The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

http://uncrunched.com/2014/04/06/the-hypocrisy-of-sam-yagan-okcupid/

by McKittrick • 12 years ago

347 284 12 years ago

Things are about to get really interesting for OkCupid. Reap what you sow.

dfc5• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, I doubt it that this makes much of a ripple. "OKCupid blocks firefox to send message to Mozilla" is short and easily tweetable. This follow up requires more explanation.

waterlesscloud4• 12 years ago

There will be some half-assed explanation (not an apology) and it'll go away.

anonbanker23• 12 years ago

you can't make a 10-second soundbyte out of it? I sure can. Picture Scumbag Steve, if you will.

ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO BOYCOT MOZILLA FOR ANTI-GAY CEO.

DONATES TO ANTI-GAY CAUSES.

learc83• 12 years ago

What did OkCupid think was going to happen here? Did they really think that if they kicked this hornet's nest there wouldn't be any blowback?

They didn't think there was any C level executive at OkCupid or match.com who'd made a controversial political donation?

tasty_freeze• 12 years ago

The other point to make is that OkCupid's protest cost them nothing. If they really cared, their registration page could have the usual checkbox: I hereby agree to blah blah terms and conditions, and a second checkbox saying: "I affirm my support for gay marriage rights." Failing to select both boxes would bounce the user off of the OkCupid side.

But no, they wouldn't do that, because that might cost OkCupid business.

samatman• 12 years ago

It's worse than that. Central to OkCupid's algorithm are the match questions, several of which are explicitly about homosexuality.

Not only does OkCupid make money from the homophobic, they are precisely aware of exactly how much of their income is derived from the homophobic market.

Perhaps they could write one of their famous data-driven blog posts, showing the world exactly how much money they make from anti-gays, creationists, climate-change deniers and the like.

lingben• 12 years ago

The hypocrisy of okcupid was evident even before this little bit of info (Yagan's past political contribution) was shared. As I and others pointed out, okcupid went on using javascript!

As for okcupid occupying the moral high ground, I still remember when, right after their purchase by match.com, they removed one of the most interesting posts on their blog. It was about why you should never pay for dating web sites and why paid dating website were not worth it. As with all of their blog posts it was backed up with data and evidence.

After the purchase and change of monetization model, poof! it was gone. Why? because it was rightly critical of match.com !!

Here it is: http://www.columbia.edu/~jhb2147/why-you-should-never-pay-fo...

esdfsadfa• 12 years ago

How does using Javascript financially benefit opponents of gay equality?

Hint: it doesn't.

anaphor2• 12 years ago

Neither does using Firefox. You can easily disable google search, which is their only source of revenue other than donations.

Ygg24• 12 years ago

How does using Firefox help Brendan Eich (especially now)?

Hint: it doesn't.

Natsu4• 12 years ago

To be fair, he could simply decide to step down voluntarily.

I doubt he will and I don't like searching people's donations like this, but he could do that to preserve his personal integrity to some degree.

EDIT: Curious about the reason for downvoting? I do say that I oppose this sort of thing, but that's no matter who is on the other end of it. If he believes that anyone who made donations like that should step down from a C-level position regardless of whom, he has here an opportunity to prove that here.

bambax3• 12 years ago

Very true; I remember this little episode vividly.

r0s7• 12 years ago

Being a hypocrite about paywalls after the company is re-structured is related to this somehow?

rz2k• 12 years ago

While it would be foolish to categorize companies as adhering to a messianic mission or being pragmatic and responsible to shareholders, since no company is entirely one or the other, it does affect the credibility as to how ideological such a stand actually was, or whether it was a strategic decision with projected benefits.

There are many types of relationship sites. There are those that focus on marriage or on casual sex, and ones that take your religious background into strong consideration. And, that's even before you get into the ones that focus on specific religions, ethnicities, or other demographics.

It's not immoral to have a business strategy, and an ideological stance doesn't have to hurt to meaningful, but given what it sounds like from the reporting, it's doubtful whether they have the moral authority to insist on the CEO of another company being fired for having been on the wrong side of an issue that has already lost. I seems like it was a business strategy that has no effect on the issue of gay marriage, and a decision that was made without concern about Mozilla or the guy who was fired because it isn't relevant to their business.

krainboltgreene4• 12 years ago

He is not the CEO of Javascript.

He has no brand or direct authority over javascript engines.

It's perfectly fine to boycott Firefox and not boycott Javascript.

anonbanker23• 12 years ago

You seem to have a contradiction within your three sentences.

Eich was CEO of a company called the Mozilla Corporation. Mozilla Corporation employs people to work on free projects. one of these projects, Firefox, is governed by The Mozilla Foundation, a completely different entity that Brendan Eich is not a member of. Javascript is handled by ECMA, which is a completely different entity that Brendan Eich is not a member of. Brendan Eich was instrumental in the creation of both, but he has no brand or direct authority over either Firefox or Javascript.

So while your first two sentences were technically correct, the further understanding makes the third sentence a contradiction. Why is it perfectly fine to boycott a brand Eich has no authority over, but not ban another one for exactly the same reasons?

bluntly_said15• 12 years ago

I find the entire Eich scandal disheartening. A man lost his job (one he was undoubtedly qualified for) because people find it easier to heap hatred on someone they've never met, than to act with dignity and respect.

We have some serious issues in this country, and our inability to compromise or respect a person we don't agree with is frightening. Life is filled with shades of grey, compromise is not "that nice thing your kindergarten teacher told you about" it's a critical aspect of a functioning democracy. One we seem to be losing.

Karunamon33• 12 years ago

because people find it easier to heap hatred on someone they've never met, than to act with dignity and respect.

Turn it around. Eich found it easier to treat millions of people he's never met as second class citizens, than to act with dignity and respect.

There are two sides to this story, and you seem to be very eager to tell the one and handwave the other for a "why can't we all just get along" platitude.

briantakita10• 12 years ago

There are two sides to this story, and you seem to be very eager to tell the one and handwave the other for a "why can't we all just get along" platitude.

We should treat people with respect. Not create a sensationalist backlash. Not punish people for having their opinions & being politically active on a gray area.

Most of all, a rational discourse should take place. Not these sensationalist headlines that are designed to manipulate people's unnuanced emotions.

bluntly_said15• 12 years ago

I'm not qualified to tell the other side of the story. I don't know why Eich made that contribution. Neither do you.

