Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by belorn 3084 days ago
It is obviously clear that not everyone who works at Disney supported the idea to take works of art and culture from the public and retroactively put them back under copyright, nor the idea that lobbying from such organizations should have such enormous power in dictating policy in a democratic country where a democratic vote would had gone in an other direction. Cory Doctorow has dedicated a large part of his life (and wealth) towards combating such behavior, and obviously it's not fair when such polarized views conflict with people who just happen to work for a large company.

That said, I personally don't judge him too harshly for it. If you spend your whole life working and using your money to save the oceans and meet a representative for BP, I strongly suspect that images from the Gulf oil spill will pop up and the meeting will be very frosty. It comes with the territory, as people rarely do spend their whole life and worldly possessions unless they also have strong views on the issue. Its not uncommon to see such personalities to be founders of movements but at the same time be rather poor diplomats.

1 comments

That's a good point about long past experience shading future interactions, but I don't feel it exempts from harsh judgment. The ability to consider individuals separately from some of their membership groups is a core skill of being a mature adult.

If Doctorow doesn't have the mental "executive control" we expect of adults, we need to be aware of it. This includes being ready to defend people he insults and to give him less opportunity for it.

The grandparent poster might actually be doing the hard labor of doing good within Disney, as are thousands of others. I contrast that with how easy it is to stand outside the castle (almost literally in Disney's sense) and throw stones at the walls. If GP is someone working for good within a bad organization (aren't a lot of us?) then I have respect for them. That is really hard, wearing work.

Anyway, on the sliding scale of judgement and forgiveness, just stating that I judge Doctorow more harshly than you and am less forgiving of his attacking a person for the behavior of one group they happen to be a member of.