Unlucky Luckey: Oculus developers invoke anti-douchebag clause, halt games for VR goggles A number of game developers have decided to end their support of the Oculus virtual reality headset over reports that its founder Palmer Luckey is actively funding "Trump trolls." Kokoromi, Polytron, Scruta Games, Tomorrow Today Labs and developer Augustin Cordes are among those who have publicly denounced Luckey's actions and …
The guy has always been an arsehole, and Oculus have been doing stupid things for a while now.
This latest bit doesn't really add much beyond what we were already very well aware of; he's an obnoxious guy with too much money from not actually doing very much at all.
His politics don't really matter to me as I couldn't have thought much less of him than I already did.
Oculus' Ratner moment. There's no way back from this.
You'd do well not to overestimate the intelligence of voters. If you screw over an educational system it becomes very easy to waylay the stupid ones with pandering to the inevitable bigotry as they will believe your promises, even when there is no logic behind them. Trump is the clearest evidence of that (and, some would argue, Brexit).
That said, I must admit I'm uncomfortable talking politics in a tech forum.
The idea that scientists and engineers should stay out of politics is one of the best weapons the PPE people have for getting their way. Technology is intensely political because it affects people's lives directly. The word political simply means to do with the city (polis). It's impossible to discuss Facebook or Twitter without considering the politics of engagement and manipulation, for instance.
We should engage in politics, all of us with all view points. But sadly it seems many are swayed by the sound bites and general picture+lies shit that gets shared on Facebook these days.
However, Luckey is simple a douchbag for his methods of spreading his political views.
Without taking a stance either way on Luckey's actions, I will say that it is a remarkable demonstration of modern Democracy in Action on behalf of the publishers threatening to boycott Oculus.
Just because someone (who I will admit does happen to be famous and linked to the Oculus brand) supports a particular political view, to respond by threatening to put other people out of work if they don't bow down to their demands is, in my view, worse than donating to a group who are using smear tactics in a US political campaign (as if that's somehow new!?!).
Just as an aside, I wonder if they would be taking this action if the smear campaign was directed against Trump. I'm gonna guess not.
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@Voyna, I can't be sure whether you are deliberately putting words in my mouth or if you just didn't understand what I posted.
At no point did I say that they didn't have the right to boycott Oculus, I just said I thought that that was worse than supporting a group engaging in political in-fighting.
Bollocks. A client of a business has exactly zero responsibility to keep being a client of that business for the sake of said business's employees - they are the responsibility of the BUSINESS OWNER, not of the client. Not only do the developers have the _right_ to boycott whoever they feel like but they have precisely zero _moral obligation_ of any sort to not do so. Suggesting otherwise is no less distasteful than any "think of the children"-type misdirection.
That's not what they're threatening. This argument is trotted all the time whenever an unethical business is in the spotlight. (Not that oculus is unethical, just that the argument is the same.)
It's Oculus' responsibility to get support for their product. If this bloke wasn't so full of himself no-one would know about his politics and it wouldn't be a problem. He is the one threatening people's jobs by pissing off so many people in the development community.
If the game developers want to play this game, then all the Donald Trump supporters should refuse to buy any games THEY develop. Of course, if that happened, they would claim that this infringes on their free speech because only liberals have rights. Do you really think it is appropriate to go after a company because you don't like who one of the owners voted for? Do we really want to get into this game? If you do, everyone needs to be allowed to play.
This article doesn't explain what Palmer did that is "unacceptable". Americans are free to support whoever they want in an election provided what they do is lawful. I fail to see anything unlawful or immoral about his actions, could someone please explain?
OTOH the action of the accusers (Kokoromi, Polytron, Scruta Games, Tomorrow Today Labs and Augustin Cordes) of initiating discrimination against an innocent party (Oculus) is inflammatory and has no moral justification. Such action will achieve nothing positive: it is an attempt to escalate political differences into the commercial realm and will result in a backlash unless rightfully ignored. Do these people think they have a right to deny others their own freedom of choice?
Trump is being falsely accused of "bigotry, white supremacy, hate". If you are going to accuse someone of those then you must support your accusations with evidence that he espouses those views. Do not let false allegations influence how to vote.
Defending America for the American people is the only discrimination legally permitted at a national level. Denied that right, America has nothing to defend against, so may as well disband it's armed forces, open it's borders and allow any foreign people, religion, ideology or crime syndicate to take over. It's contradictory for anyone to support foreign ethnic groups who want their own homeland like the Kurds in Syria (racial discrimination), or support Israel as a Jewish homeland (religious discrimination), yet believe that American people have no right to their own homeland (discrimination by birthright). Either everyone has a right to homeland (an exclusive place to live) or no-one does.
