[engx]

I don't think a rich 24 year old kid, doing something that was widely considered an attack against the Establishment, is something that is highly unusual or bad.

It doesn't seem fair to forever conflate Palmer with Trump or assume that he completely agrees with him. Maybe his tactics and philosophy are flawed, but I don't think his intentions are. Everyone's so quick to judge, demonize and forever cast people as bad.

He admitted to funding trolling memes to support the current President of the United States? He has to go away forever now, and we all have to pretend not to like him?

[nxc18]

I definitely agree people deserve second chances and make mistakes. Especially people who are young and have more money than they are accustomed to having.

At the same time, it is really, really hard to look upon this charitably when he was screwing with something with such high stakes. I get that 24-year-old kids don't take much seriously, but for goodness sake don't use your money for political purposes without thinking it through.

Heck, having millions of dollars makes me dislike him kind of like how people don't like Hillary for being successful and having millions. At least Hillary took her position seriously and attempted to look like she was trying to do the right thing, vs Palmer's 'shitpost 4 days, memes r life' bullshit.

[pnathan]

> I get that 24-year-old kids don't take much seriously, but for goodness sake don't use your money for political purposes without thinking it through.

Hmmm. Let's look at a slightly different statistic:

> In the U.S. army, something like 75%-80% of newly-commissioned Second Lieutenants are promoted to First Lieutenant (around age 25)

-- http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/7812/why-have-off...

What does a 2nd Lt do?

> Typically the entry-level rank for most Commissioned Officers. Leads platoon-size elements consisting of the platoon SGT and two or more squads (16 to 44 Soldiers).

And shortly will be promoted to 1st Lt...

> A seasoned lieutenant with 18 to 24 months service. Leads more specialized weapons platoons and indirect fire computation centers. As a senior Lieutenant, they are often selected to be the Executive Officer of a company-sized unit (110 to 140 personnel).

Oh. Leads 16-44 soldiers into combat, and shortly will be commanding 110-140 soldiers...

I would like to submit that letting a 24-year old off on account of immaturity is wrong and ignores their clear agency and capability.

[peteretep]

The choices a 2LT needs to make -- while having life and death consequences -- are also pretty limited and they've generally spent 3 years at West Point (or 1 year at Sandhurst, etc) being extensively taught how to make those decisions.

[pnathan]

Oh yes, quite so.

But the cold truth is that a 2LT is an adult, given adult choices, and adult consequences.

Mr. Luckey is identical in this regard, and if, by the time you're 23, you're not capable of sober decisions- then that is what courts call incompetent to stand trial.

Many examples from contemporary and historical sources could be cited to support my argument: I selected the most sobering difference.

As I remarked above to the grandparent poster, Mr. Luckey should not be exculpated based on age alone - if at all. He was working towards setting up a propaganda group to serve extremist interests.

[T-A]

I believe becoming a commissioned US Army officer involves passing a selection process.

[smacktoward]

You would think having $2 billion dropped on one's head by Facebook would too.

[srtjstjsj]

It's a selection process for technology, patents, and marketing, not for the person.

[michaelbuddy]

Palmer did nothing wrong. Nothing at all. He's totally free, in the United States, to hate on whatever candidate he wants and fund political cartoons against them.

[brandonmenc]

> it is really, really hard to look upon this charitably when he was screwing with something with such high stakes

Putting up a childish billboard of questionable strategic value promoting a candidate for president is "screwing with something with such high stakes?" Hyperbole?

[michaelbuddy]

2016 revealed just how thin skinned, conspiratorial and fatalistic the tech community is. Hence the drop in participation around here.

[marricks]

I find the implied "boys will be boys" and "people make mistakes" quite unsavory.

Should he be cast out form society? No, but I sure won't support him until I see evidence he disagrees with the most disturbing things associated with Trump: sexism, racism, etc.

We need to hold people accountable instead of making execuses for them.

[mst]

Do you also believe anybody who was in favour of the Clinton campaign needs to provide evidence they disagree with silencing sexual assault victims? Because that's definitely a disturbing thing "associated" with her.

Otherwise I feel like you're more interested in partisan political posturing than actually holding people accountable.

(for the record, I despise both Clinton and Trump, but had I been a US voter rather than a UK bystander, I'd've held my nose and voted Clinton on the expectation of that being the lesser of the available evils)

[marricks]

I think directly speaking about sexual assault coupled with many accusations is more damning, and supporters just not caring.

Same with racism against people form Mexico / middle east. Sadly comes down to a matter of scale, at least for me.

This sort of stuff should ruin someone running for president, somehow it didn't matter here.

[peteretep]

Hillary wasn't campaigning on a platform of silencing sexual assault victims, but Trump was campaigning on a platform of xenophobia and dog whistles.

[michaelbuddy]

All these "phobia" labels get applied to people who just want others to obey the laws. Even intelligent tech minded people just don't seem to understand this.

[marricks]

You do you realize sometimes these people getting elected actually write or enforce the laws? Perhaps even change them, by lets say reducing the number of refugees being taken in.

But to get to the heart of your point "enforcing laws" Legality is in no way equivalent Morality. People use terms like "enforcing laws" as a sort of dog whistle to imply we should not and are not going to be listening to minority voices.

[glenndebacker]

Boys that have friendly relationships with people like Milo Yiannopoulos gives me the impressions that they have other reasons than finding "stupid memes" fun.

I think that the kind of people that surrounds you also tells something more of the person in question. And it's not only the figure of Yiannopoulos that is questionable in this particularly case....

[akhilcacharya]

I don't care if Larry Ellison donates to Trump.

I care if he solicits money from a group of virulent internet racists though.

[srtjstjsj]

Why? Wouldn't you rather Ellison spend virulent internet racists' money, then spend Java licensee's money?

[johansch]

> It doesn't seem fair to forever conflate Palmer with Trump

It happened about six months ago. That's a lot shorter than "forever". Even in Silicon Valley time...