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I'm very sorry if I'm misinterpreting your first paragraph, but, to be clear- would you agree with the following statement? "I don't care if you aren't able to

I'm very sorry if I'm misinterpreting your first paragraph, but, to be clear- would you agree with the following statement? "I don't care if you aren't able to marry your partner, as long as it means there's maybe a better web browser." Because maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that seems to be what's implied. And - if that's the choice you make, well, fine. But it'd be nice to confirm that.

krick 6y ago
I would say you are not "misinterpreting" but rather "completely missing the point". Let's dissect your statement, "I don't care about {1}, as long as {2}" As I said in the second paragraph, I don't really see why would anybody be opposed to {1}. So it just so happens that I am pro-by-default, i.e. "pro, because why not", but I might have as well been strongly pro or strongly anti. I very well suspect there is a very good argument for anti-{1}, it's just that I've never heard of it, nor did I do much research on that topic. And if I do, I may end up falling into both strongly pro-{1} or strongly anti-{1} categories. The point is, that {1} is completely unrelated to {2}, so I can work on {2} together with somebody who has a polar beliefs to those I have on {1}, i.e. in both cases: - if I am strongly pro-{1} and he is strongly anti-{1} - if I am strongly anti-{1} and he is strongly pro-{1}
- XMPPwocky 6y ago
  Okay- that makes more sense, gotcha. So you'd be OK working with somebody on a project, regardless of their actions outside that project? I don't think I would. For example, if somebody liked to spend their time skinning small animals alive and posting the videos on YouTube, I don't think I'd accept a job at their company. That's just a bit too far for me! But if it's not for you- well, guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.
  - krick 6y ago
    I'd like to start slowly wrapping it up, but, ok, I'll answer this one too. I won't argue about fairness of comparing {not allowing same-sex marriage} to {skinning small animals alive}, but even in that case your analogy should be about "someone who was arguing back in 2008 for keeping skinning small animals alive legal" while you voted to make it illegal (note, that votes split almost 50/50 back then, BTW, so that's a lot of people you choose to never work with). And, since you asked, yes, I know for a fact that some people I work with (including both superiors and subordinates) have wildly different political opinions on some topics than I have. With some we never discuss it, with others I'm comfortable enough to argue about that and even laugh them off sometimes. More than that, even some of my friends have strong opinions on which we differ. And with some we may go into mountains, and tie into the same rope (which, if you are not familiar, kinda means "trusting our lives to each other", quite literally), and not hate each other 100% of the time, because of some of our political beliefs don't match. And if all of that is a problem to you, yeah, I totally can agree to disagree with you, I can even respect that, as long as your disagreement doesn't mean hunting people down, because their opinion doesn't match yours. Now with that I kinda have to disagree.
    - XMPPwocky 6y ago
      Do either your superiors or subordinates have disagreements on whether or not you should have human rights? I have no problem working professionally with somebody who says taxes should be lower, or who argues that renewable energy is a waste of money, or who supports charter schools or school vouchers, or all sorts of conservative ideas. I'd disagree strongly with them, mind you, but... I guess that's sort of a core part of it, ultimately. These are not dry political questions for me- they have a very real, immediate impact on my day-to-day life. > And if all of that is a problem to you, yeah, I totally can agree to disagree with you, I can even respect that, as long as your disagreement doesn't mean hunting people down, because their opinion doesn't match yours. Now with that I kinda have to disagree. I would also agree- although what do you mean "hunting people down?" Presumably not, uh, with bow and arrow. I would not hunt Brendan Eich for sport. I will, however, criticize people vocally- not for their opinions, but for their actions. Suppose I sent a letter to Mozilla's board - "I'm a queer person who uses Firefox and who contributes to other Mozilla products. The choice of Brendan Eich, who has contributed to find opposition to my human rights, as CEO makes me feel uncomfortable contributing further to Mozilla as an organization, and because of this I won't be giving my money or time to Mozilla while Eich is in charge of it. I urge you to reconsider your choice of leadership. Sincerely, (me)." Could you respect me after sending that letter? Is that valid criticism, speaking out? Is that free speech? Or am I just another woke bully?
