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.'"

Comments

What a Waste

[aaarrrgggh]

We complain about lobbyists... but this is so much worse

Re:What a Waste

[ichthus]

Attempting to affect public opinion through comical posts is worse than bribing public officials? I don't think you know what you're saying.

Anti-Hillary is not Pro-Trump

[SuperKendall]

There are a LOT of good reasons to be against Hillary without being for Trump.

A big one is this - after what she and the DNC did to Sanders, you all plan to reward her by voting for Hillary? Do you think the DNC will become more, or less corrupt if Hillary wins.

In the end it will not make that vast a difference in Trump or Clinton wins, two arms springing from the same body politic. So don't vote to destroy whatever shred of goodness was left of the DNC by rewarding corruption and massive corporate backroom deals which will be rewarded lavishly during her time in office (just as they were while she was secretary of state).

Re:Anti-Hillary is not Pro-Trump

[Dahamma]

He didn't call Trump a Nazi, or say he is Hitler. He said he "uses the same speech tactics that Hitler did". Which in a number of cases is objectively, demonstrably true.

If you don't see some of the parallels in the wording of antisemitic propaganda of the 30's and anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim propaganda of the last year, you are not paying attention or refusing to listen.

And it's not all "Nazi" in origin - many Trump supporters, including several IN CONGRESS, have LITERALLY DEFENDED the idea of bringing back US Internment camps. The US didn't have a particularly good track record on immigrants or minorities in the 30's either. And how did that isolationism work out for the world?

Re:Anti-Hillary is not Pro-Trump

[ooloorie]

this is certainly a fine opinion from the perspective of a privileged white male but the rest of us see a vast difference when it comes to the rights of minorities.

Yeah, you're right: if Clinton wins, she'll continue to wreak havoc in minority communities with her corrupt and dysfunctional social policies. She'll continue lying to the LGBTQ community about her support and support homophobic, misogynistic, and racist regimes if they only pay her enough. And she'll continue pandering to illegal immigrants while legal and skilled immigrants have to deal with a dysfunctional immigration system. And while she's at it, she'll hurt the economy a bit, start a war or two, raise taxes, and drive up medical costs to pay off her buddies in the insurance and medical industries. That's just the kind of woman she is. And, of course, she is a favorite with privileged white male voters.

Re:Anti-Hillary is not Pro-Trump

[swb]

The one big idea Democrats have really succeeded with (at least among Democrats) is the "Trump will ruin the country" meme.

Assuming he were to get elected, he has no party structure behind him which means near zero leverage with Congressional Republicans. Congressional Republicans will (rightly, I'd wager) see him as a one-term phenomenon and begin immediately jockeying/campaigning for the 2020 Presidency.

With no Congressional support, he's a straw man. Anything controversial he would do with any executive power would likely be challenged and held up in endless court battles.

How could Trump be worse for the country than Bush II? Bush II had near complete party support, a team of long-term political insiders in his administration and significant control of Congress.

Re:Incoming liberal asspain

[plopez]

Trump may be the president America deserves.

Really? Why?

[Okian Warrior]

We complain about lobbyists... but this is so much worse

I'm curious why you think this is.

We've just had an article about lobbyists that prevent Tesla from selling in Michigan without going through dealerships (which are universally hated), another recent article where lobbyists caused a town to lose it's working gigibit fibre internet.

For contrast, note that the democrats put up a billboard of Trump kissing Cruz, and naked statues of Trump in several cities.

Question 1: Why is this worse than what Democrats do, and

Question 2: Why is this worse than lobbyists who actually screw us over and make our lives miserable?

Really. I honestly want to know. Why should this be of any concern to anyone?

Re:Really? Why?

[guises]

Well I'm not the grandparent, and I don't agree with the grandparent, but I'll respond anyway:

Your first question is flamebait. The non-trollish way to phrase that would be something like: "How is this qualitatively different from other campaign propaganda?" And the answer would be something along the lines of: It's true that campaign ads and other tactics can be flat-out deceitful, but there is some measure of difference between deceptive ads and astroturfing. Neither are good, both are working against us, but one exploits our trust in the honesty of our peers and in doing so sabotages our basic ability to communicate with one another.

For your second question: I don't think it is worse. It's not better either, it's basically the same - lobbyists are doing exactly this, constantly. They deceive constituents and organize campaign contributions all in an effort to get their legislation passed. What is this doing? Deceiving constituents in an effort to get someone elected, who will then go on to pass legislation. No difference.

Your last question though, "Why should this be of any concern to anyone?" is... what? This should be of tremendous concern to everyone. The fact that it isn't is part of the problem.

Re:So Palmer supports a fascist demagogue.

[iMadeGhostzilla]

That's ignorance talking, making a leap from Trump is loud and obnoxious to he would fire nukes. Trump is a nationalist and doesn't want to be engaged outside of what directly confronts US interests. In that he's like Obama, who was extremely cautions about intervening for humanitarian or idealistic reasons. Hillary on the other side is an old-school interventionist.

Want more confirmation besides her track record? She pressured Obama into intervening in Libya. She even prevented the US' military from negotiating peace with Gaddhafi through the channel they established in secrecy from her. Check it out on Washington Times, all the records are there. Libya for all practical purposes doesn't exist anymore. When Obama saw how it turned out he refused to go into Syria. And then 51 neocon "diplomats" in a leaked cable urged Obama to strike at Assad, who is a Russian ally. Almost all of them support Hillary.

So who's more likely to start a nuclear war?

Brilliant insight.