It might have been family pressure, it might have honestly been that he's religious and doesn't believe the word "marriage" can be applied to same sex couple (who had Domestic partnerships available in California, which provide the same legal rights as marriage, so I find the "second class citizen" argument entirely lacking. [although now I'll wait to be attacked for simply stating that, even if you have no idea what my personal beliefs on the matter are])

Again, life is filled with shades of gray. Hell, maybe mozilla even benefited from the donation in ways that aren't clear (and they didn't want to put out in the media) You just don't fucking know. Instead you've decided this man should lose his livelyhood based on hearsay and rumor, and outrage on the internet.

That's fucking PATHETIC.

anonbanker23• 12 years ago

and yet, all these testimonials came out from LGBTQ*'s working at Mozilla, with Brenden Eich, saying that he treated them as equals.

Perhaps you could elaborate on when Eich said they were second-class citizens. you know, so you aren't accused of putting words in someone's mouth.

aryastark3• 12 years ago

Eich found it easier to treat millions of people he's never met as second class citizens

You act as if Prop 8 didn't pass by 52.24% of the voting public, or by 7 million people. But no, Eich was dictator of California, enslaving millions of gays. Or whatever.

crusso2• 12 years ago

You're demonstrating the exact problem the person to whom you were responding was discussing.

You can take a "damn them all and defeat them at all costs" stance if you want to. There's always something that "the other side" did at some point that you can avoid looking past or working with.

Grind that axe forever, I guess... but as the previous poster said, that level of intransigence is disheartening.

rimantas• 12 years ago

Would your attitude be the same if the issue was not same sex, but interracial marriage?

azinman2• 12 years ago

OR... You could recognize that his action stands directly against the values of Mozilla and will only lead to less diversity at the top of Mozilla, which even further runs against it's values. Not to mention his politically impotent non-appology appology, where he neither stood up for a separation of personal views nor identified his reasoning and how it has or hadn't changed.

zobzu• 12 years ago

i don't get that sort of thinking. nobody even suspected he made this donation until someone digged through the records. he founded mozilla among his peers for fucks sake. FOUNDED.

he was there for the manifesto. He was there when Mozilla compensated lgbt couples and the law/taxes didn't. He was there helping them daily.

And all of a sudden, he's fucking satan because his personal views on marriage were different. Views which he never let into his professional world.

And for the other side: because he's not as strong as some, he resigned. So that must be bad too. it must be mozilla who fired him and thus don't accept diversity.

Are you all fucking nuts?

jerryr3• 12 years ago

I'm gay, and I would classify my feelings towards Eich more as fear than hatred. Eich very directly donated towards a cause that was bent on restricting my rights. Though fear often breeds hatred, I truly don't bear Eich ill will. I'm not happy to see him lose his job--on the contrary, I share your sadness that a talented, qualified man lost his job. However, I am relieved that a man who feels that I should not be allowed to marry is no longer in a very influential position at an influential company.

Now, whether or not OkCupid should have been casting stones is another matter. But that seems to have been thoroughly discussed, so I'll end this here.

baddox14• 12 years ago

I'm seeing a lot of disagreement over the facts of Proposition 8. Several people are saying that homosexual couples in California already had a legal partnership with all the same rights as "married" heterosexual couples.

dubfan3• 12 years ago

You might find this essay by Jonathan Rauch to be interesting reading: http://reason.com/archives/1993/04/01/the-truth-hurts-the-hu...

The book this was derived from, "Kindly Inquisitors", was recently reissued, and what a timely reissue!

ufmace2• 12 years ago

From everything I've read, he voluntarily stepped down, without any pressure exerted on him by anyone above him or who otherwise has direct power over him. Has anybody seen any indication otherwise?

In this case, I'm more inclined to see it as a good move overall. He isn't a backroom coder or language designer or something, whose opinions and PR profile don't really matter. As CEO, his whole job is to lead, set the direction of the company, and be its public face. This issue, and his handling of it, seem to show that he isn't really cut out for the job and shouldn't be doing it. It was probably a mistake to take it in the first place, but I don't think he could have a good career just moving to a lower position at the company now.

I will say that I respect him more for stepping down on his own, and for not pulling some bullshit PR move like apologizing or making a token donation to some pro-LGBT cause. That always seemed so slimy to me - like saying "I probably still believe what I always believed, but I will kowtow to the PC gods and make a PR move to save my job without ever actually standing up for what I believe."

r0s7• 12 years ago

people find it easier to heap hatred on someone they've never met, than to act with dignity and respect.

Please explain how criminalizing gay marriage is somehow different from this claim.

Compromise or abstraction away from the root issue to serve some hazy point about moral uncertainty is dishonest.

funkyy• 12 years ago

Everyone with strong ties in marketing world will know that dating sites are one of the most shadies businesses balancing on the line of legal/illegal. OKCupid action was blatant marketing stunt - but thei CEO is immune. No one cares what he did etc. No one on the board or anyone working for him will be approving his departure upon this news. Mozilla case is probably one of the most ethical ways to get publicity this guys did in years...

scarmig9• 12 years ago

No, it's not "exactly the same." I don't think anyone really benefited from this entire shit show, but stop trying to excuse and water down what Prop 8 supporters did.

Giving money to a bad politician is not the same as giving money to support a war of pure bigotry and hatred against gay people. Perhaps you weren't there in 2008, or perhaps you weren't a target. But the Yes on Prop 8 campaign deployed deeply disturbing and hateful rhetoric that relied on the worst tropes about gay people--that they want to corrupt your children into homosexuality. All this wasn't just to pass a law, but to permanently enshrine and sacralize hatred in the California Constitution.

Here's a question: many people, perhaps you the reader, oppose Eich's forced resignation because of freedom of speech concerns. Great, I'm with you! And why I think this was all a stupid idea that doesn't benefit gay rights at all. But why are we as a society up in arms about this firing in particular? Why are we not focused on ENDA, for instance, which protects you from being fired for saying you're gay? Why aren't we outraged that workers (illegally) get fired for saying they want to unionize? Or, more tech-focused, people getting fired for shit-talking their boss on Facebook? It seems that, as usual, freedom of speech is only a concern in the media if you're a rich, straight white man.

wwwwwwwwww• 12 years ago

Is it really so hard for you to imagine that not everyone comes from the same background and upbringing? Moreover, is it so hard to believe that not everyone who supported prop8 was a gay-hating bigot who wants to see them all burn in hell or whatever?

With every political standpoint, there is a spectrum of supporters who support the cause - for varying reasons and varying intensity. It's very important to keep this in mind especially with issues like prop8 where the anti-prop8 branded the prop8 supporters as a whole as gay-hating bigots.

Here's the problem: we don't know where Eich fell on the spectrum. We don't know if he hated gays or if he was brought up in a traditional household where marriage is a religious ceremony rather than a love-based ceremony.

