benched

Today, I learned just how trivial people believe gay rights are. I'm actually surprised by it. That's much sadder to me.

It has proven to be a much more popular opinion, at least on Hacker News, than I ever would have thought possible in 2014.

Ok. Sorry. We'll all use the exact right level of rhetoric from now on.

The Hacker News community wants to discuss this story much more than the Hacker News mods want to allow it to be discussed. They think they've reasonably allowed the community to discuss it "enough", already, so they're intervening. Not annoying at all, is it?

I don't think you and so many others would say the same thing if the issue was inter-racial marriage, today. Is it really so hard for people to get a little bit ahead of the progress curve for a change, instead of digging in and dragging heels behind it? What is it that makes it so hard?

Really? Is there a rash of this sort of thing going on that I don't know about? Or is it pretty much just Brendan Eich right now, reaping the consequences of expressing bigotry publicly?

I'm sure I wrote what I did on purpose. Thanks for the invite, though!

Oh for fucks sake. Whether or not every Christian is pro-life doesn't change what I said, but thanks for the tangent. Every Internet argument can use more pedantic tangents!

Do you even know that you are playing meaningless word games, of the form, "This statement is a lie" or "atheism is a religion"? You really think that "In order to be tolerant, you have to tolerate intolerance!" is a good argument, and not just self-referential verbal nonsense?

"Sure, you could say it's a human rights issue."

Are you sure you don't want to give this possibility a little more weight? Maybe a lot more weight? I mean, what if it is a human rights issue?

Of course not, that would be silly.

It would not be "silly" for Christians to target people for being pro-choice. That would be right in line with being Christian.

I like to think of this issue in the most specific terms possible, rather than the most sweeping and abstract.

If, for just a moment, you can set aside the bluster, it's just one guy named Brendan having a chance to evaluate whether it was really worth it to him to donate $1k to prop 8.

On a scale of 1 to 5, how strong of an argument do you believe you're making right here? That an individual assuming a position of high leadership being pressured to leave that leadership position, is equivalent enough to people withholding civil rights from a minority group, to use the word "oppress" to refer to both, to make a rhetorical point? Do you feel like you're really nailing the issue here?

Also, now I have to take back that line anyway. Maybe it does take the ability to categorize well.

Aw. And to think, you could have just thanked him!

"for his political views"

In this case, you cannot speak generally like this. In this case, it really matters exactly what those political views are, not just that they are "political". And that's why there was such an uproar, and why he's stepping down.

People seem to be willfully misunderstanding this. It's not like, "Whoa! Guys! We can persecute people for their ''''political'''' views now? What's up with that?" No, it's more like we're sick of having to liberate all the people that some people find too 'othery', one group at a time. We've seen this before. We know how it goes. We know how it ends, and we're less inclined than ever to play nice with the oppressing side.

And it really does not take a genius, or an orator, to see which side is the oppressing one.

Half of the people in this thread are deeply confused about the relationship between civil rights and popular opinion. The latter is a perception of the former, not the cause or definition.

I have no idea what you're saying, so I'll just add to my point. Did authority originate as 'the people' purposefully vesting some of their power into one or more leaders, in order to organize society more effectively? Or is that how we post-rationalize the state we're born into?

The entire concept of authority is inherently suspicious. It's so easy to confuse it for people with advantages using their advantages to enjoy their advantages.

Eh. I think a lot of this is in your head and can be got over. It sounds nothing at all like my experience.

It absolutely does have the same status for those who are on the right side of the argument (the one that will certainly be vindicated by history). The people who are in the right don't have to wait until the slow people catch up, in order to be right.

I'm liberal, and I believe society should be as permissive as it can stand to be with regard to behavior, choices, and the kinds of lifestyles we can create. But I'm not an idiot. Abortion is perhaps the only thing you could have used as an argument here. It's obvious to me why people have a problem with abortion. Even people who had one probably didn't like it. But I don't care enough about it to try to prevent anyone from having one.

Gay rights aren't abortion. Enough people believe it is exactly like every other precedent for civil rights, that you can't really seriously hold onto this argument anymore. Sorry. And absolutely nobody said it had to be about voting, so where did you pull that out of?

We're entering a time (finally, I hope) where people don't care why a person is a bigot, or whether they're only a bigot in "private", whatever that means. I can see how this could be problematic as well as you, but I'm very willing to ride with it for now.

I found this to be the most interesting page:

http://iac.com/about/leadership

One group. One dream. To own a bunch of random websites, together.

edit: With the help of Chelsea Clinton and Michael Eisner!

Long time Microsoft and Windows app developer here. I just thought somebody should point out the obvious: that this is not even remotely unusual for a Microsoft app on a Microsoft operating system. You're just describing the normal architecture of the OS and the way apps work.

If it wasn't for the money, I'd think these guys were just clueless. Billions excuse much.

Why don't we call television networks advertising companies? Because it isn't a cultural signal for "I am sophisticated" on tech message boards.

Not in the slightest. You're being highly selective in what you focus on, and deliberately phrasing your description of the situation to spin it that way. You're just short of begging the question.

I despise UI that gets in my way. It's even worse if it's for my own good.

I didn't downvote you, but if I had, it would have been because "neuronal activity" seems like a strawman here, and I'm not sure where you got that idea. I would have started with synaptic connections myself.

In exactly the same way that heroin substitutes for many healthier goal-seeking behaviors in the junkie, Facebook seems to give many of my former friends a social fix, such that they seek other forms of interaction much less now. That includes telephone calls, nights out at the pub / dinner / billiards, and especially one-on-one conversations.

Pretty awesome policy for a discussion board. I know I'm looking forward to the next 10,000 "citation needed" comments!