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That's a very kind way to characterize their work. Regardless, they are in the mass surveillance business. Some of their product manuals are out there to read.
by somethingtosay 7y ago
That's a very kind way to characterize their work. Regardless, they are in the mass surveillance business. Some of their product manuals are out there to read.
Edit: I personally think calling them just a 'consulting' company is a silly way to obscure the things on which they consult.
- ng12 7y agoThey're in the data analysis business. Your government is in the mass surveillance business. If ICE fed the data into Tableau instead would that be any different?
- somethingtosay 7y agoThis is not an accurate comparison you're making and I think you know that. Palantir designs products specifically for mass tracking of people. Tableau does not.
- ng12 7y agoCould you specify the things Palantir does that Tableu and other data analysis tools do not?
- somethingtosay 7y agoI said it already. They make software specifically for tracking populations. Their user manuals were leaked by vice recently. You can look it up. Trying to equate the software described in those manuals, and what we know of their other contracts and products with Tableau is nonsense.
- ng12 7y ago> They make software specifically for tracking population They make software for modeling objects. A popular object to model is a person. As technologists we should be a little more immune to the FUD spread by Vice et al.
- somethingtosay 7y agoA gas chamber is just a room for dispersing particles very finely. See I can do it too.
- ng12 7y agoThat is _exactly_ my point. Using Tableu to track immigrants is really not much different from using Palantir to track them.
- somethingtosay 7y agoYou're point is either extremely naive or willfully ignorant.
- ng12 7y agoI don't think you quite understand what Palantir does. It's not the imperious machine for evil you think it is -- the government builds all that stuff in-house.
- okmokmz 7y agoYes, I got the same impression from my discussion with him
- dang 7y agoPlease don't gang up on another user no matter how wrong they are.
- okmokmz 7y agoStating how I felt about my discussion with a user to another user is not ganging up. He seemed to be defending the company as if he had a personal stake and was acting willfully ignorant. That is an important thing to be aware of, particularly in discussions such as this
- okmokmz 7y agoReally? Like specifically marketing and providing mass surveillance solutions to governments? That's a pretty major thing that Palantir does that other data analysis tools do not. Sure, if you want to keep being pedantic and trying to play off what Palantir does you can say they're "just" a consulting company, or "just" a data analytics company, but it's incredibly apparent that they primarily assist governments and organizations with mass surveillance, and trying to argue otherwise is disingenuous. You can try to pass the buck, but it isn't fooling anyone
- ng12 7y agoWhat is a "mass surveillance solution"?
- okmokmz 7y agoSolution: a means of solving a problem or dealing with a difficult situation Mass surveillance: the distributive close observation of an entire population, or a substantial fraction of the entire population i.e. a means of observation of a population or subset of a population which is exactly what Palantir does, as has been demonstrated by their leaked documents. Sure, you could probably accomplish something similar with the help of other big data analytics companies, but unlike those companies, Palantir's primary business is aiding in mass surveillance https://southfront.org/palantirs-user-guide-mass-surveillance-made-simple/ https://southfront.org/palantirs-user-guide-mass-surveillanc...
- ng12 7y agoTake a good look at the screenshots in that link. It's a completely generic database -- you fill in some search fields and some data is returned, you can do a join, and then you can plop that data into a chart. Palantir isn't out there collecting data on citizens or scanning license plates or anything else I would consider "mass surveillance".
- okmokmz 7y agoIf you want to continue to be disingenuous and try to play off Palantir as a run of the mill big data company that is fine, but their business model is implementing and assissting with mass surveillance and I don't know a single individual in the field that is aware of Palantir that considers them "just a consulting company" or interchangeable with tableau or something similar as you seem to be arguing