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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

#491

Post by bdangubic »

stasomatic wrote: post #343
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…

What's the recourse when they fall into a natural senile abyss like with the previous POTUS? Wait and see? I naively lived under an assumption there was a system of checks and balances that's not a coup d'état.

previous POTUS? you meant current, right?

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

#492

Post by pstuart »

yowayb wrote: post #486

There's never been a single day in history without war. Indeed, there's never been a moment in all of biological life without violent conflict. In high school, I had a visitor from West Point. My dad (Killing Fields survivor) was so excited. I (16 year old boy who only knew video games, porn and comics) later threw an impressive tantrum that defeated my father. I threw away a golden ticket to see the world for what i…

[dead]

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

#493

Post by eucyclos »

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 was preferable to the British who were preferable to the Spanish. Hopefully the next global hegemon is similarly preferable to the US.

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

#494

Post by carlosjobim »

Aeolun wrote: post #473
chrisco255 wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everyone involved was smart enough to realize it shouldn’t go hot.

Except for in Korea, Vietnam, etc etc

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

#495

Post by eucyclos »

tptacek wrote: post #484
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're defense contractors the same way IBM and Oracle are. Palantir has a huge USG business, but they're also widely used across the Fortune 500. From the coverage of Palantir online you'd think the company actually manufactured Palantirs , but they are in fact a database consultingware company; one person described them to me as "Oracle but with the benefit of the Web 2.0 technology stack". People read things like…

Palantir also deliberately choose a name with sinister overtones, they're just short of calling themselves "torment Nexus builders Inc" or something. I used to think their logic was that someone would build it so it might as well be people who saw the moral hazard, but now I think they're just going all in on the evil overlord brand. Summer kind of pied piper thing maybe.

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

#496

Post by carlosjobim »

UltraSane wrote: post #240
michaelsshaw wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has always used its military for global terrorism. Only just now, it is more in your face. There is no doubt: the US is responsible for some of the most sickening crimes against humanity the world has ever seen, including directly being the inspiration for the Holocaust, as well as US companies providing logistics for the Holocaust! I hate the idea that it was ever the DoD. It was always a terroristic, offensi…

"It was always a terroristic, offensive force." Even during WW2?

WWII was won by terror bombings of German cities, and terror nuclear bombing of Japanese cities. That's common knowledge.

Not mentioning the Soviet terror in Germany during and after the war, since the topic is the US.

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

#497

Post by tptacek »

eucyclos wrote: post #495
tptacek wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're defense contractors the same way IBM and Oracle are. Palantir has a huge USG business, but they're also widely used across the Fortune 500. From the coverage of Palantir online you'd think the company actually manufactured Palantirs , but they are in fact a database consultingware company; one person described them to me as "Oracle but with the benefit of the Web 2.0 technology stack". People read things like…

Palantir also deliberately choose a name with sinister overtones, they're just short of calling themselves "torment Nexus builders Inc" or something. I used to think their logic was that someone would build it so it might as well be people who saw the moral hazard, but now I think they're just going all in on the evil overlord brand. Summer kind of pied piper thing maybe.

We all get that Oracle has literally the same naming provenance, right? Actually more so: they took the name from the Central Intelligence Agency project they started the company with.

Every time this comes up, I find myself asking, "what do you think a secret phase conjugate tracking system is for?" Maybe it's just that I'm older than the median here, but when I was a kid, the mere concept of a relational database was something that stirred disquiet in the press; people were worried databases were going to take over society. It was not a completely crazy concern!

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

#498

Post by coldtea »

spwa4 wrote: post #396
coldtea wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was that on a country that went on a genocidal rampage just before and lost the war after killing millions all around Europe, which was decided to be divided in several parts, of which USSR got to control one, and which still developed into an independent country less than a decade later?

Yes, but you're leaving out the other 9 countries the Soviet Union occupied, and immediately started killing the population to keep their conquests: Poland, Austria’s Soviet zone, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. By contrast, the US retreated. And also didn't start killing any population.

"Killing their population" as in executing some Nazi collaborators, of which there was no shortage in all, down to full cooperation? Like the ones involved in the Axis alliance and in the eastern front offensives that caused the deaths of millions of their own people?

>And also didn't start killing any population.

Yes, just Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, and anybody who leaned national sovereignity/left in the Latin America and later the middle east.

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

#499

Post by solid_fuel »

tapland wrote: post #335
solid_fuel wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senate Democrats have made at least 5 attempts to stop this. Every Democrat voted in favor except Fetterman. Every republican opposed the attempt except Ron Paul. The Republicans are entirely responsible for the war in Iran - they started it and have opposed every attempt to reign the administration in. Don't play this "both sides" game when one side is clearly causing the issue here. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/p…

I mean. The side voting while knowing they can't stop it that way, the definition of optics, thought this was worth it to not cater to their anti-war voters, no? Both side bad yeah, you seem to think the solution is still to cling to the lesser of two evils. Hell, dem presidential candidates were praising Trumps Iran policy up until the bombs started falling. There is no evidence they _actually_ care about a war with…

Look, I would love to reply to this but you don't even articulate a coherent position here.

It seems like you trying to claim that the democrats actively opposing and trying to stop the war are somehow just as culpable as the republicans who are actively supporting the war just because the democrats don't have enough power to actually stop it? I want to be generous in my interpretation here, but I can't make heads or tails of your statement.

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