the man is pure inspiration. 10 years ago, i was asked who i admired, and couldn't think of a single answer. Maybe that's sad on my part, but when asked now, he's at the top of my list.
Don't forget Bill Gates. While many may (rightly) fault his business ethics and tactics, he is doing more for the bottom 20% of humanity than most others.
But, he set back all of computing 10 to 20 years (1995-2010 "dark ages" approximately) just for the sake of greed, dominance, and profit. Was it worth it?
I used to think this myself, but reading up on computing history I've somewhat changed my mind. If Bill Gates hadn't been born and Microsoft hadn't existed, what might have happened instead?
IBM would have still made the PC, only using another CP/M clone as OS, and would have owned that market because the other vendor wouldn't have written as clever a deal as Gates did. Two possible outcomes of that: either IBM would have replaced microsoft as center stone of the PC market and been no better and probably worse than microsoft (they were considered pretty evil in their day), or more likely IBM would have failed to create the PC platform (because that was really Microsoft's doing), and the personal computing market would have remained deeply fragmented on both hardware and software levels, tools for gamers and tinkerers but not business computing. In either case, OS/2 wouldn't have happened in the way that it did (especially since microsoft was a key developer behind that). Linux would have had a significantly tougher time happening, either because of IBM's control of the PC market (including the hardware), or in the fragmentation scenario because the lack of a hardware standard would have made it more difficult to build a community of OS enthusiasts. Apple would have probably gone bankrupt during Jobs' wilderness years. Without ms office propping it up as the only desktop alternative to DOS/windows it wouldn't have stood a chance given how incompetent apple's management was at the time.
So, maybe microsoft slowed down the personal computing market, or maybe they sped it up, or maybe they didn't change the timeline at all. I reckon there's no way to tell unless you have a time machine.
I wonder if Gates feels guilty though. His current efforts are laudable, but it always seems like he's compensating for something.
It's impossible to know as a whole, but you can still look at individual actions and say they were bad for the industry.
Probably one of the worst and most egregious is Microsoft's use of a "per processor" fee in the 90's which they only stopped when the government forced them to. If you were an OEM like Dell or HP, and sold Windows on any computers, you had to pay Microsoft for a copy of Windows on all computers you sold, even ones without Windows.
This anti-competitive move meant alternative operating systems, like BeOS, or OS2/Warp, or even Linux weren't really an option. BeOS died, not on any technical merits, but because Microsoft forced it out via other means. Linux only survived because its openness made it hard to kill.
I'm confused at how Gates set back computing by taking the PC from a geeky hobby item to perhaps the go to standard appliance in the modern home. Could you explain this a little better?
That was Apple. Microsoft mostly copied things after they got proven elsewhere first.
How many hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost to security issues in Windows? The design is fundamentally flawed and entrenched in our society for the foreseeable future (ATMs running 20 year old versions of Windows, etc).
How many other promising computer futures could we have had without abusive monopoly power? Plan9? Be?
How many millions of programmer hours have been lost to supporting broken Microsoft practices? IE, anybody? It didn't just "happen," it was their entire business model: destroy competition by abusing a position of power, become the only solution provider going forward, then stop developing the solution for highest ROI (just duplicate those bits for government contract money, baby. no need to maintain anything since we're the only game in town).
That was Apple. Microsoft mostly copied things after they got proven elsewhere first.
...and made it mainstream enough that every home could afford one. No, Apple did not do that.
how many millions of hours...
...that would never existed anyway because no other company had the vision and desire to penetrate the mass market like MS did. Pretty sure a hell of a lot of money was made maintaining MS software. It was hardly 'lost'.
I'm not sure if Gates slapped your mom or something, but you seem to be blaming MS for not being the best thing possible when the whole idea of mass market computing was nothing more than theory. Were you using the Internet when IE 5 came out? Because if you were you surely remember it was miles and miles ahead of Netscape. It was the best thing in the market. I can't fault them for the millions of dollars of development they invested simply because it hurt Netscape's non existent business case.
Do you reap the same scorn on google and Apple for their actions? Because they are doing exactly the same things as MS did, even worse, Google is just pumping what are often best in class products out to the masses for free!
Don't get me wrong, MS did a lot of shady stuff that hurt competition and served no other interest but their own, but they aren't unique in this regard at all; they just happened to be in a better position than most companies are.