Trump is being falsely accused of "bigotry, white supremacy, hate". If you are going to accuse someone of those then you must support your accusations with evidence that he espouses those views. Do not let false allegations influence how to vote.
That's easy - listen to some of the thousands of minutes recorded of him speaking.
Defending America for the American people is the only discrimination legally permitted at a national level. Denied that right, America has nothing to defend against, so may as well disband it's armed forces, open it's borders and allow any foreign people, religion, ideology or crime syndicate to take over.
Ah, so are you one of those 'Merkins who will go and shoot all the muslims? or Jews? or Pastafarians?
yet believe that American people have no right to their own homeland (discrimination by birthright). Either everyone has a right to homeland (an exclusive place to live) or no-one does.
So, you want 'Merika to be exclusive to those born there? Completely anti-immigrant then?
No need to point out that the Europeans who originally invaded America were not born there?
Trump is being falsely accused of "bigotry, white supremacy, hate". If you are going to accuse someone of those then you must support your accusations with evidence that he espouses those views. Do not let false allegations influence how to vote.
Trump provides the evidence almost every single time he opens his pie hole or fires up twitter.
Please define "homeland". Your post is somewhat confusing.
Me, I am a bitzer. As far as I am concerned, I am a being this earth and my homeland is the entire earth and I resent that anyone that suggests I am not free to travel at my own accord anywhere on the face of the Earth. It is not a practical view to espouse or assume and I do not. But that is my view.
When (and if) people label Trump as a bigot, white supremacist, hate monger etc. they are technically incorrect. This does not stop them being emotionally correct. Trump is contemptuous of all (and who) he does not agree with. Contempt can look like hat and bigotry and supremacy because it simply is. Trump's personality and behaviour is that of a hateful white supremacist bigot. That is patently obvious by the words he chooses to use about people and groups. "enemy of the people" (are they no longer people?), "blood coming out of her...." (she is a woman, she is irrational, not worth considering?), "you can do anything when you are famous". let alone all the fucking tweets. His pure contempt of others (as being worthless) unless they toe _his_ line is pretty much much on record.
Trump has shown his colours. To deny it is to be as blind as he is.
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Your right, no software developer nor any of the people who work and code for it should have the right to decide or even express an opinion as to what to do with their own nascent software.
It doesn't matter how vile the opinions or how well known the mouthpiece, regardless of whether it's company policy or just hate filled spew coming from the private mouth of a man intimately linked to and massively enriched by the company.
They should be forced to support the platform and keep their stupid mouths shut. How dare they think they should speak up. Just keep quiet and wait for the wall to be built you liberal commies.
>> Just as an aside, I wonder if they would be taking this action if the smear campaign was directed against Trump. I'm gonna guess not.
I doubt it very much. In my experience rational people tend to be less repelled by smear campaigns directed against white bigoted arsehole billionaire racist hatemongers.
You seem to find that surprising. But then if you can find calm equivalence between the policies of Trump and Clinton and the people they are directed to then I'm not surprised at all.
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ViM. "The word political simply means to do with the city (polis)"
No, that's where the word came from originally. Now it means something else. Don't fall victim to the etymological fallacy or you'll decimate the language...
http://grammar.about.com/od/e/g/Etymological-Fallacy.htm
http://xkcd.com/1012/
"The idea that scientists and engineers should stay out of politics is one of the best weapons the PPE people have for getting their way."
In science, engineering or medicine, if the observed evidence doesn't fit your view of the world you have to change your view - it's about getting things right, not pandering to someonee's pet ideas. In politics if you don't like the evidence that's being presented because it doesn't fit your agenda you just fire the scientists who brought you the evidence and badmouth them to the press. For a UK example just look at what they did to Prof. David Nutt.
The politicians have nothing but contempt for scientists, engineers (and medics) because we get in their way, as logic, reasoning and fact-based discourse threaten to derail their ideological and corruption-based scheming. If you stay out of politics you're just pandering to their wishes to carry on doing what they want, and to hell with what's good for the country.
Really? I find that the only people I can talk politics with and not be mentally engineering a number of horrific BOFH endings for the people I'm talking with**. Rather, even with someone who has an opposed political viewpoint (which is impossible, as I am a 'Moderate' or analog in a retardedly digital political spectrum) in a Tech forum, the conversation devolves into "It comes down to a shitload of money being thrown at {Political/Social/Monetary/Regulatory}$SYSTEM which we regard as horribly concieved/planned/engeered/implimented (because it clearly is) due to people with no clear understanding of the actual problem but with an acute awareness of Pork in The Pie.
