Why was appointing Eich as CEO so controversial? It’s because he donated $1,000 in support of California’s Proposition 8 in 2008, which was a proposed amendment to California’s state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
I want to try a thought experiment. Imagine that you observe this comment in reaction to the above:
I just don’t get why the author is so pissed about their political contributions. Guess what, people who are involved in big business are usually right-wing and support right-wing organizations. Shocking. Who could have known. I don’t even want to imagine how the author comes to the conclusion that this is some big conspiracy but I think we all know what political spectrum that guy belongs to.
What I just wrote is a mirror-image version of the top rated comment on that article from a few days ago about the Mozilla foundation funding left-wing organizations. Do you agree with one of those statements and not the other? If so, why?
It is one-sided to say that someone involved in Brave should only be “allowed” to do so if he doesn’t support anything conservative. Just as would be one-sided and wrong to say that Mozilla shouldn’t be “allowed” to support left-wing organizations. Flipping it around, and looking at the reaction when it’s the other way around, is an easy way to analyze your own internal reactions on it.
(Generally, I’m in agreement with the idea that you shouldn’t use Brave because of all these other shady things; just this one part jumped out at me as one thing that’s not like the others.)
The two sides are not morally equal. Prop 8 was an awful, bigoted stain on California’s history and he was unrepentant. I am glad he no longer is at Firefox. And Brave is a sketchy company that makes clear it was a good decision to give him the boot. I can support companies with moral stances I agree with and not support companies that do bad things.
The fact that you would consider your counterfactual a mirror image is itself problematic.
In the case of the Foundation, it supports exactly what it purports to support. They’re like the EFF and other civil rights organizations. If you consider the EFF left wing, I think that says a bit more about where you stand.
The original article was outrage-bate blog spam, with random Capitalized Words and the prolific use of “scare quotes.” It doesn’t even say anything. No charges of misinformation. No citation of law. Just “They have a Billion Dollars!!” kinds of sentences.
On the other hand, the CEO of a company - particularly a small company - lends his personality to the company. It often makes sense to co-identify them, given that the CEO has an incredible amount of influence.
So if you are saying that libertarian software project : libertarian institutions :: conservative ideas : homophobic legislation, I guess you’re just really endorsing the position of judging the company by the politicians and politics it supports. If you see prop 8 as being as fundamental to the conservative position as internet freedom is to an organization specifically dedicated to preserving internet freedom, all I can say is that I hope more people start to see it that way.
The fact that you would consider your counterfactual a mirror image is itself problematic.
It’s definitely an imperfect mirror image, yes. One is a private person spending $1,000 of his own money contributing personally to a political campaign (for something fairly abhorrent, I agree.) The other is a public foundation spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of the money it’s been entrusted with on various things which don’t seem to line up with what I think most people’s idea of their mission would be (i.e. software). I glossed over the asymmetry in the analogy to make a point but they’re actually wildly different situations.
If you consider the EFF left wing, I think that says a bit more about where you stand.
What on earth are you talking about? I genuinely can’t even make sense of you got yourself to this leap of logic.
Mozilla I think is generally understood as a software organization. The EFF didn’t get their start by making a web browser called “EFF” which now has been rebranded as “EFF Firefox” and collects ad revenue for them through partnerships. I do realize that the Mozilla Foundation’s mission statement now says they support general internet activism – which, again, is fine – but how you got from there to thinking anything about what I think about the EFF is genuinely very weird.
Also, I’ve contributed to the EFF. Have you?
The original article was outrage-bate blog spam, with random Capitalized Words and the prolific use of “scare quotes.” It doesn’t even say anything. No charges of misinformation. No citation of law. Just “They have a Billion Dollars!!” kinds of sentences.
Did you dig into its sources? I did. I’m sort of in agreement with you that it smells of some kind of right-wing hit job (like “HOW DARE THEY give money to this woman when she’s on THE LEFT”), and I think I pointed out up above that obviously Mozilla has the right to support left-wing causes with their money if they want to, even if it makes some right wing person VERY upset. I would just think that Eich has the same right. Even if it makes you very upset. Doesn’t he?
Be that as it may, specific things that I went back to its original sources and verified were:
They’re spending less money on software development
They gave almost half a million dollars to a one-woman consulting outfit without much explanation of what got produced (for them or for the world at large) in return
It said some other specific things that I didn’t dig into enough (that it paid one executive around $5 million dollars personally, which seems like a lot) (that they’re claiming to people that they rely on people’s donations to keep operating when they don’t) (etc). But, I poked around enough to determine that at the very least the article passed the obvious-bullshit test.
On the other hand, the CEO of a company - particularly a small company - lends his personality to the company. It often makes sense to co-identify them, given that the CEO has an incredible amount of influence.