Greed is a lousy sobrquiet to use here. DOS on an 8086 is a lot like the AK47. It's simple, you can take it apart blindfolded and it always fired. DOS was the substrate; everything else ( even the really bad stuff ) was ultimately gravy.
This was a hugely populist technology.
Gates identified a principle - software is inherently property - that was lying around unused. He built a big company out of that. Computers became mainstream.
If anything, Wintel stuff probably accelerated the progress of other architectures by the sheer increase in the size of the market.
I, too mourn some of the casualties, but an Amiga was 8 months house payment whilst my first 286 was only 3 or 4.
Compared to those stuck in poverty, computing can recover with relative ease from that kind of setback. Computing has boatloads of money and loads of momentum to overcome obstacles; people in poverty only have despair and oppression.
True. But he has successfully edited his reputation by using philanthropy, so you got a downvote. Which I reversed because you're right (taking "all of computing" to be mild hyperbole).
hey, i would love to see this work for google cardboard (i'm too poor for rift ;) - i see there's a get notified when it comes to mobile, but i can't click it.
Yes, we're actively working on getting a mobile version out, we expect to have an Android version this week, and iOS shortly after (obviously pending app store approval as well). If you shoot us an email at press@1157.pm we'll let you know when you can download it.
I keep thinking I should be able to set up my FPV goggles that have head tracking to connect to my computer to use as rift type goggles.. Every time I start poking around to see what it would take though, it seems all the similar projects are overseas which makes acquiring some of the components a huge hassle for me.
Am I the only one that thinks this kind of thing would be cool to see? I've seen logs of attacks, but I've never watched a botnet irc live. that would be crazy for me. Not really moving the conversation forward, but is this so commonplace that I'm the odd man for marveling?
I read that shortly after it was originally published. And I thought to myself: COOL!
I was seventeen. I had a spare Windows 95c (or was it 98se?) box laying around, and some experience with inctrl5, a linux box which could operate as a router, and some basic knowledge of tcpdump(1). Importantly, I could also script the behavior of an IRC client.
At the time I was a channel operator in a relatively popular IRC channel on EFnet... "Don't ask to ask!" :) Users would come in and request assistance with malware all the time, so I was already roughly familiar with the mechanisms of infection and CnC.
This is a long story that I must cut short: I ended up in the same CnC room as Gibson did. Not the same type--the same one. I met some of the people in the story. :D
I used to do that for fun. It was a lot easier back when SDBot and AgoBot was the shit.
The trick I used was to go on some xdcc network, change nickname to one similar to the bots and just wait. Sooner or later one of the botnet owners tried to authenticate and soon after I would exit with a ping-timeout.
Then you could just log into one of them, get a list of processes and download the one with a random name. It was pretty easy and you could get your hands on a few thousand bots in a weekend.
Oh the joy of running "!uninstall" while the owners was in the chatroom...
You might find this paper about stealing a botnet interesting [0]. Even though its five years old, the crazy stuff these researchers found is still amazing.
To be honest, it's not that interesting. If it's a well configured irc host then you will not be seeing any of the other bots, and all you will occasionally see is a command coming by from a generically named operator. Some botnet irc's are lazily configured, and will let you see all of the other bots as part of the channel, but generally will not let you speak. The bots usually have nicknames built from the host's computer name, username, country, etc.
It's interesting, but in itself is not that exciting in my opinion.
It was interesting the first few times watching them. Sometimes the commands are not even authenticated so you could do fun things like write a text file saying their computer was infected and then open it with notepad... or other things.[0] You aren't going to find many large scale botnets that still use IRC though. It is really amateur hour CnC.
[0] It probably is not really advisable to do even 'helpful' actions such as that, but when you are young you do careless things.
Expose a vulnerable linux VM to the raw internet. Wait for it to get infected. Find the process thats connected to the cnc server using lsof. use gcore to dump its memory to a file. cat that into strings and look for the irc channel and server. Or just watch it all in wireshark but thats kinda boring. Have fun and stay safe.
To all the "this is just a 10 dollar library card", I ask you this: if library books are the way to go, why do people buy endless amounts of books from amazon. Amazon became successful by selling books. Audible is another successful company that offers a feature that according to you, can be achieved at a library. Clearly libraries are missing something or else we'd be using them more. Maybe it's one click instant access. Maybe it's the larger selection, or that lack of having to wait. Regardless, it's not the same.
