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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

#441

Post by blks »

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.…

US did not stopped Axis alone, Allies did. Even in Pacific Soviet participation was very important in defeating Japan.

And the US did not retreat, it kept its military all across Europe (and the world), brought its nuclear weapons to Europe (not for the Europe, but for the US to be used with Europe as a launching pad).

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

#442

Post by lazide »

stasomatic wrote: post #230
krapp wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The president isn't empowered to declare war, but as Commander in Chief he is empowered to send the military anywhere he wants and start whatever "conflict" he wants, for whatever reason he wants, including no reason whatsoever. After which Congress can retroactively declare it a war if they so choose. But the US hasn't fought a declared war since WW2, because declarations of war don't really mean anything when the m…

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…

He’s the hate magnet for things they want anyway. Why not let him go crazy?

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

#444

Post by lazide »

tekla wrote: post #264
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…

The system relies on people acting in good faith. It is impossible to make a constitution that can deal with people at all levels of power not acting in good faith. In this case, Congress has completely abdicated their duties.

No it doesn’t. Checks and balances is explicitly setting branches against each other because it is assumed everyone is a greedy abusive MF’er only out for their own benefit.

The challenge is all 3 branches are owned by the same group right now.

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

#445

Post by Barrin92 »

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.

>linguistic games

it's far more than that. By giving into the television like hyper-reality they create you're giving up base reality. That power and legitimate institutions are derived from the people and due process.

To surrender to the rhetoric is the entire point of the obscenities. War department, thugs with badges pretending to be police etc. The provocations are intentional and the offensiveness is the point, if you're just opposed to the concrete violence you're missing the forest for the trees. You have to reject their entire grammar they're trying to impose on you.

It's as if I put on a robe, went to Rome and claimed I'm the Pope (taking bets on this happening in the US too). You shouldn't then try to argue with me if I'm a good or bad pope or if I'm committing bad acts, but you should reject the entire non-reality circus I'm trying to pull you in.

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

#446

Post by cogman10 »

BobbyJo wrote: post #392
cogman10 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Vietnam and Korea were technically wars to stop conquest, no?

Conquest from who?

I generally take the word "conquest" to mean some outside force coming in and taking over. That didn't happen in either Vietnam or Korea. You could argue that the USSR used conquest to take over territories for the soviet union. However, that's not something really arguable about Vietnam or Korea. Vietnam, in particular, was the native population overthrowing their conquerors, the french, and then deciding they wanted to be communists. They got support from both the USSR and China, but they weren't ultimately under the umbrella of either regime.

Now, I'd agree that Vietnam and Korea both had civil wars supercharged by the US, China, and Russia. But I disagree that these were wars where the US was stopping conquest. We see that in the modern state of Vietnam and North Korea. Vietnam, funnily, became a closer ally to the US than China after the war.

Cuba is very much the same way. It wasn't conquered by an outside force. Yet they did ally with the USSR once the dust settled. They were still an independent nation from the USSR.

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

#447

Post by ekianjo »

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…

> y changed the name and then immediately started taking military action against other countries

the "department of defense" has been doing military actions against other countries forever.

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

#448

Post by alexashka »

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…

'We' should stop using the word 'we'. :)

'We' talk is how the pseudo-educated talk down to those other people who are the problem.

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

#449

Post by lovich »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #418
nemomarx wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What law are you thinking of? Some tools used in riot enforcements would be illegal to use in wars, so it actually seems to be the other way around to me.

> What law are you thinking of? Posse Comitatus [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

That sounds like some woke shit that doesn’t stand up to the rights of the President, unless that President is a Democrat.
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