Kickstarter, or Kick to the head?

I'm always late in joining stuff, just in case I waltz
into something that's a scam. I hoped that Kickstarter
was a way for one side to get funding, while the other
got an investment that could pay off big-time.

It turns out that the investment may be little more
than a gift. Some people get a "thank you", and others
are promised a prototype. This gets contentious when
the struggling techie (or whatever) strikes it rich.

Facebook Rich!

As you know, Zucker is a sucker for anything that

will expand his brand or stick it to the competition.

Well, he has dumped 2 Billion on a Virtual reality goggle

company that has NO working prototype yet. 

Understandably, the morons who threw their money at

this fellow are feeling pretty stupid. As they should.

Kickstarter should have a warning label "if you're a sucker,

sign up here to give  your no-questions-asked gift. Moron!"

we had an old racist joke in my school about a certain
minority which ends "and the rest are kickstarters".
Looks like Kickstarter donors are indeed kickstarters.
they need a kick to the head to wise up.

A similar problem has arisen in the Law of Wills:

checkit: 

1
http://www.wired.com/business/2014/03/oculus-a-boon-to-kickstarter/

"But Facebook’s validation of Kickstarter isn’t just financial. It’s also spiritual. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg approaches Oculus with the same fanboy fervor as the 9,522 Kickstarter backers who collectively donated $2.4 million to get Oculus off the ground. "

 2
https://plus.google.com/+globeandmail/posts/VQfK67T6E3D
"Now some of those donors are crying “sellout.” They want their money back – and are happy to return the T-shirts.

“I supported this because it’s something that I’ve wanted to see become a reality since I read my first William Gibson novel,” one Oculus donor wrote on Kickstarter. “Now I find out that I might as well have handed my money right to Facebook and I feel a little sick.”

The extraordinary reaction of early Oculus VR backers and fans to news of the Facebook deal illustrates the tricky relationship between companies raising money on Kickstarter and the people who donate to them.

The hope, among donors, is that they can help the interesting ideas of these companies get off the ground. Their donations amount to seed funding – enough money to build a prototype, perhaps. And assuming they understand what they’re doing, the donors have no expectations of gaining equity in the young company.

With that largess comes a sense of community and expectations that it will deliver – or at least try really hard – on what it has promised. But when the little company hits a big payday, as Oculus VR announced Tuesday, it is strikingly clear that community has very little say in its decision-making."

People's Parliament Debates Environmentalism

from February of this year.

It was the greenest of times.
It was the darkest of times.

In the belly of the beast. Parliament committee room

[Cordal. Politicians discussing global warming]

This PP group is not about politics, or politicians. Just issues.

and People. and real democracy

As is clear from the art, politicians will never do the right thing,
in time. They are inevitably forced to do so by other factors, like
social pressure. We should be those factors.

So we had talks, and questions from the audience, including

@artisttaxidriver

who argued that indeed some rich folks don't care about the planet,

or their own children that are raised by Hispanic nannies anyway. 

The host was John McDonnell a Labour MP for the Heathrow area.
-He noted how Heathrow has dangerously high pollution already, without
a third runway. This needs to be publicised. Check twitter for

clean air London

Other speakers were a Green Party Marxist guy who was far too
philosophical, as were many in the audience. We need action, people.
George Monbiot of the Guardian, fresh from the flooded farmers'
fields of Somerset,
One of the Greenpeace gang that had attacked the Russian oil platform in
the Arctic circle,
and a climate scientist. (I'll dig the names up soon)



More on this meeting later