This of course all depends on which country you live in. Where I am from libraries already offer ebook and audiobooks and university libraries have bought licenses from most academic publishers, so that students can download most of their course material and almost all journal articles free of charge. Also all libraries are a 15 minute bike ride away. All of them combined carry a higher quality selection of books than Amazon with their 600.000 could possibly have. Of course they probably won't have some obscure medieval vampire romance novel.
The only books I ever ordered from Amazon were books in foreign languages and academic books that Amazon apparently prints on demand on behalf of publishers. Books in my mother tongue can only be sold at a fixed price set by the publisher, so there is little incentive of buying from a company that mistreats their warehouse workers.
I'm surprised by all the comments in this thread saying that you have to physically go to your library during their open hours to borrow a book. Most libraries I know offer digital downloads through the Overdrive app.
I regularly borrow audiobooks and ebooks from the library with a couple of taps on my iPhone.
Yes, but they don't allow an unlimited number of patrons to read the book at the same time. You have to get in line. At my library, the wait time for popular ebooks can be more than a month. And once you do get to check out an ebook, you only have it for a couple weeks, then you have to "return" it, and if you want to read it again/more, get back in line.
That's clearly inferior to Amazon's service where you can read any book in their catalog at any time, even if a million other Amazon customers are simultaneously reading it, and you can open it and read it as often as you want, with no waiting.
I borrow ebooks from my library quite often, but I also buy a ton of books for my Kindle, for similar reasons as above, and will most likely subscribe to Kindle Unlimited (depending on the catalog — right now the catalog looks like a few bestsellers I've already read or don't care to read, plus several hundred thousand self-published romance novels).
> Maybe it's one click instant access. Maybe it's the larger selection, or that lack of having to wait.
Yes. Yes. Yes. As well as book condition/cleanliness, and being able to keep books forever.
My local library is also only open from 10am-6pm, and closed sundays, so unless I want to take time off of work, my only time to go to the library is on a Saturday afternoon. Usually when I buy a book via Amazon, it's spontaneous because of a recommendation. I'll have a friend recommend me a book. Click, it's ordered and shipping. I'll see a book recommended several times in the same HN thread, check reviews for it, click, ordered and shipping. I don't really remember the book's info in order to look up later while at a library.
Currently I have no idea how to check if a book is available at my branch or a nearby branch. I tried going to the library website and clicked their "check availability" link, and I was brought to a calendar for conference room reservations. Amazon is just a much more polished experience than my library. So yeah, I'll buy a book instead of getting it free from the library.
It reminds me of when people say that services like Netflix, Spotify, Steam, etc are cutting down on piracy because in many cases, they provide a simpler experience than the piracy does. Amazon and books (hell, Amazon and most products) provides that same simplification over a cheaper/free distributor.
Does your library offer e-books? You can check them out without ever visiting the branch - of course, the selection may be limited, but the convenience factor shouldn't be off by that much - apps like Overdrive and the like are fairly usable once you learn how to use them.
Libraries have fixed locations you must travel to, and limited collections (rarely more than one copy of each book) of aging content (limited range of latest material). If you want something in particular, good chance it's not available.
Amazon will, from the convenience of any computer (mobile devices included), ship you books from a vast & nearly inexhaustible collection at acceptable costs.
Now the Unlimited plan brings you both for $10/mo: beyond-library-scale of practically free books delivered instantly, and bringing you in close proximity to darn near every book ever written available at modest cost in 2 days.
Heck, many subscribers would pay more than $10/mo just in gas driving to the library.
Since Amazon became wildly successful by selling dead-tree versions of books before it even started selling ebooks, yeah, I would assume that selling rather than licensing was what the grandparent post intended, and that it referred to dead-tree rather than electronic books.
It's bad for the ULA. The title is a bit misleading, they are banning exports of RD-180s that will be used for military missions, not just sales of RD-180s to the military itself. Therefore the ULA can still buy RD-180s, but they cannot then use those engines on missions with military payloads. If this restriction stays in place for long, it is fairly bad news for the ULA.
