Is there a better descriptor for what Eich was put through? I'd like to hear it.
Brendan Eich contributed to the Prop 8[1] traditional marriage campaign that the California electorate voted on. It was a constitutional amendment and it passed which, in 2008, was simply stunning.
In any case, Eich was shamed retroactively for his contribution. The hate and vitriol I read directed at the man at the time was incredible. If I were him, I would have been more in fear for my life and my family's, much less holding on to my CEO position. I don't know Brendan except hearing heard him speak a bit on youtube on technical topics, maybe he's a braver soul than I am IRL.
In any case, "the use of violence or threats of violence in order to coerce, especially for political purposes" is the #1 definition of 'terrorism', which describes what happened with Eich pretty well. Fear is as powerful a weapon of terrorists as bullets or jet planes or pressure cookers are. Is this definition of terrorism and its implications well understood by you, and are you simply resistant to empathizing with someone with different politics than yours? That's all well and good until it's your ox that gets gored.
Eich wasn't fired, at least not publicly. He stepped down because the cowards/traitors on the board let him dangle with no support.
What's to understand? Gaur fantasizes about victimhood (mine, and presumably his or others; see links below) and makes up facts.
On the facts, Mozilla and I both say I resigned, and Mozilla's board members said at the time that they wanted me to stay.
But in fantasizing that I was fired, gaur's moralistic and judgmental language exhibits the usual signs that Jonathan Haidt has detailed in "The Righteous Mind": a casting out of the other as beyond redemption and justly punished, without the ability to model said other or address their point of view.
(Also without ever adverting to the bad "purging" precedent he's endorsing, which global Trumpism can and will exploit by reversing his right-makes-might-makes-right circular argument. The shoe may soon be on the other foot even here in the USA, at least in large regions; it definitely never left the first foot in places like Saudi Arabia.)
Dishonesty and self-pity are not worth hearing or studying -- we have enough of them already.
Gaur expresses or implies falsehoods about California law, but I've addressed those elsewhere on HN and won't repeat here. Links:
Hi Brendan, just in case it wasn't clear to people who pity gaur, I upvoted to keep his messages alive so everyone could see how effortlessly the crybully drifts into tyranny.
Of course, you're right on, and that level of injustice he lusts for invites a cruel backlash. Your ominous parenthetical sidebar is not lost on me, and we may be heading to ugly places under Trump.
I am glad to hear you speak well of the Mozilla board. I know you all were put in an awful bind, and you did the most honorable thing you could.
Quick reply to say I cited what the board said, not to praise them (I have no comment on the board then or now) but because they independently stated that I resigned, _contra_ gaur who wrote that I was fired. Facts matter.
Facts do matter, and I will always be grumpy at your board for not more strenuously arguing in favor of you and against your detractors.
I hope you took good notes during those times and write your memoirs someday. What was it like to become a public figure after having such an impact on our industry? And then, I'm convinced you were just at the wrong place career-wise at the wrong time, what was it like to be a public figure caught up in a media firestorm? That's a story I'd like to read someday.
Also, what are you going to do next, if you're in a sharing mood?
49 people were massacred this year for going to a gay nightclub, but Eich was a victim of terrorism because he was fired? What are you smoking?