OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://www.okcupid.com/home <comment><USER2> And if this doesn't work, eventually when you try to message a Catholic, Mormon, Muslim, or other religiously-observant person from a denomination whose leaders publicly disapprove of homosexuality, you'll see a message from OKCupid like:

 _Religion isn 't normally the business of a website. But you've expressed an interest in dating someone whose religion denies equal rights to gay people. Sure, this person may seem OK, and may even have their own opinions, but the leaders of their religion spread hatred, and it pains us to send even a single quantum of relationship happiness towards people who still affiliate with that religion.

If you still want to date them, you can click the link below, but wouldn't you really rather date the following matches, who we've determined from their public and private questionnaire answers better reflect OKCupid's approved religious and political values?_

Seriously, I would have expected a dating website to have a deeper respect for the often-arbitrary reasons individual beliefs deviate from the norms of their family, employer, or community.

<comment><USER3> Today, it's being anti-gay-rights is acceptable to lots of people. 50 years ago, being a racist was acceptable to lots of people. Would you work for or buy products from a CEO who was an unapologetic racist just because his beliefs were a product of his family/community?

A good question to ask: If you think we will evolve to the point where gay rights are a given, what should we do _right now_? Should we be respectful for these often-arbitrary beliefs or should we try to make people/companies with these beliefs uncomfortable (but in kind/respectful way)? Honest question.

<comment><USER4> Wait. The guy is also the inventor of Javascript. Shouldn't everybody be boycotting that? I mean it has a lot more to do with him than Firefox does. After all, he's the CEO of Mozilla Corporation (not the Foundation), which is only indirectly connected to Firefox, but he _invented_ Javascript!

What am I missing here?

<comment><USER5> You seem sincere, so here's an honest answer.

What you're missing is the nature of the job of CEO, especially in Silicon Valley. It's not a job where you bury your head down and get the work done, a huge part of the job is being the public face of the company.

The Mozilla Corp. has decided that their public face should be someone who is opposed to equal rights for gays. That's completely different than having a racist working as a programmer or in the mail room or even as CTO.

Boycotting javascript would be silly. Nobody is trying to say that everything Eich has touched now has cooties and we should stay away from it. However, it's perfectly reasonable to ask what kind of company Mozilla wants to be when they decide they want Eich as their public representative.

<comment><USER6> I wonder how many people making this "public face of the company" argument could name the current CEO of Netflix.

<comment><USER2> Or, before the recent controversy, name any of the prior Mozilla CEOs. (It hasn't seemed to be an organization reliant on big-personality/high-profile CEOs.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Edit: this link works for everyone (it is provided in another submission): [http://www.okcupid.com/home?mozilla_message=1](http://www.okcupid.com/home?mozilla_message=1)

Edit 2: the Internet Exploder typo is theirs.

Here is the text (for those who don't use Firefox):

Hello there, Mozilla Firefox user. Pardon this interruption of your OkCupid experience.

Mozilla's new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples. We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid.

Politics is normally not the business of a website, and we all know there's a lot more wrong with the world than misguided CEOs. So you might wonder why we're asserting ourselves today. This is why: we've devoted the last ten years to bringing people—all people—together. If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8% of the relationships we've worked so hard to bring about would be illegal. Equality for gay relationships is personally important to many of us here at OkCupid. But it's professionally important to the entire company. OkCupid is for creating love. Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure.

If you want to keep using Firefox, the link at the bottom will take you through to the site.

However, we urge you to consider different software for accessing OkCupid:

[3 buttons:] Google Chrome Internet Exploder Opera

Thank you, OkCupid

<comment><USER7> "Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8% of the relationships we've worked so hard to bring about would be illegal"

I don't know much about Eich, but I don't think he was working to make same- sex relationships illegal (like Uganda or nigeria). it does okcupid no credit to infer that he does (using weasel words like "people like Mr eich".)

saying "eich wanted to prevent 8% of our customers from enjoying the fulfillment that marriage can bring to a relationship" would be much more honest.

<comment> mkr-hn Marriage is a possibility for a relationship if you're straight. To deny that for gay people is to deny them the full legal potential of their relationship.

edit: added legal before potential

<comment><USER8> Please rephrase that. Whilst I entirely agree with your sentiment about equality, your implication that those of us in a loving relationship who choose _not_ to marry aren't realising the 'full potential of our relationship' is pretty hurtful. It's precisely this kind of attitude that makes me so reluctant to get married myself.

<comment><USER8> edit: thanks for your edit. And I'm still bitter about _that_ , but that's a whole other argument ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why doesn't OkCupid take a bolder stance and remove all JavaScript from their site? Brendan invented it. I guess that wouldn't be convenient. Better to ask users to inconvenience themselves. This really isn't fair to all of the people who have worked so hard to make Firefox what it is today.

<comment><USER10> Why doesn't OKCupid take a bolder stance and give a button to all their users when they sign in, asking, "Do you support marriage equality?" If they click "no", it deletes your account.

I mean, as long as you've decided this is the sort of thing your business ought to be concerning itself with...

<comment><USER8> Although that situation you outline might seem pretty extreme, spare a thought for those who suffer far worse discrimination in real life, where it actually matters. Cf. the bed and breakfast owner who asks "Are you gay?" and if the answer's "yes", shuts their door on you.

<comment><USER10> I will spare a thought! However, I will request that we could consider whether this marginalization and inconvenience is in fact effectively remedied by seeking __systematic vengeance __upon all people who oppose government recognition of these marriages...

<comment><USER8> No, fair point. Although I would like to think that a) those "seeking systematic vengeance" (which I agree is an overreaction) are in the minority of those raising this issue b) most people's concern isn't with the very narrow issue of "government recognition of these marriages" but the much wider issue of homophobic discrimination which the former is but a small part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Mozilla released a blog post on Saturday clearly stating:

> Mozilla supports equality for all, including marriage equality for LGBT > couples.

[https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/03/29/mozilla-supports- lg...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/03/29/mozilla-supports-lgbt- equality/)

There's no evidence that Brendan Eich will bring any of his political views to the workplace; this continued backlash feels unwarranted.

<comment><USER12> They released it too late.

If they had ANY clue, they'd have thought of this ahead of time. _e.g._ Brendan donates $2k or $5k to a gay charity requiring a public record (as the Prop 8 donation did) three months ago, someone notices two months ago, he can then stay as gnomic as he likes. Something like that. But, y'know, literally nobody in the upper echelons of Mozilla thought of this.

That neither Eich or the board thought of this ahead of the time does, actually, suggest they're not up to the job. This is SIMPLE STUFF.

<comment><USER13> >That neither Eich or the board thought of this ahead of the time does, actually, suggest they're not up to the job. This is SIMPLE STUFF.

Evidence suggests that they've been spending months fighting a battle pertaining to picking an insider as CEO, which ultimately caused three members to resign from the Moz Co. board.

Which explains why they were so unprepared for anything else.

e: Bogus theory by Ars and WSJ, Mozilla issued a statement that the shake-up of board members was planned well in advance amongst themselves for various reasons.

<comment><USER14> Two of the three resignations were planned beforehand and were not related to the CEO choice (see the update at the bottom of [http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/three-mozilla- board-...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/three-mozilla-board- members-including-two-former-ceos-step-down/)).

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the clarification, haven't been following this very closely and didn't read Mozilla's statement in response (it wasn't very prompt.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We don't need more than one story about this on the front page, so I'm killing the others.

Commenters: To state the obvious, this is an inflammatory topic. If you post a comment, make sure that it is a thoughtful one.

Readers: If you see a comment that is not thoughtful, please downvote it. Most comments in this thread so far have not been, so you have your work cut out for you.

In extreme cases, flag the comment. To flag a comment, click on "link" to go to the item page, then look for the "flag" link at the top. As a calibration hint, I haven't seen any comments in this thread that deserve flagging. But I can't read them all.

