5 ms·

Is there some specific controversy with Anduril that the community is reacting to, or is NixCon simply avoiding sponsorship from defense firms?

mepian 3y ago
Anduril is infamous for its AI sentry towers along the US-Mexico border.
- tomschlick 3y ago
  People who push back on technology used at the border make little sense to me. Using technology frees up other resources to process migrants more quickly through the abused asylum process. That means they are in detention for less time, they get court cases quicker, and get asylum or removal quicker.
  - cjbprime 3y ago
    Surely you can imagine some consistent viewpoints that a person could have here, such as "it can be a good thing when someone is able to escape a terrible situation in their current country even if they don't meet the rules for being granted asylum"?
    - tomschlick 3y ago
      I can see how people empathize with that but on the flip side I've known plenty of immigrants who went through the process the right way, waited months or years, gone through naturalization process and did the same to get get their families here. They, along with others still in line feel cheated by the people entering illegally / abusing the asylum claim systems. If you're escaping a bad situation in a central or southern American country, and then pass through 4-5 countries to get here, you're not seeking asylum, you're an economic migrant no different from immigrants from India, China, etc all seeking a better life. No other developed country would or should allow people to illegally enter and skip the legal process.
      - throwaway134134 3y ago
        > No other developed country would or should allow people to illegally enter and skip the legal process. Perhaps the situation in the UE since 2015 did not reach you. Google "Wir scaffen das!"
      - Nullabillity 3y ago
        That's just hazing bullshit, "I went through this misery so you must, too!". You fix it by making the legal route less awful, not by intentionally inflicting even more suffering.
        tomschlick 3y ago
        It won't be politically possible to change much of anything about the legal immigration system until we stop the ~200K[1] of people illegally coming across the border every month. The minute you announce some kind of concession for people already here (which would most definitely be part of a broader immigration reform bill) then the floodgates will open with people trying to make it in before the effective date. [1] https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-enc...
        orochimaaru 3y ago
        Are you a US citizen making this statement? If you are, then you don’t know the scale of social spending that you will be hit with if that legal route for that comes to pass. Either way, I can’t see any progress on immigration reform. It’s not happening, unless the flow at the border stops or reduces significantly.
        pxc 3y ago
        Undocumented immigrants in the US already pay taxes today. Their employers pay into the tax system and the undocumented workers never get any of it back, unlike citizen taxpayers. The idea that immigrants are a net cost in terms of social services is nonsense.
    - throwaway134134 3y ago
      [flagged]
- busterarm 3y ago
  Which do what exactly? It's surveillance equipment. Do you know how many people die attempting to cross that border? Hundreds every year. Maybe when the temperature is extreme, you want to have an idea of where people are.
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    Current US border policy is in no way designed to minimize hyperthermia related suffering. For instance, there are nonprofits that install water stations in the desert to minimize migrant deaths. CBP agents regularly vandalize these to prevent their use [0]. They also keep captured migrants in crowded outdoor cages and in facilities without meaningful AC during the hottest months. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/17/us-border-patrol-sabotage-aid-migrants-mexico-arizona https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/17/us-border-pa...
