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.
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.
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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.
I literally was trying to equate the two.
Taking it to a logical extreme is good practice for thinking from first principles, but always pair it up with going to the logical extreme in the other direction. That might look something like: "would you really eat at a restaurant owned by a habitual jaywalker?".
Except pushing it to the logical extreme is what makes it wrong.
Nevermind that he literally was equating the two and explicitly says so.
Wait, Ted Bundy was a defense contractor? I didn't know that.
He meant Anduril as the defense contractor.
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!
I'm getting very tired of the redditification of HN. This place used to not be like this.
There is explicitly a rule against complaining about the redditification of HN.
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.
I suggest you look into the perception of self defense. Saving yourself and others via killing compared to killing to commit a crime are perceived very differently.
That’s not it. There are plenty of industrialists who have killed far more than any serial killer just for profit and they don’t get anything like the opprobrium given to serial killers.
Do not assume Hacker News is safe from foreign influence campaigns.
Sadly, this is just an average online take.
Are domestic influence campaigns fair game?
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> So you know, either go all in and live like you mean it or stop pointing fingers at only very select individuals.
Careful. You're one step away from playing out the "Yet you participate in society. Curious!" meme. Besides, many people who are not in the Anduril fan club already boycott Microsoft for their ethical transgressions.
You can't use that meme argument at the beginning and mention that it is perfectly possible to boycott the other company at the end. The whole point of the meme is that participating in society is unavoidable, right?
And I don't think you can use "one step away from" a meme arguments at all. Pattern matching to a cartoon is not a great tool for this in the first place, and once you've acknowledged that the pattern doesn't even match, what's the point?
> If we’re gonna go for a witch hunt then we better hack off Microsoft’s head as well, for instance, since even their Xbox controllers are used in military subs.
Sounds like a great idea! I'm all for it
exactly. who in their right mind would ever hate Microsoft?
Account created 2 minutes before this comment was made.
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Countries have militaries.
As well as military industrial complexes!
> 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.
Controller was terrible, if only for lack of two thumb sticks. Going back to GoldenEye, my second favorite game of all time... It's miserable.
> [...] if only for lack of two thumb sticks.
Certainly one of the most devisive controller designs, but the lack of two thumbsticks is precisely what I like about it. The pad centers one thumbstick and the trigger on opposite sides of the "main hull", with the rest of the inputs divided along two (remappable) zones, i. e. the outriggers. I have never held a controller in my hand with better ergonomics and holding adaptability. Even the size is just right for my hands.
It's the only pad that ever made FPS games on a console a joy to play for me; put in two analog sticks and you fuck with that formula. Its only serious weaknesses are the cheap plastic, especially for the thumbstick, and the weight (too light). Make a full metal version out of it, with some thumbstick material mods known from the PvP fighting game community, and it's the best. Well, at least for me.
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?