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The Anti-Palantir Manifesto

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71–80 of 92 posts

Re: The Anti-Palantir Manifesto

#72
post #69
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Police should use it to capture and stop the 1% of the population that's making life much more difficult for the rest of us. And they should lock them up for a considerable amount of time, not as rehabilitation or punishment, just to make the lives of ~99% of us better off. Maybe not 3 strikes, but can we settle on 10? 20? Anything would help. criminals are not out there making life difficult for you. you are far m…

Sure I'm unlikely to be murdered by some rando. But I have gotten my packages and bike stolen. I've been accosted on public transportation. Been threatened by homeless junkies. I've had to cross the street to keep my kids from seeing some unspeakable sight. And then there's the minor inconveniences, too many to worth mentioning. These are the things that affect my life. I could care less about someone whose daily rou…

This is more to the point, I think. You have a number of different minor inconveniences that you think are worth locking humans up for life for, and also you don't care about people who are not you even if they are not doing anything wrong. That doesn't make for a set of long-term legislative principles that would make a society work because they would be structurally sociopathic.

Re: The Anti-Palantir Manifesto

#73
Some of these are valid arguments against Palantir and the weaponization of surveillance.

But too many others are bullshit as the author was getting full of themselves.

"6. We are ruled by a senile gerontocracy. Unlike the generations that fought in the world wars, most of our current rulers are degenerate pedophiles"

This is just wrong. Donald Trump may be a senile pedophile, Howard Lutnik may be a pedophile but is not senile, Joe Biden was too old but wasn't senile or a pedophile, but we are largely not ruled by a cabal of senile pedophiles. The Trump Administration is protecting pedophiles, but most Americans, Europeans, and people throughout the world, are not ruled by pedophiles, either in their day or day or civic life.

"Today, new regional powers directly challenge the United States as its empire dissolves in the face of internal economic stagnation, political corruption, and the inflation of the dollar."

Regional powers don't directly challenge the United States. The United States has lost a war against Iran, but it was one we foolishly started. There isn't yet economic stagnation or inflation of the dollar. Even in the post-COVID period of significany inflation, from about 2022-2023, this was modest by historic measures and largely less severe than most other places in the world. Since Donald Trump has reintroduce inflation through his national sales tax (Tariff) policy and pointless foreign wars, inflation is up to ~4.x%, which is higher than it needs to be, but not remarkable historically. The national rate of inflation in 1980 was 13.5%. China certainly challenges the United States, but it is not a regional power, it is a world power, and the challenge is largely just economic and influence.

"8. In a real war, fantasies of total technological dominance always backfire. When a faceless drone kills a child’s father, that child will one day take revenge regardless of the cost."

This idea, itself, is the stuff of fantasy fiction. Most children whose parents are killed by a missile, drone, bomb, or whatever else, grow up as orphans, in extreme poverty, and rarely emerge from it in any sort of revenge narrative.

"9. Oddly enough, proponents of fully automated warfare support a universal draft."

I don't think that this is true and the author doesn't make the case.

"14. The State will not help us. The state is a dying pre-Internet institution that increasingly resembles nothing but a Ponzi scheme fueled by taxes and debt."

This is techno-libertarian bull shit and simply false. The state remains as our ("big our") best tool to regulate and control technology. There is no other lever.

"17. Digital identity is the next step in their system of control."

This may be true, but it is in conflict with the gerontocracy of senile pedophiles argument. There has been no greater gift to pedophiles than the anonymity of the internet combined with the (relative) untraceability of effective encryption. These two things, liberty and safety, are genuinely in conflict with one another and I don't see the internet or state regulators finding the right solution.

"18. Only when one can be anonymous is one truly free."

This is trite and false, and tritely false.

"20. Culture wars are a psyop."

This is not true, and similarly trite. There are culture wars in every civilization and community on earth, throughout history, and they're not exclusively well organized psyops. I'd encourage the author to read Richard White's The Republic For Which It Stands, which I think the author would find a lot of common ground with White, but one thing that is particularly clarifying is in our current 21st century gilded age, just how much was similar 130 years ago before there was a mass media or national intelligence cabal.

I think that the author should workshop a lot of these arguments and focus on the ones that they're knowledgable about, particularly in terms of code, surveillance, and coding for good against evil. Also it would seem as though he calls himself "The Philosopher CEO," as he wrote this piece and is speaking for himself, and if you are calling yourself a philosopher CEO you are a blowhard.