As I hope everyone knows by now, we're experimenting with ways to solve the problem of toxic comments on Hacker News. I believe that the community has to solve this problem, rather than us imposing a solution. Consider this our appeal to all fair-minded readers to pitch in.

<comment><USER16> I think submitting a separate story would be better so it gets proper attention and can be discussed without derailing this submission.

Hmm, yeah I guess I just accused the mods of derailing.

<comment><USER15> I'm afraid you may have missed my point. I was deliberately intervening in this submission, because the thread sucked. Edit: it might be a bit better now.

All: Unthoughtful comments should be downvoted. Have at it.

Edit: I've mollified my wording slightly. Please downvote judiciously.

<comment><USER16> Sorry. I wasn't talking about this.

I was talking about the invitation to pitch in how to solve the general problem of hateful comments. Which I think shouldn't be discussed here, because it's not only a problem of this specific submission.

Sorry if I misunderstood this invitation.

<comment><USER15> We're entering a period of experimentation where things will be in flux for a while. For now, as one experiment, I'm adding moderation comments to specific posts. I won't keep doing it, because it's tiring and tedious to write (and no doubt to read). But I want to send a clear signal to the community that we're engaged, and also address the low-handing fruit of transparency concerns, if that makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is petulant and abrasive. Eich's personal politic's is only tangentially related to OkCupid business and not at all related to Mozilla's business. Also it should be obvious that Eich != Mozilla. It is very off-putting to have a company bludgeon it's user with the personal politics of it's runners.

<comment><USER18> The takeaway is that businesses and non-profits don't operate in a vacuum, and there are real consequences for having a bigot as the head of your operation.

I find it highly disingenuous to call supporting equal rights "petulant and abrasive".

<comment> mkr-hn I don't think honksillet said supporting equal rights is petulant and abrasive.

<comment><USER18> My interpretation of what honksillet said was that OKCupid asking users not to use Firefox is petulant and abrasive. If I am incorrect, I'll retract my statement [honksillet: reply to me if this is the case].

OKCupid's business revolves around personal relationships. Some of those relationships are same sex relationships. To OKC, this issue is important to them. Let's not confuse meaningful concern with rhetoric.

How is this any different then when same sex couples boycotted businesses in California where the owner donated to Prop 8 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_\(2008\))]?

<comment> mkr-hn A mode of expression can be petulant and abrasive even if the underlying message is good. Social justice advocacy is full of abrasive and petulant people who do a poor job of representing good causes.

edit: Can you stop with the downvotes? I'm not arguing that OKCupid's message is petulant and abrasive. I was trying to make sense of what honksillet was saying.

<comment><USER12> The tone argument turns out not to be very convincing.

<comment> mkr-hn There's not much more frustrating than an "ally" who acts like a fool and gives bigots something to point to, forcing me to answer for them before I can make my own arguments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article's assertion that "half of Mozilla's six-person board resigned over the Proposition 8 donation" is incorrect. If you follow the link to The Verge's own article about the Mozilla board, that article has been amended with Mozilla's response:

[http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/28/5559284/half-of- mozillas-b...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/28/5559284/half-of-mozillas- board-reportedly-resign-over-new-ceo-choice)

</comment><comment><USER20> I disagree with the comments saying the CEO's personal beliefs are irrelevant. I believe OKC's message is both relevant and appropriate.

I'll grant that the "8% of relationships... would be illegal" argument is a little weak, but the CEO IS paid by Mozilla. In the past he has donated to anti-gay-marriage causes, and may continue to do so in the future enabled by Mozilla's money. Firefox users help Mozilla make money. The browser is the medium for the site and the user. The user, in accessing sites like OKC, allows Mozilla to give some money to the CEO who in turn could give it to a cause many see as encouraging bigotry. Websites like OKC are an essential (even if indirect) part of Mozilla's revenue model.

Brendan Eich has a right to free speech, and so does OKCupid. We also have a right to responsible consumerism. In a true free market, responsible consumption helps us ensure companies are using their profits in a way we believe is ethical.

Personally I'm glad OKC is helping to send the message that supporting discrimination based on sexual orientation isn't acceptable to many of us in today's society.

<comment><USER21> > but the CEO IS paid by Mozilla. In the past he has donated to anti-gay- > marriage causes, and may continue to do so in the future enabled by > Mozilla's money.

Going by this logic, we should be vetting every person who works at a company whose product we use, because they may have contributed to some cause we don't agree with.

<comment><USER20> Yes, and I wish we could. But given the size of companies and products available, we obviously have to do the best we can. It makes sense to start with the company itself and its top leader.

<comment><USER21> But it's not possible. Every company is lead by scumbags, your only choice is which scumbag's product you buy.

This entire situation reminds me of this scene from 30 Rock: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm3TepXcD8A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm3TepXcD8A)

<comment><USER20> > _" Every company is lead by scumbags, your only choice is which scumbag's > product you buy."_

Again, that's a really big claim that you can't possibly back up. I don't subscribe to the cynical and defeatist attitude either. I'll do the best I can to make the world a better and more fair place.

<comment><USER22> What companies are you currently boycotting?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here's the full text:

Hello there, Mozilla Firefox user. Pardon this interruption of your OkCupid experience.

Mozilla's new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples. We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid.

Politics is normally not the business of a website, and we all know there's a lot more wrong with the world than misguided CEOs. So you might wonder why we're asserting ourselves today. This is why: we've devoted the last ten years to bringing people—all people—together. If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8% of the relationships we've worked so hard to bring about would be illegal. Equality for gay relationships is personally important to many of us here at OkCupid. But it's professionally important to the entire company. OkCupid is for creating love. Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure.

If you want to keep using Firefox, the link at the bottom will take you through to the site.

However, we urge you to consider different software for accessing OkCupid:

Google Chrome / Internet Exploder / Opera / Safari

Thank you, OkCupid

Background on Mr. Eich and Mozilla

In 2008, Mr. Eich supported the passage of California's Prop 8, a statewide initiative to ban gay marriage, with a $1000 donation. Granted, his contribution is now six years in the past, and people can change. But Mr. Eich's boilerplate statements in the time since make it seem like he has the same views now as he did then. Mozilla recently promoted him to CEO, hence the issue only now coming to our attention. His donation was known to Mozilla at the time of his promotion, and, furthermore, CEOs are rewarded based on their company's performance. The CEO is the visionary for a company and its products. We are sad to think that any OkCupid page loads would even indirectly contribute towards the success of an individual who supported Prop 8—and who for all we know would support it again. We wish Mozilla's institutional commitment to freedom and openness were better reflected by their choice of leadership.

Continue to OkCupid

</comment><comment><USER24> I really think Eich is going to have to step down at some point. The backlash hasn't calmed down and Mozilla is going to risk losing more users over this. At some point you have to ask if it's really worth it. Does Eich bring more value to Mozilla that countless developers and users that are boycotting the software?

<comment><USER25> actually stepping down might be worse than not, at this point.

besides, people complaining about it are quite dumb: eich has been a major player in firefox since the birth of firefox. so basically, nothing has changed - him being ceo or not.

If anything, this is triggered by people who want to hurt firefox, in any possible way. This includes but isn't limited to, competitors (Google Chrome, IE, etc.), disgruntled volunteers (refused checkings, you didn't fix my bug, etc), disgruntled employees (you don't work well you're fired, etc), people gaining from any advertising (okcupid, news, etc)

<comment><USER26> "besides, people complaining about it are quite dumb: eich has been a major player in firefox since the birth of firefox. so basically, nothing has changed - him being ceo or not."

Except he's CEO now. The leader of the company. The public face that the company puts forward. The person that all the other employees are supposed to look up to.

Other than that, nothing's changed.