Hell, I recall some prop8 supporters whose only problem with gay marriage was that it uses the word "marriage", they were people who wanted civil unions to offer the same legal protections/rules as marriage, but wanted to keep marriage as man+woman so the concept of a marriage ceremony still had the same religious significance as it did before.

My whole point here is that we have no idea why Eich supported prop 8. There's a whole rainbow of possible reasons, many of them which are not quite as damning as people make out. Since we never heard the other side of the story, this whole fiasco looks like nothing more than a huge joke, but is actually a scary reminder of how passionate and defensive people can get over social issues.

scarmig9• 12 years ago

If you're willing to donate $1000 dollars to a bigoted cause, you're a bigot. It doesn't matter if his religion tells him it's okay; he's still a bigot. It doesn't matter if gays make him feel squicky: he's still a bigot. If my religion told me "black people are children of Ham, therefore you should separate yourself from them" (an argument that was once used), you'd rightly call me a bigot. What's the difference here?

Prop 8 was incredibly hateful as a campaign: in case you weren't there, view some of these ads they ran [1]. It's seriously nausea inducing. He funded these ads, to deny gay people fundamental human rights. He never apologized for funding these ads, either.

[1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/04/04/brendan_eich_s...

Karunamon33• 12 years ago

This is about as non as non-stories get.

For one, there's about 27 universes worth of difference from supporting a specific law which does a specific thing, and supporting a politician who has different positions on different laws. Maybe the other positions he has took priority over marriage equality?

For instance: five years ago, coming out of the economic mess, I'd have prioritized economic recovery (so, someone who knows what they're doing on that front) over marriage equality. That's not to say marriage equality isn't important, but it's all rather pointless if the economy is trashed and everything else goes with it.

russellsprouts• 12 years ago

But if you are checking if a person if qualified to be CEO, wouldn't their domain knowledge and ability to lead be better qualities to prioritize than their stance on gay marriage -- especially if their personal views have not been shown to affect how they intend to lead?

Karunamon33• 12 years ago

Absolutely. However, Eich's behavior after the donation came out revealed a crucial flaw in his ability to handle public relations. Even if this kerfluffle had been about something that isn't so contentious, it's been proven that he cannot handle criticism - something a CEO, the public face of a company, has as one of their primary job duties.

It also reveals a pretty massive conflict of interest wrt. his personal views on equality and Mozilla's views on equality. If it were any other corporation it may be different, but Mozilla's kind of famous for this.

sparkzilla• 12 years ago

To paraphrase Hunter S Thompson: When everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught.

bambax3• 12 years ago

The only crime is always getting caught; no cuffs no crime.

crassus2• 12 years ago

This is a "leftist singularity", when the least revolutionary half of the population is purged, and then the least revolutionary half of the purgers is purged, ad infinitum. It ends when the most righteous leftist kills the second most righteous leftist, or outside events intervene.

For examples, see French and Communist revolutions.

Aldo_MX• 12 years ago

In my honest opinion, I think the point here is that Mozilla is an organization that promotes good principles like equality. OkCupid, in contrast, is just a dating site.

Do people really expect good principles from a dating site?

mbrubeck• 12 years ago

As of last week, OkCupid is a dating site that promotes marriage equality, or at least wants to be seen as such.

mkr-hn3• 12 years ago

Prediction: those who insisted that political actions and professional life should be separate will call for Sam Yagan's head, completing the ouroboros of hypocrisy.

The author's basis for the claim that this was a PR stunt is that Sam Yagan made a donation similar to Brendan Eich's. Like Brendan Eich, he has the opportunity to say he's changed his mind on the issue in the years since, or provide more context for the donation. Brendan Eich's mistake was avoiding the issue entirely.

mason240• 12 years ago

Prediction: those who insisted that political actions and professional life should be one and the same will respond with "meh," completing the ouroboros of hypocrisy.

Ryel• 12 years ago

I doubt this means very much, or is worth anything but FWIW...

I had arranged for myself and 2 friends to go have lunch with 2 people from OkCupid specifically about whether or not we would be a good fit into the company and what they would be able to offer. I'm only looking for an entry-level front-end dev position so my time isnt nearly as valuable, but out of the other 2 friends one is an ex-Googler, the other from Morgan Stanley, both as back-end engineers.

After this stunt by OkCupid we cancelled the lunch and will not continue on with OkCupid.

r0s7• 12 years ago

What an arbitrary career choice.

If you'd avoid a job due to politics, you'd probably leave a job due to politics. Maybe you think you're rising above public opinion concerns to polish some kind of sycophantic business mindset, but you're acting just as emotionally as the board of Mozilla.

More so, because they have consumer pressure concerns.

Maybe your canceled lunch will appear as sober apolitical moves to ... someone. In my opinion you just flushed your credibility down the toilet.

pessimizer4• 12 years ago

Or maybe it is political, and that's all right, and it's generally your choice to decide who you want to do business with and why, outside of a few federally protected classes (due to historical reasons.)

anonbanker23• 12 years ago

So, bottom line: Eich was forced out by an astroturf campaign led by professional boycotters (waving the gay rights flag this time) and sleazy opportunists/publicity addicts like Yagan.

If Eich is a homophobe, I would like to replace the rest of the world's homophobes with him. While he may have disagreed in private, his public persona was inclusive and friendly. There are multiple testominies from people that never knew he harbored wishes to limit their rights before the controversy came out. Even the LGBTQ* Mozilla employees/volunteers spoke up to say this. Meanwhile, in Montana/Utah, if the CEO learns you're gay, you're likely to be found dead in the middle of the night.

But the mob had already formed, and they wanted blood. Blood is what they got. And the Mozilla project suffers as a result.

The Eich story, and the lynch mob that followed it, permanantly reduced my respect for HN. While I would not ever donate to a campaign (let alone one that denied equal rights to human beings), this made the gay community of HN (and their supporters) look like easily-influenced livestock. I used to click on the HN comments link before actually clicking the story it was about, because I could rely on the spin being kept to a minimum. I no longer have that guarantee. Similarly, I no longer have the guarantee of fair discourse, and fully expect future comments to be downvoted to oblivion (much like reddit) when one has a dissenting opinion. If someone says you hate gay people (correctly or not), the HN community has proven they will prosecute before a proper inquiry has been made.

Even more disturbing, I have now learned that the militant LGBTQ* members in Silicon Valley are just as easily-influenced, and as easily driven to boycott, as members of Stormfront, or the AFA, or the PMRC. This seems to be such a big issue in the Silicon Valley that I'm now solid in my decision to stay out of SV for any new startup ventures. Intolerance (even intolerance for bigots) is not something I want to immerse myself in.

