Comment by dabluecaboose
8 hours ago
A friend of mine did posit the quandary that an "unpalatable" individual such as Luckey appears to be one of the few making consumer-friendly products: Removable, swappable battery packs, AA battery support, standard USB-C charging, easy interoperability, open sourced designs, exposed screws, teardown instructions, etc. Apparently ModRetro is even looking into making dumb TVs for gaming.
It's ironic, in another world HN commenters would be lauding Luckey and ModRetro for all these virtues.
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Comparing a run-of-the-mill defense contractor to a serial rapist and murderer is certainly up there in the most unhinged justifications that I've seen on HN.
I don’t think the parent comment was trying to equate the two, but rather pushing the argument to its logical extreme to test show that the reasoning doesn’t hold consistently across cases. Whether they made a convincing argument is separate.
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Wait, Ted Bundy was a defense contractor? I didn't know that.
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Yeah, one of them kills school kids for money. The other does it for the love of the game.
Run-of-the-mill. Ya know, a normal perpetuator of war profiteering. I mean he's your standard enabler of civilian bombing. Simply an average propagandist. Just a regular guy!
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I'm getting very tired of the redditification of HN. This place used to not be like this.
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It's funny how retail versus wholesale death is seen so differently.
Kill a few dozen people with your own hands and people are (rightfully) horrified.
Run a business that enables the killing of orders of magnitude more people, and you can be a respected pillar of society.
Killing instantly becomes respectable if it's done legally and for profit.
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Do not assume Hacker News is safe from foreign influence campaigns.
Sadly, this is just an average online take.
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Yeah I don't really like Luckey, or what I've heard from him anyways. But in the run up to launch the Chromatic, it became pretty clear that this guy, for whatever reason, is really passionate about gameboy. I have been less impressed with the other emulator/fpga machines. the chromatic is solid though.
> It's ironic, in another world HN commenters would be lauding Luckey and ModRetro for all these virtues.
Lot's of HN (and "social" media) commenters in this world evidently are; nothing ironic about it.
It's just many people have a radically different set of ethics which, once they become principles, can't be easily, or at all, compromised on. And just to be fair, it's not just the what, but the how (which extends not just to Luckey & Friends, but to Anduril & Friends).
I am nuanced enough to appreciate that these qualities are present in the products being produced and still not buy from this producer because of their industry ties. Hopefully someone without such ridiculously unpalatable PR is able to copycat their design and sell a competitor - and hopefully the lead they've laid sets the standard for easily replaceable parts for the market (though, I'd mention that retro gaming hardware is intentionally made to be as modular as possible in most circumstances anyways).
> I am nuanced enough to appreciate that these qualities are present in the products being produced and still not buy from this producer because of their industry ties.
ModRetro produces one thing I do have an interest in. A partly aluminium-cast version of the, to me, most ergonomic gamepad made so far: the classic trimaran-style N64 controller. But that marriage ain't gonna happen. And that goes for every other (future) product of theirs as well.
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Thanks for virtue signaling. Unfortunately, you used internet today which also powers the very industry you are trying to boycott.
> Lot's of HN (and "social" media) commenters in this world evidently are; nothing ironic about it.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's ironic that the one guy providing these consumer-friendly features is considered anathema by many of the people clamoring for those features. You, yourself even mention downthread that you'd otherwise be interested in the M64 Pro controller, but won't consider it.
I was just trying to make a genuine comment remarking on the dichotomy, but I guess people are more interested in making quippy one-liners.
> I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's ironic that the one guy providing these consumer-friendly features is considered anathema by many of the people clamoring for those features.
Yeah, I got that. I just don't think the fact that a to me detestable individual can have, or work for, an outfit that produces (some) good, interesting, or even highly impactful merchandise is at all remarkable. History is littered with such people, especially in the tech sector (e. g. Ford, von Braun, etc.).
This propaganda against Palmer Luckey completely lacks any critical thinking. Then again, I guess all propaganda is targeted at people who aren't critical thinkers to start with, so that's why it ends up working.
I've seen this astroturfing and spreading of lies increase since he delivered weapons to Taiwan so they can defend themselves. Probably the CCP amping up their influence campaign against him.
Who else did he deliver weapons to?