<comment><USER27> Never understood this "face of company" stuff Americans are so obsessed with... if he wouldn't have took that job, but kept working on a similarly influential position as he did up till date, no one would be making these "boycott Mozilla" self-advertisements, just as they didn't do anything alike before, right? Does all this mean that people care more about someone's three titular letters instead of his behaviour and actions in his position?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This actually made me remove my (dormant, but still) account on okcupid. I am absolutely a proponent of equal rights and I absolutely disagree with Brendan Eich's actions. Still I continue using Firefox and Thunderbird (and Javascript) as Mozilla remains the last really influential supporter of an open web. The efforts of the many Mozilla developers outweigh the hateful beliefs of one Eich.

Why then remove my okcupid account? I feel pushed, I feel that they tried to create a bad conscience, I feel emotionally manipulated. That's not how a business should treat me.

</comment><comment><USER29> This from a company that lists only "female" and "male" as gender options—fifty-four fewer than Facebook. Who's insufficiently inclusive now?

<comment><USER24> Facebook only has male or female on the signup page and you also can only change gender to male or female in the settings: [http://imgur.com/OcnmwkB](http://imgur.com/OcnmwkB)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I look forward to a full public review of the politics of OkCupid executives and investors. Actually, I'm sure someone is going to do exactly this now.

Now that Pandora's Box has been opened, it's not going to shut very easily. It's going to get bloody.

</comment><comment><USER31> The home one only works if you're signed in.

This works for everyone [http://www.okcupid.com/?mozilla_message=1](http://www.okcupid.com/?mozilla_message=1)

<comment><USER32> Not anymore

<comment><USER12> Worked for me on Chromium just now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Eich has made it clear, both through promises as well as actions, that he is not going to force his beliefs on Mozilla. Does OkCupid seriously wish harm upon an organization that employs hundreds of innocent individuals, most of whom likely hold different beliefs than Eich? An organization that works for the open web everyday and defends our privacy against actual harmful actions by criminal organizations? Intentionally trying to bring down Mozilla's browser market share means they have less negotiating power with the search engine providers that make up the majority of their revenue.

Talk about forcing your beliefs on others. OkCupid is shamelessly exploiting this situation for attention.

<comment><USER20> > _" Talk about forcing your beliefs on others."_

What? How does OKC's use of free speech amount to "forcing" their beliefs on others?

> _" OkCupid is shamelessly exploiting this situation for attention."_

Care to back that up? Do you have the information necessary to say OKC is exploiting the situation for attention? Do you know their beliefs? Their intentions? Do you know their motivations and what they hope to accomplish? Do you actually know _anything_ about _anyone_ involved in what OKC did? If not, I suggest you stop making claims of fact where you are wholly ignorant of the truth.

<comment><USER27> This is my first time hearing about OKC, and I already saw at least six references to this act of theirs on HNews alone, until one of the mods (or their local counterparts) deleted those.

What you make out of this information is up to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is ridiculous. If we started boycotting every company based on our disagreements with their CEOs beliefs, we'd have to eventually boycott everyone.

</comment><comment><USER35> >Google Chrome Internet Exploder Opera

yep, there is no good working browser around that i can trust. Chrome is just like the "Exploder" only from another, new generation, MS.

edit: i fully support the equal rights (among others the right to file joint return with object of your sexual desire) and kind of surprised to learn that a supposedly smart techie would actively support the opposite. I'm surprised at Mozilla too - would they hire an open segregationist or a anti-women- election-right proponent?

<comment><USER36> Chromium then?

<comment><USER37> Also, surf ([http://surf.suckless.org](http://surf.suckless.org)), or Midori, or Iceweasel, or Uzbl, or Jumanji... :)

<comment><USER38> Iceweasel is Firefox with the branding changed. It's otherwise identical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mkr-hn Each of the non-Firefox browsers falls short of my needs in its own way. Firefox is more than one bigot at the top. And people will be watching him like a hawk for bad behavior, so I doubt it'll be an issue.

<comment><USER12> The point is it's people outside Mozilla, not just the techie insiders.

See also, from the other side of the world: [http://gaynewsnetwork.com.au/news/victoria/vac-gmhc-to- boyco...](http://gaynewsnetwork.com.au/news/victoria/vac-gmhc-to-boycott- mozilla-13422.html) That's a significant gay charity issuing a _press release_ to say they're boycotting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> They might as well disable Javascript for all their users, while they're at it.

<comment><USER40> I would not doubt for a second that new browsers without javascript, but using other languages, will start popping up in the future simply because of this.

<comment><USER41> If something is to replace Javascript, it's going to be because of the language, not Brendan Eich.

<comment><USER40> I disagree. I think people can replace JavaScript simply because of Brendan Eich. I can see it happening easily.

<comment><USER42> How? I'm actually really curious how it could be done easily.

<comment><USER40> i didn't mean it would be done easily.

I meant that I could easily see it happening.

It would definitely be hard. I actually love JavaScript. But I could easily imagine someone who has something against Brendan Eich start their own browser without javascript. And I can imagine it becoming viral, too.

<comment><USER43> The JVM, the CLR, Flash, NaCL -- all of these already exist with browser implementations yet are having traction issues.

On top of that, it is unlikely Eich controls JS to the same level as FF, so it'd be a mostly pointless gesture. It'd be like finding out John McCarthy was a vile person, and abandoning all LISP-like languages.

<comment><USER40> it's a little stronger than that, in my opinion.

I think it would be like finding out if the CEO of Microsoft didn't want blacks to be able to get married. Would you expect blacks to continue using Windows?

Imagine you were gay. Would you want to use Firefox and JavaScript? I'm a big fan of JS. I'm straight and it's somewhat distasteful to me now. If I were gay, I think that feeling would be very strong.

<comment><USER43> William Shockley held some opinions a lot of people would dislike. No one is ditching the transistor.

Darwin thought blacks were quite inferior and not as evolved. No one is discounting the theory of evolution.

It'd be like ditching XMLHttpRequest because someone at MS was racist - it's simply not going to happen.

<comment><USER40> I think it would be like blacks not using Windows because the CEO of Microsoft said that blacks should not be allowed to get married.

I believe users can boycott a product and start a movement and have a huge effect in today's world. It's happened before and I think it's possible it can happen again.

I think most people realize that it was socially acceptable for people to hold certain beliefs in another era and would not fault them for holding those beliefs.

If the car was invented by a homophobe, it's not like people would ditch it, given that cars are essential to many people and also given the time period the inventor lived in. But is Mozilla or javascript essential? Maybe. You could certainly be correct that it won't happen. But I can see it being replaced. I can see a group of people choosing alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Kinda adorable how people keep arguing back and forth, but fail to take notes on how the actual Moz employees act or think on it. And most of them think he is entitled to his beliefs and acts, and he should not be banished for it, even if they do not agree with him.

Please, try to learn this approach, pro-gay activists.

[http://bholley.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/on-brendan-eich- and-...](http://bholley.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/on-brendan-eich-and-the- thought-police/)

[https://staktrace.com/spout/entry.php?id=823](https://staktrace.com/spout/entry.php?id=823)

[http://christianheilmann.com/2014/03/31/on- hating/](http://christianheilmann.com/2014/03/31/on-hating/)

[http://www.twobraids.com/2014/03/the-mozilla- ceo.html](http://www.twobraids.com/2014/03/the-mozilla-ceo.html)

[http://patrickfinch.com/2014/03/31/the-most-important- decisi...](http://patrickfinch.com/2014/03/31/the-most-important-decisions-we- make/)

[https://ozten.com/psto/2014/03/28/pick-your- battles/](https://ozten.com/psto/2014/03/28/pick-your-battles/)

<comment><USER44> Also: [http://subfictional.com/2014/03/24/on-brendan-eich-as-ceo- of...](http://subfictional.com/2014/03/24/on-brendan-eich-as-ceo-of-mozilla/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Eich's reponse to the concerns:

[https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at- mozilla/](https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/)

</comment><comment><USER46> Utterly stupid. Gives me an excuse to close my OkCupid account though.

</comment><comment><USER47> Am I the only one here who thinks that maybe a petition asking Mozilla to pressure Eich to step down may be a better solution to this?

