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How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

theintercept.com

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Re: How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

#101

Post by nafizh »

potatosoup wrote: post #49
clydethefrog wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the people behind Y Combinator that condemn Trump because according to them he represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and immigrants[0], but at the same time have many financial ties with Thiel's practices. They have financial power to take a stand against this threat, but decide not do it. [0] http://blog.samaltman.com/the-2016-election

> He represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and immigrants As an immigrant myself, I keep seeing famous people write this, but I want some kind of "citation needed." What plans does this actually refer to?

As an immigrant and minority myself, you are being intentionally obtuse.

Re: How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

#102

Post by humanrebar »

krath94 wrote: post #39
Dagwoodie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He voted for a Republican .

It's sad that people generalize about people that vote Republican. Most republicans (or people that vote republican) I have met, including myself, have been supportive of the LGBT community. Not ALL Republicans are against LGBT, just like not all liberals want free government handouts. These generalizations about the "other side" are counter-productive. Also, I'm not saying you came across as generalizing, I know you…

If you're really Republican, I'd suggest you stop framing debates about social policy as "for" and "against" LGBT. Thinking that heterosexual couples have an acute and unique problem with maintaining two-parent households, for instance, isn't anti anything.

I'm not aware of any serious Republican that wants bakers to be able to ban gay customers, either. Most of these issues are drummed up to form straw men and ad hominem arguments and avoid listening to legitimate concerns. We seem to agree on that.

That is, "for" and "against" is already framing the problem in terms of identity and division and I don't think that's productive, so I'd like to find ways to rephrase the problem.

Re: How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

#103

Post by consentist »

zzzeek wrote: post #70
muninn_ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with libertarianism nor serves as a coherent critique of it. In fact, some of your points are things that we see readily in governments today. As an example, many corrupt police officers exist in many government systems, including western countries. A critique of libertarianism based on such things is not well thought out.

we live in a democracy. In Ferguson, police were abusive and corrupt. Mass protests followed, media attention was gathered, changes were made. In libertarian land, mass protests against police corruption and abuse occur, the media is not allowed to enter, the protestors are all shot on sight. The end. The burden is on libertarians to explain exactly why this would not happen in the absense of any democratically elect…

> The burden is on libertarians to explain exactly why this would not happen in the absense of any democratically elected government.

This is why libertarian constitution is designed to be simple and objective, as much as possible. Corruption can happen anywhere but libertarian governments would be among the last to have it. The philosophy also happen to rely on technology to enforce the constitution which rules out subjectiveness/corruption considerably.

Also though there are many variations in libertarianism but none of it will interfere between two consenting adults (such as buying drugs etc). Thus no wars on drugs.

Re: How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

#104

Post by srum »

beachstartup wrote: post #85
potatosoup wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and immigrants As an immigrant myself, I keep seeing famous people write this, but I want some kind of "citation needed." What plans does this actually refer to?

they deliberately conflate legal (skilled) immigrants and illegal aliens. to them, there is no difference. it is a hyper-egalitarian interpretation of the word 'immigrant' with no basis in law or social norms.

Didn't the recent travel ban attempt to revoke valid visas?

Re: How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

#105

Post by humanrebar »

beachstartup wrote: post #85
potatosoup wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and immigrants As an immigrant myself, I keep seeing famous people write this, but I want some kind of "citation needed." What plans does this actually refer to?

they deliberately conflate legal (skilled) immigrants and illegal aliens. to them, there is no difference. it is a hyper-egalitarian interpretation of the word 'immigrant' with no basis in law or social norms.

> no basis in law or social norms

To push back a little...

I'm generally pro immigration and didn't vote for Trump (partly for these reasons). But there are valid points to be made about:

* what a healthy level of immigration is

* what a healthy immigration process looks like

* how much should family concerns affect immigration chances

* how much should professional skills affect immigration chances

* how to enforce immigration laws

The above are entirely about law and social norms. Just because you disagree doesn't mean there are no valid points.

