3 ms·

You're going off on a tangent here. By all means criticise Raytheon for the bad things they do. But why criticise their CEO for making a tweet supportive of gay

by foldr 5y ago

You're going off on a tangent here. By all means criticise Raytheon for the bad things they do. But why criticise their CEO for making a tweet supportive of gay rights? No evidence has been presented that the tweet is not sincere. HN all too often seems prone to spinning complex and sometimes borderline conspiratorial narratives around LGBTQ rights advocacy.

atq2119 5y ago
It's arguably not a tangent but simply a more holistic view. Twitter is a lot of posturing, and the tweet is posturing "look how progressive/ethical/whatever I am". GP is simply pointing out that yes, supporting gay rights is a good thing, but the person overall is still a piece of shit for all the atrocities they implicitly support. The gay rights stance, even if genuine, simply can't balance that out.
- foldr 5y ago
  Yes, of course it is possible to advocate for gay rights and yet also do bad things. Perhaps that was the OP's point, but it seems too obvious to be worth mentioning. You may view the tweet as 'posturing', but we have seen no evidence that it is not the expression of a sincerely held belief. This is the sort of attitude that I was talking about when I said that HN seems to like to spin complex narratives around LGBTQ rights advocacy. Sometimes people speak out for LGBTQ rights because...they support LGBTQ rights. And that's all there is to it. If you don't like other stuff that Raytheon does, then it makes a lot more sense to criticise them for doing that other stuff than it does to spin speculative narratives around the motivation behind their pro-LGBTQ tweets.
michaelt 5y ago
> No evidence has been presented that the tweet is not sincere. Imagine, in the age of chivalry, a lord who arrives at every battle with his forces - but who delays his arrival until the battle is already won, and always joins the winning side. You might well say arriving late is better than not arriving at all. Perhaps there are some last pockets of resistance, you wouldn't turn down his help sweeping those up. Alternately, you might say they are cowardly, insincere opportunists. They ended up on on the right side, but the timing calls their sincerity into doubt. To some people, all LGBTQ 'activism' by Fortune 500 companies looks like this. Especially if their 'activism' doesn't extend to their middle east or russian divisions.
- foldr 5y ago
  First of all, I would want to do a bit more research than you appear to have done before calling someone a "cowardly, insincere opportunist". I don't know much about the CEO of Raytheon or his historical record on gay rights. I suspect that you don't either. I do wonder just how early people are required to come to the 'battle' in order to escape your scorn. If someone was an adult in the 80s, are they an insincere opportunist if they weren't speaking out in favor of gay rights then? What if they were an adult in the 1960s and didn't support the Stonewall riots? As a gay person, it means something to me that a company is willing to speak out publicly in support of its LGBTQ employees. No-one is perfect and no-one is free from hypocrisy. All of us have probably blown with the wind on certain social issues where we could have spoken up earlier if we'd had more courage and moral clarity. This holier-than-thou cynicism about corporate LGBTQ activism is extremely destructive, in my opinion. In the final analysis it only gives succour to those who are opposed to LGBTQ rights. For actual gay people, the massive shift in corporate attitudes to LGBTQ employees is a huge deal, and has real practical benefits in our lives. Edit: By the way, a little bit of internet research suggests that Raytheon are actually pretty above average in their support for LGBTQ rights. E.g. they have been praised by the HRC: https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/defense-giant-raytheon-protects-transgender-employees https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/defense-giant-raytheon-pr... And here's some news coverage dating back to 2006: https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/12/11/8395465/index.htm https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006...
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    I think what is extremely destructive is siding with "legitimate" military grade weapon sales. But it doesn't invalidate your point. As a gay it means something when a CEO speaks up publicly in favor of gay inclusion. If it assures you, it also means something to many people who aren't gay. The issue the parent is pointing out is that these are easy wins used to diverting attention from their huge losses. And, some would argue this kind of public stances further divide citizens who may other wise team up to take everything immoral/illegal those companies do one by one and compel them to stop it. My workplace talks about inclusion all day long, pronouns started to show up left and right, yet LGBT workers are still under represented, and non existent in leadership roles. Tensions haven't gone down, they were inexistent and have been on the rise for years as the word inclusion has started to resonate.

