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Co-founder Joe Lonsdale: Palantir was founded to kill communists
- juanani 9mo ago[dead]
- nailer 9mo ago[flagged]
- clanky 9mo agoThe quoted tweet he is enthusiastically co-signing says communists should be blown up and their graves desecrated.
- nailer 9mo ago[flagged]
- ceayo 9mo ago[flagged]
- ratrace 9mo ago[flagged]
- blactuary 9mo ago[flagged]
- ratrace 9mo ago[flagged]
- ozozozd 9mo ago[flagged]
- ratrace 9mo ago[flagged]
- rootusrootus 9mo agoMildly right wing in America is Democrat. I've not been accusing them of inheriting Hitler's crimes (ironically, Republicans do make that accusation however).
- nailer 9mo agoNobody says they did. That this happened for most of the experience of communism is still relevant.
- breppp 9mo agothey just misinterpreted Marx! if we try again this time it will work
- ceayo 9mo agoThat is authoritarianism. Indeed, you have a valid point, except that communism in fact only is an economic theory and does not implicate anything on other areas of government. There is no difference between a capitalist authoritarian and a communist authoritarian except that a communist actually has a story (i.e. a fairy-tale) to sell to their people.
- 0x3444ac53 9mo agoCapitalism also has a fairy tail to sell it's people tho?
- dekhn 9mo agoOf course. All successful large-scale political movements have underlying narratives that only loosely correlate with reality.
- drcongo 9mo agoVery much. It's basically: look at all these lovely billionaires, one day you'll be one of them too!
- nailer 9mo agoYes, when countries move from communism to capitalism, poverty, infant mortality, unemployment and every other bad metric goes down.
- breppp 9mo agothe problem with communism in Russia has been that the minute the economy theory inevitably fails, you now have to starve the farmers, and when they don't agree with being starved you need to send them to a gulag
- ratrace 9mo ago> communism in fact only is an economic theory and does not implicate anything on other areas of government This is unbelievably naive.
- mindslight 9mo agoThe problem isn't the "commun" but rather the "ism" - the elevation of a set of beliefs above individual human lives, and then consequently people leveraging that belief system to justify overt harm to other humans (justify to others and to themselves). Given that "communism" has very little relevance in the modern western world, yet a few other "isms" have been widely adopted to the totalitarian levels "communism" had been, the reasonable suspicion is to judge anybody still bashing "communism" as doing so with the motivation of pushing their own "ism".
- emsign 9mo agoSo you think it's ok to kill people who have not killed hundreds of millions because those who did and the former people are both labeled as communists? That's not just insanely inhumane and against basic principles of law but also just illogical.
- ratrace 9mo ago> That's not just insanely inhumane and against basic principles of law but also just illogical. I agree. As a fun science experiment, you should try posting this somewhere else, but replace "communists" with "fascists" and see what kind of replies you get.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- nailer 9mo agoI’m not sure why this is flagged, it’s fairly easily verifiable.
- reactordev 9mo agoYou don't see a problem with that statement?
- amanaplanacanal 9mo ago[flagged]
- nailer 9mo ago[flagged]
- qweasdzx 9mo ago[dead]
- amanaplanacanal 9mo ago[flagged]
- jvanderbot 9mo agoI'm sure someone out there is dedicating their life to fighting fascists. BTW, in most right wing circles I listen in on, fascists are called "communists" for some reason. IMHO, there's no significant distinction nowadays b/c everyone does it "for the people" regardless.
- 0x3444ac53 9mo agoEhhhh, that's a bit of a false equivalence. Most communist/anarchist/etc are "for the people", and the people in question are often marginalized or oppressed groups with little to no institutional power. Fascists, on the other hand are "for our people", and the "our people" bit often means White, rich, me and mine type thing. A good example is how the American right-wing often talks about immigration. They'll talk about a mythical "good immigrant" from a south American country, we can let them in because they're "one of the good ones". Not like those other brown people, of course.
- fragmede 9mo agoThe eastern Europeans women immigrants are hot though, so they're allowed in, of course.
- jalapenoh 9mo ago[flagged]
- boxed 9mo agoPlaying without the net is what Sam Harris calls this kind of logic. I must say I agree. Your statement is only true if: - collateral damage in war is the same thing as "murder" - you only count dead if a jew killed them - of course you never count anyone who dies by being killed by a non-jew - or if you do count them, claim that it's a false flag by jews Russia is literally waging a full scale war against Ukraine, China has concentration camps and forced sterilizations, Iran is executing and disappearing people by the hundreds as we speak, etc, etc. But of course, none of that counts or it's the jews fault anyway.
- jalapenoh 9mo ago[flagged]
- blactuary 9mo ago[flagged]
- kalkin 9mo agoThis is interesting partly because Alex Karp (at least used to) occasionally claim to be a socialist when it was inconvenient or uncool to be defined as a standard issue rightwinger. Never thought that meant much myself - any more than it's meaningful for Lonsdale to define himself as against "evil authoritarian forces" here while advocating the murder of his political opponents - but I know people who took him seriously for some reason. It's good to have these guys out in the open as Pinochet types, though. Silver lining of the Trump era.
