I didn't sign up to fight a huge internet fucking hate mob.
Dudes an out and proud homophobe and accepted a position of public interest in California. That was always going to be a showdown between the only the tech matters and social justice types. There's no way he didn't know it and there's no way the board members didn't know it. A board member resigned about it before he took the position.
He signed up for and was sent out of the gate as a champion for team tech only and promptly fled the battlefield. Team tech only refuses to accept their defeat.
CEOs tend to have a pretty thick skin. If you think it is a fun job you should try it for a while. And it didn't stop Eich from starting up another company.
Besides that, he wasn't forced out, that part of the narrative is simply false. CEOs have been - rightfully, in many cases - accused of far worse than this and have sailed through just fine. That said, if my employees en-masse demanded that I resigned I might have done so as well. After all, the internet hate mob is easy to ignore but the employees you work with every day are not.
No one working for me demanded I resigned when I was at Mozilla. Six people working for the Mozilla Foundation, under separate management up to a separate board with only the board chair in common between the Corporation where I worked and the Foundation, did tweet demands.
Well, to be fair, he contributed $1000 to a huge real-life fucking hate mob.
Ramble on about 'SJWs' or 'cancel culture' or whatever if you like, but the fact is that social actions have social consequences, and this is an example.
But this kind of consequence is just way over the line. We have a legal system where everyone sat down and agreed on very clearly defined appropriate consequences, while cancel culture is just emotionally driven people taking matters into their own hands, not really different from medieval witch hunts.
You do have a legal system, but nobody in this situation did anything illegal. Clearly what "everyone sat down and agreed on" is insufficient, when both sides are saying that "thing X the other party did was legal but inappropriate".
But they are (attempting to) use ballot initiatives to deny civil rights to certain people, which if anything is worse than getting people fired.
Bottom line: if you contributed to Proposition 8, you did a bad thing, and it needs to hurt. Without a feedback mechanism of some sort, the original 'cancel culture' -- the one that brought us the Dark Ages -- will prevail.
As a straight white cis-male, I have no dog in the fight. But I know right from wrong, and Proposition 8 was wrong.
Proposition 8 did not go through because our legal system was doing its job. That’s the feedback mechanism right there.
Now if you set up a ballot initiative to fire anyone who contributed to it, then that’s fair game, but obviously any remotely sane judge will deny it. (Which is also the feedback mechanism telling you you’re proposing something extremist here.) Now, circumventing the law to serve your own arbitrary version of justice? Who the hell do you even think you are? Fucking Batman?
But nobody suggested a ballot initiative to fire anybody. Not everything requires an act of government. Sometimes social pressures are, and should be, sufficient.
I suggested it, because it would be the correct way to do it, and a good way to realize you’re asking for something extreme.
The social pressures you’re advocating are not a weaker form of serving justice. They are stronger. They circumvent our legal system, they’re arbitrary, they’re simply mob justice. No one can keep them in check and indeed they frequently go too far. This is not ok.
That's rich, considering the "mob" is only asking for the same rights you and I have.
It sounds like you've made up your mind on this issue (or, more likely, had it made up for you as a child), so we'll probably have to agree to disagree.
The mob ultimately has no power, while the government does. Whoever uses force first -- or in the case of Proposition 8, attempts to -- is the bad guy.
It really is that simple. Don't want a culture war? Don't start one.
There's a difference between using force within a legal framework (Proposition 8), and using extrajudicial force (cancel culture).
And that difference is that a sane instance (the law) can reject you if you're being insane, which did happen in the case of Proposition 8, but can't happen with cancel culture.
So you're justifying the usage of extrajudicial force with an already rejected attempt to use judicial force.
And you think that's fair, and you're the good guy.
'Cancel culture' isn't force, it's culture. That's why they call it 'cancel culture', and not 'cancel force.' Funny, it turns out a lot of people would rather not do business with racists, misogynists, homophobes, neo-Nazis, and assorted religious bigots, whodathunkit.
