4 ms·

This is petulant and abrasive. Eich's personal politic's is only tangentially related to OkCupid business and not at all related to Mozilla's business. Also i

This is petulant and abrasive. Eich's personal politic's is only tangentially related to OkCupid business and not at all related to Mozilla's business. Also it should be obvious that Eich != Mozilla. It is very off-putting to have a company bludgeon it's user with the personal politics of it's runners.

fingerprinter 13y ago
Politics aside, this is brilliant from OKC's perspective. No effort, they show their users, many of whom are gay, they care. And, here we are talking about OKC on HN. Going to be the same in many other sites, social portals.
toomuchtodo 13y ago
The takeaway is that businesses and non-profits don't operate in a vacuum, and there are real consequences for having a bigot as the head of your operation. I find it highly disingenuous to call supporting equal rights "petulant and abrasive".
- mkr-hn 13y ago
  I don't think honksillet said supporting equal rights is petulant and abrasive.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    My interpretation of what honksillet said was that OKCupid asking users not to use Firefox is petulant and abrasive. If I am incorrect, I'll retract my statement [honksillet: reply to me if this is the case]. OKCupid's business revolves around personal relationships. Some of those relationships are same sex relationships. To OKC, this issue is important to them. Let's not confuse meaningful concern with rhetoric. How is this any different then when same sex couples boycotted businesses in California where the owner donated to Prop 8 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)]?
    - mkr-hn 13y ago
      A mode of expression can be petulant and abrasive even if the underlying message is good. Social justice advocacy is full of abrasive and petulant people who do a poor job of representing good causes. edit: Can you stop with the downvotes? I'm not arguing that OKCupid's message is petulant and abrasive. I was trying to make sense of what honksillet was saying.
      - davidgerard 13y ago
        The tone argument turns out not to be very convincing.
        mkr-hn 13y ago
        There's not much more frustrating than an "ally" who acts like a fool and gives bigots something to point to, forcing me to answer for them before I can make my own arguments.
- MichaelDickens 13y ago
  There are plenty of ways to support equal rights that aren't abrasive. OKCupid's actions in this case are abrasive--clearly abrasive enough to bother some people who strongly support marriage equality (such as myself).
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- honksillet 13y ago
  > I find it highly disingenuous to call supporting equal rights "petulant and abrasive". It is "highly disingenuous" for you to state that I made such a claim because clearly I did not. The point I was making is that we don't want to live in a world where every time a company hires an executive with a divisive political opinion, executives from another company feel the need to denounce that individual/company publicly as a means to enforce an ideological orthodoxy. Those kind of societies become rather scary places to live in very quickly. I believe we should push back against politics intruding into parts of our daily lives where it doesn't belong. That's what I object to with OKCupid's statement.
davidgerard 13y ago
This is how people outside Mozilla feel about the issue. If you want to call serious concern about human rights "petulant and abrasive", then it is possible your own business may suffer.
- honksillet 13y ago
  Threatening people's business doesn't promote civil discourse, it stifles it.
foolrush 13y ago
Actually, Mr. Eich's “silent” support of legislation that discriminates against individuals is precisely the type of societal friction that Foucault hinted at. It is everyone's business. The sooner the culture makes an othered minority issue socially repugnant and less some sort of innocuous personal political belief as you hint, the greater the chance for longer term change.
- vacri 13y ago
  Conversely, hurting Mozilla is not just hurting Eich, but hurting all the other people who work there, including the very people that OKC is defending. So despite Eich's personal politics, Mozilla is a place where healthcare is extended to transexuals, and staffers have come out in support of Mozilla org's friendliness to non-straight sexualities, even though they don't support Eich's personal view. http://subfictional.com/2014/03/24/on-brendan-eich-as-ceo-of-mozilla/ http://subfictional.com/2014/03/24/on-brendan-eich-as-ceo-of...
  - foolrush 13y ago
    Absolutely fair point. I would be interested to hear from the LGTB community within Mozilla as to where the consensus is on this move.
  - ronaldx 13y ago
    As an international viewer, this is difficult to understand. Employment discrimination on the grounds of sexuality is illegal here. By saying that they offer healthcare equally to gay employees[0], Mozilla seem to be doing what would here be considered a minimum. Is that really considered good in the US? To me personally, this comes across as a very weak statement that actually makes me more concerned. It sort of reads like: gay employees are treated equally here, but we were aware that this is not legally required, so we had to think about it and now we're make a big deal out of our decision. It reads like a homophobic CEO approved the message. Furthermore, there is a body of employees reporting discomfort and distress at having Eich as CEO, e.g. [1],[2], and you can start a reasonable link chain from those if you're interested to read more. [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2014/03/mozilla-statement-on-diversity/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2014/03/mozilla-statement-on-... [1] http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/03/28/Mozilla-employees-demand-newly-appointed-CEO-resign-over-anti-gay-marriage-views/3841396040545/ http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/03/28/Mozilla-employees-... [2] http://incisive.nu/2014/thinking-about-mozilla/ http://incisive.nu/2014/thinking-about-mozilla/
jrs99 13y ago
Agree. They should keep quiet, and just take it. Just sit there and don't say anything. Don't be another MLK Jr. and turn this into some kind of personal political thing. These fools would turn it into some kind of weird personal political fight if we castrate the next Turing. Hey, it's just a chemical castration. No need to make it personal. It's actually good for you.
- honksillet 13y ago
  You are talking crazy. Alan Turing is one of my personal heroes and what happened to him was appalling.

