Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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If you're hearing this, well done. You found a way to connect to the internet. Welcome to the QA Podcast Premium Episode 279, Tony Snark. As always, we are your hosts, Chess Cold from CPAC, aka Julian Field, Brad Abrahams, Liv Aker, and Travis View.
You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. It's not Michael Caine. We've covered this. It's not Michael Caine. Wait, that's your Michael Caine? Yeah, that's the... The Dark Knight 2008. Just read the quote. We're building something, could you? You either die a hero...
Or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. No, Julian, that's Bane. Batman. Nope. That's Bane. One more try. You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. The Dark Knight, 2008.
We're 200 feet underground, at the bottom of a former intercontinental ballistic missile silo. Fluorescent lights cast a greenish hue upon endless rows of video game cartridges and cases. Where once nuclear warheads were housed, this is now the home of the world's largest video game collection. Suddenly, we're pulled upwards, through narrow hallways and up an elevator shaft.
At the top, a door creaks open and a beam of natural light floods in. We're on the ground floor of an opulent Miami Vice-style house. Thick teal shag carpeting spreads across the floor. Glass shelves line the walls, packed with vinyl anime girls, hundreds of them, watching us with big eyes and painted smiles. Instead of traditional plaster, the walls are a living aquarium with 6,500 gallons of water bubbling inside. Rare predatory fish glide around us in the undulating blue light.
In the living room, a massive Dungeons & Dragons game board with miniatures mid-battle doubles as a coffee table. Above it, a toilet is mounted halfway up a wall. Wardrobes overflow with elaborate costumes, Renaissance cloaks and anime cosplay hanging side by side. Didn't realize that there were otakus in the Fallout universe.
Outside, beyond the 10-foot glass doors, stands a sand-colored Humvee, demilitarized but imposing by the curbside. Next to it, a tiny Disney Autopia car, the only functioning one in existence, cherry red and child-sized. Across the bay, a gunmetal gray Mark V Navy boat floats, sleek and lethal, one of the fastest ever built. I don't even know who this is about, but I would like them to kill themselves preemptively.
These are a few of the favorite things of the man said to be the savior of the West, at least according to Peter Thiel. He is a 32-year-old man whose personal uniform is a mullet, brightly colored Hawaiian shirts, cargo shorts, and flip-flops. This is Palmer Luckey. Oh my God, we should have bullied him way harder after that VR cover. Ha ha ha!
Dude. Or less? I don't know. But also I feel like the average kind of like Thiel-related libertarian should always have the descriptor cherry red and child-sized.
When I was researching this episode, I was thinking about like the divide between the culture of big tech in the 90s and like big tech in the 21st century. And maybe this is my nostalgia talking a bit, but felt like back then the general public received the rise of like consumer electronics with a greater sense of optimism than they do now.
Like when people started using search engine technology, for example, it felt empowering and inspiring. And it wasn't tainted by the uncertainty and dread that is part of the current rise of AI tools. And I think a big reason for this change is related to the authenticity and intent of the people who work in technology development.
Like, you know, even when in the 90s and Silicon Valley started to mint a new class of billionaires, the culture was dominated by geeky hobbyists who loved diving into challenging technical problems and exploring the new possibilities that home computers could offer. But at the turn of the century, the leaders of tech were more closely aligned with the PayPal mafia. Founders and venture capitalists viewed technology primarily as a means of acquiring wealth and power.
In that sense, Pomer Lucky is a throwback to an earlier era of big tech. He is an authentic geek whose journey was driven by curiosity and hard challenges. He's inspired by video games and science fiction and does things because he finds them cool or interesting, not because they might be fashionable. He would never, for example, pull on Elon Musk and buy a pre-leveled account for a video game in order to impress people on Twitter.
These qualities allowed Palmer Luckey to almost single-handedly develop a next-generation VR headset, but they also led him to aligning with the alt-right and Donald Trump in 2016. And when he was exiled from Silicon Valley, these qualities led him to founding Andoril Industries in order to build defense technology and border surveillance systems. Yeah, it turns out the nerds are actually way worse than the jocks. Yeah.
