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Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

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Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#51

Post by chpatrick »

TrackerFF wrote: post #45

We received a presentation/demo of their products when I worked in the gov (not the US gov. though) a couple of years ago. They seemed, okay? I mean nothing seemed mind-blowing. I worked on surveillance in a specific sector, where interagency collaboration is important. Hence why Palantir pitched their tools. I'm not sure how they've managed to blow up like that. Do they have some extensive network with gov. official…

I've heard people say it's basically SAP with some spooky mystique for marketing.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#52

Post by XorNot »

grafmax wrote: post #46
XorNot wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like saying the American military couldn't defeat the Iraqis. The American military could not successfully build a stable Iraqi democracy or completely suppress sectarian violence. They absolutely destroyed the Iraqi conventional military and occupied the country for 8 years though.

Not only is China a peer with vast resources and numbers of people, it is also a nuclear power. A full scale conflict would be disastrous for us all.

So either the war goes immediately nuclear, in which case no one wins but the US has a significant missile advantage, or it doesn't in which case China will be facing down an adversary with a 11 aircraft carriers and their support flotillas, as well as deep magazines of long range antishipping missiles and the largest submarine fleet in the world and the largest airforce in the world.

China has a lot of resources, but they have not turned those into the type of resources which can fight and defeat the US military conventionally and have a serious power-projection problem compared to the logistical mobility the US military enjoys mastery of.

Which again highlights the absurdity of saying "couldn't defeat the Houthis, can't defeat China" as though you're comparing apples to apples.

The other absurdity is of course the supposition that anyone wants a war to be good for business: checkout how that's going for Russia's defence contractors. No: the fear of a war is good for business. An arms build up or modernization program is good for business. An actual war is ubiquitously terrible for business.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#53

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

XorNot wrote: post #40
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the meme. It's not going to happen IRL because it doesn't look like China is rising to the bait, because Russia is still advancing in Ukraine, because American industrial production capacity is by every estimation not equal to the task, and because the Middle East is as bad a mess as it has ever been and is sucking all of the oxygen out of the room. When your Navy literally can't defeat the Houthis, you know f…

This is like saying the American military couldn't defeat the Iraqis. The American military could not successfully build a stable Iraqi democracy or completely suppress sectarian violence. They absolutely destroyed the Iraqi conventional military and occupied the country for 8 years though.

Even if we grant that China is anything like Iraq (it sure ain't!), that was more than 20 years ago.

Last year, and not for want of trying, the US Navy sure didn't do anything to destroy the Houthi's conventional military capabilities. They're still sinking ships left and right! So much for freedom of navigation and freedom of the seas.

> https://edition.cnn.com/world/middleeast/eternity-c-houthi-r...

Now imagine the USN actually has to fight a war in shallow waters against a foe that's literally 10,000x better armed and equipped than the Houthis, and with a capacity for industrial production that dwarfs its own.

War is a measuring rod. Before it begins, each side guesses at its own strength and the other's will. Often it guesses wrong. (In Ukraine, NATO overrated its weapons and tactics, Russia both overrated its own capabilities, and underrated Ukraine's resolve.) But if both sides know the truth beforehand, they don't fight to begin with. Thus there's literally zero chance that there's a war between the US and China in 2027, because the outcome is not really in doubt.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#55

Post by js8 »

bpt3 wrote: post #31
ants_everywhere wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter Thiel. He says "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." The beginning of the essay > I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “liberta…

These sound like the exact reasons we don't have a direct democracy. “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.” - not Peter Thiel

It's a nice soundbite, but in reality people (maybe not Peter Thiel though) understand the value of the common goods quite well. (If you happen to be an uneducated American, who doesn't, you can come here to Europe and see.)

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#56

Post by cess11 »

XorNot wrote: post #26
Bombthecat wrote: post #4

Pretty sure it's just the beginning. Palantir Will be the dystopian super company you see in sci-fi movies

Do you even know what Palantir actually do? Because I see so many people talking about Palantir, but it seems apparent they've no idea what the business does, or sells, or how it even makes money except "through the government". Like...they're a software firm. They specialize in government contracting. They sell software to the government, to fulfill tenders and requests asked for by the government (which is its own…

They're proudly complicit in genocide and war crimes.

https://www.palantir.com/assets/xrfr7uokpv1b/3MuEeA8MLbLDAyx...

Basically they're selling BI-solutions for tyranny, usually by convincing government officials that it's a good idea to aggregate data sets that are separate for good reasons and then they'll achieve greater power over their subjects. That's the idea in the NHS project, that's what they're doing in the US and so on.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#57

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #11
Molitor5901 wrote: post #10

I get the concern bout Palantir but this is not new: Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Google, AWS, have all been extending their reach into government for over a decade. Palantir is the boogey man right now, and it's under a lot of scrutiny because of its work and its political ties, but let's try turning some of the ire to all of the other tech companies empowering the government against people. The others shouldn't get a pa…

Palantir is unique in that one of its founders has publicly stated he doesn't believe in democracy, the bedrock of the American system.

Also its named after a technology that most often causes its user to die or lose a war by exposing them to disinformation. That's an odd bit of messaging for a surveillance company.

Re: Palantir is extending its reach even further into government

#60

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #37
bpt3 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These sound like the exact reasons we don't have a direct democracy. “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.” - not Peter Thiel

That's exactly how it works already, albeit through the middlemen representatives figuring out what block of voters is cheapest to buy. The only meaningful difference in a representative democracy is that the representatives can choose not to deliver on their promises (in other words: lie), thereby consolidating real power in a smaller group of people.

Except somehow it's the opposite? The Big Beautiful Bill is one of the most regressive bills in decades - the vast majority of the benefits went to the richest while the biggest cuts went to the poorest. The MAGA base is definitely not on the richer end of that spectrum. I.e. they didn't really even get anything for their undying loyalty besides "owning the libs" I guess.
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