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

wired.com

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

#451

Post by anonymars »

quickthrowman wrote: post #328
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…

Why would you think it’s not that way? Virtually all of the power of the executive branch of the US Goverment is in the Office of the President. There are mechanisms in the Constitution to remove the sitting president, but it requires the other branches to act in the best interests of the nation instead of their own personal interests. Look at the history of every single war we’ve been involved in since WWII, no decl…

> Korea was Truman, Vietnam was LBJ, Grenada was Reagan, Panama was HW Bush, Somalia and the Balkans was Clinton, GWOT was Bush, Libya and Syria were Obama

I think this is at least a little misleading. How many of these conflicts were started by that president/the US (as opposed to "joined")?

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

#452

Post by chrisco255 »

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…

The U.S. has been taking military action against other countries since its inception, whether it was named DoD or DoW.

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

#453

Post by breppp »

yndoendo wrote: post #368
spwa4 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

And a lot of dissimilarities, like the lack of mass executions of the disabled for example or a missing mass extermination plan of millions, maybe also kidnapping teenagers from the street and shipping them to brothels for soldiers, shooting babies? but apart from that exactly the same

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

#454

Post by polski-g »

angry_octet wrote: post #271
jimmar wrote: post #19

Seems analogous to employees of a missile manufacturer being upset that their missiles were used for their intended purpose.

Except the missiles are being used in a civil war instead of against a foreign adversary.

The Confederacy was a foreign adversary the moment they seceeded.

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

#455

Post by fwipsy »

alterom wrote: post #177
OneMorePerson wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah there's some kind of absolutism aspect tied into identity. Also the funny tendency humans have to dislike the people who are most similar to them. Someone who is at least recognizing factory farming is bad and willing to even think that far is more similar to a vegetarian than the people who don't give a shit and never even think about where their food is coming from. Obviously there's the cognitive dissonance a…

>Obviously there's the cognitive dissonance aspect to point out, but we are all doing that to some extent. Not necessarily. I mean, the people who give out an uncomfortable laugh do exhibit signs of cognitive dissonance. I don't have an issue with accepting both statements: factory farming is awful, and I still eat meat. There is no cognitive dissonance. The logic is straightforward: I do not believe that me, an indi…

Basically this boils down to "I don't feel responsible for the meat I eat being factory farmed."

Not that I'm in any position to criticize; I'm in the cognitive dissonance camp.

Have you considered consuming "ethical" animal products (e.g. free range eggs or whatever?) That doesn't seem like martyrdom; compared to what you want (government mandated livestock welfare) it only costs you marginally more (due to missing economies of scale.)

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

#457

Post by throw54321 »

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…

People do anything for money

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

#458

Post by blipvert »

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.

“an excursion” is even more mad. He heard the word “incursion” and thought that it sounded cool

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

#459

Post by blipvert »

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.

“an excursion” is even more mad. He heard the word “incursion” and thought that it sounded cool if he posted it

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

#460

Post by lovich »

tapland wrote: post #358
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right, so your argument is that democrats are performative which is just as bad as the republicans actively starting wars?

Is there a more steelmanned version of this that I can ignore once you start making more false equivalencies in its defense?

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