd have reached in their shoes, despite my from-the-hip decision that he did nothing wrong.

Toboe 9y ago
>So, if my CEO were to consider people who vote for republicans subhuman (not an entirely unlikely scenario today), but otherwise conducted themselves fairly, I'd be OK with it. So, lets pretend you work for Mozilla, you like the mission statement* and seriously believe in it/that your work is helping that cause. You also think it is a relevant part of your branding. You really wouldn't have a problem with your CEO saying repub voters are subhuman? No clash between "open and accessible to all" and "subhuman"? You wouldn't be upset at that violation of the creed/mission statement? You wouldn't think it to be harmful to your companies branding? (And therefore to your company) You wouldn't think it harmful to the "team spirit"/motivation? I find that surprising, to be honest. ("Reason to fire" questions aside) * "Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all. An Internet that truly puts people first, where individuals can shape their own experience and are empowered, safe and independent."[1] [1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/
- menacingly 9y ago
  No. It's too difficult to get into disagreements that are essentially arguing over the definitions of terms. You just shouldn't police beliefs, period. They wouldn't say they consider republicans subhumans anyway, they'd find some existing objectionable term and rationalize the expansion of that to include mainstream republican views.
  - ABCLAW 9y ago
    Okay, not the poster above, but lets get you a more concrete example: You are the CEO of Bread Inc. You make bread. You sell bread. As the CEO of Bread Inc., you make statements in the public about bread being terrible, that no one should eat it, and how you're only selling it because you like taking money from carb-loving hyper-idiots. Would you consider removal from your post as justified in that situation?
    - menacingly 9y ago
      This model, like nearly all of them, loses many details of reality in order to be satisfying. Of course that CEO is working counter to his organization's goals. That's the perfect cleanliness of having organizational goals that are not subject to the religion, decade, loneliness, or stomach contents of the person currently interpreting them. If your "mission" is nearly unusable as a mission, in that probably even the people in your organization can't uniformly agree on its application, the model breaks down. That's what you signed up for with fundamentally subjective pursuits. So, if the CEO of Freedom, Inc said she hates freedom, that's bad optics and fire-able. If she applies her understanding of freedom in a way I don't agree with, that's a tough shit moment for me. And these are the situations we debate.
      - ABCLAW 9y ago
        Sure. That's why it's a model. It is used to isolate an element of the factual situation for analysis. In this case, you concede the point that if what a CEO does causes bad optics, that is potentially fireable. To loop this back to the parent comment, this means sustaining an objection to Eich's firing, you would need to conclude that what Eich did was bad optics. I hope you recognize that this position is contradictory with your previous statement: "You just shouldn't police beliefs, period."
matt4077 9y ago
There's no difference between an "action" and "taking a position". If speech were meaningless, had no effect on peoples' lives–why would anybody care about free speech?
- cryptonector 9y ago
  There is clearly a distinction that can be made, and arguably making it has great value. If speech is either not distinguished, or is indistinguishable from action, then there can be no free speech... or else initiating violence could not be a crime. It could get worse too. You could end up with no free speech and with initiation of violence by elites being legal or effectively legal. These cannot be desirable outcomes! Of course, if you don't value free speech at all, then you might not see a problem with these outcomes. The distinction is obvious: you don't have to listen to a speaker, but you don't get a choice if they throw a punch your way. The distinction is about freedom on your part. That said, we're all constrained in what we can say because we cannot stop others from judging us based on our speech, then acting on their judgements. Imagine a CEO who never once behaves inappropriately at work, but on social media says that they have no problem with what Weinstein did (for example). Now how can subordinates not feel uncomfortable in that CEO's presence? Maybe we should say "tough", but real damage will have been done (to the company's brand, to its culture, and so on). The board of directors surely would have a cause to replace the CEO. It is a fact of life that the higher one's social position, the more constrained (by the Overton window) one's speech is. But that's not the same as saying that speech is not distinguished from action. If there's an Overton window as to acceptable actions, it surely changes much more slowly than the Overton window for speech -- perhaps that's the real distinction to be made?
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
It's worth noting that opposing gay marriage is not substantially different than opposing any other sort of human rights. Would you have been fine with Brendan Eich donating in support of an anti-miscegenation law, or funding an effort to revoke women's suffrage? If so, that's at least consistent, and I suppose I can respect that. But too many people acted like gay rights are just a minor thing, not worth getting fussed about, compared to other human rights.

