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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.'"
Guess I shouldn't be surprised. Glad I gave up on Oculus the second Facebook bought them.
He's proven himself to be a duplicitous piece of shit since the acquisition. This is not shocking.
Hillary is also a piece of shit, but not one that would immediately alienate 90% of the rest of the planet, and likely plunge us into thermonuclear war within 6 months of taking office.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Never liked her much, but I really can't understand the strong negative feelings unless you've been drinking a lot of Palmer's poisonous cool-aid. Exactly what "piece of shit" things has she done? Unless you're saying that all of the professional politicians are similar turds, in which case I basically agree, but that isn't very helpful or constructive and doesn't lead directly to any solution but Shakespeare's.
Hillary is a lawyer, and I don't like much like 'em. Actually, her primary personal identity is probably "corporate lawyer", and I like them even less. I think she has a number of personal identities that I like much better, but on her list "lawyer" is probably the top. In terms of stopping the Donald, the frightening aspect is that "politician" or even "skilled campaigner" don't seem to be in her top 10, even though I'm convinced Bill's #1 is "politician", and it's probably one of Obama's top 3. I would much prefer someone who has "philosopher" or even "statesman" near the top, but that's not how American politics works these years.
It's possible that Hillary will do some great stuff if she's elected, and pretty unlikely she will do anything terrible. In Trump's case, we really have no idea, but clearly some of his ideas are really terrible, and there is strong evidence he is even more easily manipulated than Dubya was. I'm increasingly convinced that the Donald's secret plan for quickly defeating Daesh involves nuclear weapons. Just a few little ones. "Un-liberally", I don't think a highly limited nuclear strike is such a terrible thing in the big picture, though it will certainly qualify as a war crime, but when have American war crimes ever mattered much to the USA? I think the largest risk is actually global warming, and on that topic Trump doesn't know enough to give "a piece of shit".
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
As long as Hillary wants to 'correct the record' Trump gets his online engine too. The DNC's youth (and staying power online) was mostly behind the Bernie campaign. Any attempt by Hillary to 'connect to the youth' has backfired terribly. Most recently in her Between Two Ferns interview.
After some 'incidents' the high schools around here let students know that their first amendment rights didn't go to football games. Some photo of a bunch of teens with a trump banner saluting. It went 'viral' in this region. If I had to guess knowing teens they're Trump because their parents are "Anyone but". A lot of the 4chan, "shit posting" youth of 2016 is behind Trump and it shows on Reddit (Where there's a strong correlation to "Red Pillers"). [And consequently a lot of Bernie teens because their parents are Trumpers].
It's 21st century political satire. If the memes were in the NY Times as a political cartoon it would be ignored.
I played by the rules, it took me 6 years to get a green card, and another 5 to become a citizen. I'm a skilled immigrant, and I pay six figures in taxes each year, while _not_ being in management, just for my skill, that I have cultivated over the past 20 years with hard work.
Nevertheless I agree with Trump. You can't leave the border wide open. Especially not when you have more and more people in poverty. It's supply and demand, it is not even a question for anyone not blinded by liberal demagoguery that staggering influx of people from Mexico creates oversupply of low-skilled labor and drives down the wages. Same as H1-B (thanks to which I was able to immigrate and naturalize, BTW) creates an oversupply of skilled workers on the lower end of the market, and keeps the wages in check there.
Trump also suggests good things for H1-B as far as I'm concerned: raise the prevailing wage, and abolish restrictions on moving between employers. Currently H1-B is little more than an indentured servitude visa. While moving from one employer to another is allowed, it is fraught with danger and requires filing additional paperwork. If your employer lays off or fires you, you have to GTFO of the country in very short order. This means the employer has near complete control over you, and doesn't really have to pay you more to retain you: you're likely too chickenshit to move and risk losing the visa anyway. All of that shit needs to be nuked from the orbit, with extreme prejudice. Give H1-Bs freedom to change jobs, and give them _at least_ 6 months grace period to find a job if they leave their employer or if they get fired or laid off. That will massively cut down the appetite for H1-Bs. It's not a secret abuse is widespread.
