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Palantir has courted N.H.S. England with pandemic help and assertive lobbying

nytimes.com

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Re: Palantir has courted N.H.S. England with pandemic help and assertive lobbying

#11

Post by oblaff »

pjscott wrote: post #4
georgespencer wrote: post #3

> Civil society groups have raised alarms about a single private company handling so much personal data, especially one dogged by concerns that its software can be used for mass surveillance. During the Trump administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency used Palantir software to help find undocumented immigrants. Not just _any_ private company, but one chaired by _Peter Thiel_ ffs. Short of act…

Impulsive? He seems much more the calculating sort, which makes me skeptical about your judgement that he’s unethical.

I don't think impulsive is the right word, but it is concerning that someone who is fervently anti-democractic is a key stakeholder in these sorts of public private partnerships globally.

Re: Palantir has courted N.H.S. England with pandemic help and assertive lobbying

#12

Post by Avshalom »

statictype wrote: post #8

Does Palantir actually work? My understanding is that they don't really have a product but have some tools and a lot of people who they put to work to provide solutions. If so - they are essentially just doing bespoke project implementation work. Is my understanding correct?

Palantir works great in as much as it is primarily meant to keep Peter Thiel in the same room as government officials. The software side of the project is by all accounts a pretty generic contracting business and works about as well as any other contractor.

Re: Palantir has courted N.H.S. England with pandemic help and assertive lobbying

#13

Post by lacrimacida »

pjscott wrote: post #4
georgespencer wrote: post #3

> Civil society groups have raised alarms about a single private company handling so much personal data, especially one dogged by concerns that its software can be used for mass surveillance. During the Trump administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency used Palantir software to help find undocumented immigrants. Not just _any_ private company, but one chaired by _Peter Thiel_ ffs. Short of act…

Impulsive? He seems much more the calculating sort, which makes me skeptical about your judgement that he’s unethical.

Perhaps morally impulsive if that isn’t a thing yet. Thiel seems to be a calculated and definitely not stupid at all but not trustworthy by any means.

Re: Palantir has courted N.H.S. England with pandemic help and assertive lobbying

#14

Post by brigandish »

georgespencer wrote: post #3

> Civil society groups have raised alarms about a single private company handling so much personal data, especially one dogged by concerns that its software can be used for mass surveillance. During the Trump administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency used Palantir software to help find undocumented immigrants. Not just _any_ private company, but one chaired by _Peter Thiel_ ffs. Short of act…

What makes Peter Thiel unethical and impulsive specifically? I can read tittle tattle and tribalistic nonsense on almost any website that allows comments, let's try to get above that here by at least providing the substance behind such assertions.

Re: Palantir has courted N.H.S. England with pandemic help and assertive lobbying

#15

Post by rabbits77 »

statictype wrote: post #8

Does Palantir actually work? My understanding is that they don't really have a product but have some tools and a lot of people who they put to work to provide solutions. If so - they are essentially just doing bespoke project implementation work. Is my understanding correct?

After Doug Lenat passed away recently I also got the impression that Cycorp has been sustained for the past four decades with that exact business model.

At the end of the day customers have a working solution, but it’s all developed and operated in a completely bespoke way each time.

Re: Palantir has courted N.H.S. England with pandemic help and assertive lobbying

#17

Post by hotnfresh »

statictype wrote: post #8

Does Palantir actually work? My understanding is that they don't really have a product but have some tools and a lot of people who they put to work to provide solutions. If so - they are essentially just doing bespoke project implementation work. Is my understanding correct?

My understanding from being close to but not directly connected with part of a company successfully infested by Palantir’s sales is that it’s a lot of “oh yeah our tools do everything” but then it turns out you’ll be needing to hire them for a lot of expensive development to get anything cool out of it, because it’s not actually a stand-out product that magically does all the stuff they’ll try to convince you it will.

Just another data platform, not much different from the others except better at convincing execs they are.

Re: Palantir has courted N.H.S. England with pandemic help and assertive lobbying

#19

Post by hotnfresh »

brigandish wrote: post #14
georgespencer wrote: post #3

> Civil society groups have raised alarms about a single private company handling so much personal data, especially one dogged by concerns that its software can be used for mass surveillance. During the Trump administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency used Palantir software to help find undocumented immigrants. Not just _any_ private company, but one chaired by _Peter Thiel_ ffs. Short of act…

What makes Peter Thiel unethical and impulsive specifically ? I can read tittle tattle and tribalistic nonsense on almost any website that allows comments, let's try to get above that here by at least providing the substance behind such assertions.

Not sure what the parent meant by it, but he presents in public as a democracy skeptic and authoritarian technocrat (with the exact same “and by technocrat I mostly mean rich and sharing my opinions, of course” thing that nearly all such people end up at). He’s pretty up-front about it. Exactly the kind of person I’d like to see with no access to levers of power or anything else important.

He appears to follow the same pattern as lots of other rich captain-of-industry authoritarians we’ve seen… well, since the advent of modern democracy, really, to a T. The background on it’s kinda a boring read, because it’s so familiar. Wikipedia’s got the gist and links to the details, but I’m sure someone out there’s got a site that catalogs the whole thing.

Re: Palantir has courted N.H.S. England with pandemic help and assertive lobbying

#20

Post by [deleted] »

oblaff wrote: post #11
pjscott wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impulsive? He seems much more the calculating sort, which makes me skeptical about your judgement that he’s unethical.

I don't think impulsive is the right word, but it is concerning that someone who is fervently anti-democractic is a key stakeholder in these sorts of public private partnerships globally.

[deleted]
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