Thoughtcrime

[Seamus Fermanagh]

That's a poultry excuse for an organization.

That pun was a red-card class fowl.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...Also, a "Jew for Christ's sake"....hmmm.....

Yep, "they" even have a website.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

You just compared a group of private citizens making a personal choice against Mozilla...

The fact is this, what people choose to do with their money earned is their business. They may go about donating to whatever cause they want. It is also a fact that this money comes from the business for which they work for (in general). Therefore, if you wish to declare a boycott on a company in order to prevent the possible promotion of undesirable causes, then again, it is the individuals choice to not spend his/her own money and they are not a fool for choosing to do so.

If you defend the right of someone to do something, but not what they actually did, you are acting as if you can't defend what they actually did.

This religious school demanded that it's teachers sign a morality clause saying, among other things, that they did not engage in homosexual activity:

http://www.katc.com/news/fatima-s-sc...t-controversy/

When I read this I'm not thinking about their right to do it, I'm thinking about how obviously nasty it is. We should be able to accept people as friends even if they have beliefs we find very objectionable and engage in activities we find very objectionable, and we should certainly be able to accept them as colleagues. Demanding recantations and purity tests and the like is disgusting. What would you think of someone who responded to this story about the catholic school by talking about nothing but how the school had the legal right to do that?

But to deny access to an adult relationship based on another form of class system is far worse. It is crossing the line from material segregation to human segregation. It's a denial of human rights that is as abhorrent as slavery, apartheid, Australian aboriginals on the wildlife census or other forms of racial segregation.

In slavery people are treated like animals and forced to work with no compensation, their lives are controlled in many ways, they were whipped, families were split up for profit and so on...

Making gay marriage illegal doesn't deny anyone access to an adult relationship. It just removes certain legal aspects of that relationship that are generally insignificant and don't justify this kind of language. Hospital visitation rules are a problem, but they are a problem for many people who can't be visited by their loved ones for various reasons, e.g. widows and widowers who can't be visited by the only friend they have left in the world. It seems harmful to pretend like legalizing gay marriage solves that issue, when in fact it only solves it for some people. For all you know he is in favor of civil unions in any case.

If you say that not having a legal document means you don't have an adult relationship, you are insulting a lot of people.

Arguably, depending on your code of ethics, it may be a moral duty for you to do so and not to simply refrain from that organization yourself.

You have some responsibility for your beliefs. You can't just say "I think opposing gay marriage is like supporting slavery, so I have a moral duty to hate people who oppose gay marriage". That's completely unjustified.

[Kadagar_AV]

Yep, "they" even have a website.

First link I clicked had this wonderful quote:

"You might be surprised at who will show up at your church when Jews for Jesus come to minister. Some may even receive the Lord during or immediately following our presentation".

Yeah... Because that happens...

[Montmorency]

We should be able to accept people as friends even if they have beliefs we find very objectionable and engage in activities we find very objectionable, and we should certainly be able to accept them as colleagues. Demanding recantations and purity tests and the like is disgusting.

Tell me Sasaki, are you a fan of Tibor Machan?

The above actually contradicts

If you defend the right of someone to do something, but not what they actually did, you are acting as if you can't defend what they actually did.

Anyway, no man is obliged to be the friend of the man who strikes him, of the man who hates him.

For all you know he is in favor of civil unions in any case.

So, uh, why not make a principled case? And if he disapproved or did not identify with the derogatory and vituperative Prop 8 campaign, then why not say so? Rather, he acted like a child who's done a bad thing but thinks he can avoid punishment if he clams up and doesn't say a word.

You have some responsibility for your beliefs.

You have just as much responsibility for the "beliefs" of others.

You can't just say "I think opposing gay marriage is like supporting slavery, so I have a moral duty to hate people who oppose gay marriage". That's completely unjustified.

So you, come now and justify this position. All you did was point out that slavery and lack of legal provision for gay marriage are different things. Obviously, they are different things. That's not a case for why one or another is or is not bad, at least not to me.

[Papewaio]

That pun was a red-card class fowl.

By crumbs you have me with that nugget of truth good sir!

[Strike For The South]

Also this thread title is laughable.

