6 ms·

My moral compass would get real wobbly if I had (insert some unfathomable number here) in my bank account following an acquisition. Probably not a great thing

My moral compass would get real wobbly if I had (insert some unfathomable number here) in my bank account following an acquisition. Probably not a great thing to confess to but I doubt I’d find myself caring what my acquirer was doing with their new real estate.

jacquesm 6y ago
As would most people, so I wouldn't lose sleep over it. The big mistake is to try to pull the wool over the users' eyes knowing full well he would lose control over that and so was in absolutely no position to promise anything.
- SirYandi 6y ago
  If you take GP at face value he didn't intentionally pull the wool over people's eyes. He was just rather naive.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    GP has since started a defense contractor. I highly doubt this is a naive person.
    - staunch 6y ago
      That's a non sequitur and your viewpoint is vindictive, uncharitable, and unreasonable. Palmer Luckey was in his very early 20s and had never been involved in an acquisition before. He acknowledged his mistake and his explanation makes complete sense. Even much more experienced people are prone to making this kind of mistake in the honeymoon period of an acquisition.
      - EricE 6y ago
        No kidding. I'm shocked that all these perfect and wildly successful people even have time to post on hacker news :p
    - akhosravian 6y ago
      Can you explain the leap from someone starting a defense contractor to them not being naive a few years earlier in their life about corporate acquisitions?
      - nitrogen 6y ago
        Without commenting on this situation, if you're worried about selling something to a large entity who might later change their mind about how they use your thing, you don't usually start selling to militaries.
  - Mandatum 6y ago
    Sorry, who's GP?
    - ameen 6y ago
      Grandparent - In this context, that’s Palmer Luckey.
kbenson 6y ago
It's probably real easy to tell yourself you'll donate a couple million to charities that try to help with actual horrific things and that's way more important than some people having to use a different account/login system for their new luxury game system. Who knows, maybe some (small amount) of people in similar positions actually follow through afterwards and do that.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Those who say they can’t be bought are either saints (rare), or have never had a reasonable chance of being offered their price. Most humans will get very morally flexible once offered enough resources; this is precisely why we have contracts and courts, to create structural systems more capable of upholding agreements than individual humans can do alone.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  It's also why we have immutable smart contracts on the blockchain. Can't be evil > don't be evil
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Immutability doesn't actually solve much in the way of real-world problems. Most contract lawsuits don't concern accusations of secretly forging altered contracts, or any disparity between copies: they concern interpretations. And if you've ever read a typical boilerplate contract for most any serious transaction, you'll see they cover "if-then" situations about as much as can be reasonably be done. Explain the mechanism by which a smart contract in this instance would both have made it impossible for Facebook to make this move and, if they did anyway, avoided the necessity of Palmer to sue them over it.
  - jxf 6y ago
    Blockchain contracts definitely do not somehow preclude "evil", for almost any reasonable definition of evil. They preclude forgery and very specific categories of fraud — but beyond that the sky is the limit.
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      It's auditable, open source, and immutable. It's neutral. Neither good nor evil. It's your responsibility or the community's responsibility to audit the code and assess the risks.
      - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bigiain 6y ago
There's (at least) two reasons why they call it "fuck you money"...
Guthur 6y ago
There is nothing immoral about a lawful business transaction to purchase a VR company. If this device required some signing of an EULA that has given away all your consumer rights then the onus is on you, no one forced you to buy it and many organisations and individuals have been warning about these business practices unheeded. As an anecdotal example, many companies are now using instagram for image hosting that pester/ requires me to sign up. I say no thank you and move on, I'm not adversely affected but maybe that company loses some business.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  I bought a Rift and I knew the risks. I wanted to try it and in case I don't like it, at least I didn't spend too much money compared to competitors. I hate their app, you cannot even uninstall it by conventional means (you have to do it withing the app). Headsets are not cheap, but I am not really crying for not attaching it to my PC ever again. I just wonder who would want to develop against that environment. Not that there was that much available as it is.
- mola 6y ago
  You bought a thing with a certain agreement then the agreement is changed under you . Will they reimburse the buyers? If not, then this is nuts and immoral. If they do reimburse you, then it's just scary. The fact an unscrupulous entity like Facebook have such a strong hold in people life and business, opinions and privacy is a recipe for an Orwellian future (present?) Virtual reality is the next frontier of cyberspace, a much more engulfing and immersive (if successful), I don't want Facebook to have so much power.
  - tekknik 6y ago
    Did they change the EULA? Do we have the info to make that claim? Even more interesting is I can remember having many a conversation about which headset to buy, always stating avoid oculus because facebook and yet the person buys oculus anyway only to later complain profusely about having a VR headset from facebook. In recent years this seems to be a problem, likely with current generations. Capitalism fails when you don’t exercise your freedom to make smart purchase decisions. If you don’t want facebook to have so much power stop buying them, stop using them, get your friends and family off and make them actually work for their customers.

jacquesm 6y ago

As would most people, so I wouldn't lose sleep over it. The big mistake is to try to pull the wool over the users' eyes knowing full well he would lose control over that and so was in absolutely no position to promise anything.