Like infinitely worse. They don't have better politics. Yeah. No. And also, I'm pretty sure he developed that headset so that VR porn could exist. That's the auto cue.
No. Dear God. I mean, I was over at a friend's house. I don't have a VR headset myself, but I was over at a friend's house, and he told me that he signed up for a... I won't name him, but you know who you are. Oh, Jake. It's Jake. No, it's not Jake. Surprisingly, not Jake. But I did try out VR porn, and it is so disturbing and weird. Yeah.
It sucks so bad. And I mean that very literally. You get sucked off like, you know, you're looking down and it's some other guy's penis. And you're getting sucked off. And like all I could focus on while I was in there was like, oh, this girl has a bat in the cave. This girl has a little booger. Everything's too close. Like everything's too like right there in your face. It sucks. Gross.
So the two best reported sources for learning about Palmer Luckey's story are the 2019 book The History of the Future by Blake J. Harris and the recent profile in Tablet magazine titled American Vulcan by Jeremy Stern. Yeah, it should be noted Tablet is a pretty conservative Jewish publication that's that's kind of virulently pro-Israel. And even the largest scholarly Jewish studies organization in America has disavowed them for being conservative.
So like pro Zionist. So it's, it's a kind of a fawning portrait of lucky because of how pro Israel and pro Zionist he is. It is, but it does have some interesting details and quotes that aren't, aren't reported elsewhere. Yeah. Travis for tablet. He loves it. Folks.
Palmer Luckey was born on September 19, 1992, and grew up in Long Beach, California. He is the eldest of four children. His family lived in a modest duplex. His father, Donald, was a car salesman and amateur mechanic. His mother, Julie, was a homemaker who homeschooled him. From an early age, Luckey's parents fostered his curious nature. His father taught young Palmer how to tinker in the garage where they had a full array of tools.
As a boy, he exhibited an inclination towards creative problem solving. For example, when Lucky was at his local community swimming pool, the lifeguard scolded him to not run while at the pool. Lucky responded by asking the lifeguard, what constitutes running? The lifeguard responded, if you're bending your legs, it's running. And so Lucky devoted himself to learning how to sprint as fast as possible without bending his legs. Oh my god.
You know, he's really showing the hacker's ethos, you know, showing what the limits are, trying to learn what the rules are and trying to figure out how to subvert the rules.
He started by building his own computers and experimenting with electronics as a boy. This experimental phase included playing with lasers, which led him to accidentally burning a blind spot in one of his retinas. In an interview with Vanity Fair, he shrugged it off by saying this. It's not a huge deal. We have blind spots all over the place in our eyes, but our brains compensate for them. It sounds like he was trying to see the code of reality. Mm-hmm. Luckily, it's actually right over the other man's penis when I'm in VR porn, so...
Makes me feel like it might be mine, you know? You've been listening to a sample of a premium episode of the QAA podcast. For access to the full episode, as well as all past premium episodes and all of our podcast miniseries, go to patreon.com slash QAA. Travis, what?
Why is that such a good deal? Well, Jake, you get hundreds of additional episodes of the QAA podcast for just $5 per month. For that very low price, you get access to over 200 premium episodes, plus all of our miniseries. That includes 10 episodes of Man Clan with Julian and Annie, 10 episodes of Perverts with Julian and Liv, 10 episodes of The Spectral Voyager with Jake and Brad, plus 20 episodes of Trickle Down with me, Travis View.
It's a bounty of content and the best deal in podcasting. Travis, for once, I agree with you. And I also agree that people could subscribe by going to patreon.com slash QAA. Well, that's not an opinion. It's a fact. You're so right, Jake. We love and appreciate all of our listeners. Yes, we do. And Travis is actually crying right now, I think, out of gratitude, maybe? That's not true. The part about me crying, not me being grateful. Oh.