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Have we all forgotten when Mozilla replaced the CTO with a long history of internet freedom work to replace him with a marketing director and the disaster that

Have we all forgotten when Mozilla replaced the CTO with a long history of internet freedom work to replace him with a marketing director and the disaster that followed? Are we going to keep trampling on all our freedoms in the name of ... freedom(?) and then blame it all on China? EDIT: I knew some people were going to try to spin it into something it wasn't.

Steltek 7y ago
Was that the same lover of freedom that campaigned to take away the freedom of others?
- fishtacos 7y ago
  People forget the context of the uproar and protests against Brendan. Indeed he was the lover of freedom that sent in political donations to take freedom away from others - namely, those not like him. It's interesting to see how people, especially champions of freedom of expression, can compartmentalize that mentality so easily and justify it to oneself. Those people deserve to be called out. Calling them out is also something freedom affords.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    By a careful examination of Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and atheism I can tell that a large number of people are spreading damaging mistruths about some of the most important aspects of life. Much more damaging than being wrong about gay marriage. We have to be able to compartmentalise what people are wrong about that affects their work and what they are wrong about that does not. It is distasteful to support someone who is obnoxiously wrong but their being excellent at what they do has to count for something. Dunno what the story is for this specific political spat at Mozilla; but compartmentalising "relevant to my work" and "irrelevant to my work" is a fundamental plank in the wobbly structure of civilised society. Even the most rabid will support some aspects of freedom and not others. Support compartmentalisation, even if in this case it meant he was the wrong man for the job and had to go.
    - erikpukinskis 7y ago
      If you want to be a leader of hundreds of people, different standards apply.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  If you think back to before gay marriage was accepted as a culturally obvious fact, some of the arguments against it involved hating gays, but others didn't. Without the ability to tell which beliefs actually motivated his donation, it is not possible to discern if he was against gays or not. (I'll refrain from giving any specific examples in order to avoid starting that debate again, but I think most of us can remember that time in fair detail.)
  - monocasa 7y ago
    There weren't good arguments though, it was a rehash of the same 'debate' forty years prior on whether people of different races should be allowed to get married.
    - cicero 7y ago
      Marriage throughout the ages is very much tied to the fact that it takes a man and a woman to conceive a child, and when a man and a woman have sex, they will likely conceive a child. Therefore, marriage was instituted to provide a stable home for such children. This is why sex outside of marriage was taboo since it could result in the conception of children that would not have a good home. Since "gay sex" cannot result in the conception of children, the marriage bond is not a necessary prerequisite, therefore "gay marriage" makes no sense in the context of the traditional understanding of marriage. However, many today have redefined marriage as a commitment between two people who love each other. Soon it will also be redefined to include numbers greater than two as well as animals. It is only with such a definition that gay marriage makes sense. There are those of us who think that such a redefinition of marriage weakens the strength of traditional marriage that is needed to build strong homes that are the best places for children to grow up in. Gay marriage is not the only culprit here. A far greater problem for families is rampant divorce. The debate about interracial marriage had two motivations, one of which was pure racism. However, there was also a concern about the welfare of the children of such unions because they might not be accepted by the race of either parents. (Watch the movie "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" with Sidney Poitier. [1]) This was a real problem and continues to some extent to this day, but it is getting better as people become less racist. 1: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061735/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061735/
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  Depends upon what freedoms we consider freedoms. Today, do you support any laws that would deny people what others may consider freedom? For example, supporting age limits on activities. If you support people under 18 being unable to vote, are you not supporting taking away their freedom to vote? Once you strip away the modern day cultural norms of what is acceptable freedoms and not, and begin to consider other arguments and social views as to what counts as freedom, you find most anyone out there fights to strip freedom from others. Sometimes under the guise of protecting them, but not always. The same people condemning this person from the freedoms he opposed likely support removing freedoms from others for ageist reasons.
soulofmischief 7y ago
Unfortunately no, I get reminded every single update when something else which has worked for fifteen years suddenly goes wrong. Mozilla has gutted themselves politically.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dang 7y ago
Surely not another flamewar about that. Would you please review the site guidelines, paying special attention to this one? "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190597 and marked it very off-topic.
- rjzzleep 7y ago
  If you look carefully the controversial discussion wasn't started by me but by the comment Steltek wrote below my post. I think you do owe me the courtesy of recognizing this and in that case detaching that comment might have been the right course of action instead of throwing threats towards me. It is relevant in the sense that in the sciences department (FOR NOW) we don't judge scientific discovery or papers by their ethnicity or political opinion, but rather on the basis of their scientific merit. Although this too seems to be quickly fading away, judging from the daily comments I'm seeing on my Facebook stream.
  - dang 7y ago
    I don't mean to pick on you personally, but it was clearly your comment that brought in the "unrelated controversy and generic tangent" that the site guidelines ask users to avoid. Steltek ought not to have stoked the flames, but the fate of the thread was already determined at that point, which is why phrase that guideline that way. I'm sorry you felt like I was throwing threats at you—definitely not how I want a comment like that to come across.
    - rjzzleep 7y ago
      Ok, I appreciate the clarification

