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

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

#361

Post by ajam1507 »

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.

The checks and balance are between the 3 branches of government. If congress wanted to stop the war, they could. If the supreme court wanted to hand the power to start wars back to congress they could.

Just because they don't, doesn't mean they aren't able. The real flat earth theory is thinking that unwritten rules and institutions were protected from a president that insists on pulling every lever of power at once, but that's separate from the checks and balances.

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

#362

Post by chasd00 »

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 doing business with U.S. defense company.

any time you're flying on a Boeing 737, 787, 777 etc you're doing the same. Just like every time you turn on a GE light bulb.

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

#363

Post by ericmay »

collingreen wrote: post #326
ericmay wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really that insane. Don't overreact to Trump stuff - it leads you to make bad decisions and assumptions. This archaic and formal "I do declare war upon theee" is not flexible enough for the modern world and so we have found, perhaps an unhappy middle ground where the President can indeed take military action, for a limited period of time (60 days) without congressional authorization. The President is the civ…

If the constitution needs amending, amend it. Just "doing war" and calling it something else because you find the "right" way inconvenient or impractical is ridiculous, immoral, and illegal. If the government acts on behalf of and derives its authority from the will of the people then do it according to our shared governance. If not then the people claiming autocracy or oligarchy or techno-feudalism has supplanted ou…

> If the constitution needs amending, amend it.

Is there something about the War Powers Act that's unconstitutional? If so, what specifically? I'm struggling here to understand what is being alleged to be unconstitutional.

Separately, I actually think Congress has been dysfunctional and has been outsourcing its power to the Executive and Judicial branches, but these claims about constitutional breaches seem to be, at best, wrong.

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

#365

Post by quickthrowman »

Planktonne wrote: post #182
thewebguyd wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we adopt their language because things are already bad we are saying that their power is now the only reality that matters, we are giving up any form of resistance. We killed people under the name of Department of Defense too. Giving them the name is giving them the legitimacy to continue to justify the violence, and signals to the rest of the population that no one is coming to help and the new order is absolute.…

As a non-American, I think that Americans treating concrete problems as less important than linguistic games does an awful lot more to legitimise the violence.

Controlling language changes the way people think, and therefore act. Both of the things you mentioned are bad, glossing over real problems and the attempt to control language, they are not mutually exclusive.

Just (re)read 1984 and focus on Newspeak, controlling language controls the way people think and act.

The body of water that borders Texas, Florida, Louisiana, and other states along with Mexico is the Gulf of Mexico. The US cabinet-level department responsible for the military is the Department of Defense.

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

#366

Post by stasomatic »

Amezarak wrote: post #310
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…

You sound like you’re from a country with a parliamentary system? In the US, the “cabinet” is simply the President’s handpicked subordinates, not MPs. The President is the head of the executive, the government, usually understood as the executive, answers to him. They are not in a position to legally stop him. There are measures Congress could very easily take if they chose to, but modern Congresses are very much do-…

No, I am from the states, just been ignorant until it started bugging me. I'm sad that one geezer can turn the rest of the world against us without our say so and now we are wholesale opted in as villains. Not that the past was rosy, but it was more gentleman-ish? I am out of my depth here, just frustrated.

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

#367

Post by ericmay »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #323
ericmay wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Nothing has meaningfully changed here Legally? No. That's what OP said: > The only thing stopping US presidents from acting like kings is precedent. Now if we're talking reality, the realty is that new precedents were set (president acting like a king) which revealed that there are not effective legal checks on US presidents acting like kings (or else we would not have a president acting like a king).

Sorry, I just don't agree with your assessment. Anyone can just say "well so and so is acting like a king or queen". Trump, as despicable and annoying as he is certainly says a lot, but he's not doing anything from what I can tell that isn't at least poorly argued that he has a right or legal justification for doing. A king or queen needs no such justification, and if one is going through the motions and being forced to respect the law (again there are shades of gray here) than there is no "acting like a king".

But if your focus is on whatever he tweets and therefore he acts like a king, sure. Whatever. I mostly care about what actually happens, actual policy, actual laws and rules, not the theater around it which so many seem to want to indulge in instead of watching reality TV.

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

#368

Post by yndoendo »

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.…

Most simplistic would be _Divide and Conquer_ (Axis) vs _United we stand, divided we fall_ (Allie). This administration is going down the divide and conquer path.

I recommend _Culture in Nazi Germany_ by Michael H Kater. [0] The current US administration has numerous similarities to 1930s Germany. The way they support banning books and the treatment of the LGBT+ community. Working to take over media organizations with proponent operatives, financial corruption, and _please the leader_ are also present in both. There are more ... read the book for them.

[0] https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300253375/culture-in-naz...

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

#369

Post by input_sh »

cptskippy wrote: post #330
louiereederson wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they war or defense products when they are used against your own citizens?

What if you're waging a war in the name of defense?

Then you're waging a war.
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