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Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is developing border surveillance technology
- Mao_Zedang 9y agoAt least he landed on his feet after being unpersoned by the valley stasi
- rtpg 9y agoyeah what a tragedy that people stopped liking him for financing Trump Super PACs. Maybe he should try being as rich as Thiel so people care less. He made his own bed.
- exolymph 9y agoPeople care(d) plenty about Thiel, and continue to.
- jolux 9y agonot the right people, apparently
- nyolfen 9y agoso people who support politicians you don't like should lose their jobs?
- ryan-allen 9y agoThat's the going theory these days. EDIT: Downvotes, keep 'em coming.
- charliesome 9y agoSpeech and political action is not and has never been free of consequence
- averagewall 9y agoI'd expect freedom of speech should come with much the same rights as freedom of sexuality. However, popular opinion says it's bad to fire someone for being gay but it's OK to fire someone for offending the boss's preferred political party.
- Jare 9y agoConsequence, punishment and revenge are very different things, and it's infuriating how so many otherwise well-meaning people have been taught to conflate them.
- bdcravens 9y agoJust ask Kathy Griffin, Colin Kaepernick, and Tim Tebow.
- adjkant 9y agoThe big issue right now when it comes to the US is where you draw the line between "this person is a politician I don't agree with" and "this person is dangerous to the country and has completely unacceptable views". If David Duke ran for president, and Elon Musk supported him (using both to illustrate a point, not implying anything), would you still think it just for Musk to maintain the power he has, or would you be concerned with what projects he would power? Obviously, there two situations aren't perfectly parallel, but it's a question of severity. The point is that Trump is crossing that line for some, and not for others, which drastically changes the way people judge actions related to Trump. So no, I don't think the parent here is saying just any politician.
- FeepingCreature 9y agoI'm more worried about people who think they can decide what political candidates or projects are acceptable, than the actual candidates or projects.
- unityByFreedom 9y agoEh? Like people who think they can vote and voice their opinions about candidates?
- FeepingCreature 9y agoPeople voting is fine. The problem is the people who think they should have the power to remove politicians from the ballot, because they want to assume control over the votes of everybody else.
- the_cat_kittles 9y agoin general no. but maybe ask yourself, is there a politician you can think of in the last hundred years or so that you would fire someone for supporting? if not fire, at least not hire. surely there is at least one. the way you frame your question is not charitable.
- threeseed 9y agoConservatism used to/still is the default political persuasion of business so it definitely isn't his views that are the issue. Rather it was the way he chose to express his political views. It wasn't intelligent, nuanced, principled, insightful or constructive. It was the behaviour of a immature teenager.
- nextlevelwizard 9y agoFrom a 21 year old kid I like how people now get thrown into trash bin for rest of their lives for one stupid thing, and what did he even do? He gave some money to a people making memes. Then he apologized and lost his position in his own company (yeah yeah he had already sold it whatever he was founder) and people still have a stick up their asses about this. I can't tell if it's plain old jealousy or if political climate is just so toxic in US now that you can't even express your opinion(s) without being forever marked (and then these same people dare to speak how we are going towards Orwellian society even though they are already living and implementing it)
- puranjay 9y agoThat's because he was just two years out of his teens. I'd love to see the people bashing him be 21 years old and have $500M in the bank.
- rtpg 9y agoIf you're actually funding the campaign on a massive scale, you are sharing the campaign's values. It's not that complicated. Nobody writes sob stories about the Koch brothers.
- CMay 9y agoThis isn't necessarily true. We don't have a system where a wide variety of viable candidates all get equal representation, since their representation is mostly controlled by for-profit businesses. We end up with 2 imperfect candidates and if it is your duty to choose one and see to it that they win versus the other option, you might donate some money. An individual might donate for a pet cause that's important to them even if they disagree with other things. A company might donate, because it is actually going to help their business and they have a duty to their shareholders to increase profit. You say it's not complicated as if the issue is settled and final, but there is a lot more subtlety to this topic. There were enough issues with Hillary as a candidate that she deserved to lose regardless of whether the republican candidate was a controversial figure like Trump or not. For that reason, I expect many people donated to Trump as a way to avoid Hillary.