Seems pretty bad for ULA, which is Boeing and Lockheed Martin, but they claim they have enough rocket boosters to fulfill the next two years of their launch commitments. They have contractual obligations further out than that, but SpaceX is arguing the validity of at least one of those contracts.
I don't think "stupid political bickering" fairly characterises the situation. Ukraine is slowly descending into civil war with large chunks of it being (or threatening to be) annexed by Russia in the chaos.
Normally I'm all for technological progress. But maybe just this once I'd be OK with postponing our advancement as a spacefaring species if it means we can get a peaceful resolution in Ukraine.
By "peaceful" I don't think you mean "resolution favoring the western agenda"?
I am all in favor of peace.
We in the west can't necessarily control what Russia does. But we can (or should be able to) control what we do. I certainly don't think sending senators and state department officials to meet with coup leaders in the day before the coup and the constant stream of hostile talk helps anything.
Not supporting Russia annexing Ukraine. Just so no one gets the wrong idea.
That's why I call this "stupid political bickering". It's not about Ukraine, it's about superpowers projecting their influence.
Also, I might be biased, because I live not that far from the Ukrainian border and I would feel much safer if the US stayed away from this.
Edited to add:
I'm also less concerned about US not getting military launches and more about the future of the ISS. The Space Station is more than just a research post in a cold place; it's a monument, a symbol, of a bright future, of a peaceful progress of whole mankind. Losing ISS wouldn't be just a bad day for science, it would impact many people's hopes and dreams.
If I'm not entirely mistaken, the "coup leaders" in Ukrane were in fact the duly elected government of Ukrane, and it was exactly as much a "coup" as Congress kicking out the US President would be.
Edit: to be clear, I'm not being hyperbolic here, the "coup" in question literally consisted of the elected representatives of the Ukranian people kicking out the president, who I think even belonged to the same party as a number of the ringleaders.
Edit 2: yep, "The Ukrainian parliament, which decisively abandoned Yanukovich after loyalists defected, declared on Saturday the president constitutionally unable to carry out his duties and set an early election for May 25."[1] His own former political allies voted to give him the boot.
> the "coup" in question literally consisted of the elected representatives of the Ukranian people kicking out the president
In fact, the president _illegally_ fled the country (on a Russian navy ship) leaving the parliament no choice but to appoint an acting president until the elections (which will be on May 25).
> and why would the president "illegally" remove himself from the country?
That is the question you would have to ask him. AFAIK, not a single official from his government or staff or party has been arrested or hurt since the president fled. As I said, he could return to the country, but he chose not to.
But I really don't want to argue about it anymore. I realize the people of Ukraine had legitimate grievances. I don't think Russia should own Ukraine. I don't think the CIA or anyone else instigated the coup. I just don't think Washington should have had the state department in the middle of it. And I think they should tone down the hostile talk.
It's not clear he can; he's in Russia, and Russia don't seem to have any more interest in him returning to Ukraine or to power than the Ukrainian government.
The president illegally removed himself from the country, rendering the government inoperable - no bill could be signed into law by him "in absentia". He could return to the country but he chose not to. Calling for new elections and appointing an acting president until the time was the only sensible thing the parliament could do in such conditions.
"with large chunks of it being (or threatening to be) annexed by Russia in the chaos."
I would consider that an allusion to a desired outcome.
But agreed with the poster above who mentions political bickering. It won't get anyone anywhere. Besides, I've made my view known, I think it is just good sense on the part of the west to seek peace rather than hostility, I don't think not being unreasonably hostile in rhetoric and deed is capitulation and I don't have anything else to say.
coup: "a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government"
Would be cool if that actually happened. The President signed a deal with the opposition then left the country. His parliament then voted to impeach him. How is that a coup?
illegal? look at the number required vs those who voted to remove from office.
I'm not saying the guy wasn't corrupt. But, look at some of those who are running the show now. They aren't a whole lot better. Avakov, the cheerleader for immediate violent action against the eastern insurgants for instance.
They had 328 votes and needed 337. However it is a bit of a grey area as the constitution doesn't really cover the President abandoning his Country.
This all began in October I believe. Is 4 months sudden? All of the violence was provoked from the government (him). The opposition definitely took advantage of it and are not entirely innocent in all of this. Corruption has always been a problem in Ukraine will be for the foreseeable future. This guy took it to another level.
