>Please don't downvote comments that contribute to the conversation just because you disagree with them.
That's a rule on Reddit, but to my knowledge it's never been a rule here.
Here's pg's own words on the subject.
>I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness.
That would make sense if all down voting did was show the net score, or the up/down breakdown.
However, when an article has a more down votes than up votes, it is also made harder to read, and the bigger the difference, the harder to read it becomes. That makes pg's remark make little sense, unless HN is supposed to be a place where disagreeing with the majority is discouraged, which is not very hackerish. Some clarification from pg would be helpful here.
If nothing else, cookiecaper represents the kind of thinking that leads to these situations in the first place. Yes, it's stupid. Yes, it's amoral. Yes, it betrays profound ignorance of the law and ethics, and yes, it's shot through with the kind of "logic" so poor it's actually repulsive. But that's actually the point.
In the same way that smoke indicates fire, a stink like this indicates a giant pile of shit. And that's exactly what's just hit the fan.
If you (a) agree with cookiecaper and (b) have anything to do with HR, now would be a great time to consider switching careers. You simply don't have the moral judgement your job requires. Better get out now before you find yourself in the middle of a similar mess.
On the contrary, I believe that the kind of "moral judgment" I've exhibited makes me better qualified for leadership than all of these people that have zero ability to empathize with the execs of Pixar and five other major animation houses, and automatically jumps to the conclusion that they're evil and dastardly. I didn't say Catmull is my new personal idol, I'm just making an argument that is conspicuously absent from the rest of this thread -- namely, that Catmull is not necessarily Literally Hitler based on the information we have available, which is a bandwagon most people here seem excited to jump aboard.
I didn't say Catmull shouldn't face consequences. I didn't say what he did was super-cool. I'm trying to provide a more reasonable POV here, and indicate that there's nothing indicating mens rea up to this point, and most people are inferring there is. And even if there is, we should consider this in a dispassionate manner, and continue to value Catmull's contributions in reasonable proportion.
I don't understand why this community is so quick to demonize and trample people, especially people like Catmull or Eich who have long, long histories of stellar contribution and reputation. I think it has more to do with the witch hunters being unable to think outside of the constraints of the cast story if it hits their righteousness button on the way down. But this attitude of discarding people like trash because they make a conclusion that we don't like is ridiculous and damaging. I can't see how anyone would be excited to enter a field filled with such people.
Here's the thing: when you're discussing the failures of another person's moral reasoning, you are inevitably calling their character into question. It may not be the point, but it's unavoidably the effect.
For the same reason that you can't state that someone is lying without denigrating their character, you cannot point out that someone is representing an utterly amoral position without implying that they are a generally untrustworthy human being.
Let me put it this way: would you be comfortable having cookiecaper running HR for your company? I should hope not. But if you were, what would you tell a board member who came across a post like this an wanted to know why - exactly - a guy this demonstrably off-base was being allowed to fill a position that carried so much risk?
For what it's worth, people were just downvoting the guy. I think there's some value in seeing what he has to say in order to better understand that mindset that let to the moral implosion we're presently discussing.
Separately, I think the tone of condemnation is actually very important. I'm sure there are plenty of people here who have had damaging encounters with others who think and act like cookiecaper (e.g. anyone who has worked under Catmull). It's important to establish, in a very public fashion, that the values he displays are absolutely not okay.
Your attack is high on prejudicial conclusion-jumping disgust-invoking labels – 'stupid', 'amoral', 'stink', 'pile of shit' – and low on reasoning. It's also unnecessarily personal – implying a person holding a reasoned opinion is an untouchable outcast.
That's what makes it out-of-bounds.
Looking back, you made no substantive comments on thread. You just opened by making a speaker the subject, and slurring that speaker. That's nasty.
Try looking back a bit further. You'll note that it was actually the previous poster who had made the speaker the subject, and that was in the context of a remark about how he was being reflexively down-voted for (presumably) making conspicuously bad arguments.
Bear in mind that it was failures of reasoning like these - that is to say, ones grounded in distinctly personal shortcomings - that produced the situation at Pixar which we're discussing. Indeed, for those of us whose careers have taught us the importance of making suitably judicious assessments of the personal character of those we depend on, a discussion of the rhetorical hallmarks of people who defend illegal and abusive employment practices is vitally important. Spotting them quickly can be the difference between a really bad choice and a good one. So again, that's why I was saying there's value in cookiecaper's otherwise objectionable remarks: they're a case study in the kind of stuff you really do need to watch out for.
And within the specific social context I noted - i.e. people working in HR - remarks like cookiecaper's jolly well should him an untouchable outcast. For the same reason you don't want a person with a lax attitude about embezzling anywhere near your finance department, you don't want a person who thinks that contracts are "inconvenient" in a position where they're likely to conclude that violating the law "is just a lot faster and easier" than respecting it. (I'm paraphrasing, but that's the essence of the "reasoning" on display.)
Now perhaps you don't consider a frank characterization of the sub-par ethical traits that are the direct cause of problems like Pixar's to be "substantive". On that point I can only say that we sharply disagree.
You made the speaker the target of denigration. The previous poster was appealing for tolerance; you added name-calling and personalized shunning. You skipped any acknowledgement or engagement with cookiecutter's points, jumping straight to negative labels without supporting argument.
I suppose your armchair snap-judgment blackballing would also extend to people like Catmull, Jobs, Schmidt and others themselves. All of them, a pox on the industry who should have never held leadership roles. Sure, right.
You might think that cookiecaper is an insensitive clod. But, he's not posting fluff, off-topic or otherwise distracting material.