KuraFire

A "significant tax on goods from China" is actually precisely what Trump is saying.

> Wouldn't that just mean less cheap useless crap being purchased by people who can't afford it anyway?

More likely it would just cause a price hike on goods and reduce interest, forcing companies to find alternative places to source those goods, like Mexico.

This piece spoke to me in a lot of ways. I’m not an adderall (or similar) user, but as a startup co-founder I can totally see the appeal of it that drives others—people much like myself—to it.

The first thing that stood out to me was the normalization of this in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley culture, which casually overlooks or ignores the risks involved. Not one person I know in tech who's taken it recreationally has ever made mention of the risks, perhaps because they don't think they experience any side-effects (or they're not impeding enough for them to care).

Then, the pressure of being the "10x" performer is very real; hero programmer or startup co-founder, you're weirdly expected by the tech environment—rarely by individuals, in fact—to be able to pull off amazing productivity and quality. Especially as a startup founder, this pressure—if you're susceptible to it—can lead to a very pro-work, anti-social [activities] feeling, which is isolating and subtly demoralizing on an [inter-]personal level.

Lastly, the part in the piece about reasons people use to self-diagnose away any symptoms of ADHD and argue (again, to themselves) that they don't have ADHD spoke to me in a very eye-opening manner. I've done all of those things, and have felt miserable over them. Now, my 'symptoms' could still be caused by the stress of being a startup founder, but this piece set me on the course to explore and treat it as potentially a real condition I can get medication for. Or, find out it's not that (for me), and have the comfort of knowing this is something I can reduce by reducing my stress. Either way, I'm immensely grateful for this piece.

You operate your business like a sexist byproduct of a sexist society.

If it's a toxic misogynist culture that makes women feel unwelcome, so be it, it's the best measure you've (currently) got.

(Except for, y'know, all these suggestions, methods and proven approaches that are fantastic alternatives to being a dick.)

Do you have a hard time reading?

"Sorry, but that is ridiculous goop." <- this is about as explicit and concrete an assertion of his opinion stated as fact as you can get.

Also, you should really stop with the multiple cases of whining about "political correctness". It doesn't make you look like a decent person at all, because what you're really saying is that you think not being a fucking self-entitled shmuck who ignores evidence but makes massively sexist sweeping statements equates to "political correctness".

(PRO TIP: http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/43087620460/i-was-reading... )

The status quo is clearly failing our industry and our community. Any argument made against changes or even just _suggested_ changes, especially those backed up with mountains of scientific research and evidence, is a toxic argument in favor of more status quo, and cultivates the upholding of deeply misogynistic and racist systems of oppression.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say you should stop going out on a limb, as you're clearly very poorly informed when it comes to these matters. But here's a citation for you: http://economixcomix.com/2014/04/20/neil-degrasse-tyson-on-g...

“I can't believe that any woman” — stop right here. Whenever anyone on HN ever says this, they're really showing themselves to:

1) lack imagination 2) lack empathy (egregiously so) 3) generally be wrong about whatever follows next

What you're doing here is saying you think all women who would have an interest in tech are exactly the same. This is IDIOTIC and you're revealing yourself to seeing women as "a demographic" rather than as 3.6 billion unique individuals who each have their own unique personality, interests, etc.

Also, you're revealing your massively shortsighted perspective and utter inability to educate yourself a little on the matter before chiming in with your assertions, but let me help you improve perspective and learn something new:

Study: Women Do Not Apply To ‘Male-Sounding’ Jobs http://time.com/48578/study-women-do-not-apply-to-male-sound...

You Don’t Know It, But Women See Gender Bias in Your Job Postings http://www.ere.net/2013/03/01/you-dont-know-it-but-women-see...

> A scientific study of 4,000 job descriptions revealed that a lack of gender-inclusive wording caused significant implications for recruiting professionals tasked to recruit women to hard-to-fill positions underrepresented by women.

So, your assertion that it's "ridiculous goop" has actually been proven (repeatedly) by scientific studies, and is a tremendously stupid assertion to begin with (it hinges on the assumption that all women are exactly the same).

Perhaps next time, before opening your mouth, assess whether you actually have any fucking knowledge of what you're about to assert.

Ashe and Shanley do more for the open source community in an average week than I suspect you've ever done in a year.

Like I said in my original comment: there is a crucial difference between thinking harmful things, and acting on them.

