
The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid  - McKittrick
http://uncrunched.com/2014/04/06/the-hypocrisy-of-sam-yagan-okcupid/
======
pyduan
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is guilty of being wrongly attached to outdated models of society, this is not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.

~~~
masklinn
> 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

~~~
baddox
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.

~~~
masklinn
> 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.

It's the exact same theory: "different legal regimes but the same rights" and
"different physical facilities but the same quality".

~~~
baddox
"Legal regime" sounds fancy, but if it's just a word difference I wouldn't see
much of a problem. Similarly, we have word differences like "brother"/"sister"
that are descriptive but which don't involve any difference in rights.

------
anonbanker
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*)

~~~
bp123
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.

~~~
anonbanker
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.

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

Please don't use aggressive sarcasm on Hacker News. It adds no information and
corrodes civility.

Consider how much better this comment would be if one deleted everything
before "Perhaps". Editing out inflammatory language is the low-hanging fruit
of optimizing for signal/noise ratio.

~~~
Snail_Commando
> Editing out inflammatory language is the low-hanging fruit of optimizing for
> signal/noise ratio.

I'd like to gently suggest that you put that, or something to that effect, in
the HN guidelines.

> Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation.

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.
> E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened
> to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

> Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something
> genuinely new to say about them.

By my assessment, your observation adds information that is not currently
covered. "...calling names..." is a facet of the inflammatory language that
hacker news could do without. But blatant name calling is a relatively small
(and obvious) portion of the noise generating language that actually occurs.
The other more insidious forms of inflammatory language are either less
obvious or more likely to be rationalized.

I feel like some hacker news commenters* are more likely to add inflammatory
language if they feel like the rest of their* comment(s) is/are otherwise high
signal.

It's kind of like dipping into a savings account to break (the spirit of) the
guidelines. They* rationalize the [sarcasm, incredulity, overt disdain,
indignant rage, mockery, etc.] because they* feel entitled to the luxury and
misjudge the consequences of it.

* Weasel words: I know I've done this. But I suspect I'm not the only one.

~~~
dang
Gentle suggestion gently received. We're definitely going to do something like
this. It'll to take time for the pieces to fall into place, though. It's
trivial to edit the guidelines; what's not trivial is to think until you see
the next good thing to do.

You and me both, by the way; it took me a long time to realize that the
sarcasm I used to put into my comments (mainly because I wanted them not to be
bland) was amplifying the wrong things. And I still have to consciously catch
myself.

------
lingben
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...](http://www.columbia.edu/~jhb2147/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-
dating.html)

~~~
esdfsadfa
How does using Javascript financially benefit opponents of gay equality?

Hint: it doesn't.

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

~~~
Karunamon
Yeah, the "boycott" always struck me as misguided. Being annoyed at one
particular person in a company doesn't preclude you using their stuff, moreso
if that use doesn't imply any kind of support.

Lars Ulrich might be the biggest asshole in music, but that doesn't mean he
doesn't make great music.

~~~
anonbanker
Forgive the nitpick, but I'm not sure Lars makes great Music. Cliff wrote all
the early material. All the stuff now is written by Kirk/James, and then the
producer has the final say. I'm not sure I can think of a song he's written
that I enjoy. Can you?

However, you may be right that Lars is the biggest asshole in music. how many
people (other than Prince) sue their fans? how many people flaunt their
massive art collections while suing their fans?

~~~
Malus
Lars may be an asshole, but it is unfair to say that he made less of a
contribution to the writing that Cliff did. Lars has writing credits on 8
tracks of _Kill 'Em All_ [0], 8 tracks of _Ride the Lightning_ [1], 8 tracks
of _Master of Puppets_ [2], and 9 tracks of _...And Justice for All_ [3],
whereas Cliff only has 1, 6, 3, and 1 tracks on said albums respectively.
Furthermore, James wrote nearly all of the lyrics himself, so I really don't
see how Cliff can be considered the driving force behind the writing of
Metallica's early music.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_%27Em_All#Track_listing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_%27Em_All#Track_listing)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ride_the_Lightning#Track_listin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ride_the_Lightning#Track_listing)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Puppets#Track_listing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Puppets#Track_listing)

[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...And_Justice_for_All_%28album...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...And_Justice_for_All_%28album%29#Track_listing)

~~~
anaphor
On the other hand, wasn't Lars the driving force between the terrible
mastering of their more recent albums? I remember reading something where he
said basically that because he didn't personally hear any clipping and it
sounded good in his car that it was good.