SirYandi 6y ago
If you take GP at face value he didn't intentionally pull the wool over people's eyes. He was just rather naive.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  GP has since started a defense contractor. I highly doubt this is a naive person.
  - staunch 6y ago
    That's a non sequitur and your viewpoint is vindictive, uncharitable, and unreasonable. Palmer Luckey was in his very early 20s and had never been involved in an acquisition before. He acknowledged his mistake and his explanation makes complete sense. Even much more experienced people are prone to making this kind of mistake in the honeymoon period of an acquisition.
    - EricE 6y ago
      No kidding. I'm shocked that all these perfect and wildly successful people even have time to post on hacker news :p
  - akhosravian 6y ago
    Can you explain the leap from someone starting a defense contractor to them not being naive a few years earlier in their life about corporate acquisitions?
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Without commenting on this situation, if you're worried about selling something to a large entity who might later change their mind about how they use your thing, you don't usually start selling to militaries.
- Mandatum 6y ago
  Sorry, who's GP?
  - ameen 6y ago
    Grandparent - In this context, that’s Palmer Luckey.

kbenson 6y ago

It's probably real easy to tell yourself you'll donate a couple million to charities that try to help with actual horrific things and that's way more important than some people having to use a different account/login system for their new luxury game system. Who knows, maybe some (small amount) of people in similar positions actually follow through afterwards and do that.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Those who say they can’t be bought are either saints (rare), or have never had a reasonable chance of being offered their price. Most humans will get very morally flexible once offered enough resources; this is precisely why we have contracts and courts, to create structural systems more capable of upholding agreements than individual humans can do alone.

chrisco255 6y ago
It's also why we have immutable smart contracts on the blockchain. Can't be evil > don't be evil
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Immutability doesn't actually solve much in the way of real-world problems. Most contract lawsuits don't concern accusations of secretly forging altered contracts, or any disparity between copies: they concern interpretations. And if you've ever read a typical boilerplate contract for most any serious transaction, you'll see they cover "if-then" situations about as much as can be reasonably be done. Explain the mechanism by which a smart contract in this instance would both have made it impossible for Facebook to make this move and, if they did anyway, avoided the necessity of Palmer to sue them over it.
- jxf 6y ago
  Blockchain contracts definitely do not somehow preclude "evil", for almost any reasonable definition of evil. They preclude forgery and very specific categories of fraud — but beyond that the sky is the limit.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    It's auditable, open source, and immutable. It's neutral. Neither good nor evil. It's your responsibility or the community's responsibility to audit the code and assess the risks.
    - 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

bigiain 6y ago

There's (at least) two reasons why they call it "fuck you money"...

Guthur 6y ago

There is nothing immoral about a lawful business transaction to purchase a VR company. If this device required some signing of an EULA that has given away all your consumer rights then the onus is on you, no one forced you to buy it and many organisations and individuals have been warning about these business practices unheeded. As an anecdotal example, many companies are now using instagram for image hosting that pester/ requires me to sign up. I say no thank you and move on, I'm not adversely affected but maybe that company loses some business.

raxxorrax 6y ago
I bought a Rift and I knew the risks. I wanted to try it and in case I don't like it, at least I didn't spend too much money compared to competitors. I hate their app, you cannot even uninstall it by conventional means (you have to do it withing the app). Headsets are not cheap, but I am not really crying for not attaching it to my PC ever again. I just wonder who would want to develop against that environment. Not that there was that much available as it is.
mola 6y ago
You bought a thing with a certain agreement then the agreement is changed under you . Will they reimburse the buyers? If not, then this is nuts and immoral. If they do reimburse you, then it's just scary. The fact an unscrupulous entity like Facebook have such a strong hold in people life and business, opinions and privacy is a recipe for an Orwellian future (present?) Virtual reality is the next frontier of cyberspace, a much more engulfing and immersive (if successful), I don't want Facebook to have so much power.
- tekknik 6y ago
  Did they change the EULA? Do we have the info to make that claim? Even more interesting is I can remember having many a conversation about which headset to buy, always stating avoid oculus because facebook and yet the person buys oculus anyway only to later complain profusely about having a VR headset from facebook. In recent years this seems to be a problem, likely with current generations. Capitalism fails when you don’t exercise your freedom to make smart purchase decisions. If you don’t want facebook to have so much power stop buying them, stop using them, get your friends and family off and make them actually work for their customers.