    - busterarm 3y ago
      I never suggested otherwise. Ideally zero people would be crossing this border illegally and then there would be no deaths, right? We should do everything possible to discourage this crossing. Adequate surveillance is a large part of that. If you are legitimately seeking asylum you can just walk up to any border crossing station and not risk your life. Edit: As far as the condition that we keep captured criminals in, I would wager a good bet that they're comparably better than the appallingly horrific conditions of South American jails.
      - AlotOfReading 3y ago
        Look, I don't want to get into a discussion of whether the current laws are proper. HN isn't the place for that. I'm just saying that pretending border surveillance is a way to keep immigrants safe from the desert is pure moral fiction.
        busterarm 3y ago
        I never suggested that it would keep them safe. I said that you would know that there are people there and they might be or about to be in serious danger. What you do with that information afterwards is an entirely separate conversation. If it is in your power to have this information and you neglect to, that is highly immoral. If we're going to have this border policy then it is our responsibility to know the effects of that policy. Surveillance of this crossing where hundreds of people die every year is a moral imperative. People are posting in this thread suggesting that having autonomous surveillance here is akin to pointing weapons at people. The suggestion is hyperbole and ridiculous. What's really disheartening here is that the people that don't like our border policy would rather we turn a blind eye here guaranteeing that these deaths continue and in greater numbers.
burkaman 3y ago
I'm not aware of any specific recent controversy, but the core concept of autonomous military equipment is extremely controversial. Bloomberg called them "Tech's Most Controversial Startup" a few years ago: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-10-03/tech-s-most-controversial-startup-now-makes-attack-drones https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-10-03/tech-s-mo... Palmer Luckey and Peter Thiel themselves are also quite controversial political actors.
- mightyham 3y ago
  By controversial you mean that they are conservative. I'm not aware of anything they've done that is particularly controversial; furthermore, if the standard for controversial is that a person has donated money to political candidates and organizations that would make a huge portion of big tech figures controversial.
  - burkaman 3y ago
    No that is not what I mean, I don't consider "being conservative" or donating money to any candidate to be controversial. For Palmer Luckey I'm referring to him personally holding a multi-million-dollar fundraiser for Donald Trump, and for Peter Thiel I'm referring to his opposition to democracy and women and poor people voting, among other things.
    - mightyham 3y ago
      Running a fundraiser for Trump is not controversial even probably to plenty of liberals, and if you are referring to Thiel's 2009 essay, that is a very uncharitable and biased summary of what he is saying.
      - burkaman 3y ago
        It is an incredibly straightforward reading of what he wrote. "Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." He was 42 years old when he wrote that. He is welcome to apologize or publicly state that he no longer believes this, and he has done that for other past controversial statements. Since he has not done so, we should conclude that he still holds this belief and acts accordingly.
abathur 3y ago
Most of the commentary I've seen is generic, but most of the specific comments I've seen mention Anduril's loitering munitions.
mintplant 3y ago
I found the particular text of the sponsorship tweet rather shocking. "Software-defined conflicts" is a callously buzzy way to describe events involving mass loss of life.

