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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

#461

Post by anonymars »

jkubicek wrote: post #235
ffsm8 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eating meat is normal. Yes, animals have feelings and are intelligent (to varying degrees, but generally a lot more then most think). Modern meat factories are absolute shit shows and it's outlandishly bad our societies treat the animals like that. However, it doesn't have to be that way. And killing an animal for food which lived a nice life is perfectly fine. We're all part of the physical reality in which the surv…

I’m not a vegetarian and have no plans on becoming one but.. just because eating meat is normal doesn’t mean it needs to stay that way. There’s an endless list of atrocities committed by our ancestors or our peers in the animal kingdom that we no longer tolerate. There’s no reason why eating another animal can’t someday become as abhorrent as cannibalism or slavery or whatever.

And a corollary to that: when considering historical figures, before condemning them wholesale, consider how history would judge you if--for example--eating meat is considered in the future the way slavery is considered today

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

#462

Post by FireBeyond »

Lio wrote: post #404
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…

> We're in a war in Iran for reasons that nobody can quite articulate, As a third party watching I just assumed it was a “dead cat”[1] to get people to stop talking about the Epstein files. Obviously the Iranian government are not good guys either but the timing of this war… it just looks very odd. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_cat_strategy

There's the "hilarity" of Operation Epic Fury. E.F. Epstein Files. It's either someone's private joke or the most clueless name you could imagine (not to mention sounding like it was taken straight from a COD Lobby).

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

#463

Post by bee_rider »

stasomatic wrote: post #366
Amezarak wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s not just one geezer, Congress also agrees with him (at least in the sense that they aren’t willing to take advantage of any of the leverage they have to stop him). The midterm elections will be the people’s chance to express how they feel about it all.

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

#464

Post by tharkun__ »

adriand wrote: post #426
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…

> 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. As much as I am critical of the US, until now the US did behave very differently from other superpowers. Consider the end of WWII. The US did not inflict reparations on the vanquished nations but rather, invested huge sum…

The US did not keep bases in all of West Germany though.

There were different sectors. The US had essentially the South. There were also the British sector and French. The Soviets were the fourth sector but we all know how that one was quite different from the other three.

While the French and British have mostly left, the US stayed. Though to be fair even the British still do have some bases it seems as NATO troups. But no more large garrison in many larger cities.

The US on the other hand is still there with much larger force. Like think back to "Air Force One" (the movie with Harrison Ford) which used Ramstein Airbase in the movie (though they didn't actually film there) and that airbase has come up in the Iran conflict as a conflict of its own. Meaning Germany didn't want the US to use it as a hub for US operations (supply logistics) for the Iran war.

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

#465

Post by nickburns »

aziaziazi wrote: post #311
nickburns wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equating eating meat with martyrdom in the year 2026 is, in fact, the same cognitive dissonance you personally deny. I eat meat. And I'm highly, highly morally conflicted. I'll leave it at that to avoid sounding hypothetical—except to mention that the only logical reason I don't go vegetarian/vegan is the work and personal development that'd be required of me. (I'll take being called lazy over disingenuous any day, i…

Do what you like and as you like, but my two cents: if you want to make something that seems hard, start with one step and continue step by step at your own peace. Big goals are accomplished by proudness of small gaps instead of shame and desires of the missing ones. During 10 year I gently removed some ingredients of my diets/habits and added others in the meantime. It was longer but way easier than I imagined. Good…

Hey, at my ripe, old age, I only started learning how to properly feed myself more recently than I'd like to admit. So I take your point about acknowledging one's baby steps once you successfully string a few together.

Thanks for the encouragement!

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

#466

Post by chrisco255 »

jghn wrote: post #347
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…

> The Department of Defense is the Department of War No, it is not, at least not technically. That would require an act of Congress, which hasn't happened. Despite what the idiots "in charge" seem to believe.

It's effectively the same. The EO declares the Dept of War as a secondary title. Formally it still is the DoD.

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

#467

Post by chrisco255 »

Johnny555 wrote: post #380
jghn wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Department of Defense is the Department of War No, it is not, at least not technically. That would require an act of Congress, which hasn't happened. Despite what the idiots "in charge" seem to believe.

But those idiots "in charge" are what matters, right? Since they set the tone for the department, and lately they sure are acting more like a DoW than a DoD.

Its quite laughable to pretend that DoD was never on the offense between 1948 and 2025.

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

#468

Post by chrisco255 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #415
giwook wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> No one likes war, everyone loves defense. Something something expanded surveillance under the guise of counter-terrorism post-9/11 It was renamed after WWII. In part because smart minds realised that war between industrialised civilisations had ceased to be an accretive endeavour since sometime between Napoleon and the Kaiser.

Have you heard about the Cold War that immediately ensued after WW2 between the world's two leading industrial nations?

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

#469

Post by PieTime »

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.

If they can look at their leaderships statements as positive or neutral then they are part of the problem.
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