I used to be intelligence analyst that utilized Palantir on a daily basis. Ask me anything.
How do you sleep at night?
Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
141–150 of 277 posts
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#142Culture flows from the top. Peter Thiel apparently views women's suffrage and poor people as "tough for libertarians [like him]". Can we talk about, well, how problematic it is that a company that has information on just about everyone (and all the power this yields) is lead by someone like this? > As Thiel’s wealth has grown, he’s gotten more strident. In a 2009 essay for the Cato Institute, he railed against taxes,…
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Freedom and democracy are always in a conflict, that's why most democracies have constitutions which put the individuals and their rights first. A total democracy would mean that a majority can override personal freedoms and basic rights of individuals (like, vote about executing your neighbor). Because of that the combination of democracy with a bill of rights has become so commonplace that you don't even notice anymore, and think about someone who mentions that simple fact as a fascist.
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#143I’ve always thought - I don’t care if the NSA is spying on US citizens because their job is national security. The problem is when those tools trickle down. All of a sudden you have a local cop with too much time on their hands spying on you. But if you’re not doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t have anything to hide, right? Isn’t that how the saying goes?
COINTELPRO. Learn your history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#144Culture flows from the top. Peter Thiel apparently views women's suffrage and poor people as "tough for libertarians [like him]". Can we talk about, well, how problematic it is that a company that has information on just about everyone (and all the power this yields) is lead by someone like this? > As Thiel’s wealth has grown, he’s gotten more strident. In a 2009 essay for the Cato Institute, he railed against taxes,…
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But what kind of libertarianism is non-democratic?
Here's an interesting answer I found when I became curious about this question a few years ago:
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#145> The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services uses Palantir to detect Medicare fraud. Having worked in this field, I can say that this is hilarious overkill. The vast majority (in dollar terms) of Medicare/Medicaid fraud is drug companies misreporting their Average Market Price (AMP), the critical variable in how much they get paid. In 2012, Glaxo settled(!) a small bundle of cases, some of which I worked on, fo…
Medicare fraud goes well beyond price reporting by manufacturers. Physicians can bill for more expensive procedures, bill phantom patients, etc.
That's a huge part of the multi billion dollar fraud that Medicare has.
I assume being able to identify physicians will outlier billing patterns would be helpful in figuring out where to look closer.
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#146Why does the media seem to be publishing so many "well duh" tier articles about various companies at the moment? "Big data company collects big data", "company known for monetising private data collects private data", "political consulting company profiles voters and tries to affect vote". No shit?
Yeah, it's like people getting upset that people get killed in death camps, or when thieves do some thieving, and so on. I mean, it's right in the names!
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#147My main takeaway is that the corporations don't have the funds to waste on this and don't see the ROI (given how many large companies listed in the article stopped using Palantir) whereas the government does. Peter Thiel being a libertarian is clearly aware of the scale of government wastage and decides to go in for the win.
Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#148Re: Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens
#149No surprise. Thiel is a grade-A asshole who appears to be amoral.