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There exists no universal perspective of what is harmful and what is not. In fact, the notion that prohibiting gay marriage is harmful is nowhere near as univer

There exists no universal perspective of what is harmful and what is not. In fact, the notion that prohibiting gay marriage is harmful is nowhere near as universally accepted as your comment makes it out to be. Remember, California passed Proposition 8 (the proposition to ban gay marriage) with a 52% majority in 2008. Eich's views were in line with the majority. Mozilla sent the message that the majority of Californian voters are not welcome at their company.

BrendanEich 8y ago
Thanks. ICYMI, I've posted before on HN about false claims of unlawful harm that keep coming up. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14845509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14845509 as a source of links; also for the thread in which it lives, which unfortunately runs to high indentation level before trailing off. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14849041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14849041 is worth a read too on the topic of law and harm. Why does this matter now? Obviously it matters to lots of people (including here in these comments) who keep bringing me up, either to attack Mozilla or to attack me. You can search Twitter and try to keep score -- I think subtweeted sentiment has turned in my favor, but both sides keep going. My Mozilla exit is a prop in the culture wars, even though I never harmed anyone and am still doing what I've always done: working with people from all backgrounds, innovating via open source and open web tech against the big Internet superpowers who emerge and, due to network effects, end up operating against their users' interests. It's time to drop the prop and stop fighting. I don't expect everyone to listen, but I'll give it a shot here anyway: What we need most, on the Web and in the world, is unity against big threats such as surveillance capitalism. Apple and Brave block third party tracking by default. I hope Mozilla will do the same if its search revenue-share deals allow that. In the mean time, if you do choose to use Firefox, you can enable its optional Tracking Protection feature.
- hirundo 8y ago
  It isn't a choice between attention to your case and attention to substance. If people who respect you heed you, and those who don't, don't, then your name by default becomes a cultural prop for the auto-da-fe. That's worth countering with an occasional dissenting web post. I agree that our most critical current tech challenge, maybe on par with energy, curing disease or extraterrestrial diaspora, is the decentralization of internet services. You are peculiarly positioned to make a positive contribution to that. If the inquisition succeeds in quashing you they may accomplish genuine harm.
  - BrendanEich 8y ago
    I would not exaggerate either my role, or the power of any would-be Inquisition. People give mobs too much credit (to bootstrap power they do not merit) or blame (to excuse or cover up prior problems that can be seen through the mob's crowd, if you are willing to look).
dagenix 8y ago
The mere fact that a lot of people believe something, doesn't make it right or just. Justice is protecting the weak and the powerless from the powerful, not voting on who has human rights and who doesn't from week to week. Also, Prop 8 was in 2008. He was appointed to the CEO position in 2014 - 6 years later. He had every opportunity to apologize. Everyone makes mistakes, even big ones. But, he refused to apologize. He held the same opinion in 2014 that he did in 2008 and he made that clear. Why would he have the right to express his opinion on same-sex-marriage but Mozilla employees wouldn't have the right to express their opinion on his fitness to be their CEO?
- manfredo 8y ago
  And who gets to say what protections people should and should not receive? If a company genuinely believes that pro-LGBT views are harmful, then in your framework they're equally justified to fire employees that donated in opposition to Proposition 8. I think a lot of people forget that there's a world beyond liberal urban areas. Allowing it to become socially acceptable for companies to fire employees for their political views is also handing a tool for conservatives to suppress their employees' liberal politics. And again, it's sending the message that the majority of Californians are not welcome at the company. It makes Mozilla hypocrites whenever they purport to support diversity or inclusion, and gives credence to the idea that Silicon Valley companies are deliberately hostile towards non-liberals.
  - dagenix 8y ago
    You can't just throw your hands up in the air and say that because there is no absolute scale with which to measure human rights, everything goes. And I think its also not good policy to say that because an organization might* fire a pro-LGTB employee for their views, that everyone should be let to act however they want without consequences. In your view, what publicly expressed opinions would disqualify someone to be a CEO? Anything? Views on gay marriage shifted rapidly between 2008 and 2014. I think its wrong to assume that just because 52% of people voted to support Prop 8 in 2008 that 6 years later opinions hadn't changed. And lets not forget that Prop 8 was ruled unconstitutional in 2010 - 4 years before he was made CEO and continued to publicly support Prop 8. * - By "might", I mean "has happened a lot for a long time". LGTB people have faced discrimination for a long time for wanting to live their life in a way that harms literally no one. Anti-LGBT people facing consequences for their actions to discriminate against others in a way that benefits literally no one is a relatively recent occurrence.

