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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

#561

Post by ffsm8 »

nickburns wrote: post #208
ffsm8 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eating meat is normal. Yes, animals have feelings and are intelligent (to varying degrees, but generally a lot more then most think). Modern meat factories are absolute shit shows and it's outlandishly bad our societies treat the animals like that. However, it doesn't have to be that way. And killing an animal for food which lived a nice life is perfectly fine. We're all part of the physical reality in which the surv…

Nowhere did GP say animals eating animals is abnormal.

Right, they just heavily implied it with

> It seems like if it's normal enough people will say something is bad and will happily do it anyway.

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

#562

Post by mindslight »

tptacek wrote: post #497
eucyclos wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

"You could sit at home, and do like absolutely nothing, and your name goes through like seventeen computers a day." Seventeen. How quaint.

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

#563

Post by noisy_boy »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #228
floren wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very first chapter was actually excellent in setting my relationship to the book going forward, because stuff like this twanged against my brain and made me think, "Oh, she just really wanted to be powerful and influential and chased whatever she thought would give her that" > [after surviving a shark attack] why did this happen to me? If I survived against the odds, surely there had to be a reason? [...] After b…

She sounds horrifying.

And exactly the type to be in power. Explains everything that is fucked up about our world.

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

#564

Post by DangitBobby »

alterom wrote: post #510
nickburns wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equating eating meat with martyrdom in the year 2026 is, in fact, the same cognitive dissonance you personally deny. I eat meat. And I'm highly, highly morally conflicted. I'll leave it at that to avoid sounding hypothetical—except to mention that the only logical reason I don't go vegetarian/vegan is the work and personal development that'd be required of me. (I'll take being called lazy over disingenuous any day, i…

>Equating eating meat with martyrdom in the year 2026 is, in fact, the same cognitive dissonance you personally deny You completely missed the point. In the context of picking battles, martyrdom is (self) sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice, with no direct gain for the cause. Abstaining from meat, to me , will take away one of the not-so-many joys I have in my life, without possibly making a meaningful impact on unet…

Many individuals independently making the choice has made a difference, both in harm reduction on the demand side and choice on the supply side. It's never been easier or more accessible to be vegetarian/vegan.

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

#565

Post by arthurjj »

sneak wrote: post #544
arthurjj wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I think it's sometimes hard to debate these issues in tech circles. In my experience something like 5-10% of techies are vocally critical of these companies or anything National Security related. This article headline is a grea…

Not wanting to work with people who are ok with the MIC is not a sign of immaturity.

Thank you for demonstrating my first point while trying to contest my second.

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

#566

Post by DangitBobby »

Detrytus wrote: post #557
tdb7893 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is that people will be able to justify anything that is "normal". I went vegan after learning too much of how the literal sausage is made and the amount of people who have unprompted (people are weird about it so I try to avoid talking about being vegan except for mentioning it quickly while declining food) said something along the lines of "factory farming is awful but I just love bacon" and laugh is l…

I grew up watching my grandmother butchering a chicken for a Sunday dinner. Or my uncle butchering and skinning the calf. Knowing how the sausage is made does nothing for me. I can understand someone being vegan because they believe eating plants is healthier. I can understand being vegan because you don’t like the taste of meat. But bringing any moral/religious reasons for it always seemed silly to me. There’s nothi…

I don't find might is right to be a convincing moral argument. The only reason I was born a human instead of one of the 300 billion animals humanity consumes each year is the outcome of a lottery system, simple as that. Consider whether you'd feel the same way when applying a "veil of ignorance" test.

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

#567

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

fwipsy wrote: post #455
alterom wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Obviously there's the cognitive dissonance aspect to point out, but we are all doing that to some extent. Not necessarily. I mean, the people who give out an uncomfortable laugh do exhibit signs of cognitive dissonance. I don't have an issue with accepting both statements: factory farming is awful, and I still eat meat. There is no cognitive dissonance. The logic is straightforward: I do not believe that me, an indi…

Basically this boils down to "I don't feel responsible for the meat I eat being factory farmed." Not that I'm in any position to criticize; I'm in the cognitive dissonance camp. Have you considered consuming "ethical" animal products (e.g. free range eggs or whatever?) That doesn't seem like martyrdom; compared to what you want (government mandated livestock welfare) it only costs you marginally more (due to missing…

[flagged]

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

#568

Post by lo_zamoyski »

tdb7893 wrote: post #101
Ritewut wrote: post #69

Everyone in this industry should be required to read Careless People by Sara Wynn-Williams about her tenure at Facebook. Not because the book is about how evil Meta/Facebook is as a company but because you get to see the lengths people go to mentally convince themselves they are the good guy. Repeatedly in the book she tries to assure herself she's making the world better and that there's actually an ethical, positiv…

My experience is that people will be able to justify anything that is "normal". I went vegan after learning too much of how the literal sausage is made and the amount of people who have unprompted (people are weird about it so I try to avoid talking about being vegan except for mentioning it quickly while declining food) said something along the lines of "factory farming is awful but I just love bacon" and laugh is l…

Have you ever reflected on the legitimacy of your sentinents? As in, you find “terrifying” that people find factory farming bad, but choose to consume its products anyway. But have you considered that perhaps the moral severity that is causing your reaction of horror is actually miscalibrated and unwarranted?

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

#569

Post by Aunche »

ineedasername wrote: post #201
Aurornis wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've seen the focus on a few big companies can have a backwards effect on some people's sense of morals. I've heard a few people justify their work for unethical companies as "At least it's not as bad as what Facebook does". It can also have the opposite of the intended effect when it encourages beliefs that bad behavior is normalized in the industry. I've heard an executive try to drum up support for a pro…

"When others explained that Facebook and Google didn't sell customer data, they didn't believe it" I'm not sure there's a significant meaningful difference between direct selling and what they actually do, which is to make it available to target and manipulate people with extreme granularity. This is a huge part of why a person may not want their data to be held much less purchased to begin with, meaning it's "doesn'…

Selling your data means that anyone can have access your data forever. On the other hand, anyone can turn off ad personalization and delete their data on Google and Facebook.

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

#570

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

fwipsy wrote: post #455
alterom wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Obviously there's the cognitive dissonance aspect to point out, but we are all doing that to some extent. Not necessarily. I mean, the people who give out an uncomfortable laugh do exhibit signs of cognitive dissonance. I don't have an issue with accepting both statements: factory farming is awful, and I still eat meat. There is no cognitive dissonance. The logic is straightforward: I do not believe that me, an indi…

Basically this boils down to "I don't feel responsible for the meat I eat being factory farmed." Not that I'm in any position to criticize; I'm in the cognitive dissonance camp. Have you considered consuming "ethical" animal products (e.g. free range eggs or whatever?) That doesn't seem like martyrdom; compared to what you want (government mandated livestock welfare) it only costs you marginally more (due to missing…

Factory farming is a consequence of a post-industrial economy where 95% of the population isn't directly involved in farming. Few people would want to reset the clock back to where most are attached to the land with limited options. The only reliable source of B12 before the modern era was to consume some animal derived products. Other basic nutrients are hard to attain through plants alone. It is necessary for us to engage in animal husbandry in the absence of technological interventions that we never evolved to depend on.
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