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I'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army

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71–78 of 78 posts

Re: I'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army

#71
post #9

It is part time, they get a high rank immediately and will facilitate purchases from Palantir: https://www.wsj.com/tech/army-reserve-tech-executives-meta-p... This is just another part of the revolving door that also enables ex generals to get board positions at Lockheed. This time it is the reverse way. Given that McKinsey ruined the German army, let us see whether this will even improve anything.

McKinsey generally ruins most things they touch. Engineering is a different field that McKinsey may claim it has expertise in but has none. Most McKinsey roles are high responsibility and low accountability. Nobody really cares whether their recommendations have worked long term as long as the CEO makes their bonus in the next 6-8 months.

With this I'm not sure what the goal is. If it is to change the process heavy culture of the pentagon to be more automated I'm hopeful. Yes, there is a revolving door between pentagon officials and the prime defense contractors. But I think that is currently a symptom of how the pentagon works, as in, you need to understand the process AND how the product will be used.

Re: I'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army

#72
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* In times of war. This ain't it.

The U.S. ruling class is at war with the citizenry and Silicon Valley is its vanguard.

How exactly is the ruling class at war with the citizenry? If you're alluding to the LA deployments that seems to not be the citizenry since it's illegal immigrants.

Re: I'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army

#73
post #10

Just jumping right in as a Lt Col? Is there a lot of precedent for that? I know that the armed forces have worked with a lot of scientists before, like in the Manhattan Project, but my understanding is that most of them remained civilians.

And from the wsj link:

> They will have more flexibility than the average reservist to work remotely and asynchronously, and will be spared basic training.

No officer basic training course to teach them how to be an army officer?

They are privileged consultants playing dress up.

Re: I'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army

#74
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. ruling class is at war with the citizenry and Silicon Valley is its vanguard.

How exactly is the ruling class at war with the citizenry? If you're alluding to the LA deployments that seems to not be the citizenry since it's illegal immigrants.

It's right up there with the repeated mantra that Latino Trump voters who are now seeing themselves being deported en masse are regretting their vote. Such prattlers might study what they've said for hours without noticing the fallacy.

Re: I'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army

#75
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> incredibly fascistic. What do you mean by this? Is its some feeling you have or do you have any objective measure?

Since fascism is more a political philosophy than an economic one, it is hard to define an "objective measure" for this type of thing, but the formal merging of corporate interests with military interests by commissioning C-suite officials is probably as close as we could get. It might help to contrast it with an authoritarian left-wing approach to this same problem of private and state collaboration. In a system lik…

Unfortunately, Corporatism is well established as the status quo. Typically the failures of this system are attributed to the market, rather than the hazards of interventionism. This allows further interventions to be applied as "fixes".

Rather than attributing it to right or left, I would characterize it as a synthesis of illiberal ideas. Under Corporatism, even union and worker movements merge with the state. UAW is just as relevant here as state adjacent corporations like Palantir, GM, VW, Airbus or Boeing.

>For example, the government might be prevented from spying on its people such as collecting internet histories and corporations might be prevented from exerting physical power over people like imprisoning them. But if the two groups are acting as one, this distinction doesn't matter.

We saw a similar strategy under the previous administration. Social media companies took direction from the White House to censor user content. Proponents claimed that this didn't violate civil liberties because of the voluntary nature of the collaboration.

It isn't hard to find parallels if you look hard enough. There will always be a nexus of power around the state. Whether it is nationalized corporations or public private partnerships, malign incentives will always exist in these cases. The variation is only in degrees.

However, I think the ultimate distinction for Fascism would be in Mussolini's open call for the state to become an all-encompassing, collectivist force. There is still a contrast to the extent that the US at least plays some lip-service to liberal individualist ideals. Overall, it retains some laissez-faire elements in comparison to other major economies.

Re: I'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army

#76
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since fascism is more a political philosophy than an economic one, it is hard to define an "objective measure" for this type of thing, but the formal merging of corporate interests with military interests by commissioning C-suite officials is probably as close as we could get. It might help to contrast it with an authoritarian left-wing approach to this same problem of private and state collaboration. In a system lik…

Unfortunately, Corporatism is well established as the status quo. Typically the failures of this system are attributed to the market, rather than the hazards of interventionism. This allows further interventions to be applied as "fixes". Rather than attributing it to right or left, I would characterize it as a synthesis of illiberal ideas. Under Corporatism, even union and worker movements merge with the state. UAW i…

[deleted]

Re: I'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army

#78
post #46
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be stolen valor, but you just KNOW these guys are going to play up their veteran status, the Honor and Sacrifice of these Great Men, (the article is already an example of this) when really this is just a trojan horse to enrich themselves and their companies. They're not even full time positions.

>It might not be stolen valor It is, or isn't. In this case, it ain't. >but you just KNOW these guys are going to play up their veteran status How do you have such a surplus of outrage, that you can freely spend it on something that so far has only happened in your mind? >They're not even full time positions. Yes, that's the definition of a reserve commission.

Because we're rapidly descending into a fascist oligarchy, and this is a prime example of how that happens. Rapacious billionaires getting their hooks into the armed forces under the watch of a transactional wanna-be dictator, what could go wrong?
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