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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

#211

Post by stasomatic »

bko wrote: post #178
Ritewut wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are letting perfect be the enemy of good. If they respond with "I love bacon" then tell them to eat plant-based + bacon. It's still a vast improvement environmentally than what they were doing previously.

I personally think vegans should consider eating cows. If you care about sentient life and abuse, think about how much meat one cow produces. Killing a single cow can feed you for well over a year.

I’m gonna pull a Rogan and mention how many other sentient beings are massacred while plowing a field. Rodents, insects, snakes, birds, etc. Is that a myth?

What is the answer to feed everyone during these budget constrained times? It can’t be tofu, can it? There are just too many of us.

In the meantime, the US is overrun by dear and boars, and I’ve been learning archery.

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

#212

Post by nickburns »

alterom wrote: post #177
OneMorePerson wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah there's some kind of absolutism aspect tied into identity. Also the funny tendency humans have to dislike the people who are most similar to them. Someone who is at least recognizing factory farming is bad and willing to even think that far is more similar to a vegetarian than the people who don't give a shit and never even think about where their food is coming from. Obviously there's the cognitive dissonance a…

>Obviously there's the cognitive dissonance aspect to point out, but we are all doing that to some extent. Not necessarily. I mean, the people who give out an uncomfortable laugh do exhibit signs of cognitive dissonance. I don't have an issue with accepting both statements: factory farming is awful, and I still eat meat. There is no cognitive dissonance. The logic is straightforward: I do not believe that me, an indi…

Equating eating meat with martyrdom in the year 2026 is, in fact, the same cognitive dissonance you personally deny.

I eat meat. And I'm highly, highly morally conflicted. I'll leave it at that to avoid sounding hypothetical—except to mention that the only logical reason I don't go vegetarian/vegan is the work and personal development that'd be required of me. (I'll take being called lazy over disingenuous any day, if we're ostensibly virtue signaling here.)

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

#213

Post by paganel »

favflam wrote: post #120
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…

> 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'm not an American, never set foot in the US for that matter, but I'd say I'm pretty sympathetic to the people actually living there. All this to say that I've recently had the same realisation as you when it comes to West Coast people vs East Coast people, by this point the SV automatons are way, way outside of "normal life", maybe that has always been the case but for sure back in those days SV didn't have the same power as it has now (I'm not talking money, even though that is important, I'm talking actual power to have control over people's lives), not by a long shot.

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

#214

Post by throwaway23597 »

bobsomers wrote: post #174
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #103

[flagged]

> We're not perfect. We've done bad. But, you won't find another nation on earth or in history who has contributed as much to global progress, stability and well-being. Ooook... but > Defending the United States of America is never the wrong move. is not the correct logical conclusion from that. The correct conclusion would be that it is our ability to reflect on the bad things we've done that have allowed us to make…

OK, well the "circumstances and context" here are that most people commenting on HN live in the United States, so obviously they will be better off if the United States does well. I don't think your "um actually, you can't ALWAYS support something in all cases, sweaty" critique really adds anything to the discussion here.

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

#215

Post by jrflowers »

mrhottakes wrote: post #125

Taking a job at Spy Orbs For Evil Wizards Inc., reading the CEO's addled technofascist manifesto, and wondering if I'm the bad guy

Hearing my boss, Muad’Dib, say “There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.” and wondering what he means by all that

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

#216

Post by stackedinserter »

pphysch wrote: post #124
stackedinserter wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yeah, we didn't want Iran to have nukes, so we rugpulled the JCPOA and murdered the guy who declared a fatwa against nukes. We wanted to save the Iranian people from the regime that murdered 100,000 peaceful protestors (don't ask for evidence) so we butchered 170 school girls and didn't apologize. We wanted to stabilize the region, so we greenlit Israel's rampage in Lebanon and directly induced Iran to close the Stra…

Yes, an aggressive regime that develops nuclear weapons (otherwise why all this enrichment?), stockpiles missiles and drones that, funds terrorists like hezbolla, hoothis and hamas, should be stopped.

Yes, when you apply military force, civilians die. Nobody is happy about it, at least in US.

Yes, Iran closed the strait, because Trump taco'ed again and can't use force against it.

Yes, Israel bombs hezbolla, because what else should they do to people that shoot rockets at Israel? Send them fresh water and electricity? They tried it with Gaza, didn't help.

What was your point?

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

#217

Post by amanaplanacanal »

malfist wrote: post #186
bko wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally think vegans should consider eating cows. If you care about sentient life and abuse, think about how much meat one cow produces. Killing a single cow can feed you for well over a year.

You say that like it's mandatory to kill sentient life to feed people. It isn't.

I always wonder what vegans think is going to happen to all the pigs, cows, and chickens if people stop eating meat?

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

#219

Post by orochimaaru »

ajkjk wrote: post #104
orochimaaru wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

this take is irritating because it implies that people at companies don't have to bother being ethical or holding the people around them accountable at a personal level for being ethical, as if it's somehow predetermined by the environment, being at a corporation, how you behave. Certainly it's true that the incentives of corporations push you to ignore ethics. But that's why they're ethics: they're precisely the thi…

I’ve seen this time and again. The more money that a corporation or the leaders in there make, the less they’re worried about ethics.

It’s an irritating take. But personally I don’t move in the same circles as those making ethically dubious and partially legal decisions.

Do I want corporations to be ethical? Yes. Will I campaign for that and call my senator and congressman? Yes.

Are corporation lobbyists calling my congressman and senator with boatloads of money? You bet.

I don’t think everyone understands how disruptive privacy violations are. I think the best place to begin is start educating kids in high school about it, like they do for sex ed.

Am I willing to put money on the line and risk unemployment in the current market? Depends.

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

#220

Post by lpcvoid »

mrhottakes wrote: post #125

Taking a job at Spy Orbs For Evil Wizards Inc., reading the CEO's addled technofascist manifesto, and wondering if I'm the bad guy

Yeah, the mind boggles how anybody at Palantir can honestly be on the fence about them being the baddies.
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