mepian 3y ago

Anduril is infamous for its AI sentry towers along the US-Mexico border.

tomschlick 3y ago
People who push back on technology used at the border make little sense to me. Using technology frees up other resources to process migrants more quickly through the abused asylum process. That means they are in detention for less time, they get court cases quicker, and get asylum or removal quicker.
- cjbprime 3y ago
  Surely you can imagine some consistent viewpoints that a person could have here, such as "it can be a good thing when someone is able to escape a terrible situation in their current country even if they don't meet the rules for being granted asylum"?
  - tomschlick 3y ago
    I can see how people empathize with that but on the flip side I've known plenty of immigrants who went through the process the right way, waited months or years, gone through naturalization process and did the same to get get their families here. They, along with others still in line feel cheated by the people entering illegally / abusing the asylum claim systems. If you're escaping a bad situation in a central or southern American country, and then pass through 4-5 countries to get here, you're not seeking asylum, you're an economic migrant no different from immigrants from India, China, etc all seeking a better life. No other developed country would or should allow people to illegally enter and skip the legal process.
    - throwaway134134 3y ago
      > No other developed country would or should allow people to illegally enter and skip the legal process. Perhaps the situation in the UE since 2015 did not reach you. Google "Wir scaffen das!"
    - Nullabillity 3y ago
      That's just hazing bullshit, "I went through this misery so you must, too!". You fix it by making the legal route less awful, not by intentionally inflicting even more suffering.
      - tomschlick 3y ago
        It won't be politically possible to change much of anything about the legal immigration system until we stop the ~200K[1] of people illegally coming across the border every month. The minute you announce some kind of concession for people already here (which would most definitely be part of a broader immigration reform bill) then the floodgates will open with people trying to make it in before the effective date. [1] https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-enc...
      - orochimaaru 3y ago
        Are you a US citizen making this statement? If you are, then you don’t know the scale of social spending that you will be hit with if that legal route for that comes to pass. Either way, I can’t see any progress on immigration reform. It’s not happening, unless the flow at the border stops or reduces significantly.
        pxc 3y ago
        Undocumented immigrants in the US already pay taxes today. Their employers pay into the tax system and the undocumented workers never get any of it back, unlike citizen taxpayers. The idea that immigrants are a net cost in terms of social services is nonsense.
  - throwaway134134 3y ago
    [flagged]
busterarm 3y ago
Which do what exactly? It's surveillance equipment. Do you know how many people die attempting to cross that border? Hundreds every year. Maybe when the temperature is extreme, you want to have an idea of where people are.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  Current US border policy is in no way designed to minimize hyperthermia related suffering. For instance, there are nonprofits that install water stations in the desert to minimize migrant deaths. CBP agents regularly vandalize these to prevent their use [0]. They also keep captured migrants in crowded outdoor cages and in facilities without meaningful AC during the hottest months. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/17/us-border-patrol-sabotage-aid-migrants-mexico-arizona https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/17/us-border-pa...
  - busterarm 3y ago
    I never suggested otherwise. Ideally zero people would be crossing this border illegally and then there would be no deaths, right? We should do everything possible to discourage this crossing. Adequate surveillance is a large part of that. If you are legitimately seeking asylum you can just walk up to any border crossing station and not risk your life. Edit: As far as the condition that we keep captured criminals in, I would wager a good bet that they're comparably better than the appallingly horrific conditions of South American jails.
    - AlotOfReading 3y ago
      Look, I don't want to get into a discussion of whether the current laws are proper. HN isn't the place for that. I'm just saying that pretending border surveillance is a way to keep immigrants safe from the desert is pure moral fiction.
      - busterarm 3y ago
        I never suggested that it would keep them safe. I said that you would know that there are people there and they might be or about to be in serious danger. What you do with that information afterwards is an entirely separate conversation. If it is in your power to have this information and you neglect to, that is highly immoral. If we're going to have this border policy then it is our responsibility to know the effects of that policy. Surveillance of this crossing where hundreds of people die every year is a moral imperative. People are posting in this thread suggesting that having autonomous surveillance here is akin to pointing weapons at people. The suggestion is hyperbole and ridiculous. What's really disheartening here is that the people that don't like our border policy would rather we turn a blind eye here guaranteeing that these deaths continue and in greater numbers.

burkaman 3y ago

I'm not aware of any specific recent controversy, but the core concept of autonomous military equipment is extremely controversial. Bloomberg called them "Tech's Most Controversial Startup" a few years ago: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-10-03/tech-s-most-controversial-startup-now-makes-attack-drones https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-10-03/tech-s-mo... Palmer Luckey and Peter Thiel themselves are also quite controversial political actors.

mightyham 3y ago
By controversial you mean that they are conservative. I'm not aware of anything they've done that is particularly controversial; furthermore, if the standard for controversial is that a person has donated money to political candidates and organizations that would make a huge portion of big tech figures controversial.
- burkaman 3y ago
  No that is not what I mean, I don't consider "being conservative" or donating money to any candidate to be controversial. For Palmer Luckey I'm referring to him personally holding a multi-million-dollar fundraiser for Donald Trump, and for Peter Thiel I'm referring to his opposition to democracy and women and poor people voting, among other things.
  - mightyham 3y ago
    Running a fundraiser for Trump is not controversial even probably to plenty of liberals, and if you are referring to Thiel's 2009 essay, that is a very uncharitable and biased summary of what he is saying.
    - burkaman 3y ago
      It is an incredibly straightforward reading of what he wrote. "Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." He was 42 years old when he wrote that. He is welcome to apologize or publicly state that he no longer believes this, and he has done that for other past controversial statements. Since he has not done so, we should conclude that he still holds this belief and acts accordingly.

abathur 3y ago

Most of the commentary I've seen is generic, but most of the specific comments I've seen mention Anduril's loitering munitions.

mintplant 3y ago

I found the particular text of the sponsorship tweet rather shocking. "Software-defined conflicts" is a callously buzzy way to describe events involving mass loss of life.