- throwaway-1209 9y agoThat's a dangerous slippery slope you're descending. You may at some point end up on the receiving end.
- dang 9y agoInflammatory drive-by comments start flamewars. That's trolling, and you've unfortunately done it here before. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do it again.
- Mao_Zedang 9y agoI stand by my comment and I would love to know exactly how making a comment on exactly what happened is trolling. "Unfortunately done it here before" you clearly have an incident in mind care to share it?
- dang 9y agoNow you're meta-trolling. What I explained is sufficient. If you continue to post flamebait, we will ban you. If you don't want to be banned, that's easy: when you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully, and when you don't, don't post.
- Mao_Zedang 9y agoI dont even know what meta-trolling is. The only definition I could find is this, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=metatroll http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=metatroll I cant see how this applies, there is nothing in the rules about meta-trolling so I am only guessing at what you mean. I also disagree with you and as you can see from the rest of the comments on this particular post also agree with me that Palmer Luckey was miss treated, I dont see how having an unpopular opinion (is it really unpopular?) is flamebait, it isnt even off topic, one could make the argument that this new venture luckey is involved in is a biproduct of exactly the kind of ostracisation he was subjected too. As for asking for clarification of your accusation that I have "trolled" in the past, I am actually genuinely interested in which comment you are referring too, So I can avoid making the same mistake. If you think that is meta trolling, I guess I cant convince you otherwise.
- dang 9y agoOk, on the chance that you're sincere, I will try explaining this in detail. You posted an inflammatory drive-by comment complete with gratutious Nazis (not literal Nazis of course, but in the same bucket). That's trolling: it destroys good conversation and provokes others into posting worse. I explained this well enough for anyone who sincerely wants to use HN as intended to understand. Insead of taking that information in and adapting to it, you responded with the very most popular troll ploy in such situations, the "How is this trolling?" trick. That's where people seek to replace a pointless argument with a pointless argument about the pointless argument. I call that meta-trolling. Sorry the term wasn't clear. I interpreted your reply as insincere because "a comment on exactly what happened" is such a silly misrepresentation of your original post. Posting something outrageous and then meekly playing innocent is more classic trollery. So is baiting people into wasting their time on obvious falsehoods. I've learned to decline the bait because all of this is so boring, and the overwhelming majority of sincere users don't do them, or drop them right away when we ask them to. The past comment I was referring to was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12553831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12553831. It has the same combination of being unsubstantive and inflammatory. You post far too many of those to HN, though usually more unsubstantive than inflammatory, which is at least better than the other way around. That, plus what looks to me like sincerity in your reply here, makes me think that maybe we can convince you to use the site as intended after all; hence this long reply. HN is intended for (a) the gratification of intellectual curiosity and (b) civil, substantive discussion. That means posting thoughtfully on topics where you have something meaningful to say, and otherwise not posting. Can you do that?
- pvg 9y agoThis is a dupe/blogspam of the original reporting of https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/business/oculus-palmer-luckey-new-start-up.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/business/oculus-palmer-lu... (itself already sensibly flagged to oblivion).
- micaksica 9y agoI withhold any opinions about Luckey. I've never met the guy and I don't feel it's fair to judge somebody based upon what journalists have decided to write about him. (However, I don't think we'd get along much.) Besides, there's something better to learn here: the surveillance state will always find willing people to work on technologies that can potentially be used to oppress populations. Luckey is enormously wealthy by world (and HN) standards -- he has "fuck you money" that so many on this board are searching for -- so you can't say he's out building this stuff to pay the bills, to feed his family, et cetera. He's out building this stuff because he is a paladin for this cause, regardless of whether or not you find it detestable.
- angry_octet 9y agoHe has enough money, but there is nothing like having your ego stroked. And more money.