[Boronx]

The American Revolution was funded by wealthy individuals

On the one hand, the American Revolution was also lead by philosophers, scientists, judges, generals, etc. These guys had some ideas about how to create a better system than what they inherited.

On the other hand, you have Donald Trump. His philosophical concept of government is that "Only I can fix it" and "All you need to know is that I'll take care of it. Don't worry about." "There's going to be so much winning." etc. Luckey and Thiel should be so proud.

I remember when...

[stillpixel]

When posts on /. were intelligent and the users replied with equal intelligence. Now it's no better than comment sections on any other website on the internet.

Re: Yeah but there's a whole world out there

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone who claims what Trump would do as a president is lying. Including Trump.

Re: Yeah but there's a whole world out there

[Dahamma]

Are you serious? Trump has stated 1) he wouldn't necessarily honor NATO commitments and 2) he is a "big fan" of the leader of the country NATO was created to resist. You better believe the rest of the world is acutely interested in the results of this election.

Besides, it sounds like you are an American - and the typical American who makes broad assumptions about the rest of the world without actually ENGAGING with it. Pretty much every non-American friend I have is interested - sometimes literally fascinated - with what's going on right now in American politics.

Fighting the American elite...

[Michael Woodhams]

by giving power to Trump. Words fail me.

Re: Yeah but there's a whole world out there

[Dahamma]

Tell that to Georgia and Ukraine. You are delusional if you really think that.

Re: Yeah but there's a whole world out there

[Anonymous Coward]

I think most US citizens are going to get fucking upset when they suddenly find most of the items they use on a day to day basis become unavailable or cost 10 times more. I always find it amusing the ignorance of the people that push the protectionist or disentanglement view, when the reality of that view kicks in and they realise it means a lower standard of living for themselves they quickly change their mind. The people of the U.K. are only just now starting to realise the consequences of brexit and are pretty upset, many voted thinking it would just be about supporting their own economy and controlling their borders and would not listen to the people explaining what they would have to give up with imports, exports, visas, travel etc etc. now the reality is being explained to them they are pissed.

Re:Yeah but there's a whole world out there

[skam240]

"Start proxy wars with Russia"? How about Russia not starting proxy wars with the West? Russia invades and seizes part of Ukraine just when they decide they want to be more pro EU. It even currently enjoys a "civil war" that wouldnt have lasted a week without Russian arms and soldiers. They control a tiny portion of the country but somehow are capable of withstanding the rest of the country's army not to mention performing large offensive pushed early in the war? Clearly all of those photos of Russian military equipment Ukraine never owned from within Ukraine show something is going on, right?

Or maybe Syria is the "proxy war" you speak of? Was all of the Arab spring started by the US or just the Syria part? Is our extensive campaign against ISIS, where ever they may be, a secret move against Russia?

Or maybe the proxy war was those evil Georgians that got invaded by Russia right when entering into NATO might have been a possibility?

Please. Tell me. What are these terrible evils the US visits on Russia?

Re:So Palmer supports a fascist demagogue.

[Mashiki]

Guess there's a reason why when you're an ideologue you believe all the shit put before you as fact. Remember Hillary's "pepe the frog is a symbol of white supremacy" bit that you swallowed hook line and sinker? Yeah, published by the same rag that claims this to be fact, and has yet to publish a correction stating that they were trolled into believing that. If you're trusting the daily beast to be factual, then you likely trust media matters not to take things out of context to create political talking points and carry agendas.

Re: Echo chamber

[whodunit]

That might be because Trump is unapologetic in his avocation for prioritizing American interests over those of the world at large - in foreign trade, in overseas military action and in diplomacy. Naturally this will annoy denizens of European nations that've drastically under-spent on their armed forces for decades, preferring to freeload off the guaranteed protection of US/UK forces. Even former defense secretary Robert Gates - who's gotten snippy with Trump's foreign policy statements - himself said that NATO was becoming a "two-tier" alliance of fighters and freeloaders. It's taken repeated and persistent Russian aggression to finally reverse that trend, and it might already be too little, too late. Someone rattling Europe's cage to stimulate defense spending is exactly what they've needed - a little more rattling can only produce more spending.

Some Americans have a strange fascination with the opinions of foreigners on our politics - the American left wing holds them in particularly high regard - for reasons I cannot fathom. Said people often cite said opinions as if they're significant to our internal discourse as American citizens.

When these foreigners pay taxes to the American government, then I'll care about their opinion. Until then, they can take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

Re: Yeah but there's a whole world out there

[smooth wombat]

Problem: The idiots are voting because they think they DO know that.

No, the real issue is this:

The vast majority of people are idiots. The problem is they're too stupid to realize it.

Re:Yeah but there's a whole world out there

[DigiShaman]

You really want to pay more for your groceries, for your deliveries, for your repairs, for ... well, pretty much anything?

Aside from the moral issue of uprooting established illegals that have made a life for themselves over the last 10 year, to answer your question economically, YES YES and YES! When you import cheap labor, not only are you leaving Americans without an opportunity to earn a living, you now drive wages into the ground and force all those effected into taking more government assistance. That assistance is payed for by the tax payer. And who shoulders the cost? The broad numbers of the middle-class. As such, the disparity between the rich and poo/middle class is growing exponentially!

Pay now, or pay dearly later, but we all WILL PAY in the end.

Re:Yeah but there's a whole world out there

[ArchieBunker]

The original poster is correct. We shouldn't be using illegal labor to justify low prices. I don't have a problem with immigrants. I have a problem with illegal immigrants not paying their fare share in taxes. Most of the money they make gets sent back to Mexico anyhow.