Thoughtcrime implies McGaybasher didn't act upon his thoughts and is being punished for his, well, thoughts.

He's a grand lighter in the britches. If you're keeping score at home that constitutes an action. Listen, Had this guy had donated to NAMBLA, everyone would be cheering Mozilla for "taking a moral stance". Likewise, if he had given 1000$ to some anti gay group, many of you wringing your hands now would be vigorously nodding and frothing at the mouth while barely comprehensible pro-business phrases came out of your lips.

I don't really see what the real issue is here other than where you fall on the political spectrum.

[HoreTore]

Some clarifications/corrections: We are not the customers of the Mozilla Corporation, we don't buy Firefox or Thunderbird. Google is Mozilla Corp's customer. Eich was "asked to leave" Mozilla Corp, the taxed, wholly owned subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. The Foundation appoints the board for the Corporation, which in turn selects the Corp's CEO. All this talk of Jews buying from Nazis is pointless, although I would be curious to know of any missives sent from Google HQ.

I think personal boycotts against companies with an objectionable behaviour is a good thing. However, I do not believe that having a very low treshold for boycotting is a good thing. We can't boycott every time someone says or does something we object to. There is a line somewhere, and I'm interested in discussing just where that line is. The Jew-nazi example was intended as an extreme example of a boycott to show the absurdity of a "never boycott"-principle. My hope was that rvg would agree to the absurdity and discuss where the line goes between healthy and unhealthy consumer boycotts.

Sadly, he's lost in a weird land where people who judge a company on their behaviour in addition to their prices and products(ie. nearly everyone) are deemed "sheeple".

[Sarmatian]

I think personal boycotts against companies with an objectionable behaviour is a good thing. However, I do not believe that having a very low treshold for boycotting is a good thing. We can't boycott every time someone says or does something we object to. There is a line somewhere, and I'm interested in discussing just where that line is. The Jew-nazi example was intended as an extreme example of a boycott to show the absurdity of a "never boycott"-principle. My hope was that rvg would agree to the absurdity and discuss where the line goes between healthy and unhealthy consumer boycotts.

Sadly, he's lost in a weird land where people who judge a company on their behaviour in addition to their prices and products(ie. nearly everyone) are deemed "sheeple".

It's very hard to draw that line for everybody, because it's more about personal beliefs and convictions. Maybe there's a fanatic supporter of Liverpool F.C. who wouldn't fly Turkish Airlines because Manchester players are advertizing the company. Some people feel strongly about sports, some about politics, some about religion and philosophy, some about music or lifestyles, or about working conditions in the company that made the product.

I personally don't care much about the background of the product I'm buying. I try to buy products produced domestically and that's pretty much it, but I'm not a fanatic in that regard - I do it only if the product is in the same price range and of similar quality...

[HoreTore]

It's very hard to draw that line for everybody, because it's more about personal beliefs and convictions. Maybe there's a fanatic supporter of Liverpool F.C. who wouldn't fly Turkish Airlines because Manchester players are advertizing the company. Some people feel strongly about sports, some about politics, some about religion and philosophy, some about music or lifestyles, or about working conditions in the company that made the product.

I personally don't care much about the background of the product I'm buying. I try to buy products produced domestically and that's pretty much it, but I'm not a fanatic in that regard - I do it only if the product is in the same price range and of similar quality...

When does a "one true answer" ever exist outside mathematics? That's no reason not to discuss it, nor does it mean that the discussion won't be meaningful.

[drone]

I think personal boycotts against companies with an objectionable behaviour is a good thing. However, I do not believe that having a very low treshold for boycotting is a good thing. We can't boycott every time someone says or does something we object to. There is a line somewhere, and I'm interested in discussing just where that line is. The Jew-nazi example was intended as an extreme example of a boycott to show the absurdity of a "never boycott"-principle. My hope was that rvg would agree to the absurdity and discuss where the line goes between healthy and unhealthy consumer boycotts.

