‘ELITE’: The Palantir app ICE uses to find neighborhoods to raid

Post by schmuckonwheels » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 10:52 PM UTC

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #164

periodjet wrote: post #134

Why have we all lost the ability to think in a nuanced way? It’s very disturbing to witness, particularly on a forum like HN, ostensibly populated by smart people. It’s possible to simultaneously believe that ICE has a clear and ethical mandate while also believing that they are going about fulfilling that mandate via bad methods that need to change. It’s possible to simultaneously believe that people shouldn’t be ma…

Unfortunately while proselytizing about nuance, the side with the power and the guns is working overtime to make it so there is only one valid set of beliefs, and those beliefs are “American”. This is no longer a symmetric conflict of ideologies, I’m not sure what it’s going to take for people to realize this. A tidal wave of blue in the midterms I think is the only hope a lot of us have left. Maybe if that doesn’t c…

Post by bri3d » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 10:54 PM UTC

20after4 wrote: post #293

bri3d wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and what I’m saying is that to the best of my knowledge, Palantir don’t sell data at all, which is the fundamental misunderstanding people seem to have about them.

There are two really two major concerning issues with Palantir: 1. They provide tech that is used to select targets for drone strikes and apparently also for targeting violent attacks on US civilians. I don't know too much about how the algorithm works but simply outsourcing decisions about who lives or dies to opaque algorithms is creepy. It also allows the people behind the operations to avoid personal responsibili…

Post by datsci_est_2015 » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 11:03 PM UTC

schmuckonwheels wrote: post #301

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately while proselytizing about nuance, the side with the power and the guns is working overtime to make it so there is only one valid set of beliefs, and those beliefs are “American”. This is no longer a symmetric conflict of ideologies, I’m not sure what it’s going to take for people to realize this. A tidal wave of blue in the midterms I think is the only hope a lot of us have left. Maybe if that doesn’t c…

[flagged]

Post by jmye » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 11:04 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #180

pixelready wrote: post #12

I’ve never worked at Palantir, but once you get past the noisy leadership’s villain virtue signaling, every report I’ve read about the platform itself gives me strong “typical enterprise vendor” vibes. A lackluster software offering that is overhyped to institutional purchasers, then shoved down frontline employees’ throats because the vendor is good at navigating the sales and compliance labyrinth to secure deals. T…

The fact that there is a demand for fake evil, functioning like fake piety did in the 1600s, is a flaw of difficult-to-encompass proportion. Our culture is totally bankrupt if companies are now pretending to be worse than they're in reality able to be. Of course, in contrast to piety all fake evil is also real evil.

Post by datsci_est_2015 » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 11:09 PM UTC

Dracophoenix wrote: post #204

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is reductionist. Surely you’ve heard of the Torment Nexus? This is along the lines of “If I don’t do it, someone else will get paid to, so it might as well be me that gets paid to do it” which I personally find morally abhorrent.

The "torment nexus" is just as reductionist a claim. It is almost always an ad hominem selectively invoked under arbitrary standards. If one consistently follows the argument raised in the meme to its ultimate conclusion, then nothing should ever be invented or accomplished for fear of some speculative harm at some undefined point in the future.