You know that this is the same type of logic that the right uses to claim that some company whose executives once gave $1,000 to Hillary Clinton now needs to be boycotted, right?
I know, I know, the left is correct, and the right isn’t, so it’s different. Look… I’m pretty sure I’m on your side, politically. I just think it’s weird to advocate avoiding a web browser because one executive affiliated with them once gave $1,000 to a political cause I strongly disagree with. I think flipping it around to the other way is a pretty clear way of explaining why it’s weird. That’s all.
I want to try a thought experiment. Imagine that you observe this comment in reaction to the above:
What I just wrote is a mirror-image version of the top rated comment on that article from a few days ago about the Mozilla foundation funding left-wing organizations. Do you agree with one of those statements and not the other? If so, why?
It is one-sided to say that someone involved in Brave should only be “allowed” to do so if he doesn’t support anything conservative. Just as would be one-sided and wrong to say that Mozilla shouldn’t be “allowed” to support left-wing organizations. Flipping it around, and looking at the reaction when it’s the other way around, is an easy way to analyze your own internal reactions on it.
(Generally, I’m in agreement with the idea that you shouldn’t use Brave because of all these other shady things; just this one part jumped out at me as one thing that’s not like the others.)
The two sides are not morally equal. Prop 8 was an awful, bigoted stain on California’s history and he was unrepentant. I am glad he no longer is at Firefox. And Brave is a sketchy company that makes clear it was a good decision to give him the boot. I can support companies with moral stances I agree with and not support companies that do bad things.
The fact that you would consider your counterfactual a mirror image is itself problematic.
In the case of the Foundation, it supports exactly what it purports to support. They’re like the EFF and other civil rights organizations. If you consider the EFF left wing, I think that says a bit more about where you stand.
The original article was outrage-bate blog spam, with random Capitalized Words and the prolific use of “scare quotes.” It doesn’t even say anything. No charges of misinformation. No citation of law. Just “They have a Billion Dollars!!” kinds of sentences.
On the other hand, the CEO of a company - particularly a small company - lends his personality to the company. It often makes sense to co-identify them, given that the CEO has an incredible amount of influence.
So if you are saying that libertarian software project : libertarian institutions :: conservative ideas : homophobic legislation, I guess you’re just really endorsing the position of judging the company by the politicians and politics it supports. If you see prop 8 as being as fundamental to the conservative position as internet freedom is to an organization specifically dedicated to preserving internet freedom, all I can say is that I hope more people start to see it that way.
It’s definitely an imperfect mirror image, yes. One is a private person spending $1,000 of his own money contributing personally to a political campaign (for something fairly abhorrent, I agree.) The other is a public foundation spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of the money it’s been entrusted with on various things which don’t seem to line up with what I think most people’s idea of their mission would be (i.e. software). I glossed over the asymmetry in the analogy to make a point but they’re actually wildly different situations.
What on earth are you talking about? I genuinely can’t even make sense of you got yourself to this leap of logic.
Mozilla I think is generally understood as a software organization. The EFF didn’t get their start by making a web browser called “EFF” which now has been rebranded as “EFF Firefox” and collects ad revenue for them through partnerships. I do realize that the Mozilla Foundation’s mission statement now says they support general internet activism – which, again, is fine – but how you got from there to thinking anything about what I think about the EFF is genuinely very weird.
Also, I’ve contributed to the EFF. Have you?
Did you dig into its sources? I did. I’m sort of in agreement with you that it smells of some kind of right-wing hit job (like “HOW DARE THEY give money to this woman when she’s on THE LEFT”), and I think I pointed out up above that obviously Mozilla has the right to support left-wing causes with their money if they want to, even if it makes some right wing person VERY upset. I would just think that Eich has the same right. Even if it makes you very upset. Doesn’t he?
Be that as it may, specific things that I went back to its original sources and verified were:
It said some other specific things that I didn’t dig into enough (that it paid one executive around $5 million dollars personally, which seems like a lot) (that they’re claiming to people that they rely on people’s donations to keep operating when they don’t) (etc). But, I poked around enough to determine that at the very least the article passed the obvious-bullshit test.
You know that this is the same type of logic that the right uses to claim that some company whose executives once gave $1,000 to Hillary Clinton now needs to be boycotted, right?
I know, I know, the left is correct, and the right isn’t, so it’s different. Look… I’m pretty sure I’m on your side, politically. I just think it’s weird to advocate avoiding a web browser because one executive affiliated with them once gave $1,000 to a political cause I strongly disagree with. I think flipping it around to the other way is a pretty clear way of explaining why it’s weird. That’s all.