Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich Steps Down

[CloudAtlas]

Just to return to my earler analogy: if I discovered my local cafe owner was a neo-Nazi and I stopped eating there, that isn't 'discrimination' against him

What about if he was Gay and you stopped eating there because of it? Or perhaps he was Jewish or Muslim?

edit:

The worrying opinion resonating through this thread is "It's not discrimination if I don't like the person"

Not really. To boycott people who discriminate against you (or others) is not the same thing as those people discriminating against you in the first place. You just don't want to associate with people who seek to make your life miserable without you ever having done anything to them.

I mean, that would be like saying, well, Nazis hate Jews, Jews hate Nazis, so both hate each other, let's call it even - entirely disregarding that the latter only dislike the former because they (quite understandably if you ask me) do not wish to be exterminated. Now the stakes are generally not that high in the case of gays (at least not generally the West - in other places, they are), but the principle is the same.

 

[wulf3n]

Not really. To boycott people who discriminate against you (or others) is not the same thing as those people discriminating against you in the first place. You just don't want to associate with people who seek to make your life miserable without you ever having done anything to them.

I mean, that would be like saying, well, Nazis hate Jews, Jews hate Nazis, so both hate each other, let's call it even - entirely disregarding that the latter only dislike the former because they (quite understandably if you ask me) do not wish to be exterminated. Now the stakes are generally not that high in the case of gays (at least not generally the West - in other places, they are), but the principle is the same.

Discrimination is Discrimination, whatever excuse you try to use to justify it to yourself.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Not really. To boycott people who discriminate against you (or others) is not the same thing as those people discriminating against you in the first place. You just don't want to associate with people who seek to make your life miserable without you ever having done anything to them.

I mean, that would be like saying, well, Nazis hate Jews, Jews hate Nazis, so both hate each other, let's call it even - entirely disregarding that the latter only dislike the former because they (quite understandably if you ask me) do not wish to be exterminated. Now the stakes are generally not that high in the case of gays (at least not generally the West - in other places, they are), but the principle is the same.

Discrimination is Discrimination, whatever excuse you try to use to justify it to yourself.

I don't care about your definitions, I care about meanings. And in this regard, whether you want to call them both discrimination or not, they simply aren't the same thing - and that is exactly what I said, and all that I said.

I mean, you can't honestly believe that hating someone because of his ethnicity/religion/gender/sexual orientation/etc is morally equivalent to the desire of these persons not to be hated, disadvantaged, or worse, nor is acting on these respective beliefs.

 

[EiMitch]

Boycotting a company because it uses 3rd world sweatshops: Fine.
Boycotting a company because they refuse to serve people of certain faiths/ethnicity/Sexual Preferences: Fine.
Boycotting a company because the person in charge does something you don't like completely separate from the company itself: Not fine.

That's not to say people aren't allowed to do it. I just consider it immoral.

So its okay to protest and put innocent employees jobs on the line so long as you approve of the cause.

At least you distinguished between the right to protest and your personal approval of it. But its still hypocrisy.

Then...don't shop there. The problem is easily solved without any sort of 'battle' whatsoever. What people chose to do instead was not only to drop their own support but to force their users to drop support of the browser as well.

OkCupid didn't force anyone. They inconvenienced users a moment to ask them to stop using Firefox. The choice was up to the user.

And yet it's most definitely considered discriminatory if you were to stop eating at a place because the owner is Jewish, which is absolutely something he can "control" and is entirely based on his personal system of beliefs. So it's only not discrimination if it's something you find abhorrent?

Are you equating religion with past actions? Discriminating against someone for their faith isn't the same as "discriminating" against someone for discriminating against others. Equivocation FAIL.

Then again, context has always been the enemy of the reverse-victim mentality.

 

[wulf3n]

I don't care about your definitions

Then why bother responding? If you feel your opinion is the right one, and don't care about my opinion why waste both our times?

I mean, you can't honestly believe that hating someone because of his ethnicity/religion/gender/sexual orientation/etc is morally equivalent to the desire of these persons not to be hated, disadvantaged, or worse, nor is acting on these respective beliefs.

I believe hating others because they hate me serves no real purpose. I understand what it's like to be hated, I don't want to be hated, as such I won't hate others. I'll hate their opinions, but not them.

So its okay to protest and put innocent employees jobs on the line so long as you approve of the cause.

Well it all depends on your definition of innocent. If the company you work for actively hurts/persecutes others and you're aware of it then you bear some of the responsibility. If someone in your company is a bigoted asshole you don't.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

snip

I never held his beliefs against him. Do I agree with what he did? No. But I didn't see what it had to do with him having a job he was highly qualified for, and I see the fact that he felt pressured to resign a bit sad.