Someone from the government showing up with a gun and telling me I can't marry a consenting adult of my choice is a much better example of the use of force.
> 'Cancel culture' isn't force, it's culture. That's why they call it 'cancel culture', and not 'cancel force.' Funny, it turns out a lot of people would rather not do business with racists, misogynists, homophobes, neo-Nazis, and assorted religious bigots, whodathunkit.
Don't do business, sure, but harassing your political opponent's family and getting them fired still is culture and not force? And it can't even be both? And the best argument you can come up with is that it's not literally called "cancel force"? That seems reasonable.
> Someone from the government showing up with a gun and telling me I can't marry a consenting adult of my choice
Show me just one example of this happening today. Just one.
You're grasping at straws here arguing based on arbitrarily defined semantics, things that never happened and randomly accusing me of trolling (that one's especially low), while ignoring the central point.
To quote you, sounds like you've made up your mind on this issue.
Show me just one example of this happening today. Just one.
See https://www.claerygreen.com/Family-Law-Blog/2015/April/Filin... . If Proposition 8 had been allowed to stand, and if a gay couple had claimed the state tax break reserved for heterosexual married couples, the state revenue agency would have rejected their return and demanded payment of the additional tax they owed, plus interest and penalties.
Then, if the couple refused to pay, eventually someone with a gun would have come to their door. Try it yourself, if you don't believe me. It happens every day to people who refuse to pay their taxes.
That's the very definition of "force." It's the only power a government ultimately has. And it's a much bigger deal than being harassed on Facebook.
With Brendan Eich's help, a mob of seven million people attemped to bring this hypothetical scenario to life. Since then, the Trump administration has stocked the Federal courts with hundreds of far-right judges, including several rated 'unqualified' by the ABA, whom I suspect would have let the law stand. Hopefully we won't have to find out. If the next Brendan Eich refrains from trying to incorporate the Bible into state and Federal law because he's terrified of what might happen to his career, I'm OK with that.
To quote you, sounds like you've made up your mind on this issue.
If you need to preface it with "If X had happened" then it's not an example of something happening.
> Since then, the Trump administration has stocked the Federal courts with hundreds of far-right judges, including several rated 'unqualified' by the ABA, whom I suspect would have let the law stand.
Do you even realize how big of an assumption this is? "I suspect" is definitely not sufficient to justify ruining people's careers. To the contrary, it's emblematic of mob justice.
> If the next Brendan Eich refrains from trying to incorporate the Bible into state and Federal law because he's terrified of what might happen to his career, I'm OK with that.
First off, that's a really grandiose way to say "he donated $1000 to an unfashionable cause".
Secondly, canceling is a pretty shitty way to fix this problem, don't you think? So shitty you might even call it counterproductive? You don't think this is going to lead to more bottled up hate down the road? You don't think this kind of thing is exactly what got Trump elected in the first place?
Thirdly, and most importantly, cancel culture doesn't stop at Eich. People are getting canceled for far more harmless offenses than his. Because, same as Proposition 8, cancelers are nothing but a hate mob ascribing themselves moral superiority in order to justify their morally reprehensible actions, but unlike Proposition 8 no one even has the power to keep the mob in check.
Regarding your last sentence - you obviously support gay marriage, do you think you're open minded?
The point is that the means used to get those rights are harassing the family members of the opposition and getting them fired.
No matter how noble your goal, this is just not how politics is supposed to work in a healthy nation. At all. Quite the opposite, this is analogous to how politics worked when the Soviets killed millions and millions of their own people in order to attain a communist utopia. Do you not see that?
> or, more likely, had it made up for you as a child
I think I've articulated quite precisely why I have my opinions.
Quite the opposite, this is analogous to how politics worked when the Soviets killed millions and millions of their own people in order to attain a communist utopia. Do you not see that?
Yes, I see that misusing government power to enforce unequal treatment for a disfavored subgroup is exactly like what the Soviets did.