Look at that. No name calling. No blame on any single entity. Money wasted on solving a problem with shitty engineering because Other Departments are Empire Building. Politics are nothing but a single order of magnitude increase (mandlebrot style) in the exact same crap I see from the V-and-C Suites in any organization I've done IT in in the last quarter-century.
Nah. I think Tech Forums (Tech Folks, actully) and Political discussions are just fine.
** In fact, Engineers often put their personal differences aside to engineer, say, a better LART, together, as friends, possibly at the pub. (Tech people: Rational, clued, pickled.)
"He should of [sic] got a SuperPAC setup and donated anonymously like everyone else that wants to buy a piece of the action:"
I think you mean a 501(c)(4). SuperPACs have to disclose their donors, and can campaign. 501(c)(4)s don't have to disclose their donors but cannot campaign. But 501(c)(4)s can donate to SuperPACs.
As evidenced by Stephen Colbert's 501(c)(4) "Colbert Super PAC SHH Institute", previously known as "Anonymous Shell Corporation" (the official name).
Looks very much like PR disaster-management to me. Saying such things do not hold water next to declarations such as "I will fly my jet one minute less".
First of all, if one minute of your jet costs less than one glass of Scotch, your jet ain't worth boasting about. Second, you can hardly fly a jet (unless it's a virtual one, in which case I'll take you on any time).
Public opinion is a thing since Vietnam. A crash course seems to be required for the board at FOculous, because they're going to get it in the rear now. And I have to say I am not sorry. I hated the day I read that Facebook, of all things, had got its grubby mitts on what promised to be a great product.
This is just another step into oblivion.
Or then again, maybe someone seriously ripped you off for your Scotch.
I like the odd classy single malt (simply love Talisker Port Ruighe, or some of the Ardbeg offerings), and I have seen some eyewateringly high prices on bottles (always wonder if they could possibly be worth it), but if you pay more per tot than the cost of flying a jet for a minute, I feel you may well have been ripped off, and bought the bottle for some false prestige, rather than having superior taste buds. Might be wrong of course, but I suspect not
So the rest of the world has to suffer because you've got yourself into a place where your only options are a Federal-level criminal who shouldn't even be eligible to run for this office and the comedy act with the daft hair
Whoever wins, you're fucked. Stop ruining things for the rest of us.
Come to think of it, you're pretty much there when it comes to conditions for asylum: the country you're fleeing has no longer functional law & order, and your life is constantly at risk of people with a gun (which appears to include said law & order if you're black). Your challenge, however, will be to get rid of the US passport as soon as possible, but I think you should probably get a new one on pure humanitarian grounds (wasn't there a country that was selling cheap citizenship?).
Not to make light of the reasons people flee a country, of course, but the US no longer strikes me as an interesting place to be. It's a shame, and IMHO a massive waste.
You need to get your news from a less biased source.
The vast majority of America's murders (with and without guns) are committed by a busy cadre of criminals, mostly killing other criminals. If you're not engaged in criminal enterprise, your odds of being murdered are pretty low indeed. In a country of a third of a billion people, it's not hard to find the exceptions for the "if it bleeds, it leads" news cycle, but we never hear about 99% of them on the news.
Blacks are not being killed by police in any remarkable numbers. They're actually less likely to be shot and killed by the police on any given encounter than whites. Not only that, but most of the police shootings of people of any race are justified.
Downvote away, as I am sure people will, but think about what it means when you're downvoting actual verifiable facts just because they don't match your preconceived notions. Confirmation bias can be a real pain!
"Blacks are not being killed by police in any remarkable numbers. They're actually less likely to be shot and killed by the police on any given encounter than whites. Not only that, but most of the police shootings of people of any race are justified."
Oh goody. Another misuse of statistics. It's not that blacks are being killed more often in any given encounter, it's that these encounters are much more likely to happen to blacks than whites. So if a black person has as much chance of being shot per encounter as a white person, but is ten times more likely to have an encounter, can you please tell me how much more likely he is to be shot?
"...most of the police shootings of people of any race are justified."
OK, so that means that up to 50% of police shootings are not justified? I would bloody well hope that most police shootings are justified. In fact I'd be concerned if any at all are not, and if one is not justified, then the police involved would go on trial. (Not necessarily convicted of course, but a full, public investigation involving a judge and lawyers, just as when non-police shoot people in an unjustified manner.) But who decides if the shootings are justified? Oh yes, the police.
UpDraft,
You could be right, would you be so kind as to provide a link to statistically valid studies thereof?
Btw the NRA must not be in anyway responsible for funding of, defining sample criteria, or 'editing the final draft' of such studies.
I await your response!
Cheers,
Jay.