(disclosure: this pseudonym is owned and operated by a lgBtq*)

cheez3• 12 years ago

Professional boycotters is too kind a term. I think this is straight up bullying.

bp123• 12 years ago

Yes, the world would be a better place if all anti-equality people had donated $1000 to fund constitutional amendments preventing gay marriage. Please.

You can't pretend to be a good citizen for equality while donating $1000 to a cause whose only purpose is anti-equality.

And look, he could of just apologized and he would have been fine. He didn't. That is why I find this backlash backlash to be just "mob justice" the other way. His actions brought the backlash upon himself, and he didn't do any of the common sense things he could have to fix it. He shouldn't be treated like a martyr.

anonbanker23• 12 years ago

What a fantastic strawman you've constructed! Give me a minute to marvel at it. You do excellent work.

Okay, now that the dazzle has worn off, perhaps you could tell me when I said that Anti-gay activists donating money to fund constitutional amendments would be a good thing? because I really don't remember saying that.

However, I agree with your second paragraph. You can't be a good citizen for equality while donating money to a cause that is anti-equality. I appreciate your condemnation of Sam Yagan for doing exactly that.

nitrogen• 12 years ago

And look, he could of[sic] just apologized and he would have been fine. He didn't.

Would his apology have been reported by the media if he did? I don't recall any discussion of asking for clarification from Mozilla or Eich.

commanda• 12 years ago

It really irks me when people conflate calling for someone to step down from a CEO role with "lynching", "blood", or "militant". As you know, actual LGBTQ people are actually lynched, and our blood is actually shed. Your metaphors are, frankly, offensive.

(disclosure: I am also a member of the LGBTQ community.)

anonbanker23• 12 years ago

right. ignore the validity of my comments. just take offense to the words.

Whilst living in Montana, I have been harrassed multiple times for my sexuality. I have been beaten to unconsciousness by people I didn't even see approaching me, left with a sign saying "HOMO" on my body. I have had a rope around my neck, and three men lift my drugged body to a tree so I could die. Thankfully, a less bigoted person scared them off with a shotgun and got me medical attention. It's why I left the states and moved to Canada.

I know the words I'm using. I feel entitled to use them, as I'm fully calibrated to their meanings.

Now, perhaps you haven't learned that a "Political Lynch Mob" is a thing. And that angry mobs are often out for blood, literally AND figuratively. Perhaps you haven't seen any political lynch mobs in the past, and never seen them literally go for blood. Allow me to inform you that they do happen. I invite you to crack open a history book. Perhaps start with the Boston Tea Party, which, while not a literal lynch mob, did in fact irreparably burn a politician with hot tar, and then cover him in feathers as a sort of public mockery. because of Taxes on Tea. If you think that is somehow more justified than a group of people that (I completely believe) would beat Eich in the street if a group of them found him alone, for donating money to a cause they found abhorrent, I don't know what to say to you.

if you think I'm exaggerating about how groups of angry citizens almost always lead to senseless violence, you should probably crack open that history book again.

cookiecaper• 12 years ago

hdishn's comments expressing the same are dead, but it is utterly ridiculous and immensely offensive to claim that it is likely a homosexual will be murdered by the CEO of their corporation if he works in Utah or Montana.

pyduan• 12 years ago

What is regrettable in all this is that no one seems to consider the possibility that people may have nuanced views about gay marriage. According to the mob you're either a saint or a bigot, and thus Eich's value as a human being was supposedly entirely determined by this one opinion he voiced in 2008.

I'm staunchly in favor of gay marriage, which I consider to be a no-brainer -- but it seems to me the motivations of Prop 8 proponents differ a lot in nature, with some being much more excusable than others in their wrongness.

For example, there are people who have nothing against homosexuality but are attached to the symbolic value of 'marriage' as a Christian institution and would be completely fine with another civil contract with the same rights but a different name. This seems to be somewhat in line with Eich's actions (I remember reading a memo from Eich stating he had no plan to amend Mozilla's gay-friendly policies and employee benefits). Although I still think this view is guilty of being wrongly attached to outdated models of society, this is not nearly as bad as what Eich has been accused of.

There are other possible reasons one could have (for example, those who in ignorance of the many studies that showed that children of homosexual households grow up just fine could have unfounded reservations about gay adoption, but would be ready to change their mind if shown the evidence; I've encountered a couple myself), but my broader point is that there is a huge range in the degree of bigotry between those who voted Prop 8 and one should not jump to conclusions so easily as they do not all deserve the same level of condemnation.

Now, I can understand why Eich's views could make him unsuitable as a CEO because, in a purely pragmatic sense, holding views that most of your workforce despise is obviously detrimental to your ability to lead and especially so at such a peculiar organization as Mozilla where ideology matters arguably more than in other companies; it also matters because, as many have said, a CEO is the face of the company and his views and those of the company are sometimes hard to disentangle.

But going from there to making a call to boycott Firefox is a huge jump and smells like a pure appropriation of the controversy for PR purposes. This revelation about Sam Yagan seems to strengthen this feeling. Come on people, we're better than this. Being on the right side of history about an issue does not automatically waive us from intellectual rigor and moderation.

scarmig9• 12 years ago

Minor point: you speak of Prop 8 opponents, but you're talking about Prop 8 proponents. Remember they were explicitly trying to roll back rights permanently, in the California Constitution, not trying to stop a new law from passing.

Anyhow, something to consider: there were onced nuanced segregationists--there's a funny clip where Jimmy Carter's ex chief of staff said he went from being an extreme segregationist, to a moderate segregationist, to a moderate integrationist.

That viewpoint seems insane now, because with the benefit of hindsight we can't conceive of how an extreme viewpoint can be viewed as moderate if you're living within it. But thems the breaks. If someone's a bigot, they're a bigot, no matter how complicated an ideological edifice they've erected to prove they're not a bigot.

tiquorsj• 12 years ago

You will rue the day that a person's ability to lead is judged by how well ago their views align with those they lead. Especially on matters only on the fringe of the primary goal of the workplace and especially in instances whee the workplace actions are aligned. Shared vision is different than group think and mob rule.

couchand• 12 years ago

I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I take issue with judging Mr Eich unsuitable. I think as outsiders we are simply unable to reasonably evaluate his fitness as CEO of their organization. Employees and their managers have differences of thought all the time, but that doesn't preclude a mutual respect for each other's work.

From what I understand the employees of Mozilla for the most part had glowing reviews of his work, and ultimately that (and I guess the general performance of the company) should be the true judge of his suitability to the job.

It is despicable to wish to deny equal treatment under the law to any group. But even if in a person's private life they harbor such wishes, it is not the place of the general public to judge the company they work for.

masklinn3• 12 years ago

For example, there are people who have nothing against homosexuality but are attached to the symbolic value of 'marriage' as a Christian institution

Yes, they were also attached to its symbolic value when they used it to condemn miscegenation.

