Diversity, I think, is really important. Diversity of thought as well as all the other kinds of diversity. It's important to be able to work with people who come from different backgrounds, who have different beliefs. I see this on both sides (I see it more often on the left, but that's just because my filter bubble is a somewhat leftish one.. when I step out of that bubble, I see plenty examples of people on the right doing the same thing.) and it's... pretty terrible, I think, and especially on the left extremely hypocritical.
Yeah. If the only way you can get people to (pretend to) believe an idea (such as "gay marriage is a good thing") is by threatening their livelihood if they don't, it reflects poorly on both you and the idea.
As in, the position you're attacking (the idea of sanctioning him to get him to change his beliefs) wasn't what the anti-Eich crowd was advocating, by and large.
But at this stage, it's better to just give the topic a rest, please. Pretty much everything that could be said about it has been, by now. And baiting (or simply poorly reasoned) dialog (such as your statement above) simply adds to his lumps.
What Eich believes is irrelevant. But he didn't just "believe something". He did something. Beliefs don't have consequences, but it's absolutely reasonable and possibly necessary to attempt to enforce consequences for actions.
It's not true that all diversity of thought is good or acceptable. As obvious examples, the idea that people with black skin should be slaves, or that people who believe in Judaism should be rounded up and exterminated.
Saying that gay people should be denied the right to marry is not much different in my mind than advocating segregation for blacks, or denying Muslims various rights. (However, as long as Eich is no longer promoting that view, I think it's long past time for everyone else to move on. I hope my personal mistakes aren't remembered and rehashed industry-wide like that!)
So where to draw the line? A simple mnemonic I use: The only thing I don't tolerate is intolerance. It's a little trite, but it works and there is another good reason for it: The intolerent are parasites on the social contract of tolerance; they violate it and then claim they should have its protection.
You're in good company in your well thought out justification of not tolerating intolerance. Religious groups who themselves benefit from tolerance yet preach intolerance don't need to change their bigoted beliefs -- they are free believe anything they want, right or wrong. They only need to behave as if they were tolerant (by not actively trying to strip away the existing rights of others, like Brendan did), to get along in a tolerant society that has the right self preservation and the right to defend itself from those who would destroy its tolerance and institutions of liberty (like gay marriage).
Paradox of Tolerance [1]:
Philosopher Karl Popper defined the paradox in 1945 in The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1.
"Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
He concluded that we are warranted in refusing to tolerate intolerance: "We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant."
In 1971, philosopher John Rawls concludes in A Theory of Justice that a just society must tolerate the intolerant, for otherwise, the society would then itself be intolerant, and thus unjust. However, Rawls also insists, like Popper, that society has a reasonable right of self-preservation that supersedes the principle of tolerance: "While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger."
In a 1997 work, Michael Walzer asked "Should we tolerate the intolerant?" He notes that most minority religious groups who are the beneficiaries of tolerance are themselves intolerant, at least in some respects. In a tolerant regime, such people may learn to tolerate, or at least to behave "as if they possessed this virtue".
There are a whole lot of issues I'm willing to accept "diversity of thought" on. But there's a line one crosses when they go from "I believe homosexuality is wrong, and therefore I will suppress any gay feelings I may have" to "I believe homosexuality is wrong, and thus I will attempt to make you into a second class citizen".
I don't have beef with Eich over his thoughts. But his actions were inhumane, and he hasn't acknowledged or apologized for that.
I hear this argument a lot, and since you seem sincere in making it I have a serious question. I'd honestly like to hear the answer from you or anyone who agrees with your sentiment.
Is it also important to be accepting of those who think black people should never marry white people? What about those who think black people shouldn't have the right reproduce? Or live in the same neighborhoods as white people? Or live? How about when they start taking action to make their views reality?
Is there a line where you stop being accepting of "diverse" views and instead oppose them to stand up for the people those views oppress? If so, where is the line? If not, why do you prioritize someone's "right" to oppress others because of their beliefs over the rights of the victims?
Let's use an example I face every day. I work in an industry that by in large doesn't hire women or black people. So yes, I'm around people who are very racist and very sexist every day -
It's pretty fucking important for me to be able to function socially around people who have political views I consider to be abhorrent - people who act on those beliefs every day.
Would a better course of action be for me to leave the industry? because that's what it would mean to cut all the racists out of my life.
Thanks for answering. The point you're bringing up -- the value of being able to function in a world among people with a wide variety of beliefs that conflict with yours when you have no choice and not much power to effect change -- is totally valid. I thought you were extrapolating from that to argue that we shouldn't take action when we can. In the case of Eich, the power happened to be social pressure, and it was used to oust him. I'm not crazy about the tactics, and such tactics can be abused, but the result in this case is that it's now known that at Mozilla, at least, homophobia isn't tolerated. I thought you were arguing against that result on the grounds that people should have had more "tolerance for diversity of thought," namely the thought that gay people shoudn't have full marriage equality, with a political action to support it. My entire response was based on that premise. If it was a misreading of your intent, I apologize.
> I thought you were arguing against that result on the grounds that people should have had more "tolerance for diversity of thought," namely the thought that gay people shoudn't have full marriage equality, with a political action to support it.
I do think that people should be able to have abhorrent political ideas, and should be able to take the legal political action they like, without fear of personal retaliation.
We have a process, a set of rules and laws for deciding what to do when you and I disagree on what is right for other people. This is what our political system is for; to solve these sorts of disputes in a organized way, without degenerating into war or lynching or what have you. I mean, it doesn't always work... but the political system is the tool for the problem, and while not perfect, it's a pretty good tool. Certainly, it's the best tool we have; people should be encouraged to use it rather than direct action, I think.