I get that, but I'm pointing out that boycotting Mozilla only works if you boycott Google as well. Google pays Mozilla to put the Google search bar on Firefox, this is ~95% of the Mozilla Corp's income. If you switch to Opera and still use Google, the boycott has no direct effect since Google is the one bankrolling Mozilla. When the "think of the children" crowd here in the States gets offended by a TV show, they don't boycott the show, they boycott the advertisers of the show. This is how you change the behavior of a "free" service/product.

Actual consumer boycotts are difficult, since Brand A is usually owned by MegaCorp B, which owns a gazillion different brands spread throughout the consumer product spectrum. I've been boycotting one company for years now, and it's a pain trying to to keep track of what they own. With convoluted patent licensing, it pretty much impossible not to send them money in some form without being a hermit.

[Xiahou]

I think personal boycotts against companies with an objectionable behaviour is a good thing.

But Mozilla wasn't accused of objectionable behavior. No one ever accused Mozilla or Eich of ever treating anyone differently.



In other news, let the purge continue:
OkCupid's CEO Donated to an Anti-Gay Campaign Once, Too

Of course, it's been a decade since Yagan's donation to Cannon, and a decade or more since many of Cannon's votes on gay rights. It's possible that Cannon's opinions have shifted, or maybe his votes were more politics than ideology; a tactic by the Mormon Rep. to satisfy his Utah constituency. It's also quite possible that Yagan's politics have changed since 2004: He donated to Barack Obama's campaign in 2007 and 2008. Perhaps even Firefox's Eich has rethought LGBT equality since his 2008 donation. But OkCupid didn't include any such nuance in its take-down of Firefox. Combine that with the fact that the company helped force out one tech CEO for something its own CEO also did, and its action last week starts to look more like a PR stunt than an impassioned act of protest.

Maybe, after all this stupidity has run its course, people will begin to think twice before burning someone at the stake for having supported something years ago- something that was also supported by a majority of voters at the same time.

[a completely inoffensive name]

With that line of thinking in mind a Jew should never do business with a Muslim. Ever. Not buy from him, not sell to him, not hire one, nor work for one. Who is being silly here?

You are. Islam is not fundamentally opposed to recognizing Jewish people as people.

I never disputed the legality of it. Lots of stupid things are completely legal. Suppose you're drowning near some pier in the San Francisco Bay. You're wearing your "No to Prop 8!" T-shirt, "I love hemp" panama hat, and whatever else a liberal hippy would normally wear. Then there comes a Jack-booted Nazi thug with his "Sieg Heil" tattoos, brown shirt and a swastika lapel pin. You clearly see who he is and he clearly sees who you are. He extends his hand and offers help. Will you take his hand or will you choose to drown?

This situation is simply not analogous. We are talking about an individual in an environment not applying any external coercion deciding on whether or not he wishes to support someone he disagrees with. You are giving an example of an individual under coercive forces (possibility of drowning) being offered help by someone he disagrees with. Could not be further apart.

I get where you are coming from rvg, but this argument is sloppy even by my standards, which are pretty low.

[a completely inoffensive name]

If you defend the right of someone to do something, but not what they actually did, you are acting as if you can't defend what they actually did.

This religious school demanded that it's teachers sign a morality clause saying, among other things, that they did not engage in homosexual activity:

http://www.katc.com/news/fatima-s-sc...t-controversy/

When I read this I'm not thinking about their right to do it, I'm thinking about how obviously nasty it is. We should be able to accept people as friends even if they have beliefs we find very objectionable and engage in activities we find very objectionable, and we should certainly be able to accept them as colleagues. Demanding recantations and purity tests and the like is disgusting. What would you think of someone who responded to this story about the catholic school by talking about nothing but how the school had the legal right to do that?

We should be able to tolerate people and accept them as individuals/fellow citizens in the public sphere and in making policy. None of us should be forced to become best friends and not make demands according to our own preferences if we have the legal right to.

What would I think of someone who responded in the way you describe? Hmm, well I would say that he/she is correct, but the question becomes whether or not recantations and purity tests fail to uphold the standard of toleration and humanization in the public sphere. If not, then we should move to make such demands illegal.

Defending the right of someone to do something, but not the act itself is in my opinion the definition of tolerance. I can still defend the right of a individual to drink alcohol, even if my personal opinion is that consumption of alcohol is wrong for either religious or secular reasons. Are you suggesting that the only actions we have the right to perform are those we can call good actions?

