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I think this showed Eich is insufficiently dedicated to Mozilla's mission. If Eich believed he can help Mozilla's mission by being a CEO (otherwise, why bother?
by sanxiyn 13y ago
I think this showed Eich is insufficiently dedicated to Mozilla's mission. If Eich believed he can help Mozilla's mission by being a CEO (otherwise, why bother?), is lying about an issue more important than how much you could help Mozilla's mission? Utilitarian 101.
On the other hand, Eich probably didn't make such utilitarian calculation, and followed "do not lie" deontology instead. Pity.
- nhaehnle 13y agoI "like" how it didn't even occur to you that having a person who is known for integrity and honesty might be a positive. The collateral damage of advocating a world with more liars (which is what you are doing) is gigantic, because you are now forcing everybody to waste (more) mental energy on trying to discern truth from lie.
- evan_ 13y agoAnother thing he could do is instead of lying, just change his mind and apologize
- bruceb 13y agodumb question alert. Why are some replies so light you can barley read them? Is this something new on HN?
- saryant 13y agoLots and lots of downvotes. It's not new, threads like this just attract more downvotes than usual.
- PhasmaFelis 13y agoAnything with a zero/negative reputation is faded correspondingly. Mouse highlighting restores it to readability, of course.
- akerl_ 13y ago"Do not lie" is a pretty great attribute of character. Lying to keep your position is pretty much the opposite.
- sanxiyn 13y agoSure, not lying is great, it builds trust, yada yada. On the other hand, imagine you have two choices. You can either lie, or Google Chrome achieves 90% market share, all of web runs on Pepper, and there is no more open web. (Let's call this world "Google Earth".) Mozilla's mission is to prevent such world, right? Do you seriously think not lying is the right thing to do in this case? Now imagine you have choices of lying and making Google Earth 10% more likely. Now imagine you have choices of lying and making Google Earth 1% more likely. How much Google Earth worth is not lying? Eich probably believed him being CEO is worth some reduction in probability of Google Earth. I would be surprised "not lying" has more utility than such probability reduction. I conclude he didn't decide not to lie because of utilitarian calculation.
- akerl_ 13y agoPerhaps we're referring to different organizations here, but I've reviewed Mozilla's mission statement and efforts and it doesn't appear their task has any connection to preventing "Google Earth", as you describe it.
- sanxiyn 13y agoFeel free to replace "Google Earth" with some situation you think is contrary to Mozilla's mission. The exact same argument still applies.
- akerl_ 13y agoI do not believe that lying to advance your goals is a praise-worthy trait. Advocating for conscious deception in service to an end is quite the slippery slope.
- zobzu 13y agostrongly disagrees
- nostrademons 13y agoIt's very hard to lead when you always say what's convenient rather than what you actually believe. I know executives like that - every word out of their mouth is a sales pitch - and their people don't trust them, the rest of the company doesn't trust them, and the public at large doesn't trust them.
- SimHacker 13y agoIt's certainly always possible to change what you believe, and that's a lot more ethical than lying about what you believe. Of course, Brendan is a failure as a CEO and a decent human being because he REFUSED to change what he believed. It's ironic that bigots of Brendan's ilk strongly believe that it's possible for gays to change their sexual preference, while they continue to cling to what they believe in the face of all the facts that prove them wrong.