Toboe 9y ago

>So, if my CEO were to consider people who vote for republicans subhuman (not an entirely unlikely scenario today), but otherwise conducted themselves fairly, I'd be OK with it. So, lets pretend you work for Mozilla, you like the mission statement* and seriously believe in it/that your work is helping that cause. You also think it is a relevant part of your branding. You really wouldn't have a problem with your CEO saying repub voters are subhuman? No clash between "open and accessible to all" and "subhuman"? You wouldn't be upset at that violation of the creed/mission statement? You wouldn't think it to be harmful to your companies branding? (And therefore to your company) You wouldn't think it harmful to the "team spirit"/motivation? I find that surprising, to be honest. ("Reason to fire" questions aside) * "Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all. An Internet that truly puts people first, where individuals can shape their own experience and are empowered, safe and independent."[1] [1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/

menacingly 9y ago
No. It's too difficult to get into disagreements that are essentially arguing over the definitions of terms. You just shouldn't police beliefs, period. They wouldn't say they consider republicans subhumans anyway, they'd find some existing objectionable term and rationalize the expansion of that to include mainstream republican views.
- ABCLAW 9y ago
  Okay, not the poster above, but lets get you a more concrete example: You are the CEO of Bread Inc. You make bread. You sell bread. As the CEO of Bread Inc., you make statements in the public about bread being terrible, that no one should eat it, and how you're only selling it because you like taking money from carb-loving hyper-idiots. Would you consider removal from your post as justified in that situation?
  - menacingly 9y ago
    This model, like nearly all of them, loses many details of reality in order to be satisfying. Of course that CEO is working counter to his organization's goals. That's the perfect cleanliness of having organizational goals that are not subject to the religion, decade, loneliness, or stomach contents of the person currently interpreting them. If your "mission" is nearly unusable as a mission, in that probably even the people in your organization can't uniformly agree on its application, the model breaks down. That's what you signed up for with fundamentally subjective pursuits. So, if the CEO of Freedom, Inc said she hates freedom, that's bad optics and fire-able. If she applies her understanding of freedom in a way I don't agree with, that's a tough shit moment for me. And these are the situations we debate.
    - ABCLAW 9y ago
      Sure. That's why it's a model. It is used to isolate an element of the factual situation for analysis. In this case, you concede the point that if what a CEO does causes bad optics, that is potentially fireable. To loop this back to the parent comment, this means sustaining an objection to Eich's firing, you would need to conclude that what Eich did was bad optics. I hope you recognize that this position is contradictory with your previous statement: "You just shouldn't police beliefs, period."

matt4077 9y ago

There's no difference between an "action" and "taking a position". If speech were meaningless, had no effect on peoples' lives–why would anybody care about free speech?

cryptonector 9y ago
There is clearly a distinction that can be made, and arguably making it has great value. If speech is either not distinguished, or is indistinguishable from action, then there can be no free speech... or else initiating violence could not be a crime. It could get worse too. You could end up with no free speech and with initiation of violence by elites being legal or effectively legal. These cannot be desirable outcomes! Of course, if you don't value free speech at all, then you might not see a problem with these outcomes. The distinction is obvious: you don't have to listen to a speaker, but you don't get a choice if they throw a punch your way. The distinction is about freedom on your part. That said, we're all constrained in what we can say because we cannot stop others from judging us based on our speech, then acting on their judgements. Imagine a CEO who never once behaves inappropriately at work, but on social media says that they have no problem with what Weinstein did (for example). Now how can subordinates not feel uncomfortable in that CEO's presence? Maybe we should say "tough", but real damage will have been done (to the company's brand, to its culture, and so on). The board of directors surely would have a cause to replace the CEO. It is a fact of life that the higher one's social position, the more constrained (by the Overton window) one's speech is. But that's not the same as saying that speech is not distinguished from action. If there's an Overton window as to acceptable actions, it surely changes much more slowly than the Overton window for speech -- perhaps that's the real distinction to be made?

PhasmaFelis 9y ago

It's worth noting that opposing gay marriage is not substantially different than opposing any other sort of human rights. Would you have been fine with Brendan Eich donating in support of an anti-miscegenation law, or funding an effort to revoke women's suffrage? If so, that's at least consistent, and I suppose I can respect that. But too many people acted like gay rights are just a minor thing, not worth getting fussed about, compared to other human rights.