- ozozozd 9mo agoWhere are these communists you speak of? I haven’t met a single communist. And I am 40+ and I talk politics with everyone.
- madspindel 9mo agoHe left Palantir in 2009 according to Wikipedia.
- clanky 9mo agoHe's discussing motivations at the time of its founding. I suppose one could argue that perhaps Peter Thiel's heart has grown two sizes since that day?
- nailer 9mo ago[flagged]
- clanky 9mo ago[flagged]
- nailer 9mo agoNobody here is saying that. Are you?
- clanky 9mo agoWhat good being defended from evil were you alluding to, and who is mounting that defense?
- nailer 9mo agoThis information is in the article.
- kalkin 9mo agoWho is Lonsdale referring to as the "good guys"? (It's one thing to ask people to be fair in responding to your actual comment and not a strawman. It's another to ask us to pretend we were born yesterday. We do in fact have external sources of information about Lonsdale's political allegiences.)
- baggy_trough 9mo ago[flagged]
- DannyPage 9mo agoThe Communists defeated the Nazis in World War II, so that's a big point in their favor.
- baggy_trough 9mo agoThey killed many tens of millions more, so that's a big point against.
- reactordev 9mo agoWas that communism or was that authoritarianism?
- 0x3444ac53 9mo agoAuthoritarianism. And there's a huge argument to be made that communist states were and are corrupted not by their principles but by the pressure capitalist states place on them.
- reactordev 9mo agoNow we’re talking…
- 0x3444ac53 9mo agoAnd to be clear so I don't get dogpiled and dox'd for this later. I don't think that excuses the blood that was shed. I do not think a state has a right to terrorize it's populace into submission, regardless of the ideological motivations for doing so.
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- ost 9mo ago[flagged]
- object-a 9mo agoI'm a little skeptical that Palantir pre-2009 (when Joe was there) focused on communists at all
- clanky 9mo agoCommunists were probably just one of the domestic counterinsurgency concerns that drove its founding.
- ceayo 9mo ago> drove its founding IMO drove its funding.
- clanky 9mo agoYes, the "spontaneous lab experiment that proved wildly successful" mythology around many of these companies is just elaborate camouflage.
- emsign 9mo agoI don't think this has to do with counterinsurgency but more like what the actual communists and fascists did: destroying an ideology by physically destroying the persons that associate with it. An ideology in this case communism (a broad term) that Palantir founders considered even an intellectual threat to their own ambitions. People who have understood Marx' theories and can apply them to analyze what's going on might be in theory immune to the hypercapitalist spectacle that a coalition which includes Palantir might stage. Which is kinda what happens the spectacle I mean with the current administration.
- ineedasername 9mo agoSure, it may be post-hoc chest thumping theatrics, but also he was a tween during the fall of the Soviet Union and the end days of the Cold War along with having close family of Jewish descent since his mother was Jewish (Irish Catholic father). So there could be some baked-in, rather than acquired later, antipathy- understandably- towards communism. Especially the Soviet variety since its still warm corpse was around in the '03/'04 era when Palantir was founded. At that time, Hanssen had just recently been arrested, poking those coals again. Heck we're still living with the scars of all that and its fallout- if Lonsdale meant specifically former members/supporters of the CPSU and its shambling corpse then the statement is a little bit less over the top.
- newppc 9mo agoI'd be curious to hear the backstory of his relationship with Alex Karp from 2008 to present.
- filoeleven 9mo agoPerhaps he's the one who maintained the summoning circle around Alex Karp until Alex Karp was fully materialized/housebroken.
- r721 9mo agoJoe Lonsdale, previously: >If I’m in charge later, we won’t just have a three strikes law. >We will quickly try and hang men after three violent crimes. And yes, we will do it in public to deter others. https://x.com/JTLonsdale/status/1996947600533066185 https://x.com/JTLonsdale/status/1996947600533066185 https://thehill.com/opinion/robbys-radar/5640692-public-execution-crime-deterrence/ https://thehill.com/opinion/robbys-radar/5640692-public-exec...
- estearum 9mo agoBasic question to ask these people: is there evidence that capital punishment is an effective deterrent? Answer: No
- jrs235 9mo agoI wonder if it increases false accusations and turning in "enemies". EDIT: This in regards to knowing: "We will quickly try and hang men after three violent crimes."
- tastyface 9mo agoThe point is not deterrence. It’s gleeful sadism.
- Gibbon1 9mo agoThere is the whole thing where if no suitable victims can be found they'll make do with whoever is available.
- jutter 9mo ago[dead]
- estearum 9mo agoThat's not what deterrence means
- OgsyedIE 9mo agoThe reason that the abolition of an arbitrary and cruel legal system was sought in the enlightenment was because although it often had a monopoly on legitimate usage, the state did not have supreme military power over the public (who were widely opposed to both the perceived disproportion of punishments and the rate of false positives). If either side of any struggle acquires supreme force, the other side suffers without limit or recourse.
