
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is developing border surveillance technology - petergatsby
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/04/palmer-luckey-border-surveillance-technology/
======
micaksica
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.)

Besides, there's something better to learn here: the surveillance state will
always find _willing_ 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.

~~~
TulliusCicero
I'm confused about what's inherently oppressive about making the border more
secure. Personally I oppose Trump's stupid wall because it's a useless,
wasteful boondoggle, not because having a secure border is inherently bad.

~~~
chc
So, you have a border that is not widely perceived to be a very big security
problem, and most national security incidents have arisen through other
vectors, and you propose redundant, expensive measures for border security.
This raises the question of why, since "border security" doesn't seem like a
realistic answer. The people who see it as oppressive believe the real purpose
of this push for "border security" is a political statement to the effect of
"brown people aren't welcome here." (Trump also kind of helped give this
theory currency by claiming that Americans of Mexican descent are so likely to
be biased against him due to the wall that a Mexican-American judge needed to
recuse himself.)

~~~
j05huaNathaniel
ISIS has explicitly stated that it plans to infiltrate the US through lax
border security. I think it is more than fair to take that threat seriously.

~~~
Jack000
Should probably focus on the Canadian border in that case

~~~
DonHopkins
America really needs to focus on reinforcing the wall along the border between
the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, and the Judicial Branch.

------
gavanwoolery
I'm always willing to take the unpopular side, as anyone who knows me knows.

With regards to Luckey's exit from Facebook, and the controversy of his
politically-oriented actions:

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).

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.

We are afraid that free speech will incite violence, but ironically a lot more
violence has come from trying to suppress free speech.

~~~
dajomu
The issue isn't necessarily that he supports Trump, it's that he donated money
to a group that knowingly shitposts, which if anything is an attack on free
speech. A quote from that group: "shitposting is powerful and meme magic is
real". The founders of the same group spread white supremacist and anti-
semitic memes.

Surely the problem with funding a group like that is that they are actively
employing measures to reduce free speech or a balanced political discussion?
In that context it's not someone who is using their free speech, but employing
others to suppress it. That's the problem I have with Luckey's actions (and
yes, a whole lot of other people's too).

~~~
gavanwoolery
Yep, in fact he supposedly supports Ron Paul, but Nimble America is definitely
a more Trump-ish, alt-right-ish type of thing.

According to Luckey, they made some memes that he liked. Maybe they were not
racist memes, but I do not know. Maybe Luckey did not know about some of their
worse memes. Anyhow, he threw them a chunk of money. We can infer without
greater evidence that Luckey is racist simply because he donated to something.

All of that said, the one and only attack on free speech is censorship.
Censorship comes in many forms, including the form of shaming people. I think
what the alt-right does is dumb, but at the same time, they hide in their own
dark corner of the internet and I never have to interact with them so I am
fine carrying about my business. Luckey donating to Nimble America had a
similar lack of effect on me.

~~~
jaredklewis
Shaming people is censorship? I mean maybe, but then the spectrum is rather
large.

When I think censorship I think people being fined, thrown in cages, or even
killed for saying or writing the wrong kind of thing.

That is a very different thing than, "Shame on you! What would your mother
think?"

~~~
wccrawford
I think we've reached a point in society where having your livelihood taken
from you is the same as being jailed, aka "thrown in cages".

The difference, of course, is that it isn't the government doing it. It's the
general population.

I'm of 2 minds about it because I don't want to support anyone that supports
racism.

But I also feel that people deserve second chances. People do learn from their
mistakes, and they have to be allowed to continue on afterwards or there's no
point in changing.

I haven't heard of Luckey apologizing, but that isn't surprising because the
media doesn't think that's good enough news to broadcast. They only publish
the worst stuff, not the best. He might have done so and I'd have no idea.

~~~
shepardrtc
>I think we've reached a point in society where having your livelihood taken
from you is the same as being jailed, aka "thrown in cages". >The difference,
of course, is that it isn't the government doing it. It's the general
population.

That's society saying that one's behavior is unacceptable and that it won't do
business with them. I find that perfectly acceptable. Its not being forced by
a single entity, but rather a general consensus is reached among everyone.

> I haven't heard of Luckey apologizing

Because he hasn't.

~~~
psyc
It isn't behavior anymore. It's political opinions. Usually mainstream ones.
Often witch-hunt style - i.e. the victim didn't even hold the opinion
attributed to them by the mob.

This isn't a good norm.

~~~
shepardrtc
> It isn't behavior anymore. It's political opinions. Usually mainstream ones.

Empowering groups with money is a behavior.

> Often witch-hunt style - i.e. the victim didn't even hold the opinion
> attributed to them by the mob.

What opinion was attributed to Luckey that he didn't seem to hold or support?

~~~
wccrawford
I don't think he was talking about Luckey for the attributed opinion bit.

I've seen a _lot_ of social media that's based on a misinterpretation of a
Twitter comment, and people screaming for them to be fired for some kind of
prejudice that never actually existed. It quickly got to the point that I no
longer trust the general public to be right about anything that involves
social media. Even cursory sanity checks fail.

------
beilabs
As an engineer there are certain things I refuse to work on. Anything to do
with weapons, immigration, gambling. The list is ever evolving...

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.

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.

~~~
stale2002
Wait, and the line that you are drawing in the sand is at border security
cameras?

This isn't families getting deported. This is cameras, on the border.

Or do you believe that border crossings are inherently immoral?

~~~
astrodust
This is about border cameras, sure, just as much as border patrol is about
borders. It's not uncommon for border patrol to set up checkpoints two or
three hundred miles from the border just to shake down people for
identification (Papers, please!).

Today's border cameras are liable to be deployed all over in the future. Watch
what you build because it's very hard to un-build things.

