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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

#521

Post by adriand »

tharkun__ wrote: post #512
adriand wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US on the other hand is still there with much larger force. To provide for European security! That’s the deal in terms of Europe and NATO and also specifically to handle Germany. The idea was that America would provide security to Europe including the nuclear umbrella, and one benefit - among many others - was that Germany would not need to have a powerful military. Can you perhaps guess why people might be con…

Which is now out the window. And yes I definitely remember Colbert quite some time ago quipping about exactly that (paraphrased from memory): US no longer reliable NATO partner and nuclear deterrent. So Europe needs to step up. Let's have Germany have nukes. What could possibly go wrong! The obviously funny thing being, that the US has, for a long time and Trump doubled down, asked Europe including Germany to spend m…

> But would you want the AfD to come to power and wield those ramped up, potentially now nuclear, forces?

Totally! That’s what makes the situation doubly maddening. It would be one thing if these actions were bad for the world and good for the US. But they’re bad for the US too!

I forget who it was that said this, and I’m sure my paraphrasing is bad, but I listened or read something I found chilling. It was something like, ordinary Americans are totally unprepared for the level of danger they will experience over the coming decades.

The only reason Trump is able to destroy global institutions so easily is because Americans take their security for granted. But that security is the result of institutions developed in the aftermath of an utterly devastating war. Now those institutions are damaged and America’s friends are alienated, right when they are most needed to deal with China, Russia, AI, drones, cyber, nuclear, climate…talk about bad timing.

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

#522

Post by tastyface »

theturret wrote: post #283

As I said in another comment, I think it’s important to debate what these companies are doing, how they’re doing it, and whether the United States’ actions are morally and legally justified. But I also think we need to get more smart people interested and working in national security. That’s the way you get the best balance between effective security and the minimum negative side effects to civil liberties or collate…

The trendy SV defense companies (Palantir, Andruil) seem to be all "killing is fun and good, actually" with an underlying current of white nationalism. We might need defense technology, but not like this. Super fucked up.

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

#523

Post by thaumasiotes »

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…

> 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 sums in their rebuilding, in the process making stalwart allies of them.

That is also how Rome routinely dealt with the border tribes that it defeated. It's not a new idea. That's just what superpowers do.

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

#524

Post by master_crab »

Henchman21 wrote: post #320
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 Iran war started to provide a distraction from the Epstein files. Let's not pretend we don't know why , or more absurdly, can't quite articulate . It's very simple.

Why is this getting downvoted? How is this any less ridiculous sounding than the multitude of other, ever-shifting reasons Trump gave for starting the war.

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

#526

Post by thaumasiotes »

ericmay wrote: post #367
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing has meaningfully changed here Legally? No. That's what OP said: > The only thing stopping US presidents from acting like kings is precedent. Now if we're talking reality, the realty is that new precedents were set (president acting like a king) which revealed that there are not effective legal checks on US presidents acting like kings (or else we would not have a president acting like a king).

Sorry, I just don't agree with your assessment. Anyone can just say "well so and so is acting like a king or queen". Trump, as despicable and annoying as he is certainly says a lot, but he's not doing anything from what I can tell that isn't at least poorly argued that he has a right or legal justification for doing. A king or queen needs no such justification, and if one is going through the motions and being forced…

> A king or queen needs no such justification

They sure spent a lot of time and effort establishing it for something they didn't need.

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

#527

Post by lovich »

throw1234567891 wrote: post #508
lovich wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like some woke shit that doesn’t stand up to the rights of the President, unless that President is a Democrat.

“Woke shit” signed into law in 1878. Maybe woke was what the world was like most of the time.

I was being sarcastic clanker and/or throwaway account.

It’s obviously the law but this admin doesn’t respect the law, as they believe we’re in a post Constitutional era. It’s looks like they are manifesting their beliefs since so many people support them, both sides them, or decide it’s not that big a deal when the executive branch of the American government starts executing American citizens and trying to EO away the 14th amendment on farcical grounds.

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

#528

Post by eudamoniac »

"a company named after J. R. R. Tolkien’s corrupting all-seeing orb"

Desperate for some negative sentiment aren't we? The orbs were not "corrupting" in any way. Can we just have reporting anymore without everything being slanted?

The "manifesto" Palantir posted seemed pretty reasonable to me given their company mission and alignment. I don't get the backlash. It's much less worse than what they're already accused of, I think. It doesn't make me think worse of them at all.

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

#529

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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