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Reflections on Palantir

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Re: Reflections on Palantir

#51

Post by watwut »

ryandrake wrote: post #44
madeofpalk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish the morality section were more direct - either admitting that the author has no issue with "grey areas" (a euphemism if I've ever seen one) or that money outweighs their moral concerns. That would feel more intellectually honest. When it comes to the morality of work, I think it's okay to be selfish with your ideals - whether that means prioritizing money over ethics or refusing to engage with something that c…

A lot of technical people seem to have no trouble with casually glossing over the ethics and morality of what they work on. Even here on HN, I regularly get downvotes for suggesting maybe developers should have some kind of ethical baseline below which they will refuse projects. Nope. Technical complexity, challenge, opportunity to learn a new technology, opportunity to do cutting edge research, and of course a fat s…

Personally, my favorite one is when someone with salary and clear ability to get a new job whenever they want claims it is "privileged" to reject a job on moral reasons. Their kids would go hungry if they had ... very high salary, just a little bit lower.

I have seen real world people refuse positions on moral grounds. It does exist and morally dubious positions pay what they do because they have to.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#52

Post by archagon »

harimau777 wrote: post #16

It feels like the moral section ignores the elephant in the room which is Peter Thiel's hostility to democracy and the more general far right swing in America. There's a difference between working on morally gray tech during normal times versus during times when there is every reason to believe that it WILL be significantly misused.

> For years, Yarvin was something of an odd internet curiosity, with his ideas far from most political conservatives’ radar. He gained one prominent reader — Thiel, who had written about his own disillusionment with democracy, became a Yarvin friend, and funded his startup. “He’s fully enlightened,” Yarvin later wrote of Thiel in an email, “just plays it very carefully.” (https://archive.is/iAtnM)

"Hostility to democracy" is underselling it. These people's stated goal is to replace democracy with a CEO-style monarchy. They even have a playbook, and they're getting dangerously close to implementing it.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#53

Post by watwut »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #45
ryandrake wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of technical people seem to have no trouble with casually glossing over the ethics and morality of what they work on. Even here on HN, I regularly get downvotes for suggesting maybe developers should have some kind of ethical baseline below which they will refuse projects. Nope. Technical complexity, challenge, opportunity to learn a new technology, opportunity to do cutting edge research, and of course a fat s…

Can’t expect most individuals to decline a paycheck. However you can organize workers at these kinds of workplaces for real leverage (collective rather than individual, just like ownership and management does)

I have seen real world people refuse morally dubious positions in tech. We are not talking about "going hungry" vs "salary". We are talking about "having very very high salary" vs "having very high salary" here.

It is absolutely ok to blame people who do immoral stuff for more money. Pick pocketers do immoral stuff for more money too, it is really the same thing.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#54

Post by noch »

madeofpalk wrote: post #43
noch wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I got Severance vibes from this blog about Palantir. If our most immediate means of understanding the world are by relating it to fiction rather than history then it's likely we have a poor understanding of the world and reality.

No? What do you think the point of fiction often is? Finding similarities between Severance and the real world (and vice versa) is the whole point of that work of fiction.

> What do you think the point of fiction often is?

Fiction is not obligated to reveal anything about reality. Mainly it's escapist. But I'm not trying to have some big debate. Clearly you're passionate in your belief. Ultimately, how to understand the world is something one figures out with life experience and time at which point history becomes your best source of instruction.

When you're young it may seem to make sense to get your morality from Harry Potter and Star Wars. But that's usually just availability bias and the fact that fiction is easy to consume.

But then you discover that the map is not the territory, sometimes that discovery is painful or brutal or destructive and the consequences of having misunderstood the world are permanent for you and those around you.

Anyway, not an argument. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, merely pointing a fact about competence in understanding the world.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#55

Post by watwut »

oncallthrow wrote: post #5
Lrhagz15 wrote: post #4

It is relevant again, because one would like to know whether DOGE will install this in the US government. As for the article, I find it hard to understand what Palantir is actually doing. The article uses Airbus as an example, which ordered some kind of a software system for coordinating manufacturing. The article claims: "This ended up helping to drive the A350 manufacturing surge and successfully 4x’ing the pace of…

> Given that the US is now officially a potential EU enemy This is absolutely delusional

He literally threatens to take away territory from an EU country.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#56

Post by kjkjadksj »

borski wrote: post #29
akudha wrote: post #17

Maybe I feel this way because I am not a smart human, but why is being intelligent so important, at the cost of being kind, ethical etc? What is so special about Peter Theil’s philosophy if that man is part of the billionaire club who are using their money to make most people’s life miserable? And how can people who read philosophy in their evenings (mentioned in the article) justify the work they do during the day?…

The thrill of working with and being surrounded by brilliant people who are breaking new ground and building things that people really find useful is a hell of a drug. It doesn’t require a megalomaniac at the helm. It just often happens that way.

There are so many avenues to do that today that don’t involve working to advance the coming dystopia.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#57

Post by firesteelrain »

chillingeffect wrote: post #42
firesteelrain wrote: post #13

I got Severance vibes from this blog about Palantir. But it sounds like they are a consulting company and a sort of ConnectAll (for those who use Jira, Rhapsody, DOORS, etc).

https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

This may be a little on the nose. I am slow. I read this but not sure what it means for me.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#58

Post by XorNot »

ryandrake wrote: post #44
madeofpalk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish the morality section were more direct - either admitting that the author has no issue with "grey areas" (a euphemism if I've ever seen one) or that money outweighs their moral concerns. That would feel more intellectually honest. When it comes to the morality of work, I think it's okay to be selfish with your ideals - whether that means prioritizing money over ethics or refusing to engage with something that c…

A lot of technical people seem to have no trouble with casually glossing over the ethics and morality of what they work on. Even here on HN, I regularly get downvotes for suggesting maybe developers should have some kind of ethical baseline below which they will refuse projects. Nope. Technical complexity, challenge, opportunity to learn a new technology, opportunity to do cutting edge research, and of course a fat s…

Right here in this post you have no trouble ignoring any real concern using a meme instead while declaring that it's everyone else's fault for "glossing over" things.

I think you would find they're not glossing over anything, you are just uninterested in any details since your value system already has a conclusion you're not going to change your mind about.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#60

Post by _def »

harimau777 wrote: post #16

It feels like the moral section ignores the elephant in the room which is Peter Thiel's hostility to democracy and the more general far right swing in America. There's a difference between working on morally gray tech during normal times versus during times when there is every reason to believe that it WILL be significantly misused.

It just reads irresponsible to me - not my department group think.

"Palantir’s answer to this is something like “we will work with most category 3 organizations, unless they’re clearly bad, and we’ll trust the democratic process to get them trending in a good direction over time”" - I wonder what the line to "clearly bad" is/was

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