fingerprinter 13y ago

Politics aside, this is brilliant from OKC's perspective. No effort, they show their users, many of whom are gay, they care. And, here we are talking about OKC on HN. Going to be the same in many other sites, social portals.

toomuchtodo 13y ago

The takeaway is that businesses and non-profits don't operate in a vacuum, and there are real consequences for having a bigot as the head of your operation. I find it highly disingenuous to call supporting equal rights "petulant and abrasive".

mkr-hn 13y ago
I don't think honksillet said supporting equal rights is petulant and abrasive.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  My interpretation of what honksillet said was that OKCupid asking users not to use Firefox is petulant and abrasive. If I am incorrect, I'll retract my statement [honksillet: reply to me if this is the case]. OKCupid's business revolves around personal relationships. Some of those relationships are same sex relationships. To OKC, this issue is important to them. Let's not confuse meaningful concern with rhetoric. How is this any different then when same sex couples boycotted businesses in California where the owner donated to Prop 8 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)]?
  - mkr-hn 13y ago
    A mode of expression can be petulant and abrasive even if the underlying message is good. Social justice advocacy is full of abrasive and petulant people who do a poor job of representing good causes. edit: Can you stop with the downvotes? I'm not arguing that OKCupid's message is petulant and abrasive. I was trying to make sense of what honksillet was saying.
    - davidgerard 13y ago
      The tone argument turns out not to be very convincing.
      - mkr-hn 13y ago
        There's not much more frustrating than an "ally" who acts like a fool and gives bigots something to point to, forcing me to answer for them before I can make my own arguments.
MichaelDickens 13y ago
There are plenty of ways to support equal rights that aren't abrasive. OKCupid's actions in this case are abrasive--clearly abrasive enough to bother some people who strongly support marriage equality (such as myself).
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
honksillet 13y ago
> I find it highly disingenuous to call supporting equal rights "petulant and abrasive". It is "highly disingenuous" for you to state that I made such a claim because clearly I did not. The point I was making is that we don't want to live in a world where every time a company hires an executive with a divisive political opinion, executives from another company feel the need to denounce that individual/company publicly as a means to enforce an ideological orthodoxy. Those kind of societies become rather scary places to live in very quickly. I believe we should push back against politics intruding into parts of our daily lives where it doesn't belong. That's what I object to with OKCupid's statement.

davidgerard 13y ago

This is how people outside Mozilla feel about the issue. If you want to call serious concern about human rights "petulant and abrasive", then it is possible your own business may suffer.

honksillet 13y ago
Threatening people's business doesn't promote civil discourse, it stifles it.

foolrush 13y ago

Actually, Mr. Eich's “silent” support of legislation that discriminates against individuals is precisely the type of societal friction that Foucault hinted at. It is everyone's business. The sooner the culture makes an othered minority issue socially repugnant and less some sort of innocuous personal political belief as you hint, the greater the chance for longer term change.

vacri 13y ago
Conversely, hurting Mozilla is not just hurting Eich, but hurting all the other people who work there, including the very people that OKC is defending. So despite Eich's personal politics, Mozilla is a place where healthcare is extended to transexuals, and staffers have come out in support of Mozilla org's friendliness to non-straight sexualities, even though they don't support Eich's personal view. http://subfictional.com/2014/03/24/on-brendan-eich-as-ceo-of-mozilla/ http://subfictional.com/2014/03/24/on-brendan-eich-as-ceo-of...
- foolrush 13y ago
  Absolutely fair point. I would be interested to hear from the LGTB community within Mozilla as to where the consensus is on this move.
- ronaldx 13y ago
  As an international viewer, this is difficult to understand. Employment discrimination on the grounds of sexuality is illegal here. By saying that they offer healthcare equally to gay employees[0], Mozilla seem to be doing what would here be considered a minimum. Is that really considered good in the US? To me personally, this comes across as a very weak statement that actually makes me more concerned. It sort of reads like: gay employees are treated equally here, but we were aware that this is not legally required, so we had to think about it and now we're make a big deal out of our decision. It reads like a homophobic CEO approved the message. Furthermore, there is a body of employees reporting discomfort and distress at having Eich as CEO, e.g. [1],[2], and you can start a reasonable link chain from those if you're interested to read more. [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2014/03/mozilla-statement-on-diversity/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2014/03/mozilla-statement-on-... [1] http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/03/28/Mozilla-employees-demand-newly-appointed-CEO-resign-over-anti-gay-marriage-views/3841396040545/ http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/03/28/Mozilla-employees-... [2] http://incisive.nu/2014/thinking-about-mozilla/ http://incisive.nu/2014/thinking-about-mozilla/

jrs99 13y ago

Agree. They should keep quiet, and just take it. Just sit there and don't say anything. Don't be another MLK Jr. and turn this into some kind of personal political thing. These fools would turn it into some kind of weird personal political fight if we castrate the next Turing. Hey, it's just a chemical castration. No need to make it personal. It's actually good for you.

honksillet 13y ago
You are talking crazy. Alan Turing is one of my personal heroes and what happened to him was appalling.