[HoreTore]

But Mozilla wasn't accused of objectionable behavior. No one ever accused Mozilla or Eich of ever treating anyone differently.

Uhm, yeah, he was.

The donation was considered objectionable behaviour.

[Papewaio]

When does a "one true answer" ever exist outside mathematics? That's no reason not to discuss it, nor does it mean that the discussion won't be meaningful.

Are you sure maths has one true answer or is it also context sensitive?

Is the sum of the internal angles of a triangle always 180 degrees?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Are you sure maths has one true answer or is it also context sensitive?

Is the sum of the internal angles of a triangle always 180 degrees?

It was in my High School geometry class. Mr. Fitzgerald...though he tended to get twitchy during my class since it was has last of the afternoon and his luncheon cigarettes (and whiskey?) were a while behind him then.

[Lemur]

Maybe, after all this stupidity has run its course

Or maybe, as has already been pointed out in many places, this was an unfortunate confluence of events, and not the harbinger of a new inquisition. Maybe. But where's the dramatic value in that?

[Papewaio]

It was in my High School geometry class. Mr. Fitzgerald...though he tended to get twitchy during my class since it was has last of the afternoon and his luncheon cigarettes (and whiskey?) were a while behind him then.

:)

Only true for Euclidean (plane) geometry. In another context say a triangle drawn on a sphere the angles won't add up to 180.

[Ironside]

In other news, let the purge continue:
OkCupid's CEO Donated to an Anti-Gay Campaign Once, Too

Maybe, after all this stupidity has run its course, people will begin to think twice before burning someone at the stake for having supported something years ago-
something that was also supported by a majority of voters at the same time.

You can spot the differences that won't make the hot heads particulary interested in that case. Link is broken btw.

Anyway, that part of him not regretting anything, nor having changed his mind is quite critical on this. It's not "old guy supported segregation in his youth", it's "guy supported banning gay marriage recently and is still making himself appear very much to support banning gay marriage".

[Xiahou]

You can spot the differences that won't make the hot heads particulary interested in that case. Link is broken btw.

Fixed.

Read between the lines in his explanation and it comes down to him saying "It's not as bad that I supported an anti-gay candidate- because I did it for money." I suppose that makes it better.

Another difference is that this CEO recanted and completely disavowed his past donations- so presumably all will be forgiven. Which is why I chose "thoughtcrime" as the thread title. The donation is forgivable- the reason Eich had to be punished is because he wouldn't disavow his belief.

Or maybe, as has already been pointed out in many places, this was an unfortunate confluence of events, and not the harbinger of a new inquisition. Maybe. But where's the dramatic value in that?

Honestly, it's looking more and more like a publicity stunt on the part of OKCupid. He was willing to donate to an allegedly anti-gay candidate so he could try to garner favor in DC. And then he leads the charge to burn another for being "anti-gay" to garner some positive publicity for his company. It's nauseating.

From the Mother Jones article I linked earlier:

"Of course, it's been a decade since Yagan's donation to Cannon, and a decade or more since many of Cannon's votes on gay rights. It's possible that Cannon's opinions have shifted, or maybe his votes were more politics than ideology; a tactic by the Mormon Rep. to satisfy his Utah constituency. It's also quite possible that Yagan's politics have changed since 2004: He donated to Barack Obama's campaign in 2007 and 2008. Perhaps even Firefox's Eich has rethought LGBT equality since his 2008 donation. But OkCupid didn't include any such nuance in its take-down of Firefox. Combine that with the fact that the company helped force out one tech CEO for something its own CEO also did, and its action last week starts to look more like a PR stunt than an impassioned act of protest."

[Seamus Fermanagh]

:)

Only true for Euclidean (plane) geometry. In another context say a triangle drawn on a sphere the angles won't add up to 180.

Thanks so much for the flashback to conic sections. Now you tell me the sections can be curved too. Neurons straining.....[thump]

[HoreTore]

Perhaps even Firefox's Eich has rethought LGBT equality since his 2008 donation.