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        You’re taking an uncharitable interpretation of the comments you’re responding to, and I suspect that this might be part of the reason why the author of those bowed out of the conversation. And because of this, I think you haven’t really done your position justice at all, because you think they’re attacking your freedom of speech but really their argument is not that. I think perhaps it might make a bit more sense if you replace “marriage rights” with something such as “right to life”, which might be easier to relate to. And to make it more even, let us replace Brendan Eich with one of those two-faced comic book serial killers who is a functioning successful part of society in the workplace but outside of it likes killing people. Nobody in particular, just people in general. Now the question posed is, if you had no idea if they were a serial killer, would you work with them? The answer to that is “of course”: you know no reason not to. However, this issue is slightly different, because by some means it has been revealed that he is in fact a serial killer, but somehow this isn’t strictly illegal or anything so he’s coming in to work anyways. At work he’s great but once you leave work you are concerned (in general, not because he’s going to target you in particular) that he may be waiting in your bedroom to kill you. Now we have a curious question of what we should do with this person. From a logical perspective, which is the one made in the comments you’re responding to, nothing should be done: removing him from his position doesn’t stop him from killing people, and if we do fire him we lose out on him entirely. I hope you can understand why someone might hold that position. And from that perspective, I think that they would likely respond to your letter with “you have every right to voice your criticisms, but I think you are being irrational because I cannot see how your letter asking Brendan Eich to be removed from his position helps your case because he can still privately donate all he wants regardless” (unless you in fact believe that he should not be able to hold employment at all and thus be unable to donate money because he is penniless.) On your side, I think the argument is now fairly obvious: in the situation I described, I know very many people who would be hesitant to work with such an individual. We’re human, we associate qualities of a person and color all their actions through that lens. While you say you would be happy working with people of the opinions you mentioned that supposedly don’t directly affect you, I would strongly suspect it would affect how you thought of them at least subconsciously. Really, I think the opposition you have against working with someone who does not support LGBT rights is just this except amplified to the point where you can no longer try to correct your biases for that person because of it affecting you personally. And I think there is probably a very real negative effect of people working with others who privately hold views they don’t agree with, because that subconscious tension is always there even though if you look at it “rationally” it should have nothing to do with your work. And really, in many cases we seem to consider it OK to get rid of people who make everyone around them feel or perform worse. Now, is that a valid reason to terminate someone? That’s exactly the argument here. Personally I tend to lean more towards “no” than most people would, I think. I am fortunate enough to not have anyone try to restrict my freedom of marriage or association to my knowledge, but I have worked with people who have never personally done anything to me but I have found out (usually after the fact, to be honest) that they hold fairly string views that I not only disagree with but I could consider attacking a category I might fit into (“people who defend freedom of speech of the alt-right should be punched”, “brown people are all H1Bs that take our jobs and we should send them back to their own country”). Notably, it was never an issue that I think I could measure impacting our working relationship, in many cases which I think I could prove for a fact because I didn’t know they held such views and they weren’t aware that I fit into the categories that they were talking about. And quite often I think we actually even did pretty well when we both were aware of this because it would just not come up in a working relationship. Would I work with them again? I think I would. I’ve come to realize that I personally have to separate people from their private (or private until solicited) opinions, because more often than not when I think I meet someone who shares my views on human rights they actually don’t and I’m just completely unaware. So for my own sanity I just have to separate them.
  - skissane 6y ago
    > For example, if somebody liked to spend their time skinning small animals alive and posting the videos on YouTube, I don't think I'd accept a job at their company. That's just a bit too far for me! Skinning animals alive for fun is a criminal offence in many jurisdictions (animal cruelty), and recognised as a symptom of mental illness (it is in the DSM-5 criteria for conduct disorder, and maybe other disorders too). By contrast, donating to a mainstream political campaign is not a crime, and is not recognised as a symptom of mental illness So I think the analogy you are trying to make here is a poor one
- foldr 6y ago
  By your own admission, then, you don't know much about this topic. It's frustrating for gay people to have these discussions with people who just don't take homophobia seriously as a problem. Imagine if you had written all of this vague non-commital verbiage about support/opposition for interracial marriage. "I mean, I don't care if a white person and a black person get married, but maybe there is a great argument against it that I just haven't heard because I don't give a fuck." I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to say here. But I just want to put it out there that reading this thread as a gay man in 2020 is massively dispiriting. It's clear that only a tiny minority of straight people, even on HN, have any real concern whatever for gay rights.