Although I disagree with your conclusion, it's fair to say any conclusion is going to depend on which metric and news sources you choose.
If you're interested in who the victims of gun violence actually are, rather than who you think they are, you won't get much better than piece in the Guardian by Gary Younge.
He picked a random day and wrote about every child in America killed that day by guns. There were ten, by the way. No massaging of statistics, no editorial opinions, no selective quoting. Just a typical day in America. He's a superb writer but it's a tough read.
the comedy act with the daft hair who still thinks he can give himself a presidential pardon just before that November court appearance, fire the judge if that fails or rewrite the law to get off the hook.
Forgetting the last Clinton couldn't manage that, despite being 10x more slippery and not having pissed off the entire legal system.
.
"Whoever wins, you're fucked. Stop ruining things for the rest of us."
Unfortunately, we've already been fucked and things are already ruined.
Have been (fucked and ruined) for a good while now.
To get to *this* point, things have just gotten much worse than they seem to be at first sight.
All the crap that will ensue after the US elections will have dire effects on the rest of the American continent (yes, it's a continent) which inevitably will also reach the European continent.
As things stand today, I don't think there's a way around that.
We'll *all* pay the price of (even more) corporation backed incompetence taking hold of the Oval Office, yet again.
Remember Ronald (Reagan), his handler Donald (Regan) and how we are still paying the consequences of their actions today?
Cheers.
Why not 'American Liberals' stop ruining the world around you? The real problem with the last 3 elections is that Democrats have been able to choose all the candidates. The news media has completely lost all pretense of being impartial and is hell-bent on electing a Democrat. To further this aim, they are the ones who determine which Republican candidates are allowed in the debates and get press. Any Republican who seems competent gets destroyed by ridiculous accusations that the press hype to the sun until the candidate is forced to withdraw. If you don't believe me, didn't Rick Perry have to withdraw from his Presidential bid because someone said his dad once rented a place for vacation that at one time had something spray-painted on a rock that might have been a racial slur? Hillary Clinton commits a variety of criminal acts, then the FBI director refuses to press charges because he says laws are for little people and the press cheers! You wonder why Donald Trump is the Republican nominee? The press wanted him because he was the only one Hillary Clinton has a chance of beating, so don't blame all the American people, blame the liberals. You can really blame them when we default because we can't ever pay back the $13 trillion Obama has borrowed for all his giveaways (for comparison, Bush only borrowed ~$4 trillion for all his military actions). Hillary with her free college, free healthcare, etc, will continue to borrow and we won't make it through her first term until we have to default or print all those $1 trillion platinum coins Obama was considering.
*Sets Beer Down*
Brah, as an American I got two things to say to that:
1. For the love of all, I really wish we *would* stop leading the damned world around. We're in teh Teenage Boy stage of development as a country. Belligerent, rude, loud, horny, stupid, arrogant, just physically developed enough to be a serious problem, and Absolutely Certain that our parents know jack-and-shit and we'll show em' won't we. And if we get through shit-head phase in the next 50 years without the rest of the world (correctly) kicking our asses down, might actually make a Reasonable Adult Country some day. Stranger things have happened.
2. Could you be bothered to tell YOUR leadership that OUR leadersbip is batshit crazy and please stop encouraging them? I seem to recall the only sane country at the start of the Iraq stuff was France. FRANCE! I mean...really.
We're in the Teenage Boy stage of development as a country
Absolutely true, but the main issue with that is that you're a teenage boy with Weapons of Mass Destruction at your fingertips which makes it kinda hard for the rest of the world to give you the spanking you deserve. That's why the Chinese have started to work on taking your pocket money away (the CNY is becoming a reserve currency for a reason), but they have their own problems right now. I really hope you grow up at some point because there's a lot of potential wasted.
Well, it's a hell of a lot harder to haul our toys (The CORRECT term is "Chemical/Biological/Nuclear Tactical and Strategic Weapons", I'm a military brat from the Cold War, I insist. WMDs is an acronymn to scare the South and Midwest in the US into stupidity turnip in the Oval Office that can't pronounce "Nuclear". I'm an engineer, *literally* my pocket knife and calculator could be WMDs.) around in the '57 Chevy when we got no pocket money, that's for sure.
Again, electing leadership on your side of The Pond that are somewhat more willing to say "No, so, you can't go out this Friday night." and take the Political and Economic keys away would be good. The British Prime Minister at the time was checking the oil and air in the tires. For real? That sort of parenting isn't helping. The United States (have a look around, we're not) could really use some tough love, and a right kick in the ass on the world stage.
Saying we Had Potential was very kind. Thanks for that.
I intentionally misspelled "the" before teenagers, for the record. ;)
(No beer icon today, headcold.)
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