Poland is looking back and hoping the US stays out of this and the whole thing de-escalates. We don't want to die, you know. And that's what usually happens when a war breaks out.
And I consider there are at least two parties at fault in this. Is there anything we can do to rectify the situation or do we need to spend 20% of our respective GDPs on arms for the next umpteen years and fight a dozen proxy wars around the globe?
For a country with financial difficulties, it sure is taking some odd steps. Write-off North Korea's debt, now cancel out million/billion dollar sales to the U.S. for rockets. I guess they don't want us to build any more fighter jets before NATO attacks. ;)
The Russian state is not in financial difficulties. The oil and natural gas industries are reliable ruble generators, having been effectively resocialized in Putin's era. Russia has paid off its foreign debt completely. The regime won't feel the effect of Western economic pressure any time soon.
The Russian economy is much worse off, however. Competitiveness and industrial development have been neglected by the regime that's happy to siphon off profits from unrefined natural exports. Quality of life is not improving, corruption is rife as ever, wages and pensions can go unpaid.
Lately the government seems to be trying to shift blame onto foreigners and deviants, and so increasing numbers of Caucasian immigrant workers and homosexuals are getting beat up or murdered.
Medvedev talked the talk on much-needed economic development, but turns out he was just a puppet. There doesn't seem to be much hope for change in the near future.
But who do you think NATO should attack next with a wink and a smile? Ah yes, whoever dares to challenge the petrodollar, right? If that's the case then taking away their rockets is a good step for humanity.
Are you mistaking my honest opinion for paid astroturfing? Or do you feel that your own world view is so righteous that anything else must be a fallacy?
Do you actually believe this conflict has something to do with petrodollars? Ukrainians want a better life, they see others with that life. I know we are all supposed to be afraid of Russia but please. A cornered squirrel is dangerous but it is still a squirrel.
This is a classic argument for promoting Western intervention. "Don't be a monster, people just want a better life!". And somehow this argument gets translated into Captain America coming over and scorching the earth until nothing's left.
My hopes for making you just a little more cynical about these things are low, but please try and open your eyes. What is the first thing that happens in every country that gets "freedomed" by the NATO. The oil fields get secured, the installed regime continues selling oil in US dollars at agreeable prices, and the society descends into chaos... but the oil fields are secure.
Do you disagree that Ukraine is a polarized country and that the Euromaidan does not speak for the whole country?
NATO has not scorched anything in Ukraine. Putin is being given enough rope to hang himself. The West is so dominant that Vlad should be afraid. The arc of history is long but it bends towards freedom.
#NSA #XKeyscore #Snowdengate #PRISM #DroneStrikes #TSA. Thank you for your freedom.
The truth is, the "West" is not that much better in a moral sense, it's just that it controlls the global narrative thanks to, in a big part, Hollywood.
Your "moral sense" equivalence does not help the average Ukrainian. Also never underestimate the Russian capacity for suffering. Aside from Snowden, no one escapes to Russia and I am sure the irony is not lost on him.
"A great leader has to be tolerant of a wide range of social and cultural POV."
First of all, it was made very clear in all the articles on him that he has never shown any mistreatment of anyone because of their sexual preference. It seems that his intolerance isn't in question. If you want to put that quote on anyone, I'd aim it at the leaders of OKCupid. The hypocrisy is so stupid.
No. JUST NO. This is getting out of hand. You want to change the way people think, you do it through public discourse. You want to change the laws, you do it through votes. You lost a vote. Try again next time when you have more support. Don't hate a person and try to ruin their life because you think the world needs to function how you see it. I don't care anymore if I get downvoted. This HAS TO STOP. We HAVE TO STOP THIS. These people are hypocrites and I'm sick of it. I may vote against gay rights laws because they think they can manipulate the system. Sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it. Well, it's the same goddamn thing!
Did I read this argument right? Is everyone fired up for a guy that voted against some proposition that was against LGBT? Isn't it his right to vote how he pleases? Has he taken any direct action against someone in the LGBT community? Has he shown in the past that his views change the ways he treats people? So, I remember reading about something called the Red Scare that blackballed people because of their political views. Is that really the way the LGBT community wants to be viewed: Love us or we'll ruin your life? People don't see things the same way, and that's their right. People aren't required to see your same point of view. That is one of the great things about America, we can feel however we want. Once there was a time when his views were in the majority, and I think it's a shame that this is how people think it should be solved. If you want to change him, you should make him hate you and ruin his career. I'm not trolling, I'm just reading headlines, and I saw nowhere where this man did anything except vote his mind. Please correct me if I'm in the wrong.
