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I know what you mean! I've been a supporter of gay marriage for my whole life. But when the Brendan Eich thing happened, I was stunned. The "good" side of this

by Meekro 12y ago

I know what you mean! I've been a supporter of gay marriage for my whole life. But when the Brendan Eich thing happened, I was stunned. The "good" side of this fight was acting more evil than the "evil" side. What terrified me most was reading the ArsTechnica forum and seeing the majority cheering for his downfall, and totally ignoring the dangerous precedent that a person could be fired for donating to the wrong ballot proposition. I tried arguing that allowing people to get fired for their political activity, even if that activity is misguided, is far more dangerous to democracy and society than Prop 8 ever was. I was slammed and downvoted waaaaay into the negatives. That event really changed my outlook on social liberalism.

jsprogrammer 12y ago
Brendan. Wasn't fired; resigned, but could have stayed on. Everyone has the right to choose their leader (if they even want one).
- davesque 12y ago
  You know, the fact that this post was down-voted is actually a great example of the phenomenon being discussed here. Opposing views are met with hostility. I really think HN needs a lesson on down-arrow usage.
  - mkr-hn 12y ago
    I was downvoted into oblivion back during that debacle for suggesting there were more possible viewpoints than "fire him" and "don't fire him." Everyone assumed I was from the "fire him" camp because I had a problem with his views (as expressed through his donation). HN has that well-understood problem where intelligent people think they're immune to faulty judgement, so they end up being easy to manipulate with simplistic but pleasant-sounding arguments. I happen to agree that progressive (i.e: self-described as intelligent and open-minded) people tend to be hypocritical and easy to manipulate, but I'm obviously coming away from that with different ideas than the people upthread.
  - jsprogrammer 12y ago
    I don't even see how my post is an opposing view. The first two sentences are statements of fact. I'd argue that the third sentence is also a fact, but I'll accept that not everyone believes it. I honestly don't get what people disagreed with, I was just attempting to correct some of the factual errors that people had been making all over this comment section. Edit: Ah, I see that the person I responded to edited their post from "Brandon" to the correct, "Brendan".
    - davesque 12y ago
      You're right. All statements of fact. Very mysterious down-voting. I guess I used the term "opposing view" as a catch all for something that people seem to disagree with. It appeared that people disagreed with you since you got down-voted. I didn't mean to incorrectly represent your post but I guess I did accidentally.

by Meekro 12y ago

jsprogrammer 12y ago

Brendan. Wasn't fired; resigned, but could have stayed on. Everyone has the right to choose their leader (if they even want one).

davesque 12y ago
You know, the fact that this post was down-voted is actually a great example of the phenomenon being discussed here. Opposing views are met with hostility. I really think HN needs a lesson on down-arrow usage.
- mkr-hn 12y ago
  I was downvoted into oblivion back during that debacle for suggesting there were more possible viewpoints than "fire him" and "don't fire him." Everyone assumed I was from the "fire him" camp because I had a problem with his views (as expressed through his donation). HN has that well-understood problem where intelligent people think they're immune to faulty judgement, so they end up being easy to manipulate with simplistic but pleasant-sounding arguments. I happen to agree that progressive (i.e: self-described as intelligent and open-minded) people tend to be hypocritical and easy to manipulate, but I'm obviously coming away from that with different ideas than the people upthread.
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  I don't even see how my post is an opposing view. The first two sentences are statements of fact. I'd argue that the third sentence is also a fact, but I'll accept that not everyone believes it. I honestly don't get what people disagreed with, I was just attempting to correct some of the factual errors that people had been making all over this comment section. Edit: Ah, I see that the person I responded to edited their post from "Brandon" to the correct, "Brendan".
  - davesque 12y ago
    You're right. All statements of fact. Very mysterious down-voting. I guess I used the term "opposing view" as a catch all for something that people seem to disagree with. It appeared that people disagreed with you since you got down-voted. I didn't mean to incorrectly represent your post but I guess I did accidentally.