Finally, Trump (with his typical foot-in-mouth eloquence) even suggests rational things for immigration from the middle east. It's IDIOTIC to willingly import military age males from the countries _we're at war with_. At the very least, not without extremely thorough vetting, which we currently don't do. And that's all Trump is suggesting. Stop the flow temporarily, figure out how to vet, open things up in a controlled way. How is this controversial? I don't get it.
They said mean things in private? They stacked the deck for her prior to Bernie running? And you think it is worth fucking-over America (the globe even!) so that she is not "rewarded"?
It will make a yuuuuge difference whether HRC or Trump wins. Remember that people were saying there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between Bush and Gore. Does anyone on Earth think that Gore would have been as bad in policy or implementation on any issue?
Trump is Bush with more bankruptcies, less military service, and no discernible interest in anything about the job other than power.
I sincerely hope it is only Theilatans modding you up.
Hillary is not a Republican. She's Democrat. I don't know what you're thinking.
"I was under sniper fire in Bosnia."
"None of the emails on my server were classified."
"Americans were killed and dragged through the streets of Benghazi because of a youtube video."
Just a few off the top of my head, without googling. There are many, many more. But, of course, you already know this. Lying comes naturally to Hillary. Lucky for her, she's got delusional shills like you that are willing to play damage control.
sig: sauer
Well then it should never have been allowed to get that way and disentanglement should be the order of the day.
Pretty much a zero sum equation as far as I see it.
Then you aren't living in reality...
Agreed. Neither one is Hitler.
The only comparison I can think of that may be valid is Trump has shown a method of getting elected where truth doesn't matter; where career ending gaffs don't matter; where obvious attempts to court racists don't matter; where blatant appeals to emotions and feel good slogans are the rule of the day, with no real plan to implement any of it works. It is bombast rather than true leadership and wisdom.
Trump is most certainly not Hitler. I'm fairly certain he would never consider anything even on the same planet of that level of evil. That being said, if we, as an electorate allow ourselves to be persuaded by emotions, cheap slogans, lies, and bombast, then the odds of electing some truly horrific people go up considerably.
Lookup unbiased analysis of what we know of their plans and particularly look at who has been more consistent over time. Like it or not with Hillary you know pretty well what your going to get. Four more years of pretty much the same. The stock market has almost doubled under Obama. Osama died under Obama (and Hillary). Jobs are recovering. Despite complaints crime, on average, continues to decrease. Even wages are beginning to increase finally. Do you really want to give that up? So far all the unbiased analysis of Trump's plan are anything but good, and no, "Make america great again" is not a plan. That is part of the job description.
Finally, while a comparison to Hitler is inappropriate, I nevertheless was reminded of this quote:
“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
– Hermann Goering (as told to Gustav Gilbert during the Nuremberg trials)
Beware of being led by emotions. They seldom lead to good decisions. To reason alone must be one's first master.
I agree that people have to be all that to be ardent Trump supporters. But as a foreigner that have seem what Hillary has been doing to Americans and to the world, as well as her threats against both Iran and Russia, I'll say you are partially wrong (on the anti-Americanism growth).
If Trump wins we will shitpost on how stupid Americans are, both because many of you are, and to shame you for having him as president.
But we'll be glad if you elect someone that doesn't finance terrorists and start proxy wars with Russia.
He is really embarrassing, but most people I know down here in Brazil think that if Trump wins it will be mostly on the "lesser of two evils" concept. We (the people I talk to) think most Americans voting on him are in a desperate attempt of doing something for your country, but don't really believe on his white supremacy speeches. Specially after the support that Sanders got and the way that the Democrats pushed Clinton. There are plenty of polls that show that most Americans (rightfully in my opinion) dislike both your candidates.