Steltek 7y ago

Was that the same lover of freedom that campaigned to take away the freedom of others?

fishtacos 7y ago
People forget the context of the uproar and protests against Brendan. Indeed he was the lover of freedom that sent in political donations to take freedom away from others - namely, those not like him. It's interesting to see how people, especially champions of freedom of expression, can compartmentalize that mentality so easily and justify it to oneself. Those people deserve to be called out. Calling them out is also something freedom affords.
- roenxi 7y ago
  By a careful examination of Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and atheism I can tell that a large number of people are spreading damaging mistruths about some of the most important aspects of life. Much more damaging than being wrong about gay marriage. We have to be able to compartmentalise what people are wrong about that affects their work and what they are wrong about that does not. It is distasteful to support someone who is obnoxiously wrong but their being excellent at what they do has to count for something. Dunno what the story is for this specific political spat at Mozilla; but compartmentalising "relevant to my work" and "irrelevant to my work" is a fundamental plank in the wobbly structure of civilised society. Even the most rabid will support some aspects of freedom and not others. Support compartmentalisation, even if in this case it meant he was the wrong man for the job and had to go.
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    If you want to be a leader of hundreds of people, different standards apply.
whatshisface 7y ago
If you think back to before gay marriage was accepted as a culturally obvious fact, some of the arguments against it involved hating gays, but others didn't. Without the ability to tell which beliefs actually motivated his donation, it is not possible to discern if he was against gays or not. (I'll refrain from giving any specific examples in order to avoid starting that debate again, but I think most of us can remember that time in fair detail.)
- monocasa 7y ago
  There weren't good arguments though, it was a rehash of the same 'debate' forty years prior on whether people of different races should be allowed to get married.
  - cicero 7y ago
    Marriage throughout the ages is very much tied to the fact that it takes a man and a woman to conceive a child, and when a man and a woman have sex, they will likely conceive a child. Therefore, marriage was instituted to provide a stable home for such children. This is why sex outside of marriage was taboo since it could result in the conception of children that would not have a good home. Since "gay sex" cannot result in the conception of children, the marriage bond is not a necessary prerequisite, therefore "gay marriage" makes no sense in the context of the traditional understanding of marriage. However, many today have redefined marriage as a commitment between two people who love each other. Soon it will also be redefined to include numbers greater than two as well as animals. It is only with such a definition that gay marriage makes sense. There are those of us who think that such a redefinition of marriage weakens the strength of traditional marriage that is needed to build strong homes that are the best places for children to grow up in. Gay marriage is not the only culprit here. A far greater problem for families is rampant divorce. The debate about interracial marriage had two motivations, one of which was pure racism. However, there was also a concern about the welfare of the children of such unions because they might not be accepted by the race of either parents. (Watch the movie "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" with Sidney Poitier. [1]) This was a real problem and continues to some extent to this day, but it is getting better as people become less racist. 1: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061735/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061735/
SkyBelow 7y ago
Depends upon what freedoms we consider freedoms. Today, do you support any laws that would deny people what others may consider freedom? For example, supporting age limits on activities. If you support people under 18 being unable to vote, are you not supporting taking away their freedom to vote? Once you strip away the modern day cultural norms of what is acceptable freedoms and not, and begin to consider other arguments and social views as to what counts as freedom, you find most anyone out there fights to strip freedom from others. Sometimes under the guise of protecting them, but not always. The same people condemning this person from the freedoms he opposed likely support removing freedoms from others for ageist reasons.

soulofmischief 7y ago

Unfortunately no, I get reminded every single update when something else which has worked for fifteen years suddenly goes wrong. Mozilla has gutted themselves politically.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dang 7y ago

Surely not another flamewar about that. Would you please review the site guidelines, paying special attention to this one? "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190597 and marked it very off-topic.

rjzzleep 7y ago
If you look carefully the controversial discussion wasn't started by me but by the comment Steltek wrote below my post. I think you do owe me the courtesy of recognizing this and in that case detaching that comment might have been the right course of action instead of throwing threats towards me. It is relevant in the sense that in the sciences department (FOR NOW) we don't judge scientific discovery or papers by their ethnicity or political opinion, but rather on the basis of their scientific merit. Although this too seems to be quickly fading away, judging from the daily comments I'm seeing on my Facebook stream.
- dang 7y ago
  I don't mean to pick on you personally, but it was clearly your comment that brought in the "unrelated controversy and generic tangent" that the site guidelines ask users to avoid. Steltek ought not to have stoked the flames, but the fate of the thread was already determined at that point, which is why phrase that guideline that way. I'm sorry you felt like I was throwing threats at you—definitely not how I want a comment like that to come across.
  - rjzzleep 7y ago
    Ok, I appreciate the clarification