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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

#151
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Let's hope. Our "wars" post WWII, as bad as they were, were nowhere near the nightmares of the first two world wars.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You can put whatever paint you want on a turd and it is miraculously still the same thing.

Exactly, you can paint "it's a concentration camp" on the immigration detention facility and it is miraculously still the same thing. Glad you agree, it's not a concentration camp.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#153
post #71

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…

I mean, he’s not wrong. Libertarianism is freedom - for the rich. And concentrated wealth is antithetical to democracy because it’s concentrated power. He’s just taking libertarianism to its logical extreme by repudiating democracy. Is it any wonder that he has helped fund our decline into authoritarianism? We now have concentration camps, abrogation of the constitution, judicial capture, and the military turned incr…

I don't disagree with any of your conclusions, but he is not even a libertarian ideologically. Somebody who is a boss (owner or manager) in a private company can't be considered to put freedom of his subordinates above all else; it's an authoritarian arrangement. If he was truly a libertarian, he would be either a lone contractor or consider his coworkers to be his peers (e.g. would start a cooperative instead of private company, or he would find a similar position as Linus Torvalds).

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their stock has tripled since november, they are way to overvalued. Either way I would not put my money on their stock, I do not want to support such company. Vote with your wallet.

Speak for yourself....Writing was on the wall the minute I saw where the funding for Palantir was coming from. Been in since $12 a share, holding tight until they take over. Praying the Pala-net will look favorably on share holders in a psuedo Roko's basilisk sort of situation.

P/E ~700

Good luck with that

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its really easy to read this and be scared without being given any context, not everyone in the room knows who you are referring to and if your reading of their remarks are accurate. You got a name and a raw source?

That's on the tame end of Peter Thiel's rather demented belief system. Another tidbit: he believes Greta Thunberg is very possibly the actual antichrist. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ao_umPlSV6o

Say what you will about Peter Thiel, he does have a sense of humor.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#156
post #52
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is China a peer with vast resources and numbers of people, it is also a nuclear power. A full scale conflict would be disastrous for us all.

So either the war goes immediately nuclear, in which case no one wins but the US has a significant missile advantage, or it doesn't in which case China will be facing down an adversary with a 11 aircraft carriers and their support flotillas, as well as deep magazines of long range antishipping missiles and the largest submarine fleet in the world and the largest airforce in the world. China has a lot of resources, bu…

Just how long do you think the US would be able to deploy the full force you describe here in a world where all commerce with China ceases abruptly and Pacific ocean trade is severely disrupted?

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#157
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Let's hope. Our "wars" post WWII, as bad as they were, were nowhere near the nightmares of the first two world wars.

100% agreed.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#158
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's on the tame end of Peter Thiel's rather demented belief system. Another tidbit: he believes Greta Thunberg is very possibly the actual antichrist. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ao_umPlSV6o

I think he was saying the antichrist would be more likely to be a person like Greta, not Greta herself, but the clip cuts off the context at the beginning so it is hard to say.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antic...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antic... - Gift link

https://archive.is/mPjPq - Archive link

So yes, he does say it's more likely to be Greta Thunberg than an "evil tech genius", but does not outright say she's the Antichrist.

I still find it strange that he's afraid of her creating a one world government.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#159
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the US did have literal nazis publicly espousing fascism in the US before Pearl Harbor. There have always been portions of the US electorate enamored with authoritarianism.

I'd point out that, at the time American went to war against the Nazis, it was in the 3rd decade of an immigration policy so restrictive that the foreign-born population dropped from 15% in 1920 to under 5% by 1970. Even though Europe was utterly devastated from war in the post-war period, there was no mass immigration of europeans to the U.S. because of restrictive immigration laws. So yes, there were Nazis in the U…

>Roosevelt himself called Mussolini “admirable” and professed that he was “deeply impressed by what he has accomplished.” The admiration was mutual. In a laudatory review of Roosevelt’s 1933 book Looking Forward, Mussolini wrote, “Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices.… Without question, the mood accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism.” The chief Nazi newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter, repeatedly praised “Roosevelt’s adoption of National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies” and “the development toward an authoritarian state” based on the “demand that collective good be put before individual self-interest.”

https://www.cato.org/commentary/hitler-mussolini-roosevelt#

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

>I've asked this before, but how many Americans could even state a simple definition of what due process rights are?

It's because most people don't have a good grasp of how diverse and often flimsy administrative and civil process (in cases where one party is the .gov is in reality. Typically the answer is "whatever the enforcing agencies come up with", which isn't very reassuring.

Like for a traffic ticket they at least haul you before a judge in a public court anyone can attend to give some pretext of the accused having serious rights that protect them. It makes sense. Traffic tickets are a "mass market" product so to speak and so the .gov has to put on a good show even if at the end of the day someone facing a $200 civil traffic fine doesn't actually have the same rights as the guy facing a $200 criminal public urination fine.

When it comes to stuff like code enforcement, arcane industry enforcement, fish and game, ICE and everything else federal the process is far less "due", so to speak and is far more likely to not have separation of powers on the government side (i.e. administrative ppl in the enforcement agencies will be making decisions that would be made by a judge in other contexts)

I don't know what "due process" consists of for immigration violations but I would bet my last dollar that it is an absolute joke compared to the high end of civil (traffic ticket and the like), which itself is a joke compared to criminal matters.

I would really like to see all this shit thrown out by the supreme court. If the .gov, be it fed, state or local, is going to punish people the same way they punish criminals bet it a fine or jail then they ought to meet the same bar. Allowing people to be jailed (in the case of ICE) or fined large sums (in the case of many other types of administrative matters) because it's not nominally a criminal matter is 100% an end run around the constitution.

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