- thisisit 9y ago> And more money. This. I have never understood why people think that if someone has something means they don't need more of it. Though I can't speak for Palmer Luckey's intention behind doing this.
- panic 9y agoI have never understood why people think that if someone has something means they don't need more of it. Because almost everything in life works this way. Once I have a place to live, I don't need to find a second one. Once I've eaten enough food to be full, I don't need to keep eating. Maybe by buying enough clothes you can avoid doing laundry, though…
- jacobush 9y agoBuying clothes to protect you from the elements, are you? Many people buy them for entirely different reasons, like signaling social status and other things. Even if you do this very conservatively, you need to keep up because fashions change and what your dress signaled last year is not what it signals this. Sheesh.
- gavanwoolery 9y agoI'm always willing to take the unpopular side, as anyone who knows me knows. With regards to Luckey's exit from Facebook, and the controversy of his politically-oriented actions: Persecuting someone for choosing a political candidate or supporting a political group is the exact opposite of a democracy - no matter how "abominable" that group might seem. I am not a Trump supporter, but the way people have treated his supporters sickens me. Can we agree to disagree, rather than launch a witch hunt on anyone who does not share similar views? This has manifested itself everywhere, its not even choosing sides anymore (see: Kathy Griffin). We are so afraid of free speech it is ridiculous. I say let people speak. If people want to speak and say potentially idiotic things, let them expose their views. They are free to speak, we are free to listen or ignore. We have a huge empathy problem where anyone that holds an opposing view is inhuman. We are afraid that free speech will incite violence, but ironically a lot more violence has come from trying to suppress free speech.
- woah 9y agoWhat? Are you complaining that people are speaking freely about politicians they disagree with?
- mblood 9y agoI think he's complaining that Trump supporters like Luckey are literally Hitler to a large number of left-leaning people.
- gavanwoolery 9y agoYes, and the fact that we use the term "Hitler" and "Nazi" with little to no discretion. The terms are virtually meaningless now. So many people in my social circle used these words to describe Luckey, yet I do not see Luckey participating in genocide.
- ZeroGravitas 9y agoIs it fair to reduce Hitler and the Nazis to just the mass genocides they perpetrated? You talk about the terms becoming meaningless, yet that was the the only thing they did. For many years they were campaigning to make Germany great again, as other countries were taking advantage of them and some elements in their country were intentionally making bad deals. Plus obviously the people who weren't real Germans were a problem that needed to be dealt with. They wanted to build up the army and built strong links between large corporations and the government. So maybe it's okay to call people who do things like that Nazis?
- averagewall 9y agoCan someone explain the apparent cognitive dissonance of popular HN opinion which seems to be: 1) Working on US border security is bad. 2) US Soldiers are good. Even though their job is ultimately for border security and border security in other countries. Is it that they see the idea of a defensive military as good and tolerate it doing any amount of bad as long as it might also do good too? Are they following the Nuremberg defense of soldiers not being accountable for their actions as long as they're following orders? Does 1) extend to other countries? Is border security for, say, Nigeria a bad thing? Or is it a good thing if it's enforced by Nigerian soldiers and bad if it's enforced by more efficient technology?
- golergka 9y agoIs there anyone seriously so idiotic as to take the first position? May be I don't follow US politics that much, but I always thought that this position is either a strawman or sarcasm.
- puranjay 9y agoIn my experience, people who argue for position 1 have never actually lived in a poor country.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- trevyn 9y agoIdealistic, maybe, but not idiotic. I think reasons for thinking that "working on border security is bad" include: 1) The desire for a "free and open" world, especially without much first-hand experience of the immediate downsides of that. 2) That technologies in this space also directly enable police-state situations, and there are reasons to believe that this is a risk in the future. 3) A privacy-driven dislike for surveillance -- sure, you know who I am when I go through passport control, but I don't want to be tracked in more detail than that. 4) Our existing border security is reasonably functional, and there are better ways to spend the time & money. (Especially as pertains the arguably excessive "border wall".)