Actually, I think the anti-gay-marriage proposition is a good example of our political system working as intended. Sure, it passed, because embarrassingly, that's just how most people in my state feel. But... because we have several layers of laws specifically set up to prevent the majority from simply shitting on a minority, (and I thought the anti-gay marriage thing was especially ugly just because it was one of those laws that shat upon the minority without even bringing the majority benefits.) the law got struck down in the courts. In my opinion? this is exactly what should have happened.
Next, I really do think that diversity of ideas and diversity of values is a good thing, even ideas and values that I deeply disagree with. If you really want diversity of ideas, you're gonna need some religious people. I know it doesn't feel that way on HN, or even really in silicon valley, but atheists are the minority here, and while I certainly don't recommend believing any religion, I think that you need to understand religion and understand people who are religious to really understand humanity, and I think my life would be poorer if I excluded all religious people.
Religion has a lot of ugliness to it because humanity has a lot of ugliness to it. You understand humanity, you need to see this, to see the ugly parts and the beautiful parts and the parts that are just plain weird.
Now I'm not saying you shouldn't call people out for being sexist or racist... you should. And my own policy is to do so in person, as I see it. - I think a "hey, that's not acceptable" isn't so threatening as to make it so I can't work in industry, and I think it does have some corrective effect. It also means that I can continue having a relationship with the person in question.
As a matter of policy, I try not to do this in written media[1]. I'm not certain this is the right thing to do or not, honestly, but its a course of action that allows me to speak my conscience and still function in a world of diverse values.
[1]post-hoc edit: by 'written media' I mean any place that would get the person I'm calling out in actual trouble. Again, I don't know if this is the right thing to do or not, but we all make our choices.
second edit: my previous post, with the example, really only makes sense in the context that I think that you are more personally responsible for direct action you take than for political action you support... e.g. directly doing something evil is worse, in my belief system, than simply supporting a political cause that is evil.
I realize that not everyone accepts this, but I think that because the political system is fundamentally a system for discussion and dispute resolution, and has some built-in safeguards, I think that makes proposing terrible ideas less bad than simply implementing said terrible ideas on your own authority.
last edit:
I want to acknowledge the question you bring up here, which I read as: "Is this (accepting people who have abhorrent values) actually a good thing? or is it just something I tell myself so that I can function in society? Is this just my rationalization?"
To which I shrug and say that you have gotten too deep. I'm not sure I like the implications of either possible answer there.
Really appreciate this response. I think you're someone I'd like in person. I agree with most of the above, and have a similar attitude in many ways.
A few points I have key differences on. You'll probably get where I'm coming from, even if you don't agree.
> We have a process, a set of rules and laws for deciding what to do when you and I disagree on what is right for other people. This is what our political system is for; to solve these sorts of disputes in a organized way, without degenerating into war or lynching or what have you. I mean, it doesn't always work... but the political system is the tool for the problem, and while not perfect, it's a pretty good tool. Certainly, it's the best tool we have; people should be encouraged to use it rather than direct action, I think.
Well, back to your point about functioning in the real world, this process has all sorts of backdoors and "corruptions" which probably account for the majority of what actually gets done in the world. Campaign financing, backroom deals, organized community pressure, deals with powerful religious leaders, straight up bribes, and on and on. So losing your job in a public position of a very public company because of public outrage seems not only in keeping with the way the real politics work, but also on the tamer side of those workings. Had he been a rank and file programmer at a consultancy in SF, and somehow lost his job for the same reason, I'd agree that something wrong had happened. I think it's naive, though, even damagingly idealistic, to pretend that those situations don't have important differences.
> I want to acknowledge the question you bring up here, which I read as: "Is this (accepting people who have abhorrent values) actually a good thing? or is it just something I tell myself so that I can function in society? Is this just my rationalization?"
This really gets to the heart of the matter. Don't know about you, in particular, but I do think, in general, that the "I'm so tolerant I tolerate intolerance" position serves those with a bias against conflict and a blindness (often wrought of idealism) about just how steadfastly and unreasonably evil some people are (I'm not talking about Eich here anymore). It's disheartening to me that many who hold this belief are well-intentioned, intelligent, otherwise good people. Because I believe it does have pernicious consequences, in the "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" sense. Or, to take a game-theoretical perspective on it, as long as people can be racist or sexist or otherwise evil with little loss of social power, such people will continue to flourish. And, in an example of the tragedy of the commons, it takes only a very small percentage of them to wreak havoc.
Of course, there are gray areas here about what consititutes evil, but I don't think suppressing equality of basic freedoms is one of them.
>This really gets to the heart of the matter. Don't know about you, in particular, but I do think, in general, that the "I'm so tolerant I tolerate intolerance" position serves those with a bias against conflict and a blindness (often wrought of idealism) about just how steadfastly and unreasonably evil some people are
I think replacing civil political discourse with intimidation is in and of itself an evil thing. I think that destroying civil political discourse in exchange for a political goal is a long term loss for society, even if the political goal is a good goal.
> I think replacing civil political discourse with intimidation is in and of itself an evil thing. I think that destroying civil political discourse in exchange for a political goal is a long term loss for society, even if the political goal is a good goal.
When civil political discourse is a valid option, then sure, I agree. The point is that people exist in this world who:
1. Want to do evil things.
2. Cannot be reasoned with.
3. Are smart enough to take advantage of the goodwill of people who think they can be reasoned with, and use it against them.
It's hard for me to take seriously any position that doesn't acknowledge these facts. You can't just close your eyes and pretend that everyone is basically good, does evil only because evil has been done to them, and can be brought around to see reason.
