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Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys

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Re: Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys

#111

Post by stackedinserter »

bastawhiz wrote: post #63
leonidasrup wrote: post #8

Palantir employees should understand that they are not regular employees at a regular company. They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company. Also Palantir customers should understand that by buying Palantir services/products they are doing business with U.S. defense company. I don't say that this is positive or negative, it just clarifies the relationships and it should set the expectations.

> They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company. We should stop using the word "defense". They're war contractors at a war company. The Department of Defense is the Department of War. They changed the name and then immediately started taking military action against other countries. We're in a war in Iran for reasons that nobody can quite articulate, but it certainly has nothing to do with "defending" t…

> for reasons that nobody can quite articulate

They were articulated many times, maybe you didn't want to hear.

The action itself was poorly planned and executed, it's a different question.

Re: Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys

#113

Post by OkayPhysicist »

sfink wrote: post #88
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thoroughly disagree. Surveillance is an invasive tool of control, and as such intrinsically immoral. Just like a slew of other immoral actions, it may be a net positive when applied for a greater good, but if not used for anything, it's evil. This is trivially true to most common moral understandings. If my neighbor installs a camera pointing through my window and into my shower, applying some fancy technique to se…

That depends on the definition of "surveillance". Should a foreman not pay close attention to his workers? Should a hospital not track its patients' locations and vital stats while within the hospital? Are cameras in a jewelry shop morally wrong? Your neighbor's surveillance of you is bad because they're violating your privacy, and using the tool of surveillance to do it. If you lived in a foggy area and they were mo…

Again, there are plenty of instances where enough good comes from surveillance that it outweighs the intrinsic negative, but denying that it is, in of itself, intrinsically negative suggests that some creepy dude monitoring everyone's every move is just fine, as long as he's not doing anything else.

A more obvious parallel is violence. To trip over Godwin's law, shooting Hitler would have been a moral action, but not because "shooting people" is amoral. Shooting a random person is definitely immoral. We constantly do immoral things for the greater good, but it is a mistake to thusly assume those actions are amoral.

Re: Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys

#114

Post by snarf21 »

Ritewut wrote: post #69

Everyone in this industry should be required to read Careless People by Sara Wynn-Williams about her tenure at Facebook. Not because the book is about how evil Meta/Facebook is as a company but because you get to see the lengths people go to mentally convince themselves they are the good guy. Repeatedly in the book she tries to assure herself she's making the world better and that there's actually an ethical, positiv…

This just another example of Sinclair's Law.

Re: Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys

#115

Post by PunchyHamster »

Ritewut wrote: post #69

Everyone in this industry should be required to read Careless People by Sara Wynn-Williams about her tenure at Facebook. Not because the book is about how evil Meta/Facebook is as a company but because you get to see the lengths people go to mentally convince themselves they are the good guy. Repeatedly in the book she tries to assure herself she's making the world better and that there's actually an ethical, positiv…

I think Mitchell and Webb sketch is enough. It's not some slow descent to badness in case of Palantir, it's obvious from the PR materials alone

Re: Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys

#116

Post by sleepybrett »

orochimaaru wrote: post #94
Ritewut wrote: post #69

Everyone in this industry should be required to read Careless People by Sara Wynn-Williams about her tenure at Facebook. Not because the book is about how evil Meta/Facebook is as a company but because you get to see the lengths people go to mentally convince themselves they are the good guy. Repeatedly in the book she tries to assure herself she's making the world better and that there's actually an ethical, positiv…

There is no “ethical” company. They will tend towards making money by means that can be interpreted as being legal. Sometimes they will do things not legal - but those are calculated decisions based on how much the profit from said actions is compared to how much they will pay out as fines. Ethics and laws are for chumps like us. Because we don’t have the financial and legal muscle to challenge the state.

sure.. but there is 'not ethical' and there is palantir...

Re: Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys

#118

Post by gordonhart »

myth_drannon wrote: post #107

Palantir must be working on something amazing if they are constantly assaulted by Iranian/Chinese bots,Left fascists,"but GenOcide in HAZA" and others. Curiously not Boieng, not drone companies, but Palantir. Time to load up on Palantir stocks?

Truly. People are calling for Palantir employees to be targeted by foreign militaries right here in this comments section!

I'll ride this thread with you to the bottom of the page.

Re: Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys

#119

Post by blipvert »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #71
bastawhiz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company. We should stop using the word "defense". They're war contractors at a war company. The Department of Defense is the Department of War. They changed the name and then immediately started taking military action against other countries. We're in a war in Iran for reasons that nobody can quite articulate, but it certainly has nothing to do with "defending" t…

Regardless of what the Trump administration will tell you, that's not it's name. The executive branch is not empowered to unilaterally change the name of a department.

It’s not empowered to unilaterally declare war without approval from congress, either. But here we are.

Re: Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys

#120

Post by favflam »

Ritewut wrote: post #69

Everyone in this industry should be required to read Careless People by Sara Wynn-Williams about her tenure at Facebook. Not because the book is about how evil Meta/Facebook is as a company but because you get to see the lengths people go to mentally convince themselves they are the good guy. Repeatedly in the book she tries to assure herself she's making the world better and that there's actually an ethical, positiv…

I have an irrational hatred of someone who believes in "reality distortion fields". Over the last 10 years, I also have come away with an intense impression that Silicon Valley is full of the self-delusional type, as evidenced by Sara's book, Palantir's weird advertising and CEO, and the insane Nimbyism.

I believe it is in the best interest of the United States if the center of power shifts back from West Coast "tech bros" to the East coast. I and many others had enough of Silicon Valley.

Side note: I find it illuminating that one of the most popular social apps that birth social trends did not come from Silicon Valley, but China. I don't think Silicon Valley can drive social trends at all (anti-humanity types are too prevalent).

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