Actions matter. Thoughts that you keep to yourself? I don't care. Go nuts with that.

(also I'm not a fan of the libertarianism in tech/SV, but that's a whole different discussion)

> You people are vicious.

We're not the ones treating other people as lesser human beings who should be treated as second-class citizens in our society.

> Lastly, equality isn't an unmitigated good.

"Equality" in the sense of civil rights and social liberties doesn't mean "give every person exactly the same set of everything under any and all circumstances imaginable" — that's a very programmer (dare I say, robot-like) way of looking at the term. Equality, in this context, is about ensuring that certain groups are not discriminated against in systems, in cultures, and in society at large. Ensuring equal rights often does, in fact, demand unequal laws to counteract an unequal status quo, etc. I'll spare you the crash course of legislation 101.

> For example, you probably don't believe that children should be able to marry, or more than two people.

Yes I do, but I also believe that marriage should not be a government institution in the first place, because too many people think of it as having a religious aspect (for understandable and legitimate reasons), but as such it does not belong in government. Separation of Church and State and all that. So I'm in favor of civil unions for all legal adults, and that includes poly unions. Children can then marry all they want, but they are not legal adults yet, so doing so has no impact whatsoever on their legal status in any way.

> Personally, I raise an eyebrow when a six year old boy raised by adoptive lesbians decides he is transexual, and I feel like society may be failing that boy.

I feel you're failing society by having that viewpoint. Who the fuck are you to judge like that, seriously?! Society is doing great if a young girl who was assigned male sex organs feels comfortable and safe enough to state this wish to her parents — and here you go thinking it would be better if she would feel trapped and unhappy in her body the entire rest of her life?! That's not just judgmental, but severely lacking in empathy.

You can be reasonable in many aspects and behaviors of your life, and be unreasonable in some that happen to matter more to the situation at hand.

I think it's pretty safe to say that thinking some of your employees are lesser human beings because they happen to not conform to your outdated view of sexuality, romance, and gender identity, is a pretty demonstrably unreasonable position.

I agree that it can quickly become murky with certain things. As I said though, actions matter. Being a libertarian is a very different thing from donating $1000 to an anti-equal rights campaign.

If economic and social equality angles are of fairly equal relevance, then Eich shouldn't be CEO, because him being CEO puts the economic angle as significantly more important than the social equality one.

…that the article and board members in question are willing to reveal.

It's still entirely possible (and more likely if you ask me) that the Prop 8 angle and subsequent objections raised by many Mozillans and Firefox developers have changed their minds about this, but these are big-time board member CEOs we're taking so of course they're not going to say the political position on Prop 8 of the newly appointed CEO is what's making them resign. That's still a bad career move in today's world, but saying "we wanted someone from outside the organization with experience in XYZ" is not.

It's not really a litmus test.

Mozilla is an organization that prides itself on openness and equality, on being inclusive as an organization and a culture. This is reflected in its products, in many different ways—all of them good, generally speaking.

The CEO is the figurehead of a company or organization; they have to represent the company, establish its culture, define its vision, and so forth and so forth.

Having a CEO who has a history of donating to an anti-equality campaign, an act that very strongly suggests having an unequal view of certain groups of people (LGBTQ folks in this case), does not mesh with an organization that prides itself on equality (among other things). They are pretty mutually exclusive.

It was already a conflict with Eich as CTO, but at least in that position he had no say over the company culture or its policies when it comes to people, just technology. As CEO, all that changed.

Additionally, by making a donation to (what is essentially) a campaign of hatred (and FUD), he took it WAY beyond a personal belief or view. Expressing your views in public or making a donation that way is an act, not merely "holding an opinion", and actions matter. His action in the form of the donation harmed the lives of thousands of people, with no justifiable cause for it.

Now, there's tons of people who hold such bigoted views and even express them in the form of acts through public statements or donations, but most of the time we don't award those people with the CEO position of a major corporation.

