Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Palantir defends its role in the kill chain

heise.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 73 posts

Re: Palantir defends its role in the kill chain

#61

Post by gnabgib »

bigyabai wrote: post #40
bibimsz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If you can conclusively prove that liberals are evil, be my guest. Give me your rhetorical coup-de-grace that annihilates half of America's voting bloc. Even the Nazis retained the ability to judge their opponents when WWII ended. Pity that their opponents were hangmen that wanted them to answer for murder.

This kind of comment violates site guidelines, please review:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Re: Palantir defends its role in the kill chain

#62

Post by lyu07282 »

IAmBroom wrote: post #54
givemeethekeys wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationalism has its benefits.

Did you drop this: "/s"?

Nationalism can be a significant motivator for decolonial resistance, it's not always a bad thing, within the imperial core it is undoubtedly bad though.

Re: Palantir defends its role in the kill chain

#63

Post by scarecrowbob »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #56
JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > It doesn't change the reality of what's happening, so I don't think this is worth much, but most people here don't think that. Where are the ginormous protests that happened during the Iraq invasion? Me thinks it was not about right or wrong but fear of a new Vietnam type draft. Now that war has changed there are not similar type of protests because it's the missiles and drones doing the killing

The lead up to the Iraq was took a long time, with (to me and a while load of other people) clearly misleading and wrong evidence about WMDs as the justification. There was no attempt to sway public opinion as to the right or wrong on this one. They just piled in with no warning.

As a person who organized and participated in the ultimately useless protests against the Iraq war, I think that you're correct- we had a couple of months to watch the BushII folks lie their way into getting wide support for the war.

As far as I can tell, these current assholes don't really care what the folks in the US think about their actions, so they don't spend time making cases- they just go do whatever dumb shit they want to do. Hell, I suspect that even they don't have a firm idea of what they are doing.

Re: Palantir defends its role in the kill chain

#64

Post by scarecrowbob »

spacechild1 wrote: post #51

Sad to see this flagged. Articles like these are exactly why I come to HN. Technology does not exist in a moral vacuum! You cannot reasonably keep "politics" away from this site when large tech companies are actively involved in killing people and destroying democracy.

Unfortuantely, while I do come here for these kinds of discussions, it's moistly because I've excised the sociopathic and nationalistic folks from much of my medua and it's much easier to find those values among wanna-be venture capitalists.

I "value" their opinions insofar as they have an outsized influence on our world:

I feel like if I want to stay tapped into the progress folks are making on building the Torment Nexus, this website is where I will find folks breathlessly cheering it on.

Re: Palantir defends its role in the kill chain

#65

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

scarecrowbob wrote: post #63
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lead up to the Iraq was took a long time, with (to me and a while load of other people) clearly misleading and wrong evidence about WMDs as the justification. There was no attempt to sway public opinion as to the right or wrong on this one. They just piled in with no warning.

As a person who organized and participated in the ultimately useless protests against the Iraq war, I think that you're correct- we had a couple of months to watch the BushII folks lie their way into getting wide support for the war. As far as I can tell, these current assholes don't really care what the folks in the US think about their actions, so they don't spend time making cases- they just go do whatever dumb sh…

I don't think the protests were useless even if they didn't stop the war. It allowed the anti war opinion to solidify, particularly when there were no WMDs found (surprise).

Tony Blair is now widely reviled in the UK, and you can hardly find anyone who will admit to have supported the war.

Re: Palantir defends its role in the kill chain

#66

Post by red-iron-pine »

iammjm wrote: post #52
spacechild1 wrote: post #51

Sad to see this flagged. Articles like these are exactly why I come to HN. Technology does not exist in a moral vacuum! You cannot reasonably keep "politics" away from this site when large tech companies are actively involved in killing people and destroying democracy.

why did this get flagged?

lotta tech bros in palantir, and they read HN too, mate.

Re: Palantir defends its role in the kill chain

#67

Post by pickleglitch »

smegma2 wrote: post #7

Not trying to be contrarian here, but I don’t get the problem. What’s wrong with Palantir producing weapons or military intelligence? How is it different from making guns? Is the problem what those things are used for, or is it the way Palantir does it?

Well, as the saying goes, guns don't kill people, people kill people. But now, thanks to companies like Palantir, we can essentially make guns that actually do kill people.

Re: Palantir defends its role in the kill chain

#68

Post by gspetr »

smegma2 wrote: post #7

Not trying to be contrarian here, but I don’t get the problem. What’s wrong with Palantir producing weapons or military intelligence? How is it different from making guns? Is the problem what those things are used for, or is it the way Palantir does it?

It's because there's a built-in conflict of interest in most for-profit companies.

It's in a business' best interest to maximize demand for its products. Which is mostly fine for society, country, and the world by large if you're selling paper cups.

However, if you want to sell more weapons you are interested in lobbying for events that increase the consumption of weapons, in other words: wars.

See the problem yet?

Re: Palantir defends its role in the kill chain

#69

Post by scarecrowbob »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #65
scarecrowbob wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person who organized and participated in the ultimately useless protests against the Iraq war, I think that you're correct- we had a couple of months to watch the BushII folks lie their way into getting wide support for the war. As far as I can tell, these current assholes don't really care what the folks in the US think about their actions, so they don't spend time making cases- they just go do whatever dumb sh…

I don't think the protests were useless even if they didn't stop the war. It allowed the anti war opinion to solidify, particularly when there were no WMDs found (surprise). Tony Blair is now widely reviled in the UK, and you can hardly find anyone who will admit to have supported the war.

Fair enough. It was certainly a learning point for me, personally. And it was probably an on-ramp into understanding imperial and neo-liberal politics that set a lot of folks of my generation into Occupy.

At the same time, I wish that protesting felt effective; the stated goals weren't achieved, and that is a fact. I've never been satisfied with being "right" about these horrors, even if I've been "right" a lot in my life.

And protesting is way more fun and less risky than the direct actions that seem to be for more effective in having measurable effects on efforts around ICE.

Re: Palantir defends its role in the kill chain

#70

Post by bigyabai »

gnabgib wrote: post #61
bigyabai wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can conclusively prove that liberals are evil, be my guest. Give me your rhetorical coup-de-grace that annihilates half of America's voting bloc. Even the Nazis retained the ability to judge their opponents when WWII ended. Pity that their opponents were hangmen that wanted them to answer for murder.

This kind of comment violates site guidelines, please review: > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

That was a curious conversation. No part of my question was disingenuous, it was an objective-based query.
Post reply on HN