I seems that all the years of contributions and sacrifices by the community to build a great product, fight for a better internet and all that mozilla has stood for could be very rapidly undone if we continue portraying it as a homophobic institution. All of this good, from so many people, undone for the views of one man.

Say we are successful with this, Firefox goes out of the picture. Mozilla is dead. Would that be something to aspire for? I'm creeped out by the state of the internet as it is already, mozilla seems like the last company that truly cares. Who would fight for keeping the internet open then? Google?

Let's direct the criticism to the man for his beliefs, lets let know mozilla that their choice is not cool and we won't accept it. Let's not bring the whole thing down with it please.

<comment><USER48> Even better, let's not criticise someone for their beliefs about marriage. "Marriage" is not a person, or natural thing. If people think it should be limited then so be it.

Legal rights on the other hand, that's another matter. The problem is that people lump marriage and legal rights in the same boat, then don't hesitate to unleash hell on anyone who thinks marriage should remain traditional and.. "YOU"RE ANTI-GAY"... wait, what? I just think marriage is between a man and... "YOU'RE HOMOPHOBIC".

I'm sick of it. A lot of people are sick of hearing about gay marriage. Sure, let's recognise civil unions and the rights there, but leave marriage out of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Provided link doesn't work for me. Use just [https://www.okcupid.com/](https://www.okcupid.com/), and it must be visited in Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER50> Will OKCupid also stop using javascript?

<comment><USER12> There is no easy swap-in replacement.

<comment><USER51> It's good to know we can set aside our moral values when convenience is at stake.

<comment><USER52> The point is to make a statement and educate users. Not cut off your nose to spite your face.

<comment><USER51> Yes! Let's destroy a man in the name of equality and social justice! Let's educate everyone about our high and mighty (selectively applied) morals at any cost!

It'll be totally worth it for that sweet, sweet sense of smugness we'll feel when we look in the mirror.

<comment><USER52> I donated both money and time to Mozilla in the pre-Google days when they were really struggling. I'm also gay and a resident of California. When proposition 8 passed it really hurt. Finding out that an organization I've supported now has chosen a leader who explicitly acted to take away my rights, that really hurts too. It's a betrayal. I would hope that you can understand why or at least have the empathy not to belittle those who _do_ feel strongly about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Let's pick a different hot button issue. Say Eich contributed to a pro or anti gun control measure. Hell, as far as I know, he has.

How many of you, who are as intensely interested in gun control/rights as people are over gay/anti-gay marriage rights, would be demanding that he step down? And if you say you would, there are hundreds of corporations actually in that position (either for or against) with whom you are probably doing business.

<comment><USER43> Reducing it to a "hot button issue" is invalid. As far as human rights goes, there's no rational way to arrive at same-sex marriages not being allowed, if heterosex marriages are.

Whereas in the US, gun ownership is enshrined in the constitution, so even if gun ownership was a major net negative, it'd still be an issue.

Just like in some countries, complete bank secrecy is a constitutional issue, so even giving the local IRS-equivalent, while demonstrably a net positive for society, becomes a "hot button" issue.

Probably the closest modern issue is being against euthanasia/suicide. It's obviously cruel to force people to suffer, and _safety issues_ aside, it's obvious someone should be able to terminate their life in face of insurmountable suffering. Yet people will object to that on all sorts of grounds.

<comment><USER22> > _there 's no rational way to arrive at same-sex marriages not being allowed, > if heterosex marriages are_ //

There are plenty of rational ways to do that. I'm guessing you'd primarily disagree with the axioms on which they're founded.

How about "state recognition of marriage is primarily about supporting the family unit as the nucleus of society - as same-sex union can't create children, long-term partnerships engendering opposite-sex union are to be promoted in order create a general impetus towards stable home environments for child rearing and raising". That seems rational; disregarding verity do you disagree it's rational?

If you argue against this definition then to my mind you come to define a new relationship, let's call it civil-union. In civil-union there seems no logical reason to exclude same-family, or multiple-person unions. _I_ can't see how you can say "the definition of marriage as the union of a man and woman [who're not closely related]" is wrong because it limits marriage to a particular historical/tradition form and then come up with a new definition to foist on people that excludes groups (families, polyamorous, etc.) for arbitrary reasons that don't even have the support of history or tradition [or theology].

> _Probably the closest modern issue is_ [...] //

So are you saying if a CEO of a company believed euthanasia to be wrong you'd stop using that companies products?

<comment><USER54> There is no requirement that legal marriage between a man and a woman involve child-raising. There is no requirement that legal marriage between a man and a woman involve love or sex.

If Albert, Barbara, and Charles go to San Francisco City Hall in 2008, and Albert says "I want to marry Charles", he's told no. If he says "I want to marry Barbara", he's told yes. The state knows nothing about their sex life or feelings about children. What is the rationale?

<comment><USER30> Lack of sexual interaction (consummation) can in fact play a role in having a marriage recognized, or annulled. It's been a factor in "green card" marriages, for example.

For another example, inability of consummate a marriage is grounds for annulment in some states.

[http://www.colorado-family-law.com/termination- marriage/annu...](http://www.colorado-family-law.com/termination- marriage/annulment-grounds.htm)

<comment><USER54> Annulment for non-consummation is initiated by a spouse, not by the state.

I've been married twice in CA and on neither occasion was I asked about my sex life or child-raising plans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I guess my question is, does using Firefox mean that you support Mozilla, much less the opinions of Mozilla's CEO? If I switch to IceWeasel, do I still support it? Is using Gecko the sin here? When did I sign on for supporting these beliefs. My wife and I don't eat at Chik-fil-a anymore due to their beliefs, but the financial support is clear there. Here I pick and chose from the things that Mozilla creates that I endorse and I never installed the bigot extension on Firefox.

This person probably deserves the ridicule, maybe he needs to step down, maybe we should all switch to IceWeasel to really show them (by the way, that would be a much more positive route to take as opposed to putting all our eggs in the webkit basket), but one of the nice things about Free Software is that you can have a reprehensible person in charge of it and there is something that you can do about it besides simply not using it.

I guess that is why this statement feels weird. It seems akin to finding out that the inventor of the hammer, all those millennia ago, had slaves, so you decide that from now on you are going to use screws and that you will try to get other people to turn their backs on hammers as well.

</comment><comment><USER48> This is a major bullshit move by okcupid.

I've cancelled my account with them and sent them feedback explaining why it's NOT ok to urge people not to use certain free, open source software.

It's not the "web browser's" fault that somebody at Mozilla has a different opinion about gay marriage than somebody at okcupid.

And on the subject of marriage, people need to remember that "marriage" is man-made, there is no absolute right to an artificial made-up tradition.

The focus and fight should be about legal equality, and recognition of same- sex couples for things like superannuation, health, taxation, and other areas where married couples have benefits and laws based on their married status.

You might argue that "marriage" is the sum of all those laws and rights, plus love, but it's not. Marriage is not the sum of anything, it's just marriage, and if people think it should remain a traditional man woman, bride groom thing, then that is a completely justified argument.

Fight for equality, not for entry into the "marriage club".

I'm not married and don't care either way, but those who do shouldn't be waging war against internet browsers.

</comment><comment><USER56> Clicked on link and got this:

      OkCupid needs JavaScript to function, but you have it disabled. Check your browser settings.

</comment><comment><USER57> Are people suggesting that holding a personal opinion that is contrary to another person's opinion disqualifies that person from having a job?

I haven't seen any suggestions that he has attempted to discriminate, or implement discriminatory policies, against any individuals at Mozilla or otherwise.

I voted for Amendment 64 in Colorado to legalize canabis. Should that disqualify me from working because maybe means I get high too much (though I don't use)?

The argument against him is that he's discriminating, but now we have a case where OkCupid is literally and actively discriminating against users based on their choice of browser. Other people have actively threatened him. Those actions are, from my perspective, completely hypocritical: "We don't like people that discriminate, so we're going to discriminate against people that we don't agree with."

