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Reflections on Palantir

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Re: Reflections on Palantir

#91

Post by tsimionescu »

Manuel_D wrote: post #52
FactKnower69 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even the most pessimistic estimates of civilian casualties are on the order of tens of thousands. blatant lie, as has been pointed out to you multiple times now

The figure comes from the Palestinian Health Ministry: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-death-toll-ho... What incentive would the Palestinian government have to deceive people into thinking there's fewer casualties than the real figure?

From the very article you quote:

> IS THE GAZA DEATH TOLL COMPREHENSIVE?

> The numbers do not necessarily reflect all victims, as many are still under rubble, the Palestinian Health Ministry says. It estimates some 10,000 bodies were uncounted in this way.

> The Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health has said that the true figures are likely higher than those published, without giving specifics.

> The U.N. human rights office also says the Palestinian authorities' figure is probably an undercount. In past Israel-Hamas conflicts, its own tally has sometimes exceeded theirs.

> It declined to share its toll for this war since it is incomplete but confirmed to Reuters that the deaths it has verified so far show that the majority are women and children.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#92

Post by orochimaaru »

NegatioN wrote: post #87
orochimaaru wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So does AT&T and Verizon which would fall in the morally neutral category. Even big tech - Google/meta are probably classified as morally neutral but in reality gray areas. The US government probably has access to all that data - with our without warrants. I also agree with his premise. There is really no gray area working for defense tech in the US. In my opinion people have a rather lopsided view of that. You would…

"Right now there's this thing where ethics aren't what they used to be. This idea that people are trying to replace the ideas of good and bad, with better or worse." -Dave Chappelle What you're writing should naturally lead to the conclusion that working for Google, Meta, Verizon, AT&T etc are all in the category of companies one shouldn't strive to use their hard earned talents for. For some reason I cannot fathom,…

I’m saying Palantir and defense tech is better because they are upfront about their association. In contrast you have what the author calls as morally neutral companies that are in fact gray areas.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#93

Post by tsimionescu »

Manuel_D wrote: post #85
tsimionescu wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel saying "we're going to kill and starve civilians until you give us what we want" does not make Hamas responsible for the civilian deaths any more than Hamas saying "we did October 7th and we'll do another unless you stop occupying us" makes Israel responsible for the murders perpetrated on that night.

If someone kidnaps people and holds them hostage in a building, it's totally within the realm of reasonable response for the police to surround and isolate the building. If one of the kidnappers does of dehydration during the standoff, the police did not kill him. His own stubbornness and refusal to surrender is what killed him.

Agreed. But if the police then go and bomb the kidnappers's family homes, it's the police who are responsible for all those dead families, not the kidnappers.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#94

Post by [deleted] »

renegade-otter wrote: post #84

Palantir is neck-deep in Ukraine: https://time.com/6293398/palantir-future-of-warfare-ukraine/ From what I understand, their software is also responsible for deep-strike drone path planning, avoiding air defenses through Russian terrain.

[deleted]

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#96

Post by [deleted] »

master_crab wrote: post #61

For all you backend engineers: It’s basically Grafana with a bunch of support engineers in the backend cleaning up the data source (like a splunk index) that feeds it. Palantir does UI and visualization well but needs an inordinate amount of field support engineers to groom the dirty disparate data that governments do a poor job cleaning (either due to incompetence, field conditions, or both). The amount of manual la…

[deleted]

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#99

Post by mistermann »

psunavy03 wrote: post #77
stackskipton wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You would rarely find any other nation that where defense tech companies are turned away from job fairs. Kinda ridiculous. Probably because US MIC is weird political place. On one hand, it's turns out really cool tech and US needs defense. On other hand, who are we defending from and why are spending all this money on world police when we have a ton of internal problems? Throw in some pork barrel in there to add to…

> On other hand, who are we defending from and why are spending all this money on world police when we have a ton of internal problems? Because someone has to be this if you want the continuation of the post-WWII rules-based international order that underpins the entire global economy. The Department of Defense and US hegemony are essentially overhead that is the Least Bad Option to stop WWIII from kicking off or the…

Force is only one of many methods to achieve certain outcomes, not all methods that could achieve the same general outcome are known, very little cognitive effort is put into searching for alternatives, leaving few options other than speculation if one is obligated to form a conclusion on the matter.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#100

Post by [deleted] »

Finnucane wrote: post #49

"I remember my first time I talked to Stephen Cohen he had the A/C in his office set at 60, several weird-looking devices for minimizing CO2 content in the room, and had a giant pile of ice in a cup. Throughout the conversation, he kept chewing pieces of ice. " " Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water or rainwater? And only pure grain alcohol?"

[deleted]
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