Oculus Co-Founder and Rift Creator Palmer Luckey Departs Facebook | Hacker News Reader

Oculus Co-Founder and Rift Creator Palmer Luckey Departs Facebook

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30 pointshturan14 comments

I'm not a fan of Luckey's politics, but gosh I am super grateful for his work getting the Rift to production. I admire his persistence, his ability to assemble and obviously talented team.

I am sure he learned a lot from taking his garage prototype all the way through a billion dollar acquisition. And I hope he learned some things from his first dip into politics.

I look at someone like him, and though I can criticize his beliefs and actions, he's also a pretty normal kid who group up on YouTube and 4chan and is struggling with a pretty confusing soup of ideas, just like all of us. You never know what people are like on the inside, but I'm going to assume his heart is in the right place, and I look forward to seeing what he does next. I am absolutely certain he's caught glimpses of the VR future no one else has, and he'll do his darndest to bring them into the world.

Sorry, don't feel sorry for the guy worth however many millions. He could have easily avoided all the negative stuff by just not getting involved.

edit: Thiel is one of the most prominent tech guys to support Trump. Zuckerberg defended him when people started calling for him to be removed.

The difference is that Luckey

1. was the face of the company 2. had issues with the community before any of the trump stuff came out. He pretty much stopped using Reddit because of it. 3. Is named in a lawsuit. 4. Supported Trump in a pretty childish way. Giving a donation or endorsing him is one thing. Trying to fund memes just looks bad.

For a guy who's main role seemed to be PR he did a poor job of it.

You're right, he could have continued with his work had he simply avoided ever giving anyone the impression he held any beliefs which varied from THE ORTHODOXY.

But why should that have been required of him?

He has the freedom to do what he wants. And others have the freedom to judge him for doing so.

Going against the grain has, and will always be a dangerous proposition and no amount of thought policing will change that.

Being a weird is far more dangerous than being a normal. We agree.

Being gay is far more dangerous than being straight.

Being Muslim in a majority Christian or Hindu society is far more dangerous than being a adherent of the prevailing religion.

We could list examples all day, but it's a plainly obvious phenomenon. What I want to know is why so many people seem to act as if there's inherent moral superiority in being in the majority. There isn't.

(Also, cute bit of doublespeak characterizing a challenge to orthodoxy as "thought policing".)

Based on some of the things Trump has said about mexicans, muslims, women, etc, I'm finding it really hard to believe you don't understand why people would be offended by his supporters. If I told you all women are property and should be subservient to men, would you really want to have an honest conversation with me? Are we really at a point where "I grab them by the pussy" is something that is up for debate?

> But why should that have been required of him?

It's not, and now he's dealing with the side effects of the choice he made.

Oh come the fuck on, if that's the position you're going to take at least own up to it.

I asked why his continued employment ought to be predicated on never giving the impression that he holds beliefs that people like you find offensive.

You say "It's not." But it obviously was. We can all see that it was, that's what TFA (as well as all the other press about Lucky in the last 12 months) is about: His perceived beliefs, how unacceptable they are to you, and whether or not he ought to be cast out as a consequence.

What you meant to say was "He should have known better than to give the impression that he believes things that I, and people like me, disapprove of."

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