~~~
Malus
From what I understand, Rick Rubin wanted it mastered that way so it sounded
"louder" (yet another casualty of the loudness wars) and the band just went
with it. Unfortunately, the average consumer (or band member apparently)
couldn't care less about audio quality, so it is no surprise that Lars has no
qualms about it.

I cannot find a working link for the original interview, but BlabberMouth has
the quote you are referring to: [http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/metallica-s-
lars-ulrich-bre...](http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/metallica-s-lars-ulrich-
breaks-silence-on-death-magnetic-sound-quality-controversy/)

------
Ryel
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.

~~~
r0s
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.

~~~
pessimizer
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.)

------
tasty_freeze
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
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.

------
patrickg_zill
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.

~~~
chaired
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_zill
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."

------
001sky
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](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.

------
thatthatis
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.

~~~
scintill76
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](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7529538)

[1]
[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/02/controvers...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/02/controversial-
mozilla-ceo-made-donations-right-wing-candidates-brendan-eich)

~~~
thatthatis
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.

~~~
scintill76
Perhaps I am being too nitpicky, fair enough. Personally, I'd still rather
entertain shades of gray, then turn into a bigot against people I think are
bigoted.

I'm interested in your distinction "sufficiently opposed to gays marrying _to
spend money on it_ ". This has turned up quite a few times in these threads.
Apparently merely being opposed to gays marrying is, like, _unfortunate_ , but
doing anything about it crosses the line to absolutely insufferable. Are you
saying this? Then what's the point of being "allowed" to have an opinion some
people don't like, if actually doing anything about it is "wrong"? Is it the
money that makes it bad? Trying to convince others to your viewpoint? Any
action besides just voting? Is voting against gays marrying worse than just
thinking to yourself that they shouldn't?

This may again be nitpicking, but I'm not trying to argue, just wondering
where people draw the lines.

~~~
thatthatis
Money ~= power. Prop 8 was to reduce freedom of gays by non gays. Gay marriage
has only "eww factor" affect on straight marriage.

Thus, while it is fine to prefer gays not marry, it is wrong for group a to
exert power against group b to limit group b's freedom when group a suffers no
harm either way.

Having the opinion is questionable. But when you exert your power over another
group, you enter a sphere of active rather than passive bigotry.

------
learc83
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?

------
otterley
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.

~~~
cheez
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.

~~~
scarmig
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?

~~~
waterlesscloud
Well, the politician literally voted for a law to amend the constitution to
prevent gay marriage.

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

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

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

~~~
dfc
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.

~~~
anonbanker
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.

~~~
dfc
As far as PR nightmare backlashes go your example is a walk in the park. I
thought it went without saying that the sound bite needed to be accurate but I
guess not. The donation was made to a politician, not to an issue group. These
two are not equivalent. The inaccuracy makes it very easy for OKC to dismiss
your response and no semi-decent journalist is going to discuss your
inaccurate claim. Your response also suffers from the fact that it does not
name OKC or Yagan by name and you are relying on the individual having
previous knowledge of the issue.

~~~
anonbanker
So you take the Scumbag Steve hat, and photoshop it on Sam Yagan's head, then
place the text I mentioned. I invite you to look into image-based memes, as it
seems you're confused on their execution.

sound bytes are almost intentionally inaccurate. if you could take such a
complex issue and fit it into twenty words or less, you're probably losing a
lot, or it wasn't a substantial issue.

As far as PR nightmare backlashes go, the Eich one is a walk in the park. An
efficient corporate PR campaign would have taken Eich's initial response, and
ran with it, having Eich personally donate money to LGBTQ campaigns that
aren't related to Proposition 8. That would have crippled the backlash,
because half the LBGTQ's would've pointed to the donation as a sign that
Brendan-Now is different than Brendan-Then.

Sadly, they didn't respond fast enough, or effectively enough. How many other
CEO's have been ousted because of their Gay Rights stances?

~~~
dfc
I don't know what Yagan looks like and my mom has no concept of image based
memes. That being said my mother can understand:

    
    
      OKCupid blocks firefox over anti-gay Mozilla CEO
    

That sound bite works, and it works across a lot of demos.

~~~
anonbanker
Right. And your mother is on OKCupid, and understood the Firefox message that
popped up on her browser.

Further, your mother uses Firefox and not whatever is included with her
computer.

Further, your mother is paying attention to tech news.

Can we switch Moms? Yours sounds awesome.

~~~
dfc
To recap things we know about dfc's mom:

    
    
      * knows about OKCupid because her son introduced her to a girl he met
        on OKCupid.
    
      * knows Firefox because it is "the thing she is supposed to click on
        instead of the internet browser (sic) icon."
    
      * reads news on websites. This story was all over: bloomberg, usa today,
        nyt, huffpost, time, newsweek, csmonitor, fox news, etc

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

------
hibikir
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.

------
mililani
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.

------
funkyy
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...

------
downandout
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.

