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

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

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 756 posts

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

#351

Post by stasomatic »

jedmeyers wrote: post #267
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…

> Nobody in the cabinet can speak up and overrule his whimsy? Who will be overruling that "someone in the cabinet", when things start going the wrong way again? There is always someone on top, and in the US it's the sitting President.

The diehards that voted last time are having second thoughts when it starts hitting their wallets. Loyalty goes both ways.

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

#352

Post by [deleted] »

spwa4 wrote: post #301
reactordev wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the administration’s love of Axis of Allies, or is it allies of axis? They don’t know, they got distracted by the mustaches and the desire to conquer the world.

You do realize that the Axis (Nazi Germany, Japan) were attacking everyone with the explicitly stated goal of conquering the world (and subjecting it to the holocaust, we might add), and US stopped them, conquered Europe, North Africa, half the Pacific, and nothing has been able to stop the US military since. And the US ... retreated. We might add, the Soviets, the other axis, did not retreat. China did not retreat.…

[deleted]

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

#353

Post by collingreen »

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…

What?

How many is the right number of personnel and materiel to lose for this war that isn't war and seems to have been either purchased for a few hundred million by political bribes or is just a distraction from the administrations involvement in a monstrous child sex ring? Also didn't we already win this war last year, last month, and last week? It is really easy to wave away our fellow dead citizens (and Iranians, including a school full of children!) from an internet comment form but damn, real people are dead here and it's an actual tragedy.

For me, zero deaths seems like the right answer for these objectives and anything else is egregious abuse of power.

I'd love it if everyone stopped being happy with people lying to them. When you catch people lying to you, be angry and stop trusting them!

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

#354

Post by starshadowx2 »

ericmay wrote: post #281
nkingsy wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They're talking about the movie Vice from 2018, not Vice the magazine.

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

#355

Post by cogman10 »

spwa4 wrote: post #301
reactordev wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the administration’s love of Axis of Allies, or is it allies of axis? They don’t know, they got distracted by the mustaches and the desire to conquer the world.

You do realize that the Axis (Nazi Germany, Japan) were attacking everyone with the explicitly stated goal of conquering the world (and subjecting it to the holocaust, we might add), and US stopped them, conquered Europe, North Africa, half the Pacific, and nothing has been able to stop the US military since. And the US ... retreated. We might add, the Soviets, the other axis, did not retreat. China did not retreat.…

The US did not retreat. We fought multiple wars to maintain our power and influence. We toppled multiple regimes to maintain puppet governments. Very much the same as the USSR and China have done.

Vietnam, Korea, Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, etc.

US conquest was quiet similar to British conquest. They didn't make their conquered people citizens (that'd make things tricky for exploitation) so instead they make sure the "democracies" they spread elected the right leaders who just so happen to align with US interests.

There's a reason the US has military bases across the globe. It's not because they've retreated from their subservient states.

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

#356

Post by 8note »

sfink wrote: post #88
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thoroughly disagree. Surveillance is an invasive tool of control, and as such intrinsically immoral. Just like a slew of other immoral actions, it may be a net positive when applied for a greater good, but if not used for anything, it's evil. This is trivially true to most common moral understandings. If my neighbor installs a camera pointing through my window and into my shower, applying some fancy technique to se…

That depends on the definition of "surveillance". Should a foreman not pay close attention to his workers? Should a hospital not track its patients' locations and vital stats while within the hospital? Are cameras in a jewelry shop morally wrong? Your neighbor's surveillance of you is bad because they're violating your privacy, and using the tool of surveillance to do it. If you lived in a foggy area and they were mo…

if its ok for the foreman to control the workers, you would then say its ok for the foreman to hold the workers at gun point while they work?

id say the control is immoral, in all forms. Voluntary agreement and consent are fine but then its not surveillance, its people saying where they are. the patient wants the doctor to know where they are and what they are doing, and not just letting the doctor decide on their own what to know.

the worker wants the foreman to know that they are present and working, in fulfilment of their contract together. its not surveillance either.

the jewelry store itself is immoral, but private property and control thereof is a tradeoff we've made

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

#357

Post by Lerc »

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…

How do you determine if they are mentally convincing themselves they are the good guy, when in fact it is you who is the good guy.

From either perspective, if the roles were reversed, wouldn't it look the same? Both parties thinking they are doing the right thing.

There are a lot of legitimate criticisms out there, they seem to be vastly outnumbered by illegitimate criticisms, no matter what position you hold. It's easy to hold your opinion when you are inundated with a constant stream of invalid arguments that say little more than "I don't like the tribe you chose". Any valid argument is easily overlooked without a sense of guilt in that environment.

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

#358

Post by tapland »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #349
tapland wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean. The side voting while knowing they can't stop it that way, the definition of optics, thought this was worth it to not cater to their anti-war voters, no? Both side bad yeah, you seem to think the solution is still to cling to the lesser of two evils. Hell, dem presidential candidates were praising Trumps Iran policy up until the bombs started falling. There is no evidence they _actually_ care about a war with…

yea, I don't see any evidence that either the democratic party or democratic voters support the war on iran, secretly or not sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

No-one supports the war now. But Palestine just had to go? It can't be about _war_ or loss of life, and the people caring can get f-ed we don't need your votes.

But sure one side is extremely against anything like this but unfortunately only get to demonstrate it when in opposition and unable to do anything.

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

#359

Post by alpha_squared »

LadyCailin wrote: post #289
blipvert wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're mixing up the propaganda phrases, that's Russia's stance in Ukraine. Trump's is this is "an excursion", totally different things.

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

#360

Post by bdangubic »

inetknght wrote: post #287
bastawhiz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

got two words for you - Netanyahoo :)
Post reply on HN