krick 6y ago

I would say you are not "misinterpreting" but rather "completely missing the point". Let's dissect your statement, "I don't care about {1}, as long as {2}" As I said in the second paragraph, I don't really see why would anybody be opposed to {1}. So it just so happens that I am pro-by-default, i.e. "pro, because why not", but I might have as well been strongly pro or strongly anti. I very well suspect there is a very good argument for anti-{1}, it's just that I've never heard of it, nor did I do much research on that topic. And if I do, I may end up falling into both strongly pro-{1} or strongly anti-{1} categories. The point is, that {1} is completely unrelated to {2}, so I can work on {2} together with somebody who has a polar beliefs to those I have on {1}, i.e. in both cases: - if I am strongly pro-{1} and he is strongly anti-{1} - if I am strongly anti-{1} and he is strongly pro-{1}

XMPPwocky 6y ago
Okay- that makes more sense, gotcha. So you'd be OK working with somebody on a project, regardless of their actions outside that project? I don't think I would. For example, if somebody liked to spend their time skinning small animals alive and posting the videos on YouTube, I don't think I'd accept a job at their company. That's just a bit too far for me! But if it's not for you- well, guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.
- krick 6y ago
  I'd like to start slowly wrapping it up, but, ok, I'll answer this one too. I won't argue about fairness of comparing {not allowing same-sex marriage} to {skinning small animals alive}, but even in that case your analogy should be about "someone who was arguing back in 2008 for keeping skinning small animals alive legal" while you voted to make it illegal (note, that votes split almost 50/50 back then, BTW, so that's a lot of people you choose to never work with). And, since you asked, yes, I know for a fact that some people I work with (including both superiors and subordinates) have wildly different political opinions on some topics than I have. With some we never discuss it, with others I'm comfortable enough to argue about that and even laugh them off sometimes. More than that, even some of my friends have strong opinions on which we differ. And with some we may go into mountains, and tie into the same rope (which, if you are not familiar, kinda means "trusting our lives to each other", quite literally), and not hate each other 100% of the time, because of some of our political beliefs don't match. And if all of that is a problem to you, yeah, I totally can agree to disagree with you, I can even respect that, as long as your disagreement doesn't mean hunting people down, because their opinion doesn't match yours. Now with that I kinda have to disagree.
  - XMPPwocky 6y ago
    Do either your superiors or subordinates have disagreements on whether or not you should have human rights? I have no problem working professionally with somebody who says taxes should be lower, or who argues that renewable energy is a waste of money, or who supports charter schools or school vouchers, or all sorts of conservative ideas. I'd disagree strongly with them, mind you, but... I guess that's sort of a core part of it, ultimately. These are not dry political questions for me- they have a very real, immediate impact on my day-to-day life. > And if all of that is a problem to you, yeah, I totally can agree to disagree with you, I can even respect that, as long as your disagreement doesn't mean hunting people down, because their opinion doesn't match yours. Now with that I kinda have to disagree. I would also agree- although what do you mean "hunting people down?" Presumably not, uh, with bow and arrow. I would not hunt Brendan Eich for sport. I will, however, criticize people vocally- not for their opinions, but for their actions. Suppose I sent a letter to Mozilla's board - "I'm a queer person who uses Firefox and who contributes to other Mozilla products. The choice of Brendan Eich, who has contributed to find opposition to my human rights, as CEO makes me feel uncomfortable contributing further to Mozilla as an organization, and because of this I won't be giving my money or time to Mozilla while Eich is in charge of it. I urge you to reconsider your choice of leadership. Sincerely, (me)." Could you respect me after sending that letter? Is that valid criticism, speaking out? Is that free speech? Or am I just another woke bully?