- beilabs 9y agoAs an engineer there are certain things I refuse to work on. Anything to do with weapons, immigration, gambling. The list is ever evolving... We can chose to work in these fields, we can choose not to. There will be engineers who have to do things to get a pay check, to feed their families. I don't begrudge that. However it is up to each of us who understand the technology to ensure that we vote and support the best political representatives who understand when it is morally correct to best implement such advances.
- stale2002 9y agoWait, and the line that you are drawing in the sand is at border security cameras? This isn't families getting deported. This is cameras, on the border. Or do you believe that border crossings are inherently immoral?
- astrodust 9y agoThis is about border cameras, sure, just as much as border patrol is about borders. It's not uncommon for border patrol to set up checkpoints two or three hundred miles from the border just to shake down people for identification (Papers, please!). Today's border cameras are liable to be deployed all over in the future. Watch what you build because it's very hard to un-build things.
- sremani 9y agoThe farther I know is Sarita TX and one along I-10 some where in AZ (been through both), they are not two hundred miles inside, even though Sarita TX is about 80 miles from border. Would really appreciate if you can point one check post that is 200 miles inland from border?
- astrodust 9y agoThis practice is so rampant apparently there's a Wikipedia page for it now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol_interior_checkpoints https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol_in... I'm not sure if the 100 mile thing is a new convention or not (https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone) but it's 100 miles from the border as the crow flies, not via highways. That means the entire state of Vermont is somehow inside that zone. I think the 200 mile figure that was reported, though I can't find the citation, involved the driving distance. Vermont, for example, is 159 miles end to end, and somehow the southern tip is in the border zone. What if they decide this entire zone is worth putting up cameras in? What if that software that recognizes "illegals" is so bad that it simply tags anyone who looks vaguely Mexican? These systems are only as good as their data, and the data is astonishingly thin in areas where it counts. A recent story covered three people that were treated as "identical" in the police database because they had the same first/middle/last names and birthdates. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/identity-theft-racial-justice https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/identity-the...
- Grue3 9y agoGood for him. He could've been still developing VR if the left didn't do everything in their power to ostracize him for the crime of supporting the winning presidential candidate.
- panoptispeech 9y agoCongratulations, SJWs. When you exile someone with legitimate technical chops from polite society, you'll get work on projects with which polite society disagrees. I hope this is the future you wanted, because it's the future you deserve. You did this. This is your fault.
- jolux 9y agoLuckey is truly shaping up to be a grade-A asshole, isn't he?
- av3csr 9y agoSounds like an interesting use of lidars
- mgraczyk 9y agoThis article is pretty strange. It opens with "...he was quietly ousted from Facebook after a $100,000 donation to a pro-Trump ‘shitposting’ group came to light." However, the linked article doesn't say that. It says he gave $100,000 to Trump's inauguration. The linked article also references figures like "Microsoft, which donated $500,00", "Qualcomm, which donated $1,000,000". In fact, the article's title makes this clear: "...donated $100,000 to Trump’s inauguration" How could a "reporter" and his editor be so confused that they completely misinterpret another article hosted on their own site? More importantly, why is this trash on Hacker News?
- danielcarvalho 9y agoThe article pretty much comes out the gate with bias and agenda, now days that passes as journalism. I also find this habit of using allegations as proof really frustrating. I agree, it's disappointing to see garbage like this posted on Hacker News.
- soundwave106 9y agoYeah, the article confuses some basic details. The "shitposting group" that Palmer Luckey gave money to is called Nimble America. Palmer Luckey reportedly gave $10,000 to that group, not $100,000. Due to the inflammatory nature of the group, there was a controversy last September on exactly how much Palmer was directly involved. This is all easily Google-searchable. I can see this being on Hacker News due to the technology connection. It would have been better to find a more neutral / factual article, perhaps. Maybe the BBC version? (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40158899 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40158899)
- codecamper 9y agoSpend too much time using computers & developing software & the rest of your being does not get developed.
- pinaceae 9y agoIt is a short journey from fleecing investors to fleece the government.