Given atheist, muslims, jews or hindus can get married, and so can blacks, browns, reds, yellows and whites (with one another too, which once upon a time was against "the symbolic value of 'marriage' as a Christian institution"), I'm pretty sure civil marriage has nothing to do with "the symbolic value of 'marriage' as a Christian institution".

and would be completely fine with another civil contract with the same rights but a different name.

Because "separate but equal" had such a good run last time around eh?

This seems to be somewhat in line with Eich's actions

No it is not:

1. Eich donated $1000 to prop 8. Prop 8's goal was to prevent future homosexual marriages in california and to break up existing ones (since prop 8 was passed specifically because proposition 22 had been struck down and homosexual couples were getting married). It did not propose the introduction of an equivalent contract or amend californian law to effectively introduce one

2. Eich refused to acknowledge such an intent and stonewalled instead behind "me giving to people trying to destroy your marriage does not mean I'm a bigot". Does not sound like "separate but equal" was his intent, as distateful as that would have been

3. "I would prefer an alternative to it therefore I donate to amend the constitution in order to ban it" is not what I would call sane and sensible reasoning

baddox14• 12 years ago

It has nothing to do both "separate but equal" if the only difference is the legal term used ("marriage" for heterosexual couple, "civil union" for homosexual couple) and not the rights associated with it.

Separate but equal was about physical segregation of minorities, not just about using different legal terms for the same thing. And, by the way, something that a ton of people don't know about the separate but equal doctrine (because it doesn't appear to be taught in American public schools): It actually refers to the government's legal authority to mandate that privately owned businesses provide separate nut equal facilities for blacks. That's a lot different than the usual portrayal of Brown vs. BoE, as the government stepping in an conquering private racism.

rdtsc• 12 years ago

I'm pretty sure civil marriage has nothing to do with "the symbolic value of 'marriage' as a Christian institution".

The difference is that you are more rational and clear thinking individual than many many others. Trying to apply your logic to their "logic" will just result in frustration.

The Cognitive Therapy approach to argument ("Well let me show you how your argument is internally inconsistent") doesn't often work in such case.

So what does that mean in this case. It means that they can have a deep belief that civil marriage is tied to the Christian idea and still accept that atheists and Hindus also take part in it. There is vague religious mythology associated with the Founding Fathers, Constitution and the idea of exclusivity of this country. We are shocked how some Islamic country go full on and just base their legal framework on Islamic rules, but there are swathes of Americans would love nothing more that see that happen here but with Christian ideology.

They have been also losing ground (abortion etc), saw a resurgence with election of Bush junior (a large Evangelical backing) and now they are losing ground again and are being backed into a corner. Instead of seeing the crazy irrationality of their action they lash out and create Prop 8 like campaigns. Tea parties and so on.

kevingadd• 12 years ago

Eich was not 'stonewalling', he was following the guidelines that all Mozilla employees adhere to, which include not bringing personal views into the workplace. Stating his PoV on gay marriage (pro OR con) as a representative of Mozilla would have been wholly inappropriate. The thing you say would have proven his virtue would have in fact made him unsuitable to hold his position.

See here: https://medium.com/p/7645a4bf8a2

crusso2• 12 years ago

> and would be completely fine with another civil contract with the same rights but a different name.
Because "separate but equal" had such a good run last time around eh?

Do you take the same hardline stance with others who were opposed to gay marriage a few years ago and advocating civil unions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73oZ_pe1MZ8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6K9dS9wl7U

andrewfong2• 12 years ago

I think you're misreading the above post. The point is not to say there is a justifiable argument against gay marriage but to say that not all opponents are like Fred Phelps -- i.e., not all opponents are motivated by pure animus as opposed to ignorance, FUD, or just faulty reasoning.

A big part of that ignorance is many (if not most) gay marriage opponents simply don't believe it's an immutable characteristic and don't fully appreciate how damaging it can be to suppress one's sexual orientation (e.g. don't ask, don't tell). And if you don't believe that sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic, then a gay marriage ban isn't discrimination against a minority but simply yet another public morality law in line with bans on drugs, polygamy, or public nudity.

That doesn't make the argument any less wrong, but IMHO, intent matters. Ignorance or stupidity don't deserve the same level of condemnation as outright hate.

bambax3• 12 years ago

This is really not the point at all; we're way way past the debate pro- or against- gay marriage. (Disclaimer: like probably 99% of people on HN, I'm strongly in favor of gay marriage).

The point(s) are:

- is it acceptable to hunt a man down and force him to step down from a job he's highly qualified for, because he has held in the past political opinions that not only differ from your own, but were then mainstream and are now considered "incorrect"?

- is it acceptable for a corporation such as OkCupid to ruin a man's (otherwise impeccable) professional life for a little PR stunt?

- how can the CEO of OkCupid justify this little stunt when he himself made a donation to a politician who's an actual, self-professed, public bigot??

krainboltgreene4• 12 years ago

Jesus, "hunt a man down" and "ruin a man's (otherwise impeccable) professional life"?

You have a really low bar for using these phrases and it makes your argument that much more ridiculous (and false).

None of these things happened and you miss half the context in which similar but less hyperbolic things happened.

dragonwriter2• 12 years ago

is it acceptable to hunt a man down and force him to step down from a job he's highly qualified for

No one forced Eich to do anything. His choice to step down was as free as his choice to donate to Prop. 8.

Plus, I'm not sure there's much evidence that Eich was "highly qualified" for the CEO job -- he was clearly highly qualified for his previous job as CTO, but his appointment was controversial within the Mozilla board even before the Prop. 8 controversy.

is it acceptable for a corporation such as OkCupid to ruin a man's (otherwise impeccable) professional life for a little PR stunt?

OkCupid didn't ruin Eich's "(otherwise impeccable) professional life". OkCupid was fairly late in piling on -- insofar as the Prop. 8 controversy damaged Eich, much of that damage had already been done by the time OkCupid acted.

Aqueous3• 12 years ago

So many on the left (including myself) revere the style of politics of Nelson Mandela and yet when it comes time to actually behave like Mandela would in a given situation they completely fail, and conduct the same style of embittered, vengeful politics when they are asked to treat the other side with an attitude of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Do you think Mandela systematically purged all those whites who once supported apartheid from their positions? He did not. Why? Because forgiveness was more beneficial to the nation than recrimination.

Now that gay marriage is clearly on the march supporters, who are winning, need to treat their opposition the same way. With magnanimity and not vengefulness.

Eich is wrong about gay marriage, but he didn't deserve to be fired.

scarmig9• 12 years ago

For forgiveness you need Truth and Reconciliation. There's a reason that committee was set up.

"Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing."

That's Desmond Tutu, another important figure in the struggle against apartheid.

Do you think Eich has owned up to the hurt and abuse he committed? He's not even apologized. You can't have forgiveness if the person you want to forgive isn't even willing to apologize.

sentenza• 12 years ago

You make an important point, but I want to add a caveat. We know a lot about how long we have to wait to deal with "regime crimes" in order not to jeopardize the political system of the successor state.

It seems that in the case of maximum scale crimes, the right number is somewhere around 30 years (one generation). That was approximately the time between the end of WW2 and the 1968 student revolts in Germany, and the Bonn republic survived it. As another example, given the divisive nature of the incredibly bloody Spanish civil war, societal "digestion" of the Franco dictatorship also had to wait for almost 30 years.

What happens if winners rapidly turn on the former suppressors can currently be observed in Egypt.

So far, so interesting, but what it doesn't tell us, is what the time scale for a (comparatively small) intrasocietal adjustment of morality is (gay marriage = sin -> gay marriage = fundamental right).

One decade? Five years? Fifteen? I can't think of any precedents that can truly be compared to the gay marriage situation.

My personal feeling is that the reaction to Eich was not appropriate considering where he stands on the currently applicable bigotry scale.

But that is also just a gut feeling. The question remains: What is the right time to wait before a step of progressive change in society should be "enforced", so that the backlash remains minimal?

egh4• 12 years ago

So - what you are saying is that you support radical, armed struggle in support of marriage equality? Just as Mandela supported radical, armed struggle against apartheid?

fredgrott• 12 years ago

Problem is a Marriage license is not defined by a religion in power as a government.

Marriage license should be religion netrual when you get down to it..all should be allowed to marry as many people at once as they want irregardless of creed, sexual orientation, gender, etc.

yypark2• 12 years ago

The reaction to Eich is best seen through a lens of human group power dynamics, as it isn't logically consistent with some supposed ideals (civil discourse, etc.). Geeks have a harder time understanding this social acceptability aspect, especially within a given group or tribe. For this particular political question, a "no gay marriage" opinion has passed into the socially unacceptable in the Bay Area tech crowd.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong to react or ostracize like this, it's just the way crowds of people tend to work. And when tides shift in one direction, a desire by the winning side to celebrate, express power, and pick on the losing happens.

In 2008 it may have been a serious political question in California and the United States as a whole - and we totally can judge based on popular opinion - the difference is supporters narrow the judgment of social acceptability to Eich's narrower group of Bay Area techies. That's why saying it's "obviously wrong" or "there are no rational arguments" is a cop out - and the same denying civil rights argument can be applied to say abortion (denying women's right to choose! Murdering unborn infants!) or opposing affirmative action (racist against minorities! discrimination!).

The main difference? Public opinion rapidly moved against Prop 8 whereas for gun control or abortion it has been far more steady. [Even though over 20% of San Franciscans voted for Prop 8, the number among the educated tech crowd was likely far lower, and same among California as a whole]. Meanwhile, a movement like neo-Nazism is more universally reviled and not socially acceptable in 2014 US, although it may have been mainstream in 1938 Germany, and speaking out against it would leave you ostracized. This is where the "right side of history" aspect becomes interesting. Everything happens within the context of your time and your tribe, and this morality breaks down after these context changes.

Because the opinion on gay marriage is so universal within the tech crowd of the Bay Area, Eich doesn't really have a way out in this. (Look at the contribution numbers for employees of Google, Facebook, etc.) Meanwhile minority opinions on gun control, abortion, etc. are still socially acceptable but will still trigger suspicion. Ditto on economic issues and the entire anti-libertarian techie backlash, even though libertarianism continues to be weaker than liberalism. For another industry and group, look at Whole Foods' CEO writing an anti-Obamacare Op ed which triggered a backlash - the difference is that Eich said nothin, and most definitely continued to adopt gay-friendly policies at his workplace.

In medieval Europe, the adherence to your group (or broader society) was enforced through excommunication, in communist Russia, through purging and re-education camps, in Hollywood during the Red Scare, via McCarthyism and impossibility of finding a job. In Silicon Valley, is it by Internet campaigns and removal from high-ranking positions? What supposed Eich defenders are saying is - let's try not to be like that, no matter how righteous we believe our opinions to be.

bane13• 12 years ago

Eich doesn't really have a way out in this.

Which is not really correct though. Eich said he was sorry for the harm he caused, by not for the thoughts he had. He could have said "back then I thought one way about the matter, and even supported causes in that way, since then I've been educated that this is harmful and regret how I thought back then. My views have evolved and for anybody who was harmed by my thoughts and actions back then, I'm very sorry and will do my best to make amends."

We all make mistakes, and our thinking changes over the years. Eich is no different. He's as forgivable as we are. But forgiveness requires repentance, which he hasn't done. The current theory about why is that he still holds the same thoughts.

ralfn2• 12 years ago

2008 it may have been a serious political question in California and the United States as a whole

Mozilla operates in a much larger space though. Holland says hi!

That's why saying it's "obviously wrong" or "there are no rational arguments" is a cop out - and the same denying civil rights argument can be applied to say abortion (denying women's right to choose! Murdering unborn infants!) or opposing affirmative action

Here's a rational argument why anti-gay people are at war with humanity, and why it is different from your examples:

- abortion concerns the interests of three parties: the mother, the father and the unborn child. The point of society is to streamline and govern the situation when individual interests overlap.

- human rights, the notion that any human being is equal, irregardless of their race, hair color or gender, implies no law should be passed mentioning gender. Hence any anti-gay bill, which can not be defined without mentioning gender, is a political action directly opposing human rights.

- in the constition of my country (Holland) as well as yours, equality of all individuals is considered to overrule majority opinion. This is also established in international law: Violators of human rights commit "crimes against humanity". This is all irregardless of majority opinion of some region.

I keep hearing the word civil debate and opinion. Financing human rights violations is not "having an opinion". It's active treason against humanity. It's partaking in a global civil war, that has been going on for centuries, and is often fought with bombs, guns, sanctions and boycots.

Remember when ..

- the people in the US went to war with each other over equality? (the Civil War)

- the US went to war against the Nazi's over equality? (As a dutch citizen i'm very happy they did)

- we all boycotted a whole nation because of equality? (South-Africa)

- your founding fathers put equality in your constitution, as it being more important than democracy itself?

- most nations in the world got together and established the notion of "human rights" as a notion stronger than the right of nations to self-govern?