- biophysboy 9mo agoPalantir is a data analytics gov contractor with MAGA branding. It is not an ultra-omnipotent warfighter superdemon, even if their leadership or employees wishes it to be so. Ignore dumb X bluster if you want to stay sane.
- janice1999 9mo agoIgnoring a cornerstone of how the lists are being compiled is historically a bad idea.
- biophysboy 9mo agoReading posts like this is ignoring Palantir. There are better sources of information that divulge their bad ethics.
- clanky 9mo agoAlthough the idea is obviously completely untenable by this point, many people probably still have their heads in the sand with the idea that Palantir exists to "Defend the Shire" and take out far-flung 'bad hombres' halfway around the world. It's good for them to have this perception corrected by a source with some authority.
- biophysboy 9mo agoI agree. Their heads are in the sand in part because they obsess over empty calorie boast posts instead of investigative journalism like this: https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-irs-share-tax-records-ice-dhs-deportations https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-irs-share-tax-recor...
- EGreg 9mo agoThere's a growing list of things we're told to ignore, from Trump constantly saying he'll annex Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal, to new executive orders to chill free speech. "Take them seriously, not literally. On second thought, please don't even take them seriously..." Umm..
- 1-more 9mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_1965%E2%80%9366 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_19... The 20th century features a number of blood soaked horrors where the CIA gave lists of names to the anticommunist party of some country who went on to commit _a statistic_ against their political foes. As I understand it, Palantir is in the business of supplying names and addresses to go on lists for domestic and foreign intelligence, right?
- ozozozd 9mo agoI’m 40+. Lived in 2 countries, Southern California, Northern California. Visited all the major cities on the West Coast, did a road trip through Nevada, NYC, Miami, Denver, Boulder. I talk politics pretty much with everyone. I haven’t met a single communist in my life. These delusions people have truly scare me. Edit: Forgot to mention I’ve also been to Mexico, Jamaica, 2 different states in Brazil, Netherlands, France, England, and Canada. I must repel communists.
- Gud 9mo agoHow do you know you haven’t met a communist?
- ozozozd 9mo agoI talk politics with people and very openly describe myself as a leftist. I think it’s safe to say they would tell me they’re communists.
- Gud 9mo agoConsidering the political climate in the US I would not openly signal I have communist ideals to a stranger, “leftist” or not.
- ratrace 9mo agoThe prototypal modern day communist is in their 20s and (along with most/all young people) thinks its impossible for the old to understand anything deeper about political theory than what's within the American overton window. They are talking communism with their college classmates, not you, and they know not to reveal their power level to strangers.
- general1465 9mo agoGood thing is that there are effectively no communists on Earth. Just a spectrum of socialists. Job done, time to disband Palantir.
- mingus88 9mo agoThen Palantir needs to be sued for fraud. This is absolutely counter to the pitch they were giving their investors, specifically that Palantir was built as a response to 9/11 to bridge the gap between various intelligence agencies and their disconnected datasets It was a war on terror analyst notebook, and correct me if I’m wrong but Islamic extremism is not communism.
- landl0rd 9mo agoUh huh "everything is securities fraud" Your personal motivations for pursuing a particular commercial enterprise and the business of the enterprise itself are not the same. One is the purpose of the company, the other is your purpose in working for or founding it. You'd have a very hard time arguing the materiality of Lonsdale's personal political beliefs and anti-communist stance for the investors of Palantir. Even a good attorney would have a hard time arguing this. He'd have an impossible time arguing it against another very able attorney. He'd also have an impossible time proving actual damages, which means you couldn't win a securities fraud civil case. Or common law fraud. Oh also any investor who sued someone who made him boatloads of money over his political beliefs would have a very tough time finding someone to take his dollars and give him board seats in the future.
- _zagj 9mo agoThiel has never espoused anything remotely close to this, and has even shown, in his lectures, a willingness to engage with Marxist thought, even if he disagrees with it, and to try to separate and highlight the intellectual wheat from the chaff. However, the "Paradox of Tolerance" left doesn't really have much of a leg to stand on here, when they've been asserting their right to assault or even kill anyone they deem a Nazi, or even just a "fascist" (a horribly overloaded term), since even before the first Trump administration. The comments extremistwashing Charlie Kirk and implicitly or even explicitly ("[ Removed by Redit ]") justifying his execution did well enough to alienate moderate rightwingers to the degree that few, if any, will voice their opposition to the normalization of this kind of rhetoric targeting communists.
- gaigalas 9mo agoThat's exactly what a commie in disguise would say to get away.
- throwsdane123 9mo agoIs this considered normal person behavior in USA now? If so, this is scary. Where is this hate coming from? Obviously they couldn't have had issues with communists ad there aren't any beyond "in my option" types?
- bighubris 9mo agoThanks to the motor voter act, there's already a list of Republicans.