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Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey Is Secretly Funding Trump's Meme Machine (thedailybeast.com)
The founder of Oculus, Palmer Luckey, has backed a pro-Trump political organization called Nimble America that is dedicated to "shitposting" and spreading inflammatory memes about Hillary Clinton. In 2014, Luckey's virtual-reality company, Oculus, was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion. Forbes estimates his current net worth to be $700 million. The Daily Beast reports: "The 24-year-old told The Daily Beast that he had used the pseudonym "NimbleRichMan" on Reddit with a password given to him by the organization's founders. Nimble America says it's dedicated to providing that "shitposting is powerful and meme magic is real," according to the company's introductory statement, and has taken credit for a billboard its founders say was posted outside of Pittsburgh with a cartoonishly large image of Clinton's face alongside the words "Too Big to Jail." "We conquered Reddit and drive narrative on social media, conquered the [mainstream media], now it's time to get our most delicious memes in front of Americans whether they like it or not," a representative for the group wrote in an introductory post on Reddit. Potential donors from Donald Trump's biggest online community -- Reddit's r/The_Donald, where one of the rules is "no dissenters" -- turned on the organization this weekend, refusing to believe "NimbleRichMan" was the anonymous "near-billionaire" he claimed to be and causing a rift on one of the alt-right's most powerful organizational tools. Luckey insists he's just the group's money man -- a wealthy booster who thought the meddlesome idea was funny. But he is also listed as the vice-president of the group on its website. In another post written under Luckey's Reddit pseudonym, Luckey echoes Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire who used his wealth to secretly bankroll Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker. The Daily Beast adds: "'The American Revolution was funded by wealthy individuals," NimbleRichMan wrote on Saturday. Luckey confirmed to The Daily Beast he penned the posts under his Reddit pseudonym. 'The same has been true of many movements for freedom in history. You can't fight the American elite without serious firepower. They will outspend you and destroy you by any and all means.'"
Chelsea Clinton is on the board of directors of their parent company. Go look.
Slashdot, do better. Put a disclaimer in next time.
I too work daily with an international crew. And you know what the weirdest thing is? Almost every one of them thinks Trump is utterly dangerous to the US and the rest of the world and doesn't understand how he got to where he is when there were a half dozen actually qualified Republicans running.
Sorry. Guess there's an echo in here today. ;-)
The non-echo part: My Russian colleagues don't seem to like Putin much, either, but they are very cagey about it when it comes to saying so online--even the ones who don't actually live in Russia. They're much less reticent about it in person. Gee, I wonder why.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
You make some accurate and yet irrelevant rhetorical criticism while missing (or ignoring) the point. Consider responding directly to your interlocutor's arguments with a less patronizing, more emotive style, I think you'll find people are less likely to mistake you for an asshat.
Beware of being led by emotions. They seldom lead to good decisions. To reason alone must be one's first master.
Scott Adams, who you might know as the Dilbert creator, has been saying for a while that humans make decisions on emotions and facts don't matter much or any. In fact, he argues that appealing to reason and laying out facts is actually counterproductive when faced with an opponent who appeals to emotions. I am beginning to wonder with some concern that he might be right. Recent studies have shown that if you take someone who holds a wrong belief or opinion and you can prove with evidence that the opinion is wrong, most people will actually double down and cling more stubbornly to the wrong belief. This is part of why Trump appeals to so many people. A lot of what he is says is very simple emotional arguments. Hillary has been trying to get off the facts in her speech and get more emotional as a result of this. Don't be surprised if the first debate has very little in the way of concrete ideas and a whole lot of name calling directed at the other person. People will complain that it lacks substance, but it may just be that humans in general are pretty stupid and we're just getting what we deserve with a bunch of name calling because we ignore the substance when we're given it.