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Same thing i post everytime Palantir comes up... >I cannot say enough bad things about Palantir. >I cannot comment about the technology but I sure as hell can
by avs733 9y ago
Same thing i post everytime Palantir comes up...
>I cannot say enough bad things about Palantir.
>I cannot comment about the technology but I sure as hell can at a people level. I was a speaker at a conference where one of the Palantir cofounders gave a keynote. This was a conference organized by college students for their peers. As with all such situations these kids worked incredibly hard and his talk was incredibly disrespectful to that.
>If I hadn't been so disgusted I would have thought to record it. Rather than talk about anything relevant to his audience, or frankly anything informative, he told 'stories'. We have all seen that type of talk, but I have never seem one which so blatantly braggadocious about his interactions with this and other country's intelligence branches. I found it somewhat ironic, for someone who works for Peter Theil, that the level to which the talk, and his representation of the 'good' the company does was so absolutely and unapologetically statist and authoritarian. He talked about who's jet he rode on, who he knew, and other things that seemed simply organized to ensure we knew just how important he was. Several of the stories were overtly misogynistic, and none of them had any useful knowledge about Palintir or working for them. I was sitting with another speaker and we were literally shaking our heads. I felt bad for the organizers and felt the shame he[the speaker] seemed incapable of.
- iaw 9y agoPeter Thiel openly believes that allowing women and disenfranchised the ability to vote undermines his political cohorts ability to reshape the country/world based on their ideology. Now, don't get him wrong, he isn't making an argument to take away their vote but he seems to believe that it's on net a 'bad' thing. The man strikes me as a race towards the bottom in terms of selfishness.
- fapjacks 9y agoWell, he's not incorrect. This is why gerrymandering exists. And while it's certainly shitty, this is what we should expect everyone in power to do at all times. This is why federating power into the hands of a single office (or small group of career political specialists, or wealthy oligarchs, or...) is such a blunder. Pretty much the only constant in all of history is that human beings seek to consolidate and protect their power. Nobody should be surprised. But not only should nobody be surprised, everyone should always expect that people will be trying to do this kind of thing, and act (and vote) accordingly.
- skybrian 9y agoThis is a bit much. You can expect that politicians will take political considerations into account most of the time (since that's how they got where they are), but they do occasionally make unpopular decisions because they think it's the right thing to do. There are times when it's worth it to cash in your chips.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dang 9y ago> Same thing i post everytime Palantir comes up. Could you please not do that here? HN threads are for good conversations, and pre-existing agendas and mechanical repetition both spoil that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- avs733 9y agofair. I guess its a habit born of just how shocked I was at their behavior. I'm far from an apologist for tech companies in general but the behavior I witnessed there, and have continued to hear stories of from others was to me beyond the pale. Given more and more students reading HN, I biased towards right to know.