<comment><USER54> For the record, you can still use OKC with Firefox; you just get a lecture when you do it.

Is it okay to discriminate against Nazis, or is that hypocritical?

<comment><USER57> That depends. Have they actually killed people or just talked about it?

<comment><USER54> Seriously? That's your dividing line?

Incidentally, you mentioned threats to Eich above; I haven't personally seen any but I don't support threats of violence to him. I don't even have particularly strong feelings one way or the other about boycotting Mozilla. Mostly we're having a conversation here.

I do feel it's perfectly reasonable to point fingers of shame towards Eich for his donations and weaseling, and at Mozilla for elevating Eich.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> How is Mozilla responsible for this? This guy wasn't even CEO when he made the donation in 2008 (as far as I know). So to abandon Firefox which is not his creation alone seems foolish. If anything abandoning JavaScript would make more sense since that is what he created, not Mozilla or Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER59> I wonder if Firefox users are more likely to use adblock.

</comment><comment><USER51> We'll forgive Fred Phelps, but apparently the hate for Javascript just runs too deep.

<comment><USER12> Fortunately, we have an answer for that: [http://newstechnica.com/2014/03/27/mozilla-announces- javascr...](http://newstechnica.com/2014/03/27/mozilla-announces-javascript- for-heterosexuals/) It solves the equality operator problem by not having any.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I find it interesting that match.com which owns okcupid works fine in firefox. So it seems they are making a statement with the smaller site that wont cost them nearly as much in traffic. I could be wrong but that is my 5sec observation.

</comment><comment><USER61> Linus Torvalds describes himself as an atheist. I advocate as hard today for Linux as I did 20 years ago. I do not let Linus's personal beliefs impact the decision on what software I run. It should not impact yours.

<comment><USER54> What legal rights has Linus Torvalds tried to take away from minorities?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Eric Schmidt is a progressive. I did not boycott Google's products, what he did or didn't believe personally did not and does not impact the decisions I make on what software I run. It should not impact yours.

</comment><comment><USER62> Javascript and now this!

Why shouldn't you say something? Religion enjoys way too much freedom. A lot of people here give these discriminators a free pass for no rational reason. Horrible.

</comment><comment><USER63> When I read the title of this post, I first thought 'Oh okCupid's website breaks in FF and instead of fixing the site, they are asking their users to switch to another browser'. Then the comments here completely threw me off. Took some digging to figure out what the real issue was.

The okcupid link in the title (at least on mobile) just goes to their login page, no message about ditching FF there.

<comment><USER64> Can you save others that digging by _saying_ what the real issue was?

Edit: Here, this explains it: [http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/31/okcupid- offers-firefox-visi...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/31/okcupid-offers- firefox-visitors-links-to-alternate-browsers-to-protest-new-mozilla-ceo/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Is this not a slap in the face of everyone else who has contributed to the Mozilla Foundation that is not in any way associated with Eich or his views? Seems that for some, a response of some kind is needed regardless of how irrational it may be.

</comment><comment><USER66> Dear Gays, we hate Mozilla, so please use a browser that spies on you like Google Chrome, or deinstall your Linux and switch to Windows Explorer, or install a browser that has problems with 80% of the other webpages.

<comment><USER67> I think it's a shame that this comment has been downvoted to hell, because it's actually quite illuminating: the satire in it, such as it is, revolves around the assumption that FOSS politics is equal to or greater in urgency than any other kind of politics. Human rights violation? GPL violation! Same category.

The reason I think it's so valuable is that a version of it probably informed the board's decision to appoint Eich despite the already controversial Prop 8 donation. "Sure, there's this $1000 he gave and that's terrible, but look at all the great FOSS code he's contributed! The controversy can't last long, we're Mozilla, we're the good guys. Everybody knows that."

Lots of people out there do not think like this.

Lots of people care about social justice and see no problem using IE.

<comment><USER68> Apparently, the people that care about social justice give zero care toward security or the four essential freedoms of software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Isn't the whole point of america that PEOPLE DISAGREE? If you have an opinion, you are entitled to it. Your personal feelings on gay marriage should not mean that you are to be barred from getting a job where gay people also work. If, however, you go on record as the CEO of a company saying the company does not support gay marriage, then this is a different discussion.

So basically he is being ostracized all over for having an opinion. This is mob rule. I like it not.

<comment><USER70> You are entitled to an opinion. You are not entitled to protection from the consequences of _acting_ on that opinion.

This is not an issue of "personal feelings".

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> To those of you that support this, did any of you boycott Obama pre-2012 because he was against gay marriage?

</comment><comment><USER72> Let's drag down the internet experience based on what a single person did. What retards.

</comment><comment><USER73> Someone should inform OKCupid of William Shockley's views on eugenics.

</comment><comment><USER74> OK, so are they going to make a shitstorm out of this single issue, or apply principles equally?

IOW: Are we (they) going to dig up ALL of the CEOs of all the products they use and find out who else donated money to anti-gay-marriage organizations and boycott all of them?

Here's a partial list:

[http://www.phillymag.com/news/2012/08/01/boycott-chick- fil-a...](http://www.phillymag.com/news/2012/08/01/boycott-chick-fil-a-more- companies/)

<comment><USER75> No one should ever do anything for social justice reasons unless they solve _every problem in the history of mankind_ as well!

<comment><USER12> [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as) remains a perennial bad argument.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> I would be more impressed if they boycotted JavaScript.

</comment><comment><USER77> This has just reached a new level of silliness.

</comment><comment><USER78> Hmm, maybe Firefox should blacklist OKcupid. Turnabout is fair...

<comment><USER79> In the browser? It'll be suicide. It doesn't matter what else a browser does. If it blacklists sites for political reasons, users will flee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> oh look , at okcupid we just found out a way to use the current news as advertising!

i think such stuff despises more than eich's support for prop 8.

<comment><USER80> You have a history of general reprehensibility on this site, so I probably shouldn't bother to give you the attention you crave. Because we all know that your beef isn't with them doing this, but with people _not tolerating hatred of gays_. And women, but, you know, one at a time.

That said, I want to stand up for a couple of my friends who work at OKCupid. They're excellent people and I don't believe the culture at OKC would be okay with using this as a vector for advertising. I'm confident they believe what they're saying and I wish more companies would take a stand against the bigots you like.

<comment><USER25> history wah? half my friends are gay. Many are women. One is my best friend.

I think that using the excuse of being a minority to enforce ridicule arguments is stupid - that's different.

Accusing people at random seems just as wrong.

\--

In fact, this is an interesting point. I noticed that any "negative" comment towards reactions to this story generates very strong reactions from some people (including death messages). This doesn't happen with other topics.

What makes you entitled to think this is ok? (this is an honest question)</comment></comment></comment>


Why I prefer French health care - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/07/why-prefer-french-health-care <comment><USER2> Welch does hit it on the head. The current US system is nothing like a free market, and it sucks. France's system (and Germany's) sucks rather less than the UK's or Canada's - or the US's.

I'd advocate for a freer health care market, but that's not on the table. In lieu of that, I'd advocate a more French-style system, but that's not on the table. So, I generally just sit health care debates out, aside from talking side issues with people.

<comment><USER3> I have issues relating to other's health care problems. I suppose here in Australia we're spoiled.

For example. I have the best private health coverage I could find and I pay less than $130 a month AUD; but it doesn't stop there. We still have a free health care system if you're ok with waiting for major ops.

In terms of what it would cost me for a GP visit. My current GP costs about $20 a visit but often I can claim the majority back with our Medicare Bulk Billing system (not to be confused with the US Medicare.)

Our system seems to work extraordinarily well. Those who want to pay for health care can (like I do, it's not that expensive) ... those who can't afford too are still covered by our free system.

<comment><USER4> One thing you don't mention is the cost of the "free" system. Remember, TANSTAAFL.

<comment><USER3> Oops, sorry I wrote the comment when I woke up in the middle of the night.