Yes, that was his right, and no one has ever said differently. But freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences in the realm of public opinion. Funding Prop 8 had a direct negative impact on the LGBT community of California. To expect that community to have no reaction to his actions would be naive.
The reaction is disproportionate to his contribution, though. His donation was quite small, and at no point did he use his status as a public figure to speak out in favor of Prop 8.
What he did was wrong, but it was not enough for us to prop him up as a sacrificial lamb in the name of equality. It would serve no common good, bringing us no closer to repealing the law, but could lead to consequences for Brendan far worse than any well-meaning blogger could conceivably intend.
Let us instead work to change his moral stance, whether by argument or by example. If tomorrow Brendan Eich were to say - and genuinely believe - that marriage is just as much a right for gays as it is for heterosexuals, then that would be a victory far sweeter than punishing him for having once believed wrongly.
Sacrificial lamb, what are you talking about? What kind of sacrifice would it have been for Eich to not become CEO of Mozilla? I already make that sacrifice every day.
So many commenters want to make it all about what a small donation it was, or about Brendan Eich's right to support the causes of his choice. Of course he has that right, but consider the classic analogy for this issue: if the CTO of a company made a small donation toward banning interracial marriage, how would you feel about that company? How about if that person were then promoted to CEO? I can only speak for myself but my answers are "not great" and "disgusted", respectively.
What's important here is not Brendan Eich's right to hold whatever position he wants and simultaneously whatever job he wants. He came out against equality, and Mozilla knew it, and promoted him, and specifically promoted him to CEO. This is how they weigh their priorities. If you think that marriage equality matters then you should think that this decision matters.
> The reaction is disproportionate to his contribution, though. His donation was quite small, and at no point did he use his status as a public figure to speak out in favor of Prop 8.
What difference does donating 10cents vs $10,000 to a cause make? By donating you are supporting the bill/policy/action.
> What he did was wrong, but it was not enough for us to prop him up as a sacrificial lamb in the name of equality. It would serve no common good, bringing us no closer to repealing the law, but could lead to consequences for Brendan far worse than any well-meaning blogger could conceivably intend.
The law was already struck down as unconstitutional. But it took 5 years to do so.
> Let us instead work to change his moral stance, whether by argument or by example. If tomorrow Brendan Eich were to say - and genuinely believe - that marriage is just as much a right for gays as it is for heterosexuals, then that would be a victory far sweeter than punishing him for having once believed wrongly.
I think there is some anger over how Brendan Eich responded; which is not directly admitting to anything.
I don't know if I would ask for his resignation, but he still hasn't addressed this very well. The problem seems to be that he refuses to address his stance on it. So you can't very well work with him when he doesn't even admit to donating the money, nor admit to believing that gays should not marry.
The fact that his donation was so small makes it much worse in my opinion. That indicates that the primary intent was to make a public, symbolic statement on the matter. Or he completely whiffed at thinking through the implications of his action. Both are pretty bad for someone wanting to be CEO of Mozilla. IMO.
> The fact that his donation was so small makes it much worse in my opinion. That indicates that the primary intent was to make a public, symbolic statement on the matter.
Making a donation is a pretty ridiculous way to try to make a public, symbolic statement on the matter. It relies on someone taking advantage of the election disclosure laws to get a list of donors, then going over the list of donors, then picking him out of the list of thousands of donors, and then calling public attention to that.
He's not the Robot Devil. If he wanted to make a public, symbolic statement on the matter, wouldn't he simply tweet, or use Facebook, or blog about it?
The first amendment does not guarantee freedom from consequences, but it's not absurd to expect people to also have a social notion of freedom of speech that encourages tolerance of different viewpoints.
>The first amendment does not guarantee freedom from consequences
It should. Freedom of speech without freedom from consequences is meaningless. If you have to self-censor yourelf because you might lose your job or whatever, then there's no freedom of speech.
> Freedom of speech without freedom from consequences is meaningless.
What is protected by the Constitution -- freedom (from government restrictions) of speech does guarantee (is, in fact, equivalent to) freedom from (government imposed) consequences of speech -- the former is present exactly to the extent that the latter is provided.
