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Reflections on Palantir

nabeelqu.substack.com

521–530 of 658 posts

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#521

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.

God, if we're only now going to accept "Built British" IT, we're not going to be going very far.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#522

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…

Funny how lot of conflicts can be traced back to "Great" Britain:

- Israel Palestine. - India Pakistan. - Apartheid in South Africa. - .. anything else?

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#523
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would also be interesting to hear thoughts on the company of somebody like Cory Doctorow. Edit: aha, found. https://doctorow.medium.com/how-palantir-will-steal-the-nhs-... "Palantir is one of the most sinister companies on the global stage, a company whose pitch is to sell humans rights abuses as a service. The customers for this turnkey service include America’s most corrupt police departments, who use Palantir’s…

as I said, ICE is not even close to the spiciest thing it worked on

Ah yes, but "banality of evil" is still evil despite being banal.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#524
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Colossus The immigration has always existed, laws of it shifted, and AFAIK the current level of illegal immigration is not that high. So it's not really a large economical or humanitarian problem, and looks like it's much bigger political one.

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OUR society? Who do you mean by we/our? Who do you think built this country? Immigrants, as free men or slaves, from all over the world.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#525
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> And it’s changing our society. Ah that's the problem. But you're ok with the fact that your grandpa immigrated and changed the society as well? Why?

standard racist trope among certain Americans; makes me sick

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even think it's always about "line go up". I've talked to real life engineers who evidently have no ethical bar whatsoever--if the technology is cool and complex and an interesting technical problem, they'll work on it, regardless of the real-world application. "Whether my code is used ethically is someone else's problem. I just love technical challenges!" You absolutely see this mentality on HN as well.

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Generally speaking I think it’s unhelpful to develop patterns of thinking that suppose you are the main character in a sort of worldwide video game instead of just another one of billions of humans living on the planet who all have relatively similar wants and needs.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#529
post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's hypothesize that a would-be administration in a Western country would like to accomplish full Russian-style autocracy relatively quickly. Let's say they have stated publicly that their plan is to go after immigrants first, opposition leaders second. Numerically, these are two small categories, relatively speaking. The first question is, what about the third and fourth categories? Would they be dissenters in gen…

[flagged]

Trump says a bunch of shit that no one really believes (except his cultish followers).

He also deserves to be locked up.

As for COVID policies, those were pretty universal among industrialized nations. and if you think those were Russian style I’d say you know very little about Russia (I’ve lived there so I know what I’m talking about). Our COVID policies were nothing like China — that was authoritarian.

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