by foldr 5y ago

atq2119 5y ago

It's arguably not a tangent but simply a more holistic view. Twitter is a lot of posturing, and the tweet is posturing "look how progressive/ethical/whatever I am". GP is simply pointing out that yes, supporting gay rights is a good thing, but the person overall is still a piece of shit for all the atrocities they implicitly support. The gay rights stance, even if genuine, simply can't balance that out.

foldr 5y ago
Yes, of course it is possible to advocate for gay rights and yet also do bad things. Perhaps that was the OP's point, but it seems too obvious to be worth mentioning. You may view the tweet as 'posturing', but we have seen no evidence that it is not the expression of a sincerely held belief. This is the sort of attitude that I was talking about when I said that HN seems to like to spin complex narratives around LGBTQ rights advocacy. Sometimes people speak out for LGBTQ rights because...they support LGBTQ rights. And that's all there is to it. If you don't like other stuff that Raytheon does, then it makes a lot more sense to criticise them for doing that other stuff than it does to spin speculative narratives around the motivation behind their pro-LGBTQ tweets.

michaelt 5y ago

> No evidence has been presented that the tweet is not sincere. Imagine, in the age of chivalry, a lord who arrives at every battle with his forces - but who delays his arrival until the battle is already won, and always joins the winning side. You might well say arriving late is better than not arriving at all. Perhaps there are some last pockets of resistance, you wouldn't turn down his help sweeping those up. Alternately, you might say they are cowardly, insincere opportunists. They ended up on on the right side, but the timing calls their sincerity into doubt. To some people, all LGBTQ 'activism' by Fortune 500 companies looks like this. Especially if their 'activism' doesn't extend to their middle east or russian divisions.

foldr 5y ago
First of all, I would want to do a bit more research than you appear to have done before calling someone a "cowardly, insincere opportunist". I don't know much about the CEO of Raytheon or his historical record on gay rights. I suspect that you don't either. I do wonder just how early people are required to come to the 'battle' in order to escape your scorn. If someone was an adult in the 80s, are they an insincere opportunist if they weren't speaking out in favor of gay rights then? What if they were an adult in the 1960s and didn't support the Stonewall riots? As a gay person, it means something to me that a company is willing to speak out publicly in support of its LGBTQ employees. No-one is perfect and no-one is free from hypocrisy. All of us have probably blown with the wind on certain social issues where we could have spoken up earlier if we'd had more courage and moral clarity. This holier-than-thou cynicism about corporate LGBTQ activism is extremely destructive, in my opinion. In the final analysis it only gives succour to those who are opposed to LGBTQ rights. For actual gay people, the massive shift in corporate attitudes to LGBTQ employees is a huge deal, and has real practical benefits in our lives. Edit: By the way, a little bit of internet research suggests that Raytheon are actually pretty above average in their support for LGBTQ rights. E.g. they have been praised by the HRC: https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/defense-giant-raytheon-protects-transgender-employees https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/defense-giant-raytheon-pr... And here's some news coverage dating back to 2006: https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/12/11/8395465/index.htm https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006...
- hirako2000 5y ago
  I think what is extremely destructive is siding with "legitimate" military grade weapon sales. But it doesn't invalidate your point. As a gay it means something when a CEO speaks up publicly in favor of gay inclusion. If it assures you, it also means something to many people who aren't gay. The issue the parent is pointing out is that these are easy wins used to diverting attention from their huge losses. And, some would argue this kind of public stances further divide citizens who may other wise team up to take everything immoral/illegal those companies do one by one and compel them to stop it. My workplace talks about inclusion all day long, pronouns started to show up left and right, yet LGBT workers are still under represented, and non existent in leadership roles. Tensions haven't gone down, they were inexistent and have been on the rise for years as the word inclusion has started to resonate.