Sad Zuck II 🫥

"He is perhaps the wildest misfit tech diva of his generation, with a torrid ambition and engineering prowess rivaled only by Elon Musk; [Palmer] Luckey is also, in a way Musk is not and cannot be, the product of something more familiar —the heir to a 100-year revolution in American society that made Southern California the techno-theological citadel of the Cold War, and a one-man bridge between the smoldering American past and an unknown future that may be arriving soon. 

"In his spare time, when he is not providing U.S. Customs and Border Patrol with AI-powered long-range sensors, or Volodymyr Zelenskyy with drones to attack high-value Russian targets, or winning first place in the Texas Renaissance Festival’s costume contest with historically meticulous renderings of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn sewn and stitched by his wife, Nicole —who’s been at his side for 16 of his 31 years on earth —Luckey recently built 
  1. A bypass for his peripheral nervous system to experiment with giving himself superhuman reflexes; 
  2. Vestibular implants to pipe sounds into his skull so that instead of having to call him and wait for him to pick up, Anduril employees could just pick up a designated Palmer Phone and talk straight into his head; and 
  3. A virtual reality headset that —by tying three explosive charges to a narrow-band photosensor that can detect when the screen flashes red at a specific frequency (i.e., GAME OVER) —kills you in real life when you die in a video game. 
"I have a huge amount of respect for Palmer—both for what he’s done for VR and for now achieving the rare feat of building multiple successful companies, Zuckerberg told Tablet in a statement this month, his first regarding Luckey in several years. He’s an impressive free-thinker and fun to work with. I was sad when his time at Meta came to an end, but the silver lining is that his work at Anduril is going to be extremely important for our national security. I’m glad an entrepreneur of his caliber is working on these problems. I hope we can find ways to work together in the future." 





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