Re: The Anti-Palantir Manifesto

#74

Some of these are valid arguments against Palantir and the weaponization of surveillance. But too many others are bullshit as the author was getting full of themselves. "6. We are ruled by a senile gerontocracy. Unlike the generations that fought in the world wars, most of our current rulers are degenerate pedophiles" This is just wrong. Donald Trump may be a senile pedophile, Howard Lutnik may be a pedophile but is…

>

Yep. Wholly apart from the value or lack of it in his points, I'm not taking that personal brand seriously.

Re: The Anti-Palantir Manifesto

#75
post #20

The fear of an imminent surveillance state just rings so hollow to me. It used to appeal to me as an existential threat, but then real world experience made me realize how implausible this is, not due to technological limitations but political will. We already have surveillance states. Walk into any chain drug store in the country and you'll be met with cameras tracking your every movement, deodorant under lock and k…

Adding this comment: 1) We DO actually need to detect crime if we are going to fight it. Sticking our heads in the dirt and strapping a sign to our rear end saying "no surveillance" may feel good, but it does nothing for the victims of crime. 2) The anti-Palantir cries are funded in part by state actors whose operations are constrained by technology that detects and predicts their actions. The quantity of anti-Palant…

> We DO actually need to detect crime if we are going to fight it

We DO need some privacy if we are going to stay in a democracy.

So, yeah, we'll have to keep not fighting crime, as they weren't fighting it before the invention of cameras and computers :/

> The quantity of anti-Palantir, anti-America

Thiel and Palantir are against several core principles of America (such as democracy). You can't sensibly be both pro America and pro Palantir.

> anti-American ally

I wonder who you refer to...

> How about returning the favor though diligence in moderating HN?

Yeah, by doing something about Thiel's bootlickers

Re: The Anti-Palantir Manifesto

#76
post #20

The fear of an imminent surveillance state just rings so hollow to me. It used to appeal to me as an existential threat, but then real world experience made me realize how implausible this is, not due to technological limitations but political will. We already have surveillance states. Walk into any chain drug store in the country and you'll be met with cameras tracking your every movement, deodorant under lock and k…

A Surveillance state is not the same as police state. We already live in a surveillance state, but we are protected by three things: 1. The cost of arrest. Actually sending someone to pick the person up and put them in handcuffs, process and change them. 2. The cost of prosecution. Having lawyers build a case, schedule a judge and courtroom. 3. The cost of enforcement. Putting someone in prison or threatening to put…

Keep in mind that the US president can now do anything he declares related to his office with immunity, and can pardon whoever else violates the law or the constitution

Re: The Anti-Palantir Manifesto

#77
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

77% != 9 out of 10 and 5 != dozens. Seems like you’re doing a good job of disproving your own exaggerated claims.

You must not be familiar w/ the English language and common colloquialisms. So I'd sit this one out.

I think by colloquialism you mean extreme exaggeration. Maybe check word definitions before using them if you don’t know. The last sentence would have been omitted had you not thrown the “familiar with language” shade.

Re: The Anti-Palantir Manifesto

#78
post #70
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Street crime is tangible, visceral, and visible. When someone physically accosts you or physically invades your space, you feel it. Incestuous "robber baron" state-capitalism that privatizes gains and socializes losses, or outright white-collar crime, are not so tangible. You don't see it or feel it. It doesn't feel as invasive. It's worse though, with the only exception being violent crime against your body. It does…

Thanks GPT.

People think I’m AI! Yay!

It’s hopeless. You won’t be able to tell at all. Probably can’t already.

Re: The Anti-Palantir Manifesto

#79
post #72
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure I'm unlikely to be murdered by some rando. But I have gotten my packages and bike stolen. I've been accosted on public transportation. Been threatened by homeless junkies. I've had to cross the street to keep my kids from seeing some unspeakable sight. And then there's the minor inconveniences, too many to worth mentioning. These are the things that affect my life. I could care less about someone whose daily rou…

This is more to the point, I think. You have a number of different minor inconveniences that you think are worth locking humans up for life for, and also you don't care about people who are not you even if they are not doing anything wrong. That doesn't make for a set of long-term legislative principles that would make a society work because they would be structurally sociopathic.

Correct, I don't think we should allow people to steal and terrorize the public. It's not a minor inconvenience and every sensible society in history would remove these people from the population.

I imagine you live in a nice gated community where you don't have to deal with these people. Must be nice.

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