BrendanEich 8y ago

Thanks. ICYMI, I've posted before on HN about false claims of unlawful harm that keep coming up. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14845509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14845509 as a source of links; also for the thread in which it lives, which unfortunately runs to high indentation level before trailing off. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14849041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14849041 is worth a read too on the topic of law and harm. Why does this matter now? Obviously it matters to lots of people (including here in these comments) who keep bringing me up, either to attack Mozilla or to attack me. You can search Twitter and try to keep score -- I think subtweeted sentiment has turned in my favor, but both sides keep going. My Mozilla exit is a prop in the culture wars, even though I never harmed anyone and am still doing what I've always done: working with people from all backgrounds, innovating via open source and open web tech against the big Internet superpowers who emerge and, due to network effects, end up operating against their users' interests. It's time to drop the prop and stop fighting. I don't expect everyone to listen, but I'll give it a shot here anyway: What we need most, on the Web and in the world, is unity against big threats such as surveillance capitalism. Apple and Brave block third party tracking by default. I hope Mozilla will do the same if its search revenue-share deals allow that. In the mean time, if you do choose to use Firefox, you can enable its optional Tracking Protection feature.

hirundo 8y ago
It isn't a choice between attention to your case and attention to substance. If people who respect you heed you, and those who don't, don't, then your name by default becomes a cultural prop for the auto-da-fe. That's worth countering with an occasional dissenting web post. I agree that our most critical current tech challenge, maybe on par with energy, curing disease or extraterrestrial diaspora, is the decentralization of internet services. You are peculiarly positioned to make a positive contribution to that. If the inquisition succeeds in quashing you they may accomplish genuine harm.
- BrendanEich 8y ago
  I would not exaggerate either my role, or the power of any would-be Inquisition. People give mobs too much credit (to bootstrap power they do not merit) or blame (to excuse or cover up prior problems that can be seen through the mob's crowd, if you are willing to look).

dagenix 8y ago

The mere fact that a lot of people believe something, doesn't make it right or just. Justice is protecting the weak and the powerless from the powerful, not voting on who has human rights and who doesn't from week to week. Also, Prop 8 was in 2008. He was appointed to the CEO position in 2014 - 6 years later. He had every opportunity to apologize. Everyone makes mistakes, even big ones. But, he refused to apologize. He held the same opinion in 2014 that he did in 2008 and he made that clear. Why would he have the right to express his opinion on same-sex-marriage but Mozilla employees wouldn't have the right to express their opinion on his fitness to be their CEO?

manfredo 8y ago
And who gets to say what protections people should and should not receive? If a company genuinely believes that pro-LGBT views are harmful, then in your framework they're equally justified to fire employees that donated in opposition to Proposition 8. I think a lot of people forget that there's a world beyond liberal urban areas. Allowing it to become socially acceptable for companies to fire employees for their political views is also handing a tool for conservatives to suppress their employees' liberal politics. And again, it's sending the message that the majority of Californians are not welcome at the company. It makes Mozilla hypocrites whenever they purport to support diversity or inclusion, and gives credence to the idea that Silicon Valley companies are deliberately hostile towards non-liberals.
- dagenix 8y ago
  You can't just throw your hands up in the air and say that because there is no absolute scale with which to measure human rights, everything goes. And I think its also not good policy to say that because an organization might* fire a pro-LGTB employee for their views, that everyone should be let to act however they want without consequences. In your view, what publicly expressed opinions would disqualify someone to be a CEO? Anything? Views on gay marriage shifted rapidly between 2008 and 2014. I think its wrong to assume that just because 52% of people voted to support Prop 8 in 2008 that 6 years later opinions hadn't changed. And lets not forget that Prop 8 was ruled unconstitutional in 2010 - 4 years before he was made CEO and continued to publicly support Prop 8. * - By "might", I mean "has happened a lot for a long time". LGTB people have faced discrimination for a long time for wanting to live their life in a way that harms literally no one. Anti-LGBT people facing consequences for their actions to discriminate against others in a way that benefits literally no one is a relatively recent occurrence.