Fortunately, democracy often seems to allow for a way to fight this war, without killing, but human rights are not up for civil debate or election. When majorities, dictators, elites or whoever try to violate human rights the common response is "over my dead body". Not "lets agree to disagree". We might often prefer civil debate over full-out-war, but that's out of practicality, not morality.

So, that's why all this cultural relativism is falling on deaf ears: One can not be a neutral observer, when it comes to human rights.

stcredzero• 12 years ago

What is regrettable in all this is that no one seems to consider the possibility that people may have nuanced views about gay marriage.

The norm portrayed on television and in so much of the media is that nuanced views are just a cover for being a "bad guy." In a story, black and white morality is so much more palatable for the least common denominator audience. News media now also follows this pattern, as do political commercials. However, reality is actually pretty complicated, and informed opinions are often nuanced by necessity.

A college housemate of mine was dead-set homophobic when she first moved in. However, she eventually became the best friends of a gay man who lived with us. Understanding in a pluralistic society comes from the everyday interaction of normal, decent people. This is how prejudices are debunked and the wounds of societal injustice are healed. The actions of OkCupid are vindictive and only unproductive in this regard.

anonbanker23• 12 years ago

I thought HN as a whole was smart enough to not fall for these black and white moral plays. Either they are that gullible overall, or there's some serious astroturfing going on here.

adil_h• 12 years ago

surely banning Firefox was pretty stupid given that it's quite a large open source project? This stunt just seems like a cry for attention.

camus2• 12 years ago

it was what you said it was, just a publicity stunt,nothing more.They couldnt care less about Eich.

anonbanker23• 12 years ago

if it were a publicity stunt, then they were promoting Opera, IE, and Chrome over Firefox.

Someone should be looking into why they promoted IE and Blink over Gecko.

mililani• 12 years ago

Finally, someone who understands the true meaning of hypocrisy. Pretense is a large part of hypocrisy. People often misunderstand that by saying someone who does something opposite of their beliefs is a hypocrite. No, it's both that and pretense. And, Sam Yagan seems like the proverbial hypocrite.

otterley3• 12 years ago

The difference between these cases is that Mr. Yagan donated to a Congressperson's election fund, while Mr. Eich gave directly to supporters of a cause many find abhorrent.

The degree of separation is important: although Rep. Cannon was anti-gay-marriage, we don't know whether that was the motivating factor for Mr. Yagan's donation. It could have been for some other reason: perhaps Mr. Cannon helped him or his company in some way, or perhaps Mr. Cannon's opponent's views (relating to things other than gay marriage) were more objectionable to Mr. Yagan than Mr. Cannon's were.

It's also important to note that this donation occurred in 2004, when few politicians openly supported gay marriage, and most publicly said they were against it.

Politicians have views on all sorts of matters, some of which we agree with and some of which we don't, and most of us aren't single-issue voters. A donation to a politician is not strong evidence of the donor's agreement with all of the views of that politician. A donation to an organization that is specifically trying to pass a law, however, is pretty strong evidence of the donor's agreement with the aims of the law.

cheez3• 12 years ago

So why is it OK to donate to a politician who is anti-whatever, but a CEO can't be?

Seems like a double standard to me.

fennecfoxen• 12 years ago

It's not a double standard. It's just an ex post facto excuse for inconsistent application of standards.

scarmig9• 12 years ago

Has the politician spent tens of millions of dollars in a campaign slurring gay people with some of the most hateful and darkest tropes about them, all the while trying to permanently remove their human rights by amending the Constitution?

otterley3• 12 years ago

I think you missed my point. And besides, it's impossible to vote for or contribute to a politician who doesn't have views that some minority will vigorously object to.

anonbanker23• 12 years ago

You're downlplaying the fact that he donated to an openly anti-gay, pro-PATRIOT ACT congressperson. If you didn't look at the link provided with the original article, showing how he's historically voted (and still continues to vote), you should probably do so. Cannon's record is pretty clear and unwavering.

I would be hard-pressed to think of a way in which donation to a staunch anti-personal-liberty candidate would be preferable to their electoral opposition. Usually, you see a Republican (like Cannon) up against a Democrat. Perhaps you could provide us with a scenario in which his opponent was so horrible that voting for Cannon was the lesser of two evils? Perhaps he was running against Senator Palpatine?

It also seems you are trying to dismiss the voting record with a stance that Politicians change their stances depending on how the wind blows. If so, perhaps you could explain why voting for someone whose vote is up for sale is any better than being a publicly anti-gay congressperson?

otterley3• 12 years ago

It seems you're more willing to conclude, despite the lack of any evidence other than the donation itself, that Rep. Cannon's anti-gay voting record was the direct motivation for Mr. Yagan's donation than I am. In my view, that's a pretty long logical leap of faith.

I hadn't looked at Rep. Cannon until now, but he represented the State of Utah. As of 2004 there were few states more conservative about the question of gay marriage than Utah was, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised had his opponent, even a Democrat, taken the same stance on it at the time as Rep. Cannon did.

Also in 2004 nearly every politician, Republican or Democrat, was still strongly in favor of the PATRIOT Act. When enacted just three years earlier it passed the Senate 99-1 and only 15% in the House voted against it.

patrickg_zill2• 12 years ago

There are 7 billion people in the world. Those posters who make the assumption in their posts, that "of course" everyone agrees with their position that Prop 8 was wrong, might want to reflect that probably less than 500 million, or less than 8%, agree with them.

The debate that such posters believe has already been settled, will be going on for a long time.

hk__2• 12 years ago

A lot of people didn’t agree with slavery abolition, too. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good thing.

chaired• 12 years ago

You think that we haven't considered the relationship between morality and popular opinion, and that we should give more weight to popular opinion? And that if we did, we'd see it makes a better basis for morality than models that highlight equality and enumerated rights?

patrickg_zill2• 12 years ago

Not at all; however I think there is, how shall I say it, "whistling past the graveyard"? "wilful blindness"? when it is expressed as if it is a majority opinion among humans.

It is like the anecdote about the woman living in the cocoon of NYC's Upper East Side, who said after Nixon's landslide win of the presidential election of 1972 "I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him."

r0s7• 12 years ago

I really don't care if there's a mindless consensus against the ethically sound perspective, that proves nothing.

mrxd• 12 years ago

Yagan's personal views don't really matter. In fact, Eich's views don't matter either because in politics, perception is reality.

Yagan contributed to the growing perception that holding anti-gay opinions is socially unacceptable, something that the gay rights movement has been trying to achieve for decades. Regardless of his personal views, past actions or other motives, it helped.

Eich could have easily saved himself. The key problem was the perception of an anti-gay CEO of Mozilla, and this could have been fixed in the same way that all public figures handle shifting public sentiment: with a statement about how his views have "evolved", he realizes now how wrong he was, apologizing for the hurt he caused and so on. Clearly he chose not to do that.

slowblood• 12 years ago

Just think of Prop 8 as an Apartheid law.

