Was Eich a Threat To Mozilla's $1B Google "Trust Fund"? 564
theodp (442580) writes "Over the years, Mozilla's reliance on Google has continued to grow. Indeed, in its report on Brendan Eich's promotion to CEO of Mozilla, the WSJ noted that "Google accounted for nearly 90% of Mozilla's $311 million in revenue." So, with its Sugar Daddy having also gone on record as being virulently opposed to Proposition 8, to think that that Google's support didn't enter into discussions of whether Prop 8 backer Eich should stay or go seems, well, pretty much unthinkable. "It is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8," explained Google co-founder Sergey Brin in 2008. "We should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love." Interestingly, breaking the news of Eich's resignation was journalist Kara Swisher, whose right to marry a top Google exec in 2008 was nearly eliminated by Prop 8. "In an interview this morning," wrote Swisher, "Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker said that Eich's ability to lead the company that makes the Firefox Web browser had been badly damaged by the continued scrutiny over the hot-button issue, which had actually been known since 2012 inside the Mozilla community." Swisher, whose article was cited by the NY Times in The Campaign Against Mozilla's Brendan Eich, added that "it was not hard to get the sense that Eich really wanted to stick strongly by his views about gay marriage, which run counter to much of the tech industry and, increasingly, the general population in the U.S. For example, he repeatedly declined to answer when asked if he would donate to a similar initiative today." So, was keeping Eich aboard viewed by Mozilla — perhaps even by Eich himself — as a possible threat to the reported $1 billion minimum revenue guarantee the organization enjoys for delivering search queries for Google?"
Sortocracy Is a Two Edged Sword (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorting proponents into governments that test them [sortocracy.org] is the penetration of the Enlightenment into the social sciences. This allows the social sciences to progress beyond "correlation doesn't imply causation" to perform ethical experiments on human subjects that, because there are experimental control groups, permits much stronger inference of causal laws in human ecologies (human societies) [about.com] than do mere ecological correlations [wikipedia.org].
So what's not to like about locales, like the Mozilla Foundation or Google or even Silicon Valley, excluding from their midst those who are incompatible with the social experiment that most people want to perform on themselves? After all, it is only by consent of the governed that a jurisdiction can be deemed legitimate.
Here's the problem:
In the modern zeitgeist it is considered the moral equivalent of Satanism to practice what is called "the politics of exclusion". Why? Because it "discriminates".
These fuzzy tropes forget one thing, however -- and it is something that anyone who is involved in technology should understand in their gut:
It is only by "excluding" various hypotheses that we can "discriminate" between truth and falsehood in the real world.
But no one wants to admit that their religion might be false -- including those whose religion is the de facto state religion that enforces "inclusion" and prohibits "discrimination".
Re:The new Hitlers (Score:5, Interesting)
I completely agree. Legal marriage should be opposed whether it's for gay or straight couples. Why is it the government's business who I've devoted my life to? Why should I be taxed differently because my significant other and I decided to sign a piece of paper? It's an archaic social custom that should have no place in modern society.
You are joking but (Score:5, Interesting)
It's actually a serious argument:
There are really two different issues here, one is entirely around the meaning of the word marriage and the other has to do with rights taken away and then handed back as privileges - with strings attached.
The latter is easier to solve in theory - just keep our rights to start with. You may pay taxes and mandatory fees for benefits at work - and then be told you must be in a state-blessed marriage in order to collect those benefits. This is obviously unfair and wrong. But this could be straightened out relatively simply, by not mandating these arrangements in the first place. There is no reason for the system to take money out of your paycheck only to hand it back if and when you file the forms and show the state blessing - it's entirely unnecessary. You should be allowed to keep your money and buy what you want with it, what suits your needs, it should not be a situation where you have all these people, this bureaucracy, all up in your business all the time.
The first issue is less tractable, I fear people will still be having that argument generations hence. But the wonderful thing is, if you solve the second issue as I have suggested, the first issue just becomes unimportant. Sure, people will disagree heatedly but with the government no longer involved, defining who is right and who is wrong, robbing Peter to pay Paul's bills, there is no longer any urgency to the argument, no political dimension. No one faces loss of their rights or their livelihood over it. It becomes, as it should be, a discussion for church not a struggle to direct the power of the state against those who disagree with you.
You are full of it (Score:3, Interesting)
"Since nothing is stopping gay couples from having ceremonies and living as if married, as far as I can tell, gay marriage is all about forcing acceptance and government benefits."
You're half right. This isn't about forcing acceptance. It's about forcing equal treatment under law. It's a little thing called "personal freedom". You can be critical of gays and of gays getting married all you want. The minute you try to use the government to force your beliefs on other, by denying them the same choices everyone else has, however, you've stepped across the line into the "anti-freedom" camp. When you do that, fuck you and the horse you rode in on. You rightfully deserve scorn and boycotts and the label of "bigot". If Eich doesn't like gays getting married, fine he can talk about what he thinks and try to persuade people. That's not what he did though, is it? He worked to try to force his view on others by controlling their actions with legislation.
"If the gay community and it's supporters put as much effort into really creating equality for all, instead of selfishly grabbing benefits for themselves..."
Umm, grabbing benefits everyone else has IS creating equality for all. All your attitudes are a rehash of the same bullshit we heard about interracial marriage and marriage for non-christians. Go back to the stone age already.