I 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.)<p>Besides, there's something better to learn here: the surveillance state will always find <i>willing</i> 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.
I'm always willing to take the unpopular side, as anyone who knows me knows.<p>With regards to Luckey's exit from Facebook, and the controversy of his politically-oriented actions:<p>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).<p>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.<p>We are afraid that free speech will incite violence, but ironically a lot more violence has come from trying to suppress free speech.
As an engineer there are certain things I refuse to work on. Anything to do with weapons, immigration, gambling. The list is ever evolving...<p>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.<p>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.
Can someone explain the apparent cognitive dissonance of popular HN opinion which seems to be:<p>1) Working on US border security is bad.<p>2) US Soldiers are good. Even though their job is ultimately for border security and border security in other countries.<p>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?<p>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?
This 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."<p>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"<p>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?
This is a dupe/blogspam of the original reporting of<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/business/oculus-palmer-luckey-new-start-up.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/business/oculus-palmer-lu...</a><p>(itself already sensibly flagged to oblivion).
Good 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 <i>winning</i> presidential candidate.