Ok, Medicare in Australia is a funded by an income tax levy that every Australian pays, set at 1.5%. It's an almost paltry sum of money when you consider it's free healthcare.

My private health insurance also receives a rebate from the Australian Government. From what little I understand about the system, the Australian Government funds this out of my Medicare levy I pay, so that I'm not paying twice.

We also have plenty of other medical programs running in Australia - like the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which helps low income people afford the medications they require. I'm not up on the numbers, but I think it caps the costs of certain medications at about $5

It works well, I don't know too many people that complain about our system at all. The cost of health care certainly isn't an issue at all that weighs on too many peoples minds

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Framing the argument as socialist vs capitalist is not helping us work towards a real solution to America's health problems. France is not a socialist democracy nor is the USA a true capitalist republic. We need to dissociate ourselves from idealology driven plans and name calling.

That said I have enjoyed the medical care of The Netherlands and the USA at different times and I much prefer the Dutch system. It's just cheaper and less hassle. They're both public/private organized but for whatever reason the Dutch system is just easier for me to deal with. I don't know which one is socialist or which one is free market or whatever. The Dutch one is just cheaper and I get better service.

Maybe the USA can attain lower costs and better service through introducing more competition. Or by training more doctors or public support. I don't care what idealology my elected leaders pick. Just come up with a plan, show me what I have to pay to go to the doctor and I'll decide if I move back to the USA when my time in Holland is up. But that's not going to happen if we as Americans can't move away from infantile and outdated idealogical debates rooted in cold war fear mongering.

</comment><comment><USER6> Whether or not the French, Canadian, German, or UK govt can do healthcare doesn't tell us anything about whether the US govt can do healthcare.

What is it about Medicare and other existing US govt healthcare that convinces folks that the US govt can do healthcare on a larger scale?

That's why I make my offer.

Let's give Obama free rein wrt healthcare for folks whose healthcare is already done via the US govts at any level. Not just Medicare/Medicaid (and the state programs), the IHS and other programs, but local, state, and federal employees as well. I'll even throw in companies that get more 70-80% of their revenue from govt. That's easily 40%+ of the population.

Note that those folks are already under "single payer".

In return for free rein, the cost per covered person is capped at today's rates for the first two years and then decreased 5%/year each year for the next four years. Since single payer advocates claim at least a 30% savings and that's just a touch over 20%, that per-person savings should be a slam dunk.

To sweeten the pot, he can use the money from the per-person cut to increase the number of people covered. I'm willing to consider letting other folks/companies buy into the program for the budgeted amount.

The only thing non-negotiable is the total amount spent per person. Yes, he's free to negotiate, remove import restrictions, and the like. However, he can't force people to accept the prices that he'd like to pay - he can only refuse to do biz with folks who don't charge what he'd like. And, if he removes import restrictions, that applies to everyone, not just folks under obamacare.

At the end of six years, we'll know for sure whether the US govt can do healthcare. Heck - I suspect that we'll know earlier.

Deal?

<comment><USER7> The German system is not government healthcare. Everybody has private, nonprofit insurance. Arguably they're less socialized than we are, since they have no Medicare, Medicaid, or VA. Japan is the same, with more choice than Germany: 2000 insurance companies, take your pick.

What they share with France: a mandate, a national price list for services, no claim denials allowed for anything on the pricelist, no coverage denials, electronic medical records, subsidies for the poor.

They do better on stats than we do, at much lower cost.

<comment><USER6> > They do better on stats than we do, at much lower cost.

Irrelevant because that doesn't imply that the US govt can do that. (Also irrelevant because the German and Japanese populations are very different.)

That's why I proposed the experiment - let's see what the US govt can do.

Many of us prefer Google to other search engines. Google's existence proves that better is possible, but it doesn't prove that Yahoo or Bing can do better than they do.

<comment><USER7> My point is that we shouldn't exactly be relying on the U.S. government to do it. The best systems in the world are highly regulated but not actually run by governments.

One of the things they do, though, is force a price list on providers, something you've taken off the table.

On the other hand, the VA actually has quite a good reputation these days. That's sort of your experiment right there. Costs are holding steady despite a pretty messed-up patient population, doctors and patients like the system, they have a very good electronic medical records system (which they've opensourced, btw) and they use those records to analyze the data and use the treatments that the evidence shows are most effective.

It's been widely reported that about 98,000 people a year die from avoidable medical errors, a lot of it from medication errors. Most hospitals won't talk about their error rates. The VA told everybody, then they fixed it. For example, in a VA hospital every patient has a barcoded wristband. So does every nurse, and every medicine bottle is barcoded too. Every time a nurse gives a patient a pill, she scans all three barcodes, and a computer checks to make sure the patient is getting the right medicine at the right time.

Most private hospitals have little incentive to fix errors, and certainly none to report them. Reporting just gets you sued, and in a fee-for-service system, fewer errors just means less money.

<comment><USER6> > My point is that we shouldn't exactly be relying on the U.S. government to > do it. The best systems in the world are highly regulated but not actually > run by governments.

My point is that the US govt will be doing the regulating.

Note that the US govt doesn't actually provide medical services under medicare either - it just "regulates" them.

I didn't say anything about what Obama could do - free rein means he gets to decide. He can go with regulation, govt hospitals, whatever.

> in a fee-for-service system, fewer errors just means less money.

IIRC, Medicare mandates fee-for-service. Under the terms of my deal, Obama gets to change that.

My private health care doesn't work on a fee-for-service system (at least as far as doctors and medical staff are concerned). I doubt that it's the only one.

Yes - it's in the US. If its existence surprises you....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is one of the funnier (funny as in sad) aspects of the US Healthcare debate - while half the populace is railing on and on against some imaginary gargantuan bureaucracy, from an end-user perspective healthcare systems like Canada's are great. You have a simple periodic billing system (every paycheque) and access to everything is a simple card-swipe away.

<comment><USER9> Your point really isn't valid. The questions in this debate are quality of care and and cost. People against systems like the one in Canada claim they will cost too much and be of a poorer quality than what the U.S. has now. So ease of use doesn't invalidate anyone's point

The argument you make is like someone claiming McDonalds is better than a Fine Restaurant for the diner. Because you can swipe your card at the counter in Mcdonalds where you have to get a pen and fill out the receipt at a Restaurant.

<comment><USER10> >People against systems like the one in Canada claim they will cost too much and be of a poorer quality than what the U.S. has now.

They might claim this, but they would not have the data to back the claim up.

* Canadian health care costs less than half the money, per capita, as American health care.

* Median wait times in Canada are the same as or better than in the US.

As someone who lives in Canada and has had many opportunities to experience Canadian health care - from head injuries to electrocution to infected burns to pneumonia - I can state anecdotally that the publicly funded, single payer medical care I and my family have received has been uniformly timely, professional, skillful and professional.

<comment><USER9> I'm not disputing your number per se in the I think the U.S. system is too expensive and I suspect the system in Canada is cheaper than the ugly hybrid the U.S. has. But having said that, as someone whose looked at the numbers, the facts you quote are largely bull (sorry)

If you look at the breakdown of things you'll see that a lot of the cost difference is because people in the U.S. have a choice and they choose the more expensive option. There are also issues of tort reform which the U.S. desperately needs. Because the current system leads doctors to order thousands of dollars in additional treatments to rule out things that Canadian doctors don't have too (and while the actual suits themselves are a relatively small portion spent on health care it should be mentioned that the U.S. pays 4 times more per capita on malpractice suits)

As for wait times it's true but the base line number doesn't take into account the fact that many don't have health care. Again I reiterate the U.S. system is screwed up. But the fact is people with insurance in the U.S. tend to have shorter wait times and it's only when you factor in things like free clinics and government programs that the wait times rise above those in Canada.

<comment><USER11> Doctors don't need the threat of tort to have an economic incentive to oversupply health care, while consumers of health care have a significant asymmetric information disadvantage, so they cannot necessarily contradict their doctor's advice.

