Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

thenerve.news

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–326 of 326 posts

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#321

Post by Manuel_D »

gib444 wrote: post #279
qweiopqweiop wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure they hold sensitive data themselves though? My understanding was they integrate their tools with customers own data and don't have access to it themselves (at least in theory). Of course I agree that quote is insane and you can dislike them for political reasons, but I want to understand the technological fears and see if any are unfounded.

Stop sealioning

This isn't sealioning, this is a directly relevant point: The grandparent comment says that giving Palantir access to data is a risk.

But the parent comment points out that software companies often don't see all the data that their software is used to analyze. Microsoft does not see your tax return just because the IRS uses Excel.

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#322

Post by ljm »

Manuel_D wrote: post #318
ljm wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just being absurd. If I was to say "Musk is an asshole just look at what he did at the presidential inauguration in 2025" and you said "you'd make a better point by giving a source for that ominous reference", I would think you were acting in bad faith because of how widely reported Musk's nazi salutes were at the time, and I would feel completely fair in saying "go and find out for yourself, you have all of…

In your example with Musk, you actually gave a concrete reference: doing a Nazi salute. You've yet to do even that with Thiel and Karp. > 5 minutes of using Google or something would bring up various reports of Karp's recent conference statements And for the third time, you couldn't even be bothered to actually share those statements. This is the first result from googling "Alex Karp Conference": > “And so these disr…

Fair play to you on this. You were correctly attacking me on a low effort post and it got turned around onto you.

This is how it works. I can double down on bullshit and you can spin your wheels arguing against it.

That wasn't my original intention, I just wanted to say Thiel and Karp are assholes but you should see for yourself.

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#323

Post by basisword »

roryirvine wrote: post #302
happymellon wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion (not OP), a serious country would look at it's basic national security risks, and work to minimise them. I'm not talking terrorism, far more basic than that. Food, Energy, Transport Communications, Manufacturing. Are you either able to be the provider of any of these if it really came down to it, or are you dependent on a single outside source? Most countries will be unable to fulfill all of these, but…

That's not really true. The UK has run an open economy for almost 200 years and has long had one of the most diverse sets of trading arrangements of any country in the world. For domestic energy, it has never relied on Russia. Natural gas supplies are a roughly equal mix of domestic production, Norwegian pipeline imports, and LNG imports (primarily from the USA, but with no restriction on switching to other providers…

Clearly that’s not good enough. We’re still not out of the last cost of living crisis and we’re going into the next one. We should be more self-reliant. Diversity doesn’t work in such an interconnected global economy.

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#324

Post by alterom »

frm88 wrote: post #282
alterom wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Thiel apparently gives talks about the Antichrist You forgot to mention the part where Thiel tells, in all seriousness, that the Antichrist is on Earth, now, and may literally be Greta Thunberg [1]. And that's one of the reason Greta Thunberg must be opposed. > He's actually a very thoughtful Christian That's one way to upsell "deranged". Thoughtful he is (as many lunatics are). As far as religious aspects go, him l…

Upvoted. Slight correction: Thiel grew up in what today is Namibia, not South Africa, see your 6. His parents left for the US when the planned opening of a uranium mine nearby made clear that there would be an influx of black people. On the notion of Thiel being a very thoughtful Christian (your parent poster): if you can define adherence to Nazi philosopher's Carl Schmitt doctrine thoughtful where he fears "the sata…

Thanks for your comment!

>Slight correction: Thiel grew up in what today is Namibia, not South Africa

What today is Namibia was, when Thiel lived there, called South West Africa as a territory under South African control.

Namibia only gained independence in 1990. By all means, Thiel living there before moving to the US in 1976 was growing up in South Africa (by the same measure as kids living in Donbas region of Ukraine today are growing up in Russia, even if these territories will be reclaimed in the future).

But yes, Namibia deserves recognition, and the more specificity, the better. "Namibia under SA control" would be a better choice of words.

>if you can define adherence to Nazi philosopher's Carl Schmitt doctrine thoughtful where he fears "the satanic unification of the world", then by all means.

O_O

Me: things are bad

Helpful comment: actually, things are worse.

>If you like to read an In-depth article about the influences on Thiel (incl. by Wolfgang Palaver) there is a very thorough article in Wired

Thanks for the reference! I've got a Wired subscription to support their journalism, but I haven't read this article yet. Time to make use of it!

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#325

Post by roryirvine »

basisword wrote: post #323
roryirvine wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really true. The UK has run an open economy for almost 200 years and has long had one of the most diverse sets of trading arrangements of any country in the world. For domestic energy, it has never relied on Russia. Natural gas supplies are a roughly equal mix of domestic production, Norwegian pipeline imports, and LNG imports (primarily from the USA, but with no restriction on switching to other providers…

Clearly that’s not good enough. We’re still not out of the last cost of living crisis and we’re going into the next one. We should be more self-reliant. Diversity doesn’t work in such an interconnected global economy.

That may be true, but it turns out that autarky works even less well.

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#326

Post by navane »

octopoc wrote: post #320
navane wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're better at selling ideas than having fleshed out ideas. One could say they sell before they build.

How do you square that with Germany’s miraculous economic recovery pre WII? Obviously they were doing something right. It took every other major power on the planet to take them down.

Because there was no off ramp. War economy never has. It looks great while it's going though.

Year Military Spending (billions of RM) % of GDP

1933 0.7 1.0%

1934 4.0 5.1%

1935 5.5 7.0%

1936 10.3 12.2%

1937 11.5 12.7%

1938 17.2 17.2%

1939 38.0 23.0%

Did they build their military to go to war? Or were they force to go to war as the nature of their economy forced them?

Post reply on HN