(to clarify how this is not a litmus test: while it sure can be applied that way, plenty of organizations have bigots as CEOs — see e.g. Chick-fil-A — but what’s mainly happening here is that it is simply a matter of bad judgement and people objecting to the appointment because he's unfit to lead an org like Mozilla)

Something that actively reinforces the status quo by what it is, is unable to ever be “part of the solution” by its very nature. The very idea of meritocracy reinforces the status quo, by virtue of “merit” generally being defined by the people who have the most privilege and power, and who, additionally, rarely ever recognize the merit of the contributions of people who are Not Like Them. (also, the term was coined as a parody, as a warning; it wasn't just "written about")

It's disingenuous to argue that all genders need to "earn their strips and credibility through effort" when everyone who isn't male (and additionally, not white, and not straight, and not able-bodied, etc.) is actively discriminated against and enjoys fewer opportunities to learn programming or design techniques.

Being shot or earning less money unfairly is not "social ostracizing."

You're being so incredibly disingenuous here and discrediting yourself so fiercely on any topic relating to society, economics or social justice that I truly do not understand why you keep opening your mouth. But by all means, go on.

You do realize that of the list of first world countries, most no longer have conscription, and of those that do, over half of them include women, leaving just a tiny number where women are exempt? And that this NOT EVEN REMOTELY offsets the various rights women lack compared to men (seriously, do some research rather than making nonsensical claims), and that women earn significantly less worldwide — including first world countries — compared to men despite equal qualifications and quality of work, and that your continued insistence on spreading the lie that women have "more rights" is both disingenuous and contributes to more people believing lies, perpetuating them and continuing to uphold their misogynist views justified on the basis of these lies?

Wait, no, clearly you do not realize that. But you should. Please do. It's getting tiresome.

Yes, being bullied for being a nerd is TOTALLY WORSE than being shot for having a different skin color, being raped for having a vagina, being murdered for being transgender, being lit on fire for being gay, earning as little as 56 cents to the dollar because you are both black and a woman even though you do the exact same work at the exact same quality as a white male coworker.

Get some fucking perspective about the reality of the world, already. You're being the quintessential bad example of Hacker News, here; the reason why HN has this reputation of sexist, racist idiots who think they know everything but keep spouting COMPLETELY IDIOTIC bullshit like you just did.

It's adorable how you think "nerds" are a legal demographic. Or that they are not privileged because BULLIES??? Or that someone fighting for their right to be respected against a society that has discriminated against them their entire lives is somehow "[reinforcing their] image as weak and unpleasant", rather than a strong, courageous and independent person.

We have been supporting our arguments. That's the whole reason Github got rid of the stupid rug. It's the reason why increasingly many people—men and women and others alike—are vocally calling out stupid bullshit like "bro pages" that reinforce the idea that computer science fields are for men.

Perhaps you should stop ignoring all the stuff we say and start listening for a change. Would do you much good.

You are such an embarrassing cliché, I don't even know where you would have to begin to gain some perspective.

Primary and secondary school history lessons, probably.

Have you ever considered the idea that your apparent dislike towards all things and people described as "feminist" suggests that you have, over the course of your seemingly-angry life, adopted a huge amount of misogynistic perspectives on things? Because, hate to break it to you, but you were born a feminist. Everyone is. Every person that has ever lived on planet Earth was born a feminist. Because the idea that women are somehow in any way inferior to men is a completely fabricated notion by a sexist society that instills these views onto people (meaning all of us), and feminism at its most fundamental is simply the premise that women and men are not different (in terms of hierarchical notions, like one being better than the other, or more "valuable", …etc.), which is the default view of any newborn mind.

You are born a feminist; if you don't die a feminist, you lost a bit of your humanity during your life.

Hey dude, here's a hint: perhaps these women are arguing on social media because guys like you fail to give them the basic modicum of respect as a human being, and they have to spend time fighting to be respected, which takes away from their time to build stuff. Whereas, unlike your privileged life wherein people don't fundamentally deny you basic human respect, you have plenty of time to spend on doing things you enjoy, rather than getting people to treat you like an equal human being.

Beyond that, the entire rest of your comment reeks of sexist views (prejudiced biases against women), so I’m probably already wasting my time trying to get you to open your mind slightly to the possibility that perhaps nobody here is "cowing" to anyone, that being "politically correct" is actually the admirable and proper way of being a decent human being (aka "not being an asshole"), that people favor those leaders who listen to complaints from within their communities rather than those who behave like dicks and tell huge numbers of people to go away, like you're suggesting. But if you entertain these ideas for some time and express a genuine desire to learn, rather than find support for your skewed and misinformed perspectives on how the industry (and society) works in the dark recesses of a community that was once full of people sharing your harmful worldview, then I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.