[DanielBMarkham]

So let's play this through in an imaginary scenario.

Next year I decide I like my neighbor, who's running for governor in the American Nazi party. I write him a check for $500.

So now I can't work in the tech industry? Really? And this makes sense to folks?

So you're saying thinking is okay, but acting is not. So is there some list of things I can and can't do and expect to have a job? Or is it just made up off-the-cuff by anybody with an internet search and an axe to grind?

Do you realize how chilling this is? We're going to raise an entire generation of tech leadership who are acutely tuned never to do anything publicly that might indicate they have an opinion -- and are smart enough to hold all their real feelings inside, no matter how terrible. It's bad for those folks, it's bad for the industry, and it's bad for the rest of us. It's just bad all the way around.

We all have to vote the same way, give money to the same causes, say the same things -- or face collective group punishment. And this seems sane?

[asdfologist]

Can you stop making strawman arguments? No one said he can't work in the tech industry, or anything even close.

[mikeash]

Please come up with a different scenario, because you're never going to convince me that it's wrong to try to discourage you from putting me in a concentration camp, or taking any steps to put in power someone who would.

[DanielBMarkham]

Sure, discourage me. Come out in the public square and let's have it out. You use your powers of free speech and persuasion and convince me I'm wrong. If I feel strongly about my opinions, I'll do the same to try to persuade you that you're wrong. Democracy at work.

Start poking around to find whatever job I have and then try to get me fired? Really? That counts as "discouragement" in your book?

You realize, of course, that there are some folks with really nasty opinions out there, folks who would do all the things you mention. Folks who would bring back slavery. And so on.

I must have missed the big public outrage over these folks where we try to get them fired and otherwise interfere with their personal and work lives because of their political opinions. I also missed the part where this became acceptable behavior.

[mikeash]

As a practical matter, the less money you have, the less you can fund your attempts to have me killed.

[twoodfin]

What about folks who think substantial U.S. carbon emission restrictions aren't a smart or effective policy and politically donate to that effect? There are likely a lot of people here who believe passionately that such inaction will lead to an uninhabitable planet. Serious, life-and-death stuff. Worth trying to get someone fired from their tech job?

[mikeash]

I think there's a big difference that comes down to motivation. Somebody who tries to get a Nazi elected wants, at some level, for me to die. Thus, I cannot trust them to treat me well.

Similarly, somebody who tries to get a gay marriage ban passed thinks that consenting adults should be prevented from marrying, and since there are no good rational reasons to do that (it's possible that there are some, but none have ever been presented to me, and there has been opportunity) then it indicates not only a prejudice against homosexuals, but a willingness to interfere in their lives. Again, they can't be trusted to treat homosexuals well in other contexts where they might have power.

Somebody who fights against carbon emission restrictions isn't doing it because they want the planet to die. Instead, they have examined the information and come to a different conclusion. You might say it's the wrong conclusion, and I'd completely agree with that, but that is ultimately a failure of brainpower rather than of motivations. They presumably have good reasons for why they act that way, which means they can be reasoned with. That makes it much more feasible to deal with them, and ultimately makes them much less harmful.

[SamReidHughes]

How about people that donate to fight the existence of polyamorous marriage licenses? Do you want to get them fired?

> there are no good rational reasons to do that

If you lived in the south bay area like I do, you'd suffer far more oppression from people with houses that oppose any and all kinds of development, than you would from the government not recognizing gay marriage (if you were gay). These people cost me thousands of dollars per year, and they make poorer people even worse off, driving them out of high-rent communities into far more dangerous areas and making them spend time and energy commuting. If some home-owner from west of El Camino that donated to the "Residents First" candidate's campaign in the Mountain View city elections became the CEO of Mozilla, how should I feel then? His cause is based in purely wicked selfishness, not some arbitrary nonsensical moral axioms or reasoning that you might call irrational.

At least Eich donated against Prop. 8 because he thought it was the right thing to do. He didn't gain any personal benefit from that donation -- it was at quite direct harm to himself (to the tune of $1000). That donation is actually a positive sign of moral character, relative to most people's bland non-contributing apathy. He just has bad moral axioms or couldn't think about this matter rationally.

> Again, they can't be trusted to treat homosexuals well in other contexts where they might have power.

I don't think you have an accurate model of how the average pious Christian that lives in California would behave (assuming that's the root cause of Eich's choices). You've come to false conclusions about what donating to anti-gay-marriage causes implies about one's personal attitude towards gay people. I'm sure there's some form of hypothetical marriage license that you wouldn't be in favor of, but that doesn't mean you're bigoted against those people. The state doesn't approve of anything but nuclear family marriage and its same-sex facsimile. I don't think that you'd be evil or couldn't be reasoned with if you believed that the state should encourage this social structure, it's just that your moral axioms or your views on what marriage is for are (probably) different than mine.

Actually, I'm just trying to be persuasive. The real reason you're wrong is that your opinion is built on your delusion that you and other people have free will, specifically, that of Eich having it. Going from the free will to no-free-will perspective, your attitude towards Eich maps to an attitude towards the universe being imperfect. So it happens to be imperfect in a way visible at the top of Mozilla. Big whoop.