Not engaging those points is just retrenching people, promoting more division, and making reasonable people side with unreasonable ones like Trump. I'm gathering that most people who voted for Trump voted for the least bad option in their minds, not because they wanted a buffoon for a president.

Re: How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

#106

Post by ZeroGravitas »

beachstartup wrote: post #85
potatosoup wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and immigrants As an immigrant myself, I keep seeing famous people write this, but I want some kind of "citation needed." What plans does this actually refer to?

they deliberately conflate legal (skilled) immigrants and illegal aliens. to them, there is no difference. it is a hyper-egalitarian interpretation of the word 'immigrant' with no basis in law or social norms.

Stephen Bannon stated that having Asian CEOs running 2/3rds of the companies in Silicon Valley was bad for civic society.

Are unskilled workers sneaking in from Asia illegally to run Google and Microsoft or are you wrong about whether it's only unskilled, illegal immigrants that are being targetted?

(We'll ignore for now the fact that 2/3rds is an incorrect figure, he was presumably intentionally exaggerating to inspire fear in his base.)

Re: How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

#107

Post by Chris2048 »

nafizh wrote: post #101
potatosoup wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and immigrants As an immigrant myself, I keep seeing famous people write this, but I want some kind of "citation needed." What plans does this actually refer to?

As an immigrant and minority myself, you are being intentionally obtuse.

He should just drink the liberal koolaid?

Re: How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

#108

Post by consentist »

zzzeek wrote: post #52
muninn_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of that is a result of government action and the government hiring private corporations, not private corporations acting on their own.

nonsense. Let's go to libertarian land. There's no government for internal affairs. We live in a town. Are there any police? No police? Really? Of course there are police. The townspeople got tired of all the poors breaking into their houses and shops and whatnot, didn't feel like all individually standing outside holding guard all night, got together to pool their money and hired a police force to handle the issue a…

> ... hired a police force to handle the issue and built a jail to throw all the poors into

Violates NAP. Cant Happen.

But the state police does have constitution-granted right to confine you for repeatedly violating NAP such as by breaking into people's homes.

Re: How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

#109

Post by jdminhbg »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #93
new299 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to say it's false. But I've love to see citations supporting the notion that technological progress has slowed since the 1970s. Looking around me I see some evidence: CCD Cameras: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge-coupled_device#History LEDs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode#Initial_c... Laser diodes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_diode#History LCDs: https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

Cloud computing is the mainframe model. ALGOL was safe, maintainable language for systems with LISP being ultimate for scripting or flexibility. Current languages mostly do what the could already do. High-performance, NoSQL databases were how mainframes started. Clustering & early distributed systems by Dec's VMS & Tandem NonStop. Xerox PARC came up with desktops. Englebart's people demonstrated all kinds of stuff in…

> Cloud computing is the mainframe model.

It really, really isn't. It shares one characteristic (computation done on behalf of one client by another remote client), but pretty much nothing else. The need to pigeonhole all developments in terms of historical patterns is just revisionism.

Re: How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

#110

Post by Chris2048 »

api wrote: post #77
choxi wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your opinion about the causes of this "mini Dark Age"? Do you still feel that we're in it?

Around the early 1970s, the great watch-word of the culture became "back." This came primarily in two forms: back to nature (left), and back to the Bible (right). Under the hood both embrace the naturalistic fallacy (natural equals good) and the idea that there is a proper order from which we have deviated (sin, redemption, reconciliation). This manifested as the Religious Right, the anti-development wing of the Gree…

> The alt-right's embrace of racism and sexism

The scope of these terms has been expanded significantly. I no longer care what anyone considers to be 'racist' or 'sexist'; I care what their values are, and if I consider them of worth.

EDIT: 'alt-right' may have changed too. Some seem to thing it just means 'alternate right', others 'code-name for racists'.

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