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The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

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31–40 of 231 posts

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#31
post #16

The company is literally named after the magic orb that Sauron uses to surveil Middle-Earth. I don't know what you expected.

It’s not the Palantir that are bad, but Sauron and Saruman. They were created by elves for useful purposes.

Possibly the Palantir saved middle earth when Aragorn used it to scry events leading up to the final battles.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#32
It's kinda interesting how people are just now realizing that all the big tech companies are government contractors and not this imaginary utopia of 'making the world a better place' they were sold on.

Google, Amazon, Microsoft are all US gov't contractors. It's hilariously ironic seeing the political views of the employees suddenly clashing with their employers views of making money as if it's a new thing.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#34
post #2

Maybe I misunderstand Palantir's mission but working with LEOs like ICE seems to be their core business. All credit to these employees for standing up for what they believe in but what exactly did they think they were signing up for? I have a new coworker who wears his Palantir t-shirt and it makes me uncomfortable to even see the name in my office.

Maybe I'm the weird one, but who would wear a t-shirt from your previous company to work at your current company? That just seems to send all the wrong signals.

Doesn't seem that weird to me. Since landing in tech I haven't had to buy a single t-shirt- I just wear whatever they hand out.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#35

It's kinda interesting how people are just now realizing that all the big tech companies are government contractors and not this imaginary utopia of 'making the world a better place' they were sold on. Google, Amazon, Microsoft are all US gov't contractors. It's hilariously ironic seeing the political views of the employees suddenly clashing with their employers views of making money as if it's a new thing.

This isn't a new debate though...

My grandfather started a company which was a smaller player in the military contracting space.

It was somewhat large and his argument was that he was always 'helping democracy' but he was willfully blind IMO.

It's always going to be a bit fuzzy but it's another thing entirely when the organization you're selling to is just flat out evil.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#36
post #2

Maybe I misunderstand Palantir's mission but working with LEOs like ICE seems to be their core business. All credit to these employees for standing up for what they believe in but what exactly did they think they were signing up for? I have a new coworker who wears his Palantir t-shirt and it makes me uncomfortable to even see the name in my office.

Maybe I'm the weird one, but who would wear a t-shirt from your previous company to work at your current company? That just seems to send all the wrong signals.

I do this all the time and nobody cares.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#37
post #17
post #2

Maybe I misunderstand Palantir's mission but working with LEOs like ICE seems to be their core business. All credit to these employees for standing up for what they believe in but what exactly did they think they were signing up for? I have a new coworker who wears his Palantir t-shirt and it makes me uncomfortable to even see the name in my office.

The ICE thing has gotten dramatically worse recently. Accepting a certain level of abuse of power in other LE agencies doesn't necessarily mean they're OK with, say, actively pushing back against a DoJ settlement so they can hold children in detention indefinitely, etc.

Exactly. I think it's reasonable (although perhaps naive) for people to have a sunny view of law enforcement. Especially when, like me, they're white men from middle-class backgrounds; I've never had a bad experience with law enforcement, despite having done some stupendously dumb-ass things.

But even though I'm predisposed to view cops favorably, the stuff with ICE is shocking to me. America has a big chunk of history [1] where ethnic cleansing was common and ignored or even supported by police [2]. It's hard for me not to see ICE's aggressive dehumanization of non-white migrants as a resurgence of that. So I'm not surprised that even at Palantir people are objecting.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadir_of_American_race_relatio...

[2] See, e.g., https://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Towns-Hidden-Dimension-Americ...

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#38
Palantir: hey dude want to work for a company whose job it is to help punish people, manipulate, and violate their privacy through big data?

Engineer: sure! Just as long as I'm not enforcing a national border that's where I draw the line!

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#39
Palantir's entire business is providing data mining and surveillance software to government agencies. ICE is probably the least-morally-reprehensible thing they support. They are deeply involved with DHS, CIA, NSA, all manner of classified agencies. If any of their employees have a problem with ICE, they never belonged there in the first place.

Re: The war inside Palantir: Data-mining firm ties to ICE under attack by employees

#40
post #2

Maybe I misunderstand Palantir's mission but working with LEOs like ICE seems to be their core business. All credit to these employees for standing up for what they believe in but what exactly did they think they were signing up for? I have a new coworker who wears his Palantir t-shirt and it makes me uncomfortable to even see the name in my office.

Maybe I'm the weird one, but who would wear a t-shirt from your previous company to work at your current company? That just seems to send all the wrong signals.

(stops wearing my JPL t-shirt to work)
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