001sky• 12 years ago

The IAC senior leadership has no (0/13) people of colour, and only one woman (thats 1/13). And in fact, they don't even have anyone who wears glasses. IAC is the owner of OK cupid, and Sam Yagan is on the parent company's wesite here:

http://iac.com/about/leadership

Google at least has a much more diverse company leadership teams. Ya know, men and women and people who wear glasses and hair color other than "middle brown".

For Yagan to take on his own Board as a subordinate, calling them a bunch of "racist bigots" --not for their private beliefs, but for their "public" actions-- as witnessed by their hiring policy, would be quite a stunt.

k-mcgrady• 12 years ago

Did anyone ever think this was anything more than a PR stunt? I don't agree with Eich's opinion at all but what OKCupid did was pretty shitty. They wanted cheap PR and they were hypocrits about it (continued using JS and now the news of Yagan's donations).

agmartin• 12 years ago

It really pisses me off when I have to agree with Mike Arrington.

downandout• 12 years ago

I have no issues with gay marriage, and I don't think that individual religious views have any place in the creation of laws that will affect people's everyday lives. However, this idea that someone can't keep their personal political views outside of their workplace is the territory of small-minded idiots. A good CEO can, indeed, support causes in his personal life that don't wind up becoming policy at the company he or she runs.

See this for what it is. The left is trying to make it OK to punish anyone that has ever supported a conservative cause. Everyone should now fear that their political views will endanger their jobs. This is perhaps the most slippery of all slopes, as this marks the beginning of the end of political discourse in the US. If the right made demands like this, they would be skewered in the media. Yet, because our media has an extreme liberal bias, this has, sadly, gained traction. Just say no.

r0s7• 12 years ago

A good CEO is the most public figure of the company, under constant media scrutiny.

If you think that's unfair or that the public shouldn't care about public figures, that high horse will only take you as far as hand waving theory.

OKCupid made a business decision. It could have been as superficial as Eich's hair color but there it is. This pathetic whining about "fairness" to the leadership of such a consumer oriented company is naive and disingenuous.

kyrra• 12 years ago

I don't think that individual religious views have any place in the creation of laws that will affect people's everyday lives.

How can you keep religious views out of law making? The US as we know it today was founded for religious freedom. Also, religion like Christianity is a way of life. How people interpret the Bible will vary between people, as can be seen with the various denominations of Christianity. How people apply those beliefs to their daily interactions will also vary.

What I'm trying to get at is, how can someone remove religion from their thinking and actions when it is core to who they are. Could you remove science and technology from your decision making?

smtddr• 12 years ago

>However, this idea that someone can't keep their personal political views outside of their workplace is the territory of small-minded idiots.

That can't be true for everything. If you think it's possible that a KKK member could be an effective leader/planner/organizer for an outreach program for the all the kids of low-income in Oakland, then you'd be wrong.

r0s7• 12 years ago

The Hypocrisy of Some Blogger

Summary: The co-founder of OKCupid made a donation to a homophobic senator in 2004.

There's a lot wrong with this "scandalous" revelation. Do we have any direct word on Sam Yagan's change of heart to support the oust of Brendan Eich? This blogger does not, from Yagan's actions we have to assume he feels differently now, a decade later.

And so, these toothless allegations of hypocrisy fall apart. This point from the rant:

This was a PR stunt, and as I show below, nothing but a PR stunt.

The stunt had the intended result, so this statement is either false or in doubt. Or, if the stunt is unrelated to Eich's removal, then it reflects popular sentiment to boost the OKCupid brand; it's familiar bland commercialism and no kind of hypocrisy.

hibikir• 12 years ago

On this situations, I end up wondering what's the right level of intolerance to intolerance. How much hate can one pour on someone that is being a bit bigot before you end up being just the same, but with a mirror?

Then one starts to question if being intolerant with the people that are intolerant of those that are intolerant is any better, and whether we are working in a system that allocates the call stack in the heap or in a defined stack, because too much thinking in this direction would cause a stack overflow in the JVM.

thatthatis3• 12 years ago

There's an enormous false equivalency here:

Prop 8 groups are single issue donations. A donation means exactly and only that you agree with the cause of anti-gay marriage.

Politicians are many-thousand issue donations. I know of exactly zero people who I agree with on everything. A donation to a politician can have thousands of motives, and even be done in staunch disagreement about certain issues (especially in the case where their opponent is the same on the issue you disagree with and worse on everything else)

On net I'm conflicted about the whole thing. But I do think that people who value tolerance should be intolerant of the intolerant.

bjterry• 12 years ago

The CEO of a non-political company is even more of a many-thousand issue than a politician, so I am not sure that this removes the hypocrisy. He was calling for Eich to resign based on one issue which wasn't related to his job, but donated to a politician in spite of that same issue that is directly related to the politician's job. (I made the same argument you did to someone else, and this was his good counterargument)

scintill763• 12 years ago

Tell that to the people who were citing Eich's other donations to "anti-gay" politicians, to further damn him.[0][1] (I'm guessing parent poster is not one of them, though.) If it counts against Eich, let's not let anyone else get a pass for the same thing. At the least it seems perfectly fair to grill Yagan pretty hard on this. Maybe nobody will because the story is saturated and/or this headline is not as juicy.

You could say a variant of the "donation ... can have thousands of motives" about Prop 8 or any single-issue group, too. In another sense, once you donate, you don't really have control over what the campaign does, just as you don't over what a politician does. Of course there's not as much latitude, but I'm concerned people ascribe the worst animosity possible to single-issue donors but the most charitable viewpoint to politician donors.

If you think there is no morality/empathy gradient on reasons for supporting Prop 8, that supporting it at all is repugnant, that's understandable. Are there any politicians who are so anti-gay-marriage, that donating to them would be just as bad as donating for Prop 8? Maybe this Chris Cannon, who has a "special kind of hate for gays", is one of them?

I'm also kind of conflicted. When you get into guessing people's feelings and motives from public documents about multifaceted ideas, it's not black and white. Maybe it's only fair to apply the same logic to anyone who who may have been hypocritically criticizing him, though.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7529538

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/02/controvers...

thatthatis3• 12 years ago

Yes, you could say "donations can have thousands of motives" in the same way about a single issue group. But saying that would be unnecessarily obtuse and argumentative - one supports a single cause the other supports thousands of stances.

You only donate to anti prop 8 if you are sufficiently opposed to gays marrying to spend money on it. I think it is by definition a bigoted act, and to use your words, morally repugnant.

The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

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