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Reflections on Palantir

nabeelqu.substack.com

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Re: Reflections on Palantir

#501

Post by int_19h »

ArtixFox wrote: post #488
yoz wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My solution, if I was in charge of Israel, would simply be to NOT order the army to destroy most of Gaza and kill tens of thousands of people, and to instead just focus on preventing incursions into Israel. I would also focus on stopping Hamas missiles by using the hugely effective anti-missile system that, conveniently, already exists. I realise that this is not a perfect solution to the Israel/Palestine problem. It…

sooo prolong the problem so that when you are dead, your descendants have to deal with it and you will be free of the responsibility? Do we forgive oct 7? what precedent would it set for other groups? that you can just go kill and rape people and there will be no response?

Self-defense is supposed to be proportional. If you're killing 30x as many people in "response", and most of them weren't in any way involved in the original attack, that's not justifiable.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#502

Post by pphysch »

dralley wrote: post #217
pphysch wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what extent is repeated mass-murder of civilians, total destruction of healthcare and education systems, etc. part of the "moral gray area"? That's just not a serious argument. You can be pro-Israel without pretending to hold humanist values and so on.

If you have a military enemy that blatantly hides itself within civilian areas and builds its underground infrastructure underneath civilian infrastructure, and that military enemy kills 1200 of your citizens in an attack, that creates a fair bit of moral ambiguity.

Evidence-free allegations of "human shields" is not an excuse to repeatedly commit mass murder.

Israel has already executed a proportional response to Oct 7, at least 100 times over. The extra 99+ times represent unprovoked war crimes.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#503

Post by spencerchubb »

samrus wrote: post #293
forgotoldacc wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an interview somewhat recently where someone asked his connection to Israel's military, and he squirmed and rapidly stuttered in sheer terror for about 15 seconds before he finally put together a sentence where he said something like "I'm not allowed to criticize Israel." It was weird seeing one of the richest men on earth suddenly have absolute fear in his eyes and talking like he had a gun to his back. Tw…

Link to the interview https://youtu.be/q1asavnl_o8

That's Peter Thiel's normal demeanor. He stutters and talks awkwardly about every topic

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#504

Post by golergka »

talldayo wrote: post #490
bongodongobob wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Some other opinions go back even further and more criticize Great Britain for their mishandling of Mandatory Palestine. There are a lot of opinions that develop as both sides adjust their strategy and the borders of their theater. Writing off any development of opinion (particularly in the wake of Lavander) is a counterproductive and insular habit. If you don't want to discuss the behavior and morality of the IDF, no…

Going back just to the Mandate seems like a very arbitrary point. It forgets about Egyptian colonisation of Palestine in 19th century, as well as treatment of Jewish communities across the whole Arab world, which explains a lot about the conflict and it's history.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#506

Post by evrydayhustling »

Well written essay! I fell into a rabbit hole around his quote "context is that which is scarce".

After squinting at the linked Tyler Cowen essay, I think it's a convoluted way of saying "context is valuable and a lot of times when things suck it's because there's not enough of it". I was hoping he was going to give an operational definition of context. Does anyone have a more developed take?

[1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/02/co...

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#508

Post by dr-detroit »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #437
lmz wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Because American industry runs on illegal labor. They pick the fruit, they work in the slaughterhouses, they build the housing, they work in the kitchen prep lines. Like go to any construction site, any restaurant -- you're gonna see a bunch of Mexicans, Salvadorians, etc. As wages haven't gone up, Americans need cheaper and cheaper labor on the low end to be able to, like, eat, and lots of big business knows this. T…

[dead]

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#509

Post by BlueTemplar »

scott_w wrote: post #479
crimsoneer wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the challenging question here is that while palantir obviously have a reputation, they're practically not that different to any of the big consultancies.

Specific to the NHS, Palantir not being a UK company was a big talking point, so yes, that's a tangible difference between Palantir and, say, Capita. Your (and the sibling) responses also beg the question: must governments contract to big foreign consultancies? It's not illegal to do things in-house if they so choose, you know.

(See also Microsoft being used to build the French healthcare database.)

The blog's moral stance is that GAFAMs are "neutral" or even "marginally good", because I suppose, they are, among other things, "pro-West".

I don't know which repressive country he "spent a few years in", but I am not sure why he seems more concerned by Russia and China (especially in a country under direct nuclear umbrella) than the risk of parts of the West turning repressive.

And that's not even counting the damage that they might cause outside, like Facebook's complicity in Myanmar's genocide.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#510

Post by pell »

andsoitis wrote: post #417
austinjp wrote: post #330

The article reveals depressing reasons why someone might choose to work for the lines of Palantir: lots of talented people working on hard problems. That's pretty much it. No problem with the business model, just intellectual hunger. I'm sure the pay didn't hurt. We need to teach our students that the employment they take doesn't exist in a vacuum. Your choice of employee can impact not only yourself but the wider wo…

> The article reveals depressing reasons why someone might choose to work for the lines of Palantir: lots of talented people working on hard problems. That's pretty much it. No problem with the business model, just intellectual hunger. That seems like a very uncharitable take. For instance, don't you think the section on morality[1] addresses this head on? [1] https://nabeelqu.substack.com/i/150188028/morality

This section is definitely interesting to read but also leaves me a bit hungry for the supposed intellectual "intensity" earlier paragraphs promised about the company and its (ex) employees. The model proposed for thinking about the morality here is incredibly limited.
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