Why we aren’t so lucky with Palmer Luckey

In the early years of Oculus, I was a big fan of its founder, Palmer Luckey. He was a hero to me. He did something others didn’t: he worked on a virtual reality headset. It was a peaceful and revolutionary technology.

All fine, you might say, but here is the downside. After he left his ‘first baby,’ which was then owned by Facebook (the former name of Meta), he threw himself into something I would call a dark business: the defense industry in autonomous and remotely controlled weapons.

Perhaps you see a positive side to this. The soldier is safe at a distance, while he controls and directs the drones. No casualties in wars, how fantastic?!

Don’t judge too quickly! Such wars shouldn’t exist at all. After all, wars only produce victims. Instead of wasting money on a war industry, you would be better off investing that money in education. To begin with, learn about the differences in cultures, ideas, visions, and people.

Education in communication skills, empathy, and understanding. Wars start with greed for resources and an unwillingness to share them across the globe. Wars arise from language differences, a lack of understanding and empathy.

As long as we view the world as a competition to be the strongest and most powerful, as long as we want more and more, we will need people, just like Luckey, and a planet B.

We must see each other as global citizens and equals, constantly striving to find a balance in sharing resources. We must continuously improve our communication skills and learn to know the other person.

Don’t be a belligerent Luckey, but a connector, a communicator, an innovator in peacetime! Once we all realize that, we will focus our energy on the right things.

Thanks for reading, I love you!