Meanwhile, non-mandatory health insurance, in the absence of other factors, is a recipe for adverse selection.

<comment><USER9> If you're going to take the point that doctors are dishonest than pretty much anything goes so I don't see your point as being valid. But assuming doctors are professionals with a degree of integrity the only reason they'd over treat is if they felt they could lose their practice for not doing so (and if they knew other doctors felt the same way and would over treat in the same way)

As for your last point i can't really refute it because you didn't really back it up and if it were obviously true than the health debate would be settled already.

<comment><USER11> If you're going to take the point that incentives don't matter, you're going to have to back it up, because it sounds like you're saying that capitalism - the profit motive - doesn't work. Is ordering an extra test - just in case - malpractice? Is not doing another scan, because it's expensive, morally superior? Are you saying that we should expect economically efficient care from doctors out of their benevolence?

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Are doctors different?

Adverse selection is also a pretty basic economics concept. You can read more about its applicability to health insurance here - and cites more:

<http://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/2574.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It is important to note that with the current tax rates as high as they are (on the _caugh_ rich, $150,000+), we can't feasibly move to a system like France's would (all things constant) raise tax rates even more, without reducing spending[1].

The key point the author suggests, and which I agree, is the breaking down of market barriers such as:

\- Why do I need a $200+ doctors visit to a "specialist" to get a prescription anti-fungal creme? (Answer: FDA)

\- Why does a visit to a "doc-in-a-box" cost me $25 (copay) and my insurance company $75+ when I was only there for 15 minutes (after a 30min wait)?

(Answer: AMA regulates supply of doctors. We may have needed that before technology basically automated routine doctors visits, but we don't need such stringent accreditation for a bad cold diagnosis (flu scare).)

[1] <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124958049241511735.html>

<comment><USER13> Does France not have their equivalent of the FDA and AMA?

<comment><USER14> The problem is American doctors are smug elitist's who believe they're worth half a million dollars a year and american society believes they're worth it too (possibly through watching too much medical dramas on television).

Every other country in the world treats theur doctor's as humanitarians who deserve an above average but honest wage.

<comment><USER12> I guess the real question is, do you have to go to school for 10 years to be a generic MD who can read the output of a machine and tell me my white blood cell count is elevated so I probably have an infection.

Here is an antibiotic.

btw, I'm not saying that years of school aren't worth it for docs that are more specialized (aka surgery)

<comment><USER13> "I guess the real question is, do you have to go to school for 10 years to be a generic MD who can read the output of a machine and tell me my white blood cell count is elevated so I probably have an infection.

Here is an antibiotic."

No, and this is what pisses me off about things like the FDA. They set the standard for risk, instead of letting the market find the appropriate level. And they've set it pretty high, and now basic shit is needlessly expensive and complicated. Cutting corners (ie, letting nurses handle it) is just fine. It might lead to more accidents, but it'll free up doctors to help a lot more people and more than make up for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are two parts of this piece: the Anecdotal and the Macro.

Anecdotal evidence seems irrelevant to me. My experience with the U.S. system is completely different from his. I've never wanted to go to a Doctor that was "out of network", I can always get an appointment next day, my co-pay is $10, meds are never more than $20 or so and my insurance company has never come back wanting money from me. Does that make me right? Of course not.

On the macro he's still against France's system for it's "punitively high tax rates that will have to increase unless benefits are cut" and he still endorses a free market system so I don't see this piece proving anything in that regard.

<comment><USER13> Well what it does prove is that the European system isn't the unmitigated disaster that conservatives and libertarians here claim it is. I'm personally all for a free market system, but I think it's counterproductive to be in denial when the other side brings up a damning data set.

<comment><USER9> Pardon me for quoting from something I wrote above but I didn't want to retype. The bottom line is Data Sets can lie (though I agree single-payer is certainly not the disaster some make it out to be). The quote...

If you look at the breakdown of things you'll see that a lot of the cost difference is because people in the U.S. have a choice and they choose the more expensive option. There are also issues of tort reform which the U.S. desperately needs. Because the current system leads doctors to order thousands of dollars in additional treatments to rule out things that Canadian doctors don't have too (and while the actual suits themselves are a relatively small portion spent on health care it should be mentioned that the U.S. pays 4 times more per capita on malpractice suits) As for wait times it's true but the base line number doesn't take into account the fact that many don't have health care. Again I reiterate the U.S. system is screwed up. But the fact is people with insurance in the U.S. tend to have shorter wait times and it's only when you factor in things like free clinics and government programs that the wait times rise above those in Canada.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> France is a poor general comparison for the reasons specified later. The UK system is something of a compromise of the two and worth consideration.

Actually I thought about this a little today:

The US system is biased towards the extremely ill - it is essentially a bet against you getting an uncommon illness.

The UK system is biased towards the mildly ill - if you have an uncommon illness it doesn't work as well. So it is a bet against not getting an uncommon illness.

<comment><USER16> Rarity and severity are two different things. I can't tell which you mean.

I would guess the UK system would bias against rarity since if you make spending decisions centrally you can get more bang for buck, the more people get the disease.

<comment><USER15> Im talking rarity I think, yes. Because common and uncommon illnesses can be severe.

My point is that in the UK you can go see a doctor and get drugs with little effort/cost etc. Whereas if you have something rare or costly the chances of effective care diminish.

It's the reverse in the US because basic care is fairly expensive (if you need it) but if you have a rare or chronic condition the care is available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a great example of why libertarians are not to be confused with Objectivists.

Objectivism provides the essential philosophical basis for individualism and long-term rational selfishness required to properly support political conclusions in favor of freedom. Libertarians, on the other hand, don't know or understand the philosophy from which many of their political conclusions were copied, and are thus susceptible to reverting to political conclusions that appear momentarily practical, or consistent with altruism (which many libertarians implicitly embrace).

On top of that, "libertarian" has come to means so many things that it means nothing - there are libertarians in favor of and against abortion, in favor of and against anarchy, in favor of and against anti-trust regulation, to name a few random examples.

Objectivism isn't pervasive enough yet for political change based on it to occur, and libertarianism is a political dead end (because it's not consistent with the terrible mixed bag of present-day American values, or with itself.) So if you consider yourself a libertarian, and you don't like where Welch and his ilk are heading, I invite you to read Ayn Rand and new scholarly works that examine her philosophy deeply (Tara Smith's "Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist".)

<comment><USER18> I read way too much Ayn Rand myself when I was about 17. Seven years later, I've found that Rand contradicts herself in a number of places--chief among them, as cited by generations of anarchist libertarians, is the inherent contradiction between the non-aggression principle and government. Where she doesn't contradict herself, she makes handwavy arguments backed by vague assertions about human nature which, by and large, don't hold up to the actual evidence.

I've also found that treating social and political issues as axiomatic mathematical systems is the wrong way to go about things in the first place.

Finally, you may have misread the central point of the article. It wasn't an unreserved support of socialized medicine, but rather an acknowledgement that, whatever the problems socialized medicine has, the fucked-up, cronyist mixed system we have in this country is even worse.

<comment><USER17> You misunderstand Rand. The important thing about her philosophy is her ethics, her epistemology and her metaphysics. My opinion is that once this is understood, the contradictions you see cease to exist. (Specifically, non- aggression is a conclusion, and is not axiomatic.)

The political stuff is just a downstream consequence of a much deeper set of ideas. It's important, but politics is at the periphery of Objectivism (in that Objectivism has political implications, just like any other philosophy), far from the core.

<comment><USER19> Ethics? Deliberate life-long selfishness isn't ethical.

Regardless of the window dressing. Every villain in history has had moral window dressing that claimed they were really good guys.

<comment><USER17> "The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word "selfishness" is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual "package-deal," which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind.

In popular usage, the word "selfishness" is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment.

Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word "selfishness" is: concern with one's own interests.

This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one's own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man's actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions."

"There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self- interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level (see "The Objectivist Ethics").

