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> Palantir’s employees are also sometimes called “hobbits.” According to one former employee, a common internal motto in Palantir’s early days was “Save the Shi
by GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
> Palantir’s employees are also sometimes called “hobbits.” According to one former employee, a common internal motto in Palantir’s early days was “Save the Shire,” a reference to the hobbit homeland, which they say was a rallying cry that reflected the company’s ethos at the time.
this seems so delusional and divorced from the source material that i sometimes wonder if any of these people are familiar with it at all.
edit to clarify:
"They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skilful with tools."
- psunavy03 1y agoOr you could try to understand why they would think this way, and perhaps get an understanding of how people you utterly disagree with reason and think.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y agoi'm not talking about whether i think palantir or its employees are good or bad. "They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skilful with tools." - Concerning Hobbits The Scouring Of The Shire is the account of anti-industrial direct action, for Iluvatar's sake.
- egypturnash 1y agoElon Musk is a huge fan of Iain Banks’ Culture books and completely misses the fact that it’s profoundly anti-capitalist and that the villain in Surface Detail is basically him. Rich tech nerds are really good at missing the points being made by the sf/f books they claim to love.
- kjellsbells 1y agoComing soon: The Left Hand of Darkness, where manly men cross the ice together! Sigh.
- gdbsjjdn 1y agoWe've finally built the Torment Nexus from the sci-fi classic, Don't Build The Torment Nexus.
- sidibe 1y agoIt's possible he never actually read them? Another thing Elon would hate that I vaguely remember from one of the Culture books is one of the characters is considered weird for never having been the other sex.
- becurious 1y agoAnd then there’s the apex sex in The Player Of Games. I think at least Excession has one of the protagonists transition at the end of the novel.
- computerthings 1y ago[dead]
- grafmax 1y agoBeing willing to use any means necessary means to fight your enemies - building software to support mass surveillance, genocide, and concentration camps - means you’re no longer fighting for moral principles - you’re fighting for power. In that regard I do think a closer reading of the source material does have something to teach these people.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- thrown-0825 1y agoPeter Thiel is a an authoritarian loser and Tolkien would have hated his guts.
- therobots927 1y agoI think he is more than aware of the fact that he’s the villain in this story. The kool-aid drinking employees of his portfolio companies on the other hand are a different story…
- thrown-0825 1y agoI dont think so, hes pretty obviously a sociopath and they typically struggle with self awareness and tend to view themselves as victims.
- OkayPhysicist 1y agoHe named his data company after the seeing stones that are almost exclusively associated with the Eye of Sauron. I get the impression he doesn't much care if people see him as a villain.
- qzw 1y agoSome people read a story like LotR and think, “If I were Sauron, I would do such and such, and I would’ve won.” A few of these people have the means to actually live out that scenario.
- terminalshort 1y ago> almost exclusively associated with the Eye of Sauron Only in the movies.
- defrost 1y agoThe movies didn't fully explore just how addictive and warping seeing stones could be. In The Silmarillion the point was made that they misled users who were weak while allowing users who were strong to mislead others. Objective unbiased use for the greater good of all, while possible, was extremely rare. The stones were an unreliable guide to action, since what was not shown could be more important than what was selectively presented. A risk lay in the fact that users with sufficient power could choose what to show and what to conceal to other stones. \* Which nails a great issue with the concentration of data and data interpretation in the hands of a self selected few. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palant%C3%ADr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palant%C3%ADr