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Palantir’s software was used for deportations, documents show
- natalyarostova 8y agoSo? How is software being used to manage the system of national border enforcement interesting or newsworthy?
- untog 8y agoPrimarily because, as stated in the article, Palantir previously denied any involvement in the process.
- coldtea 8y agoHow is the software being used to manage the system of national border enforcement NOT interesting?
- huffmsa 8y agoWhy aren't there articles about big bad tech companies providing software which enables the control over the flow of goods at commercial ports?
- coldtea 8y agoBecause people are more interesting than goods, and software that controls the flow of people has more immediate repercussions...
- huffmsa 8y agoOnly because we pretty long ago agreed that it is important for a government to control the import and export of goods at it's borders. Pay your tariffs, citizen.
- ionised 8y agoI don't think anyone alive today was at that meeting.
- coldtea 8y ago>Pay your tariffs, citizen. I'm all pro-tariffs, and against rampant global trade. Domestic production boosts autonomy, keeps working class jobs, is more environment friendly (taking into account the externalities in either way), doesn't lead to a wage race to the global bottom, and makes it more expensive to build some stuff (hence reducing consumerism). I'm also in favor of the historical notion of "citizen" -- e.g. I believe each person has a duty to his country and community (in the "Don't ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" sense, and in the more historical ancient Athenian sense). I'm not for people basking in their snowflake individuality while still taking advantage of all that his country and community made possibly to enjoy like cheapskates.
- manigandham 8y agoWhy is it interesting?
- darawk 8y agoAre we now against all forms of deportation? This is pretty silly.
- pjc50 8y agoRather like the War On Drugs, it's worth asking what all this life-ruining use of violence is actually achieving.
- slowmotiony 8y agoIt's achieving less illegal immigration which I thought was the whole point
- drb91 8y agoThe point is to get rich people elected. Xenophobia is one means to this end, and deportation is one manifestation. I don’t think I’ve met an undocumented resident I wouldn’t fight for; I’d much rather deport citizens who conspire to lower wages, like Eric Schmidt. That’s goddamn unamerican.
- darawk 8y agoWe don't arrest criminals because they're bad people. We do so because the behavior they're engaging in is harmful to society. Society has decided that undocumented immigration is harmful to it, it's as simple as that. You could try to argue that undocumented migration is not harmful - but you'll have to do a whole lot better than "some immigrants I met are nice". Eric Schmidt is probably a pretty nice guy in person too, but that doesn't mean we should tolerate him fixing prices.
- drb91 8y agoThose stoners keep rioting! Throw ‘em in jail and ignore their skin color.
- speedplane 8y ago
- cpgeier 8y agoHow does Palantir actually make their money? I know probably a lot though government contracts, but I've never heard of them out side of the comp sci field until now.
- ascar 8y agoSame as other consultancies and software companies. They get hired by other companies for ridiculously high daily wages and sell their platform for recurring fees. E.g. in a recruiting event they demonstrated how they setup their data analytics platform for a chemical plant to optimize production. Most of the work is transforming and structuring the data.
- tus87 8y ago- high pressure sales tactics convince management its cheaper to "buy off the shelf" than build your own - but we aren't selling you a finished product (didn't we mention that?), just a base framework that needs customization. Cue fly-in-fly-out consultants for exorbitant daily rates. - to lower costs, why not send your own staff to our "university" for thousands of dollars for a 5 day class? - hire said staff to become consultants after customer pays for their training. They don't appear out of thin air! - when customer finally ditches product, blame them for lack of investment and use contacts to complain at highest levels of bureaucracy. - rinse and repeat. A tried and tested formula.
- londons_explore 8y agoPalantir combines those techniques with one extra thing... Government. Government is far less concerned about money-efficiency, and nobody working in government has a direct interest in profitability (like being a shareholder would). Hence those tactics work all-the-better.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoCombine that with the fact that government can't go bankrupt. If some department blows through way more money than it should either it just doesn't get it's job done or it gets more money. Pretty painless compared to what happens to a company that blows through a bunch of money without delivering results.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Proven 8y agoWalmart's gardening tools have been used to commit homicide.
- raubtier 8y agoGood
- throw2016 8y agoThere are people actively fighting the dehumanization and there are people building tools to dehumanize and defend their work. In a movie or artwork which side do you think are going to be portrayed as the 'good guys' and who are you going to be rooting for? That is cognitive dissonance. This is just more evidence of how the lack of a moral compass has led the software community to not only sell out and build these creepy tools but worse defend surveillance and police state technologies without a hint of self awareness in these kind of discussions. Without push back and dissent it's only a matter of time the software community is completely tainted with collusion as a group of opportunists with zero ethics by the general public like those collaborating with authoritarian police states against the people.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago> This is just more evidence of how the lack of a moral compass has led the software community to not only sell out and build these creepy tools but worse actually defend surveillance and police state technologies without a hint of self awareness in these kind of discussions. I'd only add that there's certainly a small part of the community that realizes this, in fact the free software movement is also about ethics, however the kind of developers who are aware are usually not your usual Valley types.
- glangdale 8y agoI'm not 100% sure that the ethics of the free software movement have a single solitary thing to do with, say, objecting to the sorts of things Palantir's clients get up to. Speaking from experience, F/OSS provides very little control over end user behavior; you can turn down a 'evil' client if you are proprietary but not if you are F/OSS. Not a dig against F/OSS, just a statement that their ethics don't really address these concerns (I'm sure they would have arguments that a greater good is served, etc.)
- AsyncAwait 8y agoSure, but I'd differentiate somewhat between "open-source software", (i.e. ESR) and "free software" i.e. RMS. Which is why I did not use FOSS, but free-software explicitly. Maybe it's even better to narrow it down to copyleft only. Open-source is not at all concerned with what's ethical. It's free-software made corporate-friendly. Free software certainly is a bit different, if you for example look at the sort of campaigns the Free Software Foundation advocates for, there's a lot of political campaigning that has to do with ethics. You cannot reasonably restrict software for 'no evil use' as that definition is subjective and open to abuse, but the FSF is definitely more concerned with software ethics than the OSI.
- PedroBatista 8y agoPalantir looks like IBM in the 30s but without the technical excellence and all the sales force.
- rat87 8y agoI'm not sure it's quite the same thing as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust but still not great
- herostratus101 8y agoFirst thing I've read that makes me like Palantir.
- educationdata 8y agoThis stupid article should be simply flagged. There is no good discussion can come out of it.
- huffmsa 8y agoWhen did deportation become a dirty word? > an operation in 2017 in which immigrants crossing the border were arrested for deportation Because it is illegal to enter the United States except for at controlled points of entry. This is true of every nation in the world. The power to control borders is part of the definition of sovereignty. If you don't think it should be illegal to enter the United States at any location, call your Representative and get the law changed.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- manigandham 8y agoThey also used software from Google, Microsoft, and every other big company. If there's an issue with the agency and government then that's where the attention should be, not with some corporation.
- dgudkov 8y agoHow about Excel? Is anyone using Excel for something bad and immoral? Watch out, Microsoft. Social justice might be coming after you soon.
- aioprisan 8y agoThis is custom software built for these use cases, not something generic like Excel. They're worlds apart
- dgudkov 8y agoI don't think Palantir has a purpose-built app for immigrant children separation and deportation. As far as I can understand (from the product videos that I've seen), Palantir is rather general-purpose software for data mining and analysis. If it's less generic than Excel then only by a small margin.
- aioprisan 8y agoImportant to highlight because Palantir initially lied about what they're building and what it's supporting. Makes you think about what else they have their hands in