~~~
sremani
The farther I know is Sarita TX and one along I-10 some where in AZ (been
through both), they are not two hundred miles inside, even though Sarita TX is
about 80 miles from border. Would really appreciate if you can point one check
post that is 200 miles inland from border?

~~~
astrodust
This practice is so rampant apparently there's a Wikipedia page for it now:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol_interior_checkpoints)

I'm not sure if the 100 mile thing is a new convention or not
([https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-
zone](https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone)) but it's
100 miles from the border as the crow flies, not via highways. That means the
entire state of Vermont is somehow inside that zone.

I think the 200 mile figure that was reported, though I can't find the
citation, involved the driving distance. Vermont, for example, is 159 miles
end to end, and somehow the southern tip is in the border zone.

What if they decide this entire zone is worth putting up cameras in? What if
that software that recognizes "illegals" is so bad that it simply tags anyone
who looks vaguely Mexican? These systems are only as good as their data, and
the data is astonishingly thin in areas where it counts.

A recent story covered three people that were treated as "identical" in the
police database because they had the same first/middle/last names and
birthdates. [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/identity-
the...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/identity-theft-racial-
justice)

~~~
mywittyname
> is so bad that it simply tags anyone who looks vaguely Mexican

Or someone without a ~~personal tracking device~~ cellphone

------
averagewall
Can someone explain the apparent cognitive dissonance of popular HN opinion
which seems to be:

1) Working on US border security is bad.

2) US Soldiers are good. Even though their job is ultimately for border
security and border security in other countries.

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?

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?

~~~
mavelikara
Also amusing is to observe the HN/SV attitude towards skilled immigration vs
otherwise.

When President Trump issued an Executive Order banning immigrants from seven
countries, over 100 tech companies showed up at the courts opposing the move.
But support for skilled immigration - i.e. immigrants working at these tech
companies - is scant. For instance, so far only Microsoft [2] has come forward
to support legislation fixing systemic discrimination against skilled
immigrants from the most populous countries.

Sure, the firms are free to choose the causes they support. But it sounds
hollow when they are blind to plight of their own employees who they come
across every day, but are able to manufacture anguish for others they often
have very little contact.

[1]: [https://www.recode.net/2017/4/19/15363806/trump-amazon-
googl...](https://www.recode.net/2017/4/19/15363806/trump-amazon-google-
facebook-travel-ban-rejection)

[2]:
[https://www.facebook.com/CongressmanJasonChaffetz/posts/1222...](https://www.facebook.com/CongressmanJasonChaffetz/posts/1222121941236420)

~~~
dguaraglia
If you truly think that tech companies haven't been lobbying to change the H1B
program for ages... then you really live in a bubble.

~~~
mavelikara
They have been arguing for increasing the number of H1Bs. But when those H1Bs
arrive in the country, work for their employers and then apply for permanent
residentship, most of them - those from populous countries - are faced with
wait times that last decades.

Note that I was talking about relief for _current_ employees of these tech
companies. Please direct me to evidence supporting massive support for this
cause from tech companies.

~~~
dguaraglia
I'm not really sure I understand your point. What you are saying is that
companies:

1) Lobby to increase H1B caps 2) Once they are here they "don't do anything"
to help them get permanent residency

I think you are conflating two very different things: Valley companies were
very vocal about _refugees not being allowed into the country_ , which has
little (arguably nothing) to do with H1B immigration. Most people coming on
H1Bs aren't fleeing a war zone or at risk of death.

While waiting times for extremely populous countries (i.e. China and India)
can be very long, that's because of the way immigration quotas for
citizenship/permanent residency are setup, and has nothing to do with the
employer/employee relationship that is in the company's interest.

What, exactly, do you expect companies to do besides providing a job? What
would be your proposal?

~~~
mavelikara
_What, exactly, do you expect companies to do besides providing a job? What
would be your proposal?_

My proposal would be for companies to use their lobbying muscle to try pass
legislation that would put a stop to the systemic racial discrimination
embodied in the current legal immigration laws. It is no longer called "XYZ
Exclusion Act of NNN" but that is what it boils down to, in practice. See
Microsoft's stance I linked to in the comment you replied to originally. More
of the same is what I expect from Valley companies who benefit immensely from
the labor of immigrants.

Instead these companies choose to use their influence to speak for allowing
more refugees into the country, protecting illegal immigrants etc. This comes
out as hollow to me. If these companies really cared for immigration issues,
there are issues much closer to home.

It needn't be this or that. But, the fact that organizations like FWD.us etc
are _completely_ silent about _legal_ immigration issues makes one wonder
about their true intentions.

------
mgraczyk
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."

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"

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?

~~~
soundwave106
Yeah, the article confuses some basic details. The "shitposting group" that
Palmer Luckey gave money to is called Nimble America. Palmer Luckey reportedly
gave $10,000 to that group, not $100,000. Due to the inflammatory nature of
the group, there was a controversy last September on exactly how much Palmer
was directly involved. This is all easily Google-searchable.

I can see this being on Hacker News due to the technology connection. It would
have been better to find a more neutral / factual article, perhaps. Maybe the
BBC version?
([http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40158899](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40158899))

------
av3csr
Sounds like an interesting use of lidars

------
pvg
This is a dupe/blogspam of the original reporting of

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/business/oculus-palmer-
lu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/business/oculus-palmer-luckey-new-
start-up.html)

(itself already sensibly flagged to oblivion).

~~~
minimaxir
The original NYTimes article was never flagkilled:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nytimes.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nytimes.com)

~~~
pvg
I didn't say it was flagkilled.

------
pinaceae
It is a short journey from fleecing investors to fleece the government.

------
codecamper
Spend too much time using computers & developing software & the rest of your
being does not get developed.

------
Grue3
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
_winning_ presidential candidate.