Now that you've steamrolled your own position more effectively than I managed to, we're done here.
> misusing government power to enforce unequal treatment for a disfavored subgroup is exactly like what the Soviets did.
It is, which is why Proposition 8 was rejected.
> Now that you've steamrolled your own position more effectively than I managed to, we're done here.
Dude, are you seriously going to be that snide while poorly strawmanning my argument? I’m not at all saying we need to stop gay marriage via govt. I’m saying cancel culture sucks.
Turns out if most of your employees dislike you then it's going to be hard to be an effective leader! This is despite him having had many opportunities to take outs/apologize etc. He could have even lied when apologizing! He made a choice to stick to his "principles" instead. Of course you face consequences for this kind of behaviour.
This is extremely non-controversial in any other social setting, why would running a company be different? Why is being forced out for being a bad person seen as this new phenomenon when people stop interacting with people they dislike _all the time_?
right but it doesn't actually matter. He had a choice and a way to keep his job if he wanted to. People do stuff in bad faith all the time! It's not the sign of perfect morals but it's a thing one can do if they want to keep certain relationships healthy.
He actively chose between "have a good relationship with employees at Mozilla" and "stick to his guns on the issue at hand". He made that decision, and had a hell of a lot of agency in how things turned out.
Granted this was a while ago, but imagine being so committed to anti-marriage equality that you do what he did? Why do you feel the need to carry water for somebody doing that?
Just to be clear. You prefer people lying while apologizing over people who disagree with you?
Do you, at all, consider, at least sometimes, that people that disagree with you might have to say something intelligent about their position? I am not trying to defend homophobism, irrespective of the question of Brendan Eichs action or believes are homophobe, or not. But, I do believe that somebody disagreeing with me, might have something to tell me. I believe even that it is boring to talk to people with whom I agree on everything, although it is comforting and easy. There is value in communicating with people of different believes, standpoints, intellectual fields, religions, or sexual orientation or ... . Therefore, I cannot fathom how people can prefer being lied to.
Have you considered that I _have_ heard these arguments and _have_ listened to these positions, and decided the person is wrong?
In your worldview at what point can I start rejecting people's positions? Why do I have to give ground here?
"you can just lie" is a cynical position, of course, but people are faced with much larger dilemnas. I would like for people to have basic empathy and _not_ finance anti-civil rights movements. But hey, at least a public apology/fix does a bit of damage to the reactionary movement.
And maybe they are actually a different person or have reflected on their actions, and it's not a lie. Nobody's a mind reader.
And when you are directly affected/targeted by the movement that Eich is donating too, it's not just a conversation. The guy was funding an effort to take away your rights.
Maybe consider that "you have to be nice to people trying to take away your rights" is something that relatively few people would actually subscribe to.
Both he and the board say otherwise and his stance was known prior to his appointment. Hell, one of the board members resigned over his coming appointment and that wasn't enough to get the others to not back him.
They "say otherwise" because that's the polite thing to do in this situation. A "voluntary" resignation keeps everyone on good terms instead of producing an inevitable slapfight between Mozilla and Brave. The resignation was pretty clearly under duress, no matter what the official / publicly stated reasoning might have been.
His stance was known, maybe, but it wasn't until after he was appointed that the backlash ramped up to its peak.
If all of the main participants making public statements about something does not convince you that it went down the way it did then I don't think there are any arguments that would convince you at all.
> n I don't think there are any arguments that would convince you
Of course there are arguments. The arguments would be if there wasn't a huge controversy about it. But there was.
Thats the evidence that he was forced out.
If, instead, there was no controversy of note, and nobody had called for his resignation, internally or externally, then in that situation I would believe that they were not forced out.
But thats not what we saw. What we saw was a huge controversy, and we saw people, and even other companies, calling for him to be pushed out of the company.
If this evidence had not existed, then I would believe that they were not forced out.