~~~
kyrra
> 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?

------
k-mcgrady
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).

------
mkr-hn
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
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.

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

------
r0s
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.

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

~~~
anonbanker
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.

------
bluntly_said
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.

~~~
Karunamon
>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.

~~~
bluntly_said
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.

~~~
Karunamon
_I 'm not qualified to tell the other side of the story._

What a cop out. You're, like everyone else who disagrees with this,
downplaying Eich's behavior and trying to turn activists into the "real"
monsters for speaking out.

Why the double standard? Why does one man, Eich, get a pass on speaking out
for his personal political beliefs (with cash), but you demonize the the
(hundreds? thousands? more?) people who did nothing but say that it was
unacceptable?

You want pathetic? Look at your own post. Realize what you're defending. You
should be ashamed of yourself.

~~~
bluntly_said
You understand you're the definition of a schoolyard bully, right?

I've read all my posts, several times. I'm internally consistent, and I almost
always favor cautious respect over ignorant bashing.

I'm not even defending Eich, again, I don't know him. I'm stating that a
social environment where a man loses a job Mozilla thought he was qualified
for because of private personal beliefs and internet outrage is not only
actively undemocratic, it's foolish and childish.

~~~
Karunamon
> _I 'm stating that a social environment where a man loses a job Mozilla
> thought he was qualified for because of private personal beliefs_

Private "personal beliefs" that he reached into his wallet and tried to force
into law. This is the one thing that people don't seem to understand. Eich
didn't just think gays were second class citizens. This isn't a "thoughtcrime"
he's being pilloried for.

It was the action. The donation, coupled with his complete refusal to
backtrack, explain, or apologize. Just evade and spin all day long.

I have absolutely no problem stamping Eich with "unrepentant bigot" on his
forehead because he's proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that those are his
beliefs. It is both unreasonable and inconsistent to give him "the benefit of
the doubt" after his behavior when the donations came to light. There is no
question anymore.

>actively undemocratic, it's foolish and childish.

I don't think you know what democracy means.

Publicly proclaim your allegiance to Stormfront or a group that holds similar
regressive views for women, and tell me your life will remain unaffected.

~~~
bluntly_said
No, I think you've decided that when democracy doesn't cater exactly to your
personal morals, it must be wrong.

Making a donation based on private, personal beliefs is ENTIRELY the point of
a democracy. The correct action is to speak out in support of your ideas, not
to cast hatred on those who disagree.

Instead of sitting here arguing, you could have gone and made a 10 dollar
donation to a pro-lbgt group, and done a lot more good. Instead of forcing
Eich to resign, you could have used it as a rallying point to get A LOT of
other like minded people to make that same 10 dollar donation. You could have
chosen to voice your opinions with both words and monetary support, (like Eich
did) instead of attacking the opposition. You aren't doing that.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Making a donation based on private, personal beliefs is ENTIRELY the point
> of a democracy

No, but its part of the point of a free society -- _as is criticizing others
actions based on their personal beliefs_.

------
Karunamon
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
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?

~~~
Karunamon
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.

------
slowblood
Just think of Prop 8 as an Apartheid law.

------
mrxd
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.

------
scarmig
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
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.

~~~
scarmig
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...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/04/04/brendan_eich_supported_prop_8_which_was_worse_than_you_remember.html)

~~~
aryastark
I'm sorry, but Prop 8 passed. By 7 million people.

Boycotting Mozilla? Really? You need to talk about boycotting _California_.
Making a scapegoat out of one single person for what an entire state did is
fucking insane.

~~~
scarmig
The number you're looking for is 599,602 people, not 7 million people.

Note that I've not said anything to support boycotting Mozilla or calling for
Eich to get fired. I just don't like people laughing it off as just some good
ole fun he was having.

Donating money--real money, $1,000--to a campaign of hate is bad, particularly
considering the vile rhetoric it used those funds for directly. Bad bad bad.
It's also bad to have voted for it, but just bad, not bad bad bad.

I don't think being a bigot means you're inherently a terrible person or that
you should be fired from a position. That's situational. I say it was a bad
move for the board to make him CEO in the first place--the rage and hurt
that'd happen because of that was easily foreseeable--and I'm neutral/too
lacking of information on Mozilla's organizational health on whether he should
have been fired after he got the position.

~~~
aryastark
> The number you're looking for is 599,602 people, not 7 million people.

What are you talking about?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_\(2008\))

7,001,084 votes for yes.

