4 ms·

> But is that representative of all policing? Are police departments, as a concept, unethical? In their current state, yes. Tough on Crime, War on Drugs, and t

> But is that representative of all policing? Are police departments, as a concept, unethical? In their current state, yes. Tough on Crime, War on Drugs, and the prison-industrial complex are unwarranted and destructive. > (which BTW are predominately one-party democracies, just not the party that's popular to hate), that can democratically change. It's not a dictatorship. [...]) State and local governments that don't change party-wise are much worse, as their actions are even less accountable; there's no reason to improve. > in light of right-wing extremism, domestic surveillance is increasingly developing bipartisan approval It used to be assumed we had domestic privacy; it's Snowden's revelations that let us know we don't have such rights. Now we've found ourselves in violation of Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

bhupy 6y ago
> In their current state, yes. Tough on Crime, War on Drugs, and the prison-industrial complex are unwarranted and destructive. But this presupposes that those things are unambiguously bad. "Tough on Crime"? The American public broadly agrees that crime is bad and should be punished. I agree with you that the War on Drugs is bad, but that's not representative of policing as a whole. I understand the "ACAB" outlook, but you have to understand that this isn't an objective moral position, it's purely subjective. > State and local governments that don't change party-wise are much worse, as their actions are even less accountable; there's no reason to improve. You're conflating dictatorships where the people have no mechanism by which to enact change with democracies where the people enact policies you don't like. As a software engineer at Palantir, you're essentially selling weapons to democratically elected governments whose constituents broadly agree with and vote for policies you don't like. That's obviously not great, but it's also not as obviously bad as the punchy "selling weapons to dictators". > It used to be assumed we had domestic privacy; it's Snowden's revelations that let us know we don't have such rights. Now we've found ourselves in violation of Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Sure, and it's been 10+ years since Snowden's revelations. We've had 2 presidential elections and 2 mid-term elections since then to address the problem using the levers of our republican government. A far cry from "dictatorships", and by no means is it obvious that it's unethical to provide software for an elected government that has enacted policy you and I both don't like.

bhupy 6y ago

> In their current state, yes. Tough on Crime, War on Drugs, and the prison-industrial complex are unwarranted and destructive. But this presupposes that those things are unambiguously bad. "Tough on Crime"? The American public broadly agrees that crime is bad and should be punished. I agree with you that the War on Drugs is bad, but that's not representative of policing as a whole. I understand the "ACAB" outlook, but you have to understand that this isn't an objective moral position, it's purely subjective. > State and local governments that don't change party-wise are much worse, as their actions are even less accountable; there's no reason to improve. You're conflating dictatorships where the people have no mechanism by which to enact change with democracies where the people enact policies you don't like. As a software engineer at Palantir, you're essentially selling weapons to democratically elected governments whose constituents broadly agree with and vote for policies you don't like. That's obviously not great, but it's also not as obviously bad as the punchy "selling weapons to dictators". > It used to be assumed we had domestic privacy; it's Snowden's revelations that let us know we don't have such rights. Now we've found ourselves in violation of Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Sure, and it's been 10+ years since Snowden's revelations. We've had 2 presidential elections and 2 mid-term elections since then to address the problem using the levers of our republican government. A far cry from "dictatorships", and by no means is it obvious that it's unethical to provide software for an elected government that has enacted policy you and I both don't like.