Foreigners opinions are based on discourse only right in the very beginning. Trump's speeches are not inspiring, but we won't become anti-Americans because of that (at least not for long), we'll be more anti-Americans next time you finance armed "rebels" or start a war. Just like we became more pro-Americans when you elected the constitutional lawyer against surveillance and pro-healthcare, but only for a very short time, as we quickly realized it was just another lie (and that he would spy on our entire populations in spite of international agreements and the notion that men are created equal).
Anyway, if you care about anti-Americanism, vote for who you think will actually murder less, it is in direct relation to that, not on how bigoted your presidents are.
Re Question 2: Why is this worse than lobbyists who actually screw us over and make our lives miserable?
Lets say a wealthy person wants free speech but has no real free time in the day to engage in a long online conversation. They hire one person to be that online persona putting in say five hours a day.
What if the message is always been drowned out by facts and reality? Hire 10 people to each be 10 or 100 accounts each with their own story and time zone, ip?
In the end you just go big and go with what a gov enjoys:
"Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media " (18 March 2011)
https://www.theguardian.com/te...
British army creates team of Facebook warriors (31 January 2015)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk...
Re 'Really. I honestly want to know."
The "tell" is usually one person with a lot of accounts cleaning up after bad news about a nation, their faith or their side of politics, gov, mil or agency, having a few hours to get their spin over, before going full AC again.
Posting initial news reports or early opinion hoping to sway readers, hoping nobody will actually read the links and follow up with real news.
Virtue signalling is the big slip up most of the accounts just cannot avoid. Eg. a party political personality trait, pushing a "security clearances" past to add validity, patriotism, nationalism, jingoism, the same sob story again and again usually gets past the smart hearts and minds effort. i.e. the person befuddles their role due to their own gov work or some mil experience.
The better way is to set up a left or right think tank and have them hire based on life experience. The jargon, slang, life stories are then indistinguishable from actual account users, the spin can be perfected over years of account use. No needing tens of fake accounts, fake ip's, no fear of linguistic analysis, just perfected astroturfing for hire. The staff are happy and on message and if suited can be rolled out on book tours, public speaking, for comedy.
The better lobbyists are using well funded authors, comedians, public speakers rather than vast amounts of easily detectable online accounts.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
But really what did the DNC do do Sanders (who was not a Democrat prior to trying to run for President as one)?
They said mean things in private? They stacked the deck for her prior to Bernie running? And you think it is worth fucking-over America (the globe even!) so that she is not "rewarded"?
Early this year, when Bernie raised $60 million and Clinton had raised only $20, the DNC moved $60 million in funds earmarked for local campaigns directly into Clinton's account.
Bernie and Clinton won popular votes by roughly the ratio of their campaign spending, so the extra $60 million made a huge difference.
Bernie had momentum at the time, and would have outspent Clinton 3-to-1 in political ads. The extra advertizing would have very likely won him many of the early state primaries, and would have likely won him the national primary as a result.
Moving the money as they did is almost certainly a violation of federal election law, likely a violation of money-laundering law, and goes completely against any sense of neutrality in the DNC towards candidates. (Additionally, they short-sheeted all the local campaigns, giving republicans an edge in many areas.)
Effectively, they took all the campaign contributions people gave to Bernie and wasted them.
And you think it is worth fucking-over America (the globe even!) so that she is not "rewarded"?
It's worth standing up and saying "no" to corruption.
The people who gave support to Bernie Sanders should not have had their efforts wasted due to cheating.
HAH. Yes, an online game is totally the best forum for interacting with someone and discussing their politics. I guarantee that Ukranian has an interest in politics, the fact that you didn't ask him doesn't mean anything. I got in an Uber last month with a driver from Ukraine and talked about a bunch of random things. Eventually when I asked him what he thought of Putin, he said "Fuck Putin, and fuck Trump for supporting him!"
