You might think that cookiecaper is an insensitive clod. But, he's not posting fluff, off-topic or otherwise distracting material.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
