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

wired.com

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

#281

Post by ericmay »

nkingsy wrote: post #258
stasomatic wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that’s true, that’s insane. Forgive me, I’m not a PolSci scholar. Nobody in the cabinet can speak up and overrule his whimsy? It always annoys me when the headlines are “Trump invaded this …” or “Trump slapped a tariff on…” while effectively it’s the US government that’s doing that, they are letting him to do as he pleases? Then the fault lies not with him. He’s not a king but surely seems to have absolute discret…

The movie "vice" covers this nicely. The only thing stopping US presidents from acting like kings is precedent.

This is simply not true and it's disappointing fear-mongering from Vice (or anyone else who publishes this stuff). The reason you know it's true is because Trump doesn't care about precedent, yet in court case after court case that he or his administration lose they follow the law, even if it is imperfect or later attempted to be argued under a different standing.

The same thing that is true for Donald Trump now was true for pretty much all past presidents. Nothing has meaningfully changed here, yet we did not have these same articles before, nor did we have folks who are so caught up in political fervor that they are happy to go along with any ole' article or reporting that aligns with their current beliefs.

In other words, articles like those are click-bait, and their sole intention or at least their effect is to cause chaos and doubt in the American government.

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

#282

Post by [deleted] »

varjag wrote: post #266
stasomatic wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that’s true, that’s insane. Forgive me, I’m not a PolSci scholar. Nobody in the cabinet can speak up and overrule his whimsy? It always annoys me when the headlines are “Trump invaded this …” or “Trump slapped a tariff on…” while effectively it’s the US government that’s doing that, they are letting him to do as he pleases? Then the fault lies not with him. He’s not a king but surely seems to have absolute discret…

There was a widespread belief that U.S. government has an elaborate system of checks and balances but it was not evidence-based. Kind of Flat Earth period of American political science.

[deleted]

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

#283

Post by theturret »

As I said in another comment, I think it’s important to debate what these companies are doing, how they’re doing it, and whether the United States’ actions are morally and legally justified.

But I also think we need to get more smart people interested and working in national security. That’s the way you get the best balance between effective security and the minimum negative side effects to civil liberties or collateral damage, by having the smartest people inside these companies coming up with the best tech while also shaping the conversation from the inside.

It’s easier to just dunk on the big bad company (and maybe they are bad!) but I don’t think that solves anything. National security should be something more people participate in, not less.

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

#284

Post by asdfman123 »

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…

This quote immediately stood out:

> Are you tracking Palantir’s descent into fascism?

Their framing is wrong. The beliefs and internal politics of the people making the surveillance tools don't matter.

The fact is they're making tools to assist government overreach, and anyone with any political awareness (or maybe more importantly here, objectivity) could have seen that. They're just the enablers.

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

#285

Post by Lambdanaut »

stasomatic wrote: post #211
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.

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.

> mention how many other sentient beings are massacred while plowing a field. Rodents, insects, snakes, birds, etc. Is that a myth?

Loads of small field animals are killed when eating vegan. Loads more are killed when eating omnivore, because you have to plow even more field to also feed the factory-farmed animals.

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

Assuming you stick with it, I think that could be a good idea.

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

#286

Post by lazyasciiart »

UltraSane wrote: post #240
michaelsshaw wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has always used its military for global terrorism. Only just now, it is more in your face. There is no doubt: the US is responsible for some of the most sickening crimes against humanity the world has ever seen, including directly being the inspiration for the Holocaust, as well as US companies providing logistics for the Holocaust! I hate the idea that it was ever the DoD. It was always a terroristic, offensi…

"It was always a terroristic, offensive force." Even during WW2?

Yes. Netanyahu has pretended to justify destroying civilians in Gaza by saying the US did it first in Dresden.

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

#287

Post by inetknght »

bastawhiz wrote: post #63
leonidasrup wrote: post #8

Palantir employees should understand that they are not regular employees at a regular company. They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company. Also Palantir customers should understand that by buying Palantir services/products they are doing business with U.S. defense company. I don't say that this is positive or negative, it just clarifies the relationships and it should set the expectations.

> They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company. We should stop using the word "defense". They're war contractors at a war company. The Department of Defense is the Department of War. They changed the name and then immediately started taking military action against other countries. We're in a war in Iran for reasons that nobody can quite articulate, but it certainly has nothing to do with "defending" t…

> for reasons that nobody can quite articulate

I'll say them. The reasons are Trump, Vance, and Republicans.

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

#288

Post by ryandrake »

seattle_spring wrote: post #136
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'll never forget this spot on NPR where they interviewed a machine learning engineer working on AI videos. The engineer was purely focused on how cool the technology is, how real it looks, etc. The interviewer asked, "aren't you worried about this getting into the hands of the wrong people, and creating deepfakes for extortion and things like that?" The engineer paused for a few seconds, and then said, "gosh I never…

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was in university, we used to have at least one engineering ethics class in undergrad. Have they stopped those? It sure seems like it, given how many engineers are out there who only seem to care about how technically cool and interesting their projects are.

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

#289

Post by LadyCailin »

blipvert wrote: post #119
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of what the Trump administration will tell you, that's not it's name. The executive branch is not empowered to unilaterally change the name of a department.

It’s not empowered to unilaterally declare war without approval from congress, either. But here we are.

It’s not a war, it’s a special military operation.

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

#290

Post by lazyasciiart »

decimalenough wrote: post #257
kelnos wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are incredibly thin justifications that don't really hold up to scrutiny. 1) The deal was holding. And even if we take Trump's word for it that it wasn't, he told us that he destroyed their nuclear capability a year ago. So either he was lying about that, or there was no serious nuclear capability in the first place. Regardless of how that shakes out, there's no reason we should believe this justification today…

The US military is prosecuting the war just fine, US losses of materiel and personnel have been minimal (not zero, but close enough). China's takeaway from this is not going to be that the US military is incompetent. The fundamental problem is that the declared objectives of regime change and securing control of the Strait of Hormuz cannot be achieved through air power alone. And this is the fault of the president, n…

Achieving the declared objective falls directly within the category of "prosecuting the war", and "the US" certainly includes the Commander in Chief.
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