Carmack and Abrash are extremely smart, and certainly aware of the privacy implications of Facebook acquiring Oculus. They know they'll be helping Facebook rap

Carmack and Abrash are extremely smart, and certainly aware of the privacy implications of Facebook acquiring Oculus. They know they'll be helping Facebook rape the world's privacy in currently unimaginable ways, but they've got a world-class team doing some serious fucking software engineering, so they don't really care. Much like for a "quant" on Wall Street, ethical concerns take a back-seat to getting to grapple with lovely, sciency challenges. Let's take a look: > I think it is going to be positive, but clearly many disagree. Positive for you, or positive for the world's sheeple? > Much of the ranting has been emotional or tribal Ah, those silly emotional people, group-thinking and being all irrational (unlike Carmack about his technical work). What's there to be emotional about? It's not like there's anything wrong with a police state (like the US or UK) knowing everything about you! > but I am interested in reading coherent viewpoints about objective outcomes. He wants us to make a compelling case for how the state knowing absolutely everything about you could possibly be a bad thing. But it has to be objective - you know, exactly like his own view on the matter. > What are the hazards? How could Carmack possibly have a clue about the hazards, what with Snowden's revelations and all? It's like, impossible. > What should be done to guard against them? How about making sure governments all around the world don't abuse the information they gather on everyone? -Oh wait, you can't. > What are the tests for failure? Oh I don't know. Find yourself in a gulag for thinking/saying/doing things the government finds vaguely uncomfortable? --> "Ohhhhhhhh, right. This is a bit of a problem."