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      You’re taking an uncharitable interpretation of the comments you’re responding to, and I suspect that this might be part of the reason why the author of those bowed out of the conversation. And because of this, I think you haven’t really done your position justice at all, because you think they’re attacking your freedom of speech but really their argument is not that. I think perhaps it might make a bit more sense if you replace “marriage rights” with something such as “right to life”, which might be easier to relate to. And to make it more even, let us replace Brendan Eich with one of those two-faced comic book serial killers who is a functioning successful part of society in the workplace but outside of it likes killing people. Nobody in particular, just people in general. Now the question posed is, if you had no idea if they were a serial killer, would you work with them? The answer to that is “of course”: you know no reason not to. However, this issue is slightly different, because by some means it has been revealed that he is in fact a serial killer, but somehow this isn’t strictly illegal or anything so he’s coming in to work anyways. At work he’s great but once you leave work you are concerned (in general, not because he’s going to target you in particular) that he may be waiting in your bedroom to kill you. Now we have a curious question of what we should do with this person. From a logical perspective, which is the one made in the comments you’re responding to, nothing should be done: removing him from his position doesn’t stop him from killing people, and if we do fire him we lose out on him entirely. I hope you can understand why someone might hold that position. And from that perspective, I think that they would likely respond to your letter with “you have every right to voice your criticisms, but I think you are being irrational because I cannot see how your letter asking Brendan Eich to be removed from his position helps your case because he can still privately donate all he wants regardless” (unless you in fact believe that he should not be able to hold employment at all and thus be unable to donate money because he is penniless.) On your side, I think the argument is now fairly obvious: in the situation I described, I know very many people who would be hesitant to work with such an individual. We’re human, we associate qualities of a person and color all their actions through that lens. While you say you would be happy working with people of the opinions you mentioned that supposedly don’t directly affect you, I would strongly suspect it would affect how you thought of them at least subconsciously. Really, I think the opposition you have against working with someone who does not support LGBT rights is just this except amplified to the point where you can no longer try to correct your biases for that person because of it affecting you personally. And I think there is probably a very real negative effect of people working with others who privately hold views they don’t agree with, because that subconscious tension is always there even though if you look at it “rationally” it should have nothing to do with your work. And really, in many cases we seem to consider it OK to get rid of people who make everyone around them feel or perform worse. Now, is that a valid reason to terminate someone? That’s exactly the argument here. Personally I tend to lean more towards “no” than most people would, I think. I am fortunate enough to not have anyone try to restrict my freedom of marriage or association to my knowledge, but I have worked with people who have never personally done anything to me but I have found out (usually after the fact, to be honest) that they hold fairly string views that I not only disagree with but I could consider attacking a category I might fit into (“people who defend freedom of speech of the alt-right should be punched”, “brown people are all H1Bs that take our jobs and we should send them back to their own country”). Notably, it was never an issue that I think I could measure impacting our working relationship, in many cases which I think I could prove for a fact because I didn’t know they held such views and they weren’t aware that I fit into the categories that they were talking about. And quite often I think we actually even did pretty well when we both were aware of this because it would just not come up in a working relationship. Would I work with them again? I think I would. I’ve come to realize that I personally have to separate people from their private (or private until solicited) opinions, because more often than not when I think I meet someone who shares my views on human rights they actually don’t and I’m just completely unaware. So for my own sanity I just have to separate them.
- skissane 6y ago
  > For example, if somebody liked to spend their time skinning small animals alive and posting the videos on YouTube, I don't think I'd accept a job at their company. That's just a bit too far for me! Skinning animals alive for fun is a criminal offence in many jurisdictions (animal cruelty), and recognised as a symptom of mental illness (it is in the DSM-5 criteria for conduct disorder, and maybe other disorders too). By contrast, donating to a mainstream political campaign is not a crime, and is not recognised as a symptom of mental illness So I think the analogy you are trying to make here is a poor one
foldr 6y ago
By your own admission, then, you don't know much about this topic. It's frustrating for gay people to have these discussions with people who just don't take homophobia seriously as a problem. Imagine if you had written all of this vague non-commital verbiage about support/opposition for interracial marriage. "I mean, I don't care if a white person and a black person get married, but maybe there is a great argument against it that I just haven't heard because I don't give a fuck." I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to say here. But I just want to put it out there that reading this thread as a gay man in 2020 is massively dispiriting. It's clear that only a tiny minority of straight people, even on HN, have any real concern whatever for gay rights.