If it is true that what I mean by "selfishness" is not what is meant conventionally, then this is one of the worst indictments of altruism: it means that altruism permits no concept of a self-respecting, self-supporting man—a man who supports his life by his own effort and neither sacrifices himself nor others. It means that altruism permits no view of men except as sacrificial animals and profiteers-on-sacrifice, as victims and parasites—that it permits no concept of a benevolent co-existence among men—that it permits no concept of justice."

<comment><USER19> Yeah, and if you ever wake up, you'll realize that your own interests are _enormously_ bound up with the interests of society at large.

You drove to work today on a public road or public transit, were kept safe by publicly funded police departments and most likely hold a knowledge-worker job that you're capable of doing in large part because of public education (probably).

But, yeah, you're a self-reliant rugged individualist. I get it.

<comment><USER17> Well, that's how things are right now, but that doesn't bother me as much as it used to. Rand's best quote on that is, "anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today."

Rand shows that the world doesn't _have_ to be the way it is right now; she presents a logically consistent philosophy, which we can use to guide ourselves to much greater heights of achievement.

<comment><USER19> Communism's logically consistent. There are people who say that communism is actually a really good idea, Russia just implemented it poorly.

Can you see some parallels between that and the point you're trying to make?

In what world would it make sense to privatize, say, road building and make every road a toll road? It'd be even more of a mess than private health insurance. (EDIT: equivalent mess to the government producing toilet paper, if you'd rather)

Anytime you manage to neatly distill reality to the point where a simple sound byte is the solution to all of our extremely different problems, you've probably entered fantasy land.

<comment><USER17> Communism is not consistent with man's requirements for survival. (Unlike animals, man's essential and unique method of survival requires the use of his mind. For anyone that doubts that Communism deprived men of the full use of their minds, see the sordid history regarding Lysenkoism, or the way photocopiers were guarded behind bars in Soviet Russia.)

Objectivism holds that it is not enough to think about something in isolation to determine its validity. It is equally important to compare ideas with observable facts, and throw out those that are not factually supported as false. ("The true in theory is the successful in practice.")

<comment><USER19> Communism makes grandiose assertions about human nature in one direction, you're just making them in another. Capitalism is the better mode for most things, but in the real world we have nuance. Invoking Capital Letterisms generally doesn't solve any problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Those who (like me) oppose ObamaCare, need to understand (also like me, > unfortunately) what it's like to be serially rejected by insurance companies > even though you're perfectly healthy.

So he opposes "ObamaCare" but loves the French system (no surprise, the French system is clearly one of the best in the world) which he has access to by virtue of marrying a Frenchwoman.

New Reason health care plan: marry a European!

</comment><comment><USER21> If we want lower-cost health care, we should enact stricter intellectual property laws, and require other countries license and pay full fair for medical advancements made in the United States. 82% of global R&D spending in medicine comes from the United States.

The author of the article was frivolously using medical resources, which is why he couldn't get insurance. If he has been so healthy that he hasn't missed more than three days of work due to illness since 1986, why does he need "routine checkups" every four months. If I was looking at that from the perspective of an insurer, the conclusion that I would draw is that, should this guy ever actually come down with something, he'd be in the hospital for months.

<comment><USER7> Three times a year is frivolous? In Japan people go to the doctor an average of 14 times a year. They spend six percent of their GDP on healthcare and have virtually no waits even for elective surgery. The U.S. spends 17 percent.

As for IP, what we should really do is get rid of pharmaceutical patents entirely. There are plenty of other ways to fund the research. Half is funded by the government anyway, and a lot of what the big pharms fund is "me-too" drugs and ways to extend existing patents, which makes the spending numbers kind of misleading.</comment></comment>


Touchwall: Microsoft's Inexpensive Wall-Based Multi-Touch Interface - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/14/microsoft-touchwall-can-inexpensively-turn-any-flat-surface-into-a-multi-touch-display/ <comment><USER2> Depending on how accurate and fine-grained the detection is, this could make for some great pixel manipulation or bending-warping in an image editor or 3D modeling program given the finger size vs. the display size.

I don't see this replacing the keyboard and mouse, but making a nice supplement and maybe replacing the Graphire.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great. With Microsoft on our walls, who needs an earthquake for the house to "crash".

Just put the IE8 version of this on any baseball stadium's center field wall. The "404" will always be there.

No need for blue paint anymore. Your walls will already have a blue screen of death.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

</comment><comment><USER4> great now you can "View content space-tially organized in a infinite canvas paradigm" also "move thru content in a orgranic fashion"

Great! now if only we could drop the bull shit terminology.

and don't forget their "envisioning team" (chow was doing this with the wii almost a year ago)</comment>


Microsoft Wins 'Most Ethical' Award - Google, Facebook, Apple Don't - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/17/microsoft-most-ethical-company_n_837003.html

<comment><USER2> Obviously they forgot that bing is part of MS.

MS seem to be working very hard to clean their image. And a big part of it has to do with Bill Gates. However, their products aren't that great: hotmail still sucks, IE9 is a poor implementation of a modern browser, bing is not a serious competence to google and their "live" products just plain sucks.

<comment><AUTHOR> I heard the blogs have moved to a decent platform...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is wrong with delicious - <AUTHOR> the firefox extension cannot connect, and their website design now look different with cheap ads
were they sold lately and i havent noticed
any recommended alternatives with firefox plugin or extension <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11265293](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11265293)</comment>


Feedback on my "Beyond Comment Threads" proposal? - <AUTHOR> http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2799

<comment><AUTHOR> The Knight Foundation/Mozilla 'Beyond Comment Threads' proposal has come up a couple of times already on HN -- <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2547607> and <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2532371> were the previous discussions

This my submission ... feedback welcome! The deadline's tonight, so I can still incorporate some changes.</comment>


Dueling Neural Networks and the Birthday Paradox - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@giacaglia/dueling-neural-networks-a063af14f62e <comment><USER2> Very interesting. I didn't know much about the Birthday Paradox. Great explanation! :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> > researchers have shown that images generated by famous GANs do not > generalize beyond what the training data provides.

Was really hoping to get a source for that, as that is a very interesting proposition to leave uncited.</comment>


Musical sweet spot for 3D sound - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9427000/9427892.stm

<comment><USER2> <http://www.princeton.edu/3D3A/>

that is his lab's page with a bit more general information about what he is doing.

this describes the process a bit more clearly <http://www.princeton.edu/3D3A/BACCH_intro.html> it is a way of delivering binaural audio over loud speakers.

I haven't read through his papers very closely yet, but in what I have read he seems to misrepresent what ambisonics was on about so I'm dubious. But definitely interesting stuff and worth further research.</comment>


eval('foo=a', obj.fn); How you aren't private in Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://ajaxian.com/archives/evalfooa-objfn-how-you-arent-private-in-firefox

<comment><USER2> Summary: eval('statement', fn) lets you evaluate that statement in the environment context of fn. This includes access to the environment closed over by the function.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am asking because I am honestly not sure, but why is this a big deal?

<comment><USER2> One pattern in Javascript is to use closures to make variables "private" in the sense that a limited set of functions can access them in a shared environment. This particular use of eval() lets a third party evaluate its own code in that same environment, thereby gaining access to those closed values.

Honestly I'm a little bit surprised by this myself. A lot of library writers have assumed that those closed variables are not visible to users of their libraries.

[Edit:] I'm not convinced that this is a negative thing. I'm a _lot_ more worried about name collisions than perfect data hiding in a dynamic language. If someone wants to jump hoops to alter my private data, let them.

<comment><USER3> I understand the use of closures for data hiding, but why is it news that a cute trick can get you access to the private members? If you dump whatever a C++ object ptr is pointing to, you'll see its privates too.

I just don't see it as anything to be raising a fuss over.

<comment><USER4> Do that in C++, and you'll be doing something extremely implementation- defined, so it's kind of a different animal.

(That said, this is an implementation-specific detail, too.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>