However, the much of the theory behind that guarantee of free speech is the idea that it is best to allow ideas to compete in the marketplace of ideas, and for people to hear the speech from all sides and to decide, individually, which speech to reward and which to punish(within their scope of power as market participants, rather than with the compulsory power of government). It was not about making speech free from private consequences, so long as those consequences were restricted to the kind that are not otherwise criminal.
The marketplace of ideas isn't as robust if ideas are allowed to corner the market by forcing other ideas off the market. If you disagree with someone, disagree with them (civilly, please), don't force them to shut up.
Since some people get paid to speak for someone else, I'm not sure you could make a blanket right like that. But certain forms of retaliation (like firing people) for certain forms of speech (like voting on ballot issues) should be grounds for a lawsuit.
> How would LGBT community liked it they could lose their jobs for being LGBT?
Under the interpretations until recently of federal statutes [1], and under the law of most US states, they can, and largely the same groups fighting against marriage equality have been fighting to preserve and extend that condition, as well.
[1] Though recent EEOC decisions finding that discrimination based on gender identity and/or sex stereotypes are subtypes of discrimination based on sex may significantly limit the degree to which that is in practice true under federal law, but AFAIK those agency interpretations have not yet been tested in the courts.
So let's make a law that LGBT people can't be fired at all? I personally know one straight person that claimed he is gay and sued the company that fired him for discrimination. And he won.
Identities of the parties aside, How is this case different? Aren't you still harming someone for a bad reason (you don't like them and what they stand for)?
Would Eich have recourse if he were passed up for the CEO spot? Why makes discriminating against LGBT people in the workplace different than discriminating against Eich in this case?
I don't see how firing someone for an opinion is comparable to firing someone for sexual orientation. Neither should be allowed, but they're fundamentally different things.
Sometimes opinions flow seamlessly from a person's identity.
What if a gay principal is fired for supporting gay marriage. What if someone is a religious pacifist and the ballot issue had to do with gun control? Are those just opinions or is there no other option for a person given his or her identity?
I'd even go so far as to say that sometimes opinions are core to someone's identity. As in, the person would be fundamentally different if that opinion changed.
I'm not sure the issue is so cut-and-dry as you presume.
All I'm pointing out is that they're fundamentally different. Sexual orientation is something you're born with. Opinions can be changed. Neither should be grounds for termination. What are we arguing about here?
Just because you can punish someone for political views doesn't mean you should. The freedom of speech can be an idea and an attitude that is bigger than the First Amendment.
That's fine. Even more so, then, freedom of speech can be a social norm (tolerance of other viewpoints) that protects people beyond the minimum standards the government sets.
I think your missing a few things here. Yes, of course, it's his right to vote however he wants. It's also perfectly fine for his constituents to take his voting record or other public actions/statements into consideration regarding pretty much anything. There's a big difference between "love us" and "avoid making a symbolic public statement against us".
For a lot of organizations, this wouldn't merit this much discussion. But it's easy to make the case that Mozilla is a bit different. It's mission-based. It's employee and constituent bases probably skew LGBT. The tech industry is one of the biggest supporters of LGBT rights. Mozilla is a fairly flat org. We're talking about the CEO role which requires a sphere of influence both internally, and in this case, to a great extent externally.
The guy made a huge mistake if he ever had an eye on moving into the CEO role. His donation was pretty much insignificant so we can only view it as a symbolic gesture. And the symbolism is very antagonistic towards his constituents.
Some people opposed Prop 8 due to their notions of tolerance or acceptance. Being tolerant of Prop 8 supporters would be a consistent position for these people.
Some people opposed Prop 8 because they want to advocate for a particular worldview (homosexual marriage is a natural right). It doesn't follow that they would necessarily tolerate people who supported Prop 8.
I suppose people can belong to both camps, but this case surely crystallizes the idea that these motivations aren't the same.
Would you take the same position if this guy had contributed money to a less socially acceptable cause? Would you defend a CEO with a history of donating to the KKK anti-interracial-marriage fund as the public face of Mozilla?
>Has he taken any direct action against someone in the LGBT community?
Yes, a thousand dollars of political speech. This was a direct action on his part to try to take away rights people already had at that time. He admits he took this action.