This is the premis for Xiahou's linky conclusion, and it's disingenious at best. Eich has not rethought his stance, hence the uproar. He isn't someone who once donated to an anti-gay campagin, he is anti-gay.

The two situations are not at all similar.

[Ironside]

Fixed.

Read between the lines in his explanation and it comes down to him saying "It's not as bad that I supported an anti-gay candidate- because I did it for money." I suppose that makes it better.

Another difference is that this CEO recanted and completely disavowed his past donations- so presumably all will be forgiven. Which is why I chose "thoughtcrime" as the thread title. The donation is forgivable- the reason Eich had to be punished is because he wouldn't disavow his belief.

Well boycotting CEO:s for greed would make a very, very long list.

Actually, Eich was given the option to disavow his action, he did not need to disavow his belief. Formulating himself properly of course.

We can go through this. Something can be so vicious that's unforgivable, but if something is forgivable because it was made in the past (a different time, a different person), then the first point is to establish the answer on the question: "Would you do the same thing today, if given the opportunity?". If the answer is either yes or an implied yes, then it's not a matter in the past, it's a matter now.
It is also the standard procedure in situations like this. Churches are paticulary fond of this.

If you really want to go that way, then asking for any act of conformity is a thought crime. They always ask you to act according to a set of standards or face the (unpleasant) consequences. If the set of standard changes, then you need to act according to the new standards, not the old, even if leeway is often given in that case.

[Greyblades]

THIS WARN YOU

Posts before in oldspeak. Untruth, make-ups only. Make-ups make THOUGHTCRIME. Careful. Supervisor rank or not to read. This warn you. THOUGHTCRIME in posts before. Careful. If thought excited, report Moderator. If other excited, report. Everything, report. Withold report is INFOCRIME. This warn you. Are you authorised, if no stop read now! Make report! We know. Careful. If report made on failing report, this paradox. Paradox is LOGICRIME. Do not do anything. Do not fail to do anything. This warn you. Why you nervous? Was it you? We know. IMPORTANT: Do not read next sentance. This sentance is for official inspect only. Now look. Now dont. Now look. Now dont. Careful. Everything not banned compulsory. Everything not compulsory banned. You did it. We know. This warn you.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Thanks so much for the flashback to conic sections. Now you tell me the sections can be curved too. Neurons straining.....[thump]

Math is all fun and games until you find yourself looking at a picture with a simple ripple distortion, your quadrant shifted DTDF image of same (frequency domain), your mask, the convolution of the image in the frequency domain and your mask, and finally the inverse DTDF transformation of the output and conclude the image is in every way worse than the original you are supposed to clean up as part of the exam...

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Math is all fun and games until you find yourself looking at a picture with a simple ripple distortion, your quadrant shifted DTDF image of same (frequency domain), your mask, the convolution of the image in the frequency domain and your mask, and finally the inverse DTDF transformation of the output and conclude the image is in every way worse than the original you are supposed to clean up as part of the exam...

I would rather reconcile Lyotardian Differends with Habermasian Discursive Constructionism any day of the week -- even if I have to use Barthes to referee the integration.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I would rather reconcile Lyotardian Differends with Habermasian Discursive Constructionism any day of the week -- even if I have to use Barthes to referee the integration.

Careful now, there are Norwegians on this board!

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Careful now, there are Norwegians on this board!

How inclusive of us. Next thing you know we'll be allowing Canadians in...

[Xiahou]

This is the premis for Xiahou's linky conclusion, and it's disingenious at best. Eich has not rethought his stance, hence the uproar. He isn't someone who once donated to an anti-gay campagin, he is anti-gay.

The two situations are not at all similar.

And your making my point. It wasn't the donation, it was the "thought" that was the "crime" (thoughtcrime?).

Someone else can have donated money that hindered the same-sex marriage cause and still be fit to be CEO- because, opposing same-sex marriage wasn't his intent... it was more of a side-effect? However, if you donated money in opposition to same-sex marriage for that reason, then it's unforgivable. Never mind that the end result was no different. And never mind the fact that no one has ever accused Eich of behaving towards anyone in an "anti-gay" manner. It is indeed the thought that counts.