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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

#381

Post by RickJWagner »

bastawhiz wrote: post #63
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 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…

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

#382

Post by ericmay »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #374
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…

What has meaningfully changed here is the rate at which Trump goes charging across lines that result in court cases. As best as I remember, it has always been the case that executives make decisions that result in court cases. I've never seen it like this, though.

The rate is different but at the end of the day they still go through the process and when his administration loses cases they just shut up and lose the case. You mostly don't hear about the, I believe hundreds, of cases that the administration has lost. As long as they follow the rule of law (obviously there are at times gray areas and he is expert at identifying and challenging those) I'm not too concerned. Again the media just whips people up into a fervor because it's really good advertising business.

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

#383

Post by spwa4 »

MiiMe19 wrote: post #379
spwa4 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's compare with the Soviets and conclude the obvious: the US did retreat.

Me looking for the soviet military bases rn EDIT: I completely misunderstood the context here, nevermind.

I live in the Netherlands. The closest one was about 260 km from where I live.

Of course, not any more.

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

#384

Post by giwook »

bastawhiz wrote: post #63
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 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…

Great point. Labeling it as 'defense' instead of 'war' might be one of the more brilliant marketing tricks in the last century.

No one likes war, everyone loves defense. Something something expanded surveillance under the guise of counter-terrorism post-9/11.

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

#385

Post by throw-the-towel »

alpha_squared wrote: post #359
LadyCailin wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a Russian emigrant, I feel this whole war is a severe case of déjà vu. It's as if the US government is going through a stolen Russian playbook, appropriating everything.

"Special operation"? Check. "$EnemyCapital in 3 days"? Check. "We haven't even started yet"? Check. "Goodwill gestures"? Check.

(It's actually a common joke on the Russian Internet. So common, in fact, that it has already stopped being funny.)

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

#386

Post by Terr_ »

12_throw_away wrote: post #141
palmotea wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you reconcile having worked in this capacity mentally? Not being snarky or judgemental, genuinely curious as to the mindset of someone who has been in this position. I don't work at defense contractor, but it would probably help to imagine the situation Ukraine is in. If no one in the West was comfortable working in this capacity, it would all be Russian territory now (and more besides).

Reading this, I was surprised to learn that I now consider the idea of working on old-school conventional weapons almost, like, quaint. What with all the ways our new military/techno-industrial complex is working to automate murder, surveillance and terror at scale ... it makes me nostalgic for that old-fashioned artisanal state-sanctioned murder, made in small batches by real humans.

That reminds me of a sci-fi quote, where one of the main characters is discussing a murderous antagonist, putting their evil into a broader context:

> "He was just a little villain. An old-fashioned craftsman, making crimes one-off. The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present--they are real."

-- Shards of Honor (1986) by Lois McMaster Bujold

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

#387

Post by quickthrowman »

pphysch wrote: post #124
stackedinserter wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for reasons that nobody can quite articulate They were articulated many times, maybe you didn't want to hear. The action itself was poorly planned and executed, it's a different question.

Yeah, we didn't want Iran to have nukes, so we rugpulled the JCPOA and murdered the guy who declared a fatwa against nukes. We wanted to save the Iranian people from the regime that murdered 100,000 peaceful protestors (don't ask for evidence) so we butchered 170 school girls and didn't apologize. We wanted to stabilize the region, so we greenlit Israel's rampage in Lebanon and directly induced Iran to close the Stra…

> We wanted to stabilize the region, so we greenlit Israel's rampage in Lebanon

Consider this hypothetical situation. Iran funds a terrorist group operating in Tijuana to fire rockets across the border into San Diego. Assume the Mexican government is not organized enough to stop the terrorists from firing rockets.

What do you think the response of the US Government would be? Please recall what we did after 9/11 before answering.

Israel isn’t invading Egypt and Jordan, I wonder if it’s because there’s no Iran-funded terrorist groups firing rockets from those countries or if there’s some other reason.

Israel definitely has blood on their hands, but how do you suggest they deal with terrorist groups funded by Iran operating in lawless areas of neighboring countries that are firing rockets at civilians in Israel?

Israel has been invaded by all of its neighbors simultaneously more than once, it’s a pretty complex situation that spans over a hundred years. Europeans and Arab nations (aside from the Ottomans) treated Jews like shit for centuries, pogroms and holocausts and expulsions and forced migrations. No wonder they want to keep the nation of Israel around, everyone else has tried exterminating them. Just try not to be so reductionist and polarizing about it, it’s a complex historical situation with many shades of gray.

I know my opinion is probably unpopular around here, but it’s how I see it. Israel has done some horrible shit, but they aren’t just rampaging against any non Jew in sight, there were Hezbollah operatives constantly firing rockets into northern Israel for years. What’s happening in Lebanon (and Syria and may other places) sucks, and that massive pier explosion certainly didn’t help.

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

#389

Post by bigyabai »

theturret wrote: post #336
bigyabai wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by having the smartest people inside these companies coming up with the best tech while also shaping the conversation from the inside. The smartest people don't get that choice. Oppenheimer, Teller and Ulam were all ignored in matters of policy, the Manhattan Project was not designed to integrate their political feedback. Conversely, the scientists at Peenemünde never got to question the effectiveness of V-1 bombs…

Fair point. I don’t think that simply working at a defense-tech would or should give someone sway over political decisions. Which might be also good: von Neumann advocated for a U.S. nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union. In the context of this thread my claim is simply that smarter people will yield smarter solutions that balance the tradeoffs mentioned earlier. The choice to use those weapons still lies with our…

I guess that's what I'm confused by, then. Americans don't have a duty to prevent their government from descending into crony capitalism. As long as the Fed undervalues intelligent labor, the smartest Americans are incentivized to go the private ownership route and extort the defense industry themselves. Protecting DARPA and preserving valuable Pentagon assets is the federal government's job - nobody else is paid to care about it, nobody else can fix it.

> smarter people will yield smarter solutions that balance the tradeoffs mentioned earlier.

That's conjecture, as far as I'm aware. Again, the earliest researchers of spacecraft were being forced to design a pitiful terrorist weapon. Those same scientists wouldn't meaningfully progress peaceful space exploration until decades later. There is no balance inherent to having good ideas or executing them well, the procurement process can (and frequently does) excise intelligent thought when tensions run high.

FWIW, I bear little ill-will towards the defense industry or US service members. I just think that "shaping the conversation" is a fool's errand when "the conversation" is warrantless surveillance, and "shaping" simply means finding the best way to do it. An intelligent humanitarian would be fired long before they instill an ounce of ethical change.

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

#390

Post by NoLinkToMe »

RickJWagner wrote: post #381
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…

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Right, but Trump has stated he can accept working with the regime without consequence, like in Venezuela, as long as they cooperate on key issues e.g. oil and Israeli security concerns. He couldn’t care less that the regime is killing its own people. Like he couldn’t care less about Israel’s illegal occupation and murder.

To think Trump did this war to save Iranian lives from its own government is hopelessly naive. It was not at all a leading factor.

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