And like most trolls on this subject, you try to twist hateful bigotry into "political views". There's nothing political about considering other people subhuman. It's pure, unadulterated vicious hatred.
And even then there is a fundamental difference believing that something is against your religion and actually trying to prevent people from having equal rights. The former maybe a personal view, but the latter is just outright viciousness.
He has the right to believe whatever he wants, but nobody should be expected to work for this asshole, or want to have anything to do with him.
It's also completely beyond me why any company would want such a hateful extremist as their leader.
no, this is trolling. Steve Jobs was an asshole, nobody would argue that. He treated people like shit, but he did great things... So, I guess it's ok to own an apple device because, hey, he didn't hate MY culture, he just hates all people. Attacking one man because he disagrees with your political/emotional/sexual views is the problem. As a group that claims accept people that are different, your community comes off as hypocrites. So you only accept people if they're your kind of different?
It blows my mind that in a country that preaches a free-market economy, the government is preventing a company from selling a superior product. I'm pretty sure people will still buy the car if they want to, and in time, those car companies will go under anyway, but why slow down progress?
Remember that the US is not pro-business, it's corporatist. It's a government that is able to be easily captured by incumbent, monied interests. Starting businesses and operating them on a small level is much easier in other developed nations.
It depends whether you're describing "the free market" religion or "the free market" reality.
In practice, most politicians mean an economy tilted in favor of multinational corporations when they use these dog whistle terms. It is an offense to everything Adam Smith stood for, but it's what they really mean by "free market." The real Adam Smith believed modern-style multinational corporations were a recipe for corruption.
"The directors of such [joint-stock] companies, however, being the managers rather of other people’s money than of their own, it cannot well be expected, that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own.... Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company."
That's a great phrase. I look on in trepidation at the almost mechanical way folks in their teens and 20's react to memes. I find parallels in the way programmers parrot half-truths and untruths. And of course, there's the joke that passes for political discourse on TV.
Really, we 1st world people aren't that much more sophisticated than 19th century Russian peasants chanting "Constantine and constitution" thinking "constitution" was Constantine's wife.
The relevant government in this case is the state of New Jersey, not the United States of America. There is a lot of variation between state governments.
> the government is preventing a company from selling a superior product
There is some bias there. You judge Tesla a better product, so of course all the regulation that are against its sales are going to feel unjust.
I have difficulties to really follow this whole stuff (I live in EU, the whole buying a car in the US seems a very 'exiting' experience, at least when reading about it on Reddit), there does not seem to be any sort of nice non-partisan explanation of the problem and why those regulations where put in place.
Actually Musk is the clearest answer that is not either: "Tesla great, fuck the regulation" or the opposite, "Musk dick, cannot follow the regulations like everybody else", but what's PR and what's factual ?
Edit: Just realised why it irked me this time. I was reading about EU decision of standardizing the power plug for smartphone to micro-USB. People were all happy for regulation there. When people complained that now the we would get stuck with micro-usb forever, people dismissed it saying the EU will just change the plug when a better one comes up as if the EU/US hadn't got an awful track record at keeping their regulation and spec up-to-date, like in this case for example.
Because existing businesses are afraid of change and politicians are afraid of possibly eliminating jobs. People are afraid of change because it means that they will have to adapt.
There's a big difference between "preaching a free-market economy" and "preaching a free-market economy except in cases where I think there shouldn't be a free-market economy." The latter is the norm in the United States and every other country in the world that I know of.
Things like the Consumer Reports ratings and the Motor Trend "Car of the year" award are pretty objective. You're right that it's subjective, but there's empirical evidence that a lot of people feel it's superior.
I dont trust either. I dont know who paid off who to get a good rating. ;-) And who knows what biases are there in the reviewer?
Besides, I may not purchase a vehicle based on any of the same factors as the average person that these ratings/awards are targeted to. To some people a car has to have a certain feel. How much more subjective can that be?
It's like product reviews on the internet. Almost wish they didn't exist they're so fake most of the time. we digress...
The quality of awards/ratings aside, that shouldn't even matter here. Tesla or any other manufacturer should be able to sell directly to the consumer if that's the way the two parties want to do business. I can buy apple products directly from Apple and not have to go through Best Buy or anyone else. Why do cars have to be different, still, in 2014?