By the way, I'm bi. Just throwing it out there to try to ward off potential "you're just a homophobe and don't want to admit it" card-playing. I can see the irritation towards him, but if every person could be blocked from raising up in ranks for something they did six years ago, there would be no CEOs at all.

To answer your question: the fact that he apologized, and it got totally ignored for the sake of continuing the boycott and celebrating his resignation, kinda proves my point. People doing the boycott didn't want an apology. They wanted him gone.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Because black-listing has a long and proven track history of working out perfectly for those ideologies which practice it. Oh wait, that's the complete exact opposite of what actually happens.

Keep up the spas-tastic work, Social Justice Internet warriors! With friends like you, who needs enemies anymore?

 

[hazydawn]

Your post looks to me as if you missed that first part.

Yeah, I did. Thanks for bringing clarity... in such detail >.<
All right. I apologize. My bad

 

[V8 Ninja]

So...people are defending a bigot.

Spoiler: MAJOR CLARIFICATION

EDIT: As some pointed out, "Defending A Bigot" is not exactly an accurate representation of what people are saying. I mixed my general statement with something that's more complicated. Looking over lots of comments again, it appears the closest thing I can say is that people are defending the right for a bigot to be converted by understanding rather than rejection. Then again, I also see lots of those comments as people defending the ability for a bigot to have a high-paying job, a sentiment which doesn't sit well with me. Nevertheless, I apologize for generalizing the point to a single phrase that inaccurately depicted the majority opinion of one side of this argument. My stance on this, however, has not changed.

Well, that's something I didn't expect to see on these forums.

As for my opinions on this topic;

Spoiler: My Opinions

While this can certainly be called discrimination of some kind and I'm all for making people understand the issues at hand rather than outright rejecting their viewpoints, Flatfrog made a very good distinction [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/7.846451.20870371] between intolerance and intolerance of intolerance. Ultimately they're the same thing (not considering the viewpoints of others), but an extreme rooted in rationality is being used to combat an extreme rooted in extremism. Ultimately, I would say that this is a net positive.

 

[wulf3n]

Indeed those rights extend to all, but exactly what rights have actually been violated by Eich's being fired. You can certainly argue that he's being fired due to his beliefs, but that's ignoring that he didn't just believe something, he acted upon that belief.

His actions while morally questionable were still legal.

edit: To me that's like saying, You weren't fired because you are Muslim, you were fired because you were praying at a Mosque.

Penalizing actions is well within the rights of Mozilla, especially when said actions run completely contrary to their positions and causes a bunch of negative PR for them.

Firing someone based on their belief runs contrary to their positions, but it didn't stop them.

 

[wulf3n]

Which is why the government shouldn't and won't try and arrest him, not why a company shouldn't tell him to leave.

And they have every right to. It's still discrimination though, which is what my argument is about.

Did they fire him because of his beliefs or because of his actions? Had he not contributed $1000 to rejecting the idea of civil rights there likely wouldn't have been the OKCupid page, or this discussion, or his almost immediate leave. His beliefs certainly informed his actions, but his actions are what got him fired.

Again this would be like saying you weren't fired because you are homosexual you were fired because you had sex with someone of the same gender. It's a trivial distinction.

 

[Hammartroll]

What's the point supposed to be? Is this going to make him change his mind on gay marriage? Are people now supposed to support gay marriage purely out of fear of losing their job? Is this supposed to be a good thing for society, or is this just the gay community being vindictive?

 

[Hammartroll]

So...people are defending a bigot.

Defending the right for a bigot (or a Christian with religion based views, take your pick) to express his views while being gainfully employed? Yeah sure, the opposite seems cruel. How is the gay community blacklisting a Christian fundamentalist any different from the Christian fundamentalists blacklisting a homosexual?

 

[wulf3n]

And it would also be discrimination if they fired a child molester. "Discrimination" in the broad way you're using it isn't a bad thing; we treat people differently based upon their actions all the time.

That would be firing someone who's breaking the law, because they're breaking the law. Unless of course the person has served their time, in which case yes, it is discrimination.

we treat people differently based upon their actions all the time.

You say that as if it's a good thing.

You were fired because you had sex with someone of the same gender... and uploaded a recording of it to the internet, all while working for a company whose mission statement is "gay sex is wrong," all of which gave the company a lot of bad PR when they, for some reason, appointed you CEO. The difference between what you're pretending is comparable to Eich's situation and Eich's actual situation is the difference between what is private and what is public.

Close but the issue with Mozilla is that their belief that everyone should be treated equally goes against their present actions. If Mozilla truly think Intolerance is wrong, why are they also demonstrating intolerance?


This whole situation is like the person that says "I'm not racist I just hate black people". Mozilla [and many on this forum] can claim to be tolerant, but the truth is their "tolerance" only extends to those they deem worthy. When the chips are down, they discriminate just as much as those who they fight against.