Daily at my workplace I "interact" with - in person - a person from Ukraine, 4 more persons from Russia, one from Latvia, two from Germany, two from UK, one from France, four from China, a half dozen from India, two from Japan, one from Jordan, one from Uganda, one from Egypt, one from Israel... ok, it's just getting tiring now, I could name 20 other countries. Sounds like a real echo chamber!
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. Lucky for Trump the whole world doesn't vote on the US president, or he'd lose in an utter landslide.
So you're going to stop people on the street randomly and tell them to produce papers on the spot? And you wonder why I'm asking?
Oh, and what's "citizenship papers", exactly? There's no such thing in US right now. Closest you can get is birth certificate or naturalization certificate, but many people don't actually have those (since it's not a requirement), and certainly no-one carries them around.
And you think it is worth fucking-over America (the globe even!) so that she is not "rewarded"?
The premise that she is not fucking-over America and the globe is wrong. She is provably already doing that.
Do you think corrupting American elections is not fucking-over America? Hell, if the Russians did as much as telling the truth to change the election results that is seem as bad. What about cheating on the elections and stripping the American people from the candidate they apparently wanted?
Isn't Libya and Syria to fuck the globe over? What about the recent weapons selling to the UAE, that are currently bombing civilians in Yemen?
If/when Trump start mass murdering we'll have a basis of comparison, but so far Clinton is the one fucking-over America and the globe.
If Trump wins it will be confirmation that democracy is failing in the English speaking world. Brexit happened because the UK has post-factual politics, and it's looking like the US is the same.
The internet and social media were supposed to improve democracy, but they seem to have reduced it to the level of memes and feelings counting more than facts and ability.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Trump is Bush with more bankruptcies, less military service, and no discernible interest in anything about the job other than power.
Obama's administration carried on most of the Bush-era policies that Democrats loathed the most - and Hillary's being billed by everyone, even Obama, as Obama's Third Term.
Have fun with that!
Let me help you...
GOP was given the House to stop Obama policies, like Obamacare for instance, and ended up supporting nearly every single Obama policy and said they need the Senate to stop him.
GOP was given the Senate while saying they would stop his executive actions on illegal immigration, which they chose to fully fund once they had the Senate. This ONE action ended the GOP, anyone tells you different they don't know or are lying. The GOP will not be able to return to what they were.
GOP had, I think, 19 people running, DNC had 3, Libertarians 1, Greens 1. Of those 23 people running for president only ONE said they would stop illegal immigration. It was that single issue that won the GOP the Senate and not one of their candidates had that stance, until well after Trump started winning on it.
When I heard in June 2015 Trump say "I'm going to build a wall along Mexico's border and stop illegal immigration once and for all" I said no one can beat him, he was polling about 14% at the time. Everyone thought I was off my rocker. I don't necessarily think Trump will be a good president, I just knew the backlash the GOP was going to get.
What I want to know, if he can win on a single issue, why none of the other candidate would have a similar stance. Illegal immigration causes a lot of problems in the US, and not a single person in DNC or GOP will do anything to stop it or even slow it down. Both parties hate the middle class / average citizen, and Trump has made that obvious. That is why he is supported by the people and every news story about him is about how horrible he is.
It has nothing to do with foreign policy. He is where he is based on a single issue that 19 people should have had the same view and refused to. I suspect the GOP as we know is done for at this point.
Is it?
Maybe, it should be — but any attempts to legally require such labeling, would violate the First Amendment.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
In the US your driver's license is often enough, as you had to provide a SSN for that, and to get an SSN you need to prove your identity and eligibility. Which the vast majority of Americans have, and legal immigrants are expected to have their green card on them.
Proving you are who you say you are, and that you have the right you say you have, doesn't seem any more of a burden than having to actually pay for your groceries at the store.
One really has to wonder why some people don't have a birth certificate/SSN/Identification. I'd wager that the vast majority (save for older folks born in remote areas) don't have a legitimate reason, as they've apparently not worked in this country, or worked for cash (and haven't paid taxes), etc. Aside from a few legitimate cases, I really don't care about the rest of these people who have already decided to live outside the social contract.