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Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

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Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#141

Post by bpt3 »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #110
bpt3 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that smaller group of people actually have some integrity and sense of duty to the people they represent and the country at large, rather than just pulling the lever for the thing that benefits them the most in the immediate term. That idea has always been tested, with the current times being the largest test in several decades at least.

The argument that somebody else has better integrity and sense of duty representing my needs or wants is dead on arrival. Direct democracy is a representative democracy where each person has a representative.

The founding fathers and many others would disagree. Based on human history, your assessment of the average human's level of integrity and reasoning is irrationally optimistic.

Also, I assume you meant to say "Direct democracy is a representative democracy where each person *is* a representative."

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#142

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

grafmax wrote: post #116
anonfordays wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We now have concentration camps Immigration detention facilities are not concentration camps.

They’re not death camps. But mass detention without due process - that’s a concentration camp.

I've asked this before, but how many Americans could even state a simple definition of what due process rights are? Can you (without cheating)? You've heard the term before (in school most likely), and if you were in the 10% of the students who weren't borderline flunking, you might even be able to name which amendment enumerates due process rights, but in my experience that's about the most any non-lawyer can even manage.

I have a fuzzy notion of what they encompass, admittedly, but nothing about the detention centers or the deportations stands out as a violation of those rights.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#143

Post by potato3732842 »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #11
Molitor5901 wrote: post #10

I get the concern bout Palantir but this is not new: Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Google, AWS, have all been extending their reach into government for over a decade. Palantir is the boogey man right now, and it's under a lot of scrutiny because of its work and its political ties, but let's try turning some of the ire to all of the other tech companies empowering the government against people. The others shouldn't get a pa…

Palantir is unique in that one of its founders has publicly stated he doesn't believe in democracy, the bedrock of the American system.

So basically he's saying the quiet part out loud?

When you look at the totality of the things that people who profess to "believe in democracy believe", advocate for and spend real resources advancing it's pretty clear that they a) don't believe in democracy b) believe in democracy in the the most technical "gotcha" sense because they don't believe in structuring it in a way that results in any serious amount of the implied freedom or autonomy for the individual.

I hate the guy and what he stands for. But at least he's self aware and honest so that puts him ahead of way more people than it should.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#144

Post by tylerchilds »

RajT88 wrote: post #131
tylerchilds wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hang on, the US has not been at war since WWII?

Yep. Messed me up too when I learned that. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_Un... Matches the last treason charges too. WWII was the last time anyone was charged (and convicted) of treason.

ah yeah, that helps a lot— this conversation has really driven home the meaning of “the post-war era”

likely, we’ll never be at war again based on how we now do conflicts, waging language semantics and syntax

no war, no treason, no problem

we are evolved, there is no war in Ba Sing Se

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#146

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

miltonlost wrote: post #105
rayiner wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founders created a representative government with a limited franchise and express protections for private property and economic liberty, precisely because of the concerns over populist democracy. That's why they provided for an electoral college rather than direct election of the president, and for senators to be selected by state legislatures. The push towards making that republican system more democratic starte…

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Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#147

Post by rayiner »

guelo wrote: post #137
rayiner wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MAGA cultural revolution fundamentally is an opposition to Wilsonianism and liberal universalism. That's why MAGA's authoritarian impulses are directed to the organs of Wilsonianism--such as executive agencies permanently captured by one party--rather than the public at large.

The deeply unpopular destruction of government institutions in 6 months that were built over decades by hundreds of laws passed by thousands of elected representatives is not democracy. It is a billionaire coup, they're blowing up all the safeguards that generations of Americans put in place to protect us from them.

> destruction of government institutions in 6 months that were built over decades by hundreds of laws passed by thousands of elected representatives

Republicans made the case to their voters that these institutions were permanently controlled by Democrats, and expressly promised to dismantle them. And Republicans won the Presidency and both houses of Congress. There's no principle of "democracy" that says changes to longstanding institutions must proceed slowly.

In fact, the only thing that's preventing Trump from living up to even more of his campaign promises is the anti-democratic check of the filibuster.

> billionaire coup

Every objective analysis shows that the majority of billionaires supported Kamala Harris. She raised $1.65 billion against Trump's $1.05 billion: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-11-15/trump-har.... She went into the home stretch with a huge cash advantage over Trump: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/21/politics/campaign-fundraising.... This was the second time Trump won despite being outspent and swimming against the opposition of Wall Street.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#148

Post by dfxm12 »

TriangleEdge wrote: post #65
TrackerFF wrote: post #45

We received a presentation/demo of their products when I worked in the gov (not the US gov. though) a couple of years ago. They seemed, okay? I mean nothing seemed mind-blowing. I worked on surveillance in a specific sector, where interagency collaboration is important. Hence why Palantir pitched their tools. I'm not sure how they've managed to blow up like that. Do they have some extensive network with gov. official…

Ex FDE here. Part of Palantir's pitch for Foundry back in the day is connecting disparate databases from agencies that don't collaborate well. They're also really good at getting demos up and running in a few days. The tech was good back when I was employed. They get hate because support war efforts / police / intelligence. They do 5 year contracts with the govt then bump the prices once they're sticky, like a J curv…

Yes. In practice, Palantir enables obfuscation of the "fruit of the poisonous tree".

Enabling a parallel construction in a surveillance state should draw hate, as it weakens the fourth amendment.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#149

Post by MOARDONGZPLZ »

Rodmine wrote: post #58

Most countries use Palantir or similar data-analysis systems today. This fear-mongering spiel is aimed squarely at most uninformed peasants, but I guess they do it because it works.

It didn’t work on you. You’re so smart and savvy.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#150

Post by palmfacehn »

bpt3 wrote: post #31
ants_everywhere wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter Thiel. He says "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." The beginning of the essay > I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “liberta…

These sound like the exact reasons we don't have a direct democracy. “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.” - not Peter Thiel

Tyranny of the majority redux.

I find it illustrative that so many here defend Democracy as an ends to be achieved or an unqualified good unto itself, rather than a process or a means to an end. It illustrates the arguments made elsewhere about how democratic processes and institutions have been succeeded by Democracy, the belief.

As an unqualified good, one can simply claim that the majority has voted or that the Democratic process has been performed, and therefore the outcome is just. There's an apt George Carlin quote...

https://www.google.com/search?q=Democracy%3A+The+God+That+Fa...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qByWF30jKiw

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