71 ms·
If you work for Palantir and if you work on these systems: You have blood on your hands. You know that it's not right what is happening on the ground right now.
by chinathrow 9mo ago
If you work for Palantir and if you work on these systems: You have blood on your hands. You know that it's not right what is happening on the ground right now. Do something.
- pixl97 9mo agoThe particular problem here is the vast majority of people that are writing this software 1. Don't care, blood is great. 2. Think they are the good guys. 3. Are more worried about their next paycheck and having bad things happen to them related to not paying rent.
- hobs 9mo agoYes, Palantir folks have self selected for the first two over and over - anyone working there for many years now is completely blacklisted from anything I touch, when someone advertises ex-Palantir folks in the job description I know I can safely avoid that company forever.
- lokar 9mo agoI would never allow one of them to be hired via any hiring process I have influence over.
- pixl97 9mo agoThe unfortunate converse is there are plenty of other software companies looking for that .gov money that would pick these less than scrupulous employees right up.
- foobiekr 9mo agoSame. I would never allow anyone who has Palantir on their resume to be hired in any company I have influence over. They are the brownshirts of the tech industry, worse even than the people poisoning children's minds at Meta.
- GuinansEyebrows 9mo ago> 3. Are more worried about their next paycheck and having bad things happen to them related to not paying rent. i feel like a broken record: anyone with a resume good enough for Palantir would have no problem finding work for another company/public sector employer. but they stay.
- wahnfrieden 9mo agoThey pay a lot
- downrightmike 9mo agoAnother arm of the murder cult
- aqme28 9mo agoAs would any other job that these devs could get. If you're working at Palantir, it very isn't likely because of of financial desperation.
- embedding-shape 9mo agoGuess why
- johnnyanmac 9mo agoIn this job market, nothing is guaranteed. I'm struggling and I talked to devs with double my experience who had networks freeze up. Strange times.
- no-dr-onboard 9mo agoI'd like to invite you to prove any three of your points.
- speff 9mo agoIt’s hard to prove without knowing the app devs, but for points 1 & maybe 2, we can look at whether Americans think the raids are justified. 28% of them think they are [0]. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that the devs would be part of that number Edit: it looks like the poll it’s for the recent incident of the woman who was shot - my mistake. Then I would assume the number for the raids themselves is higher [0]: https://x.com/YouGovAmerica/status/2010853750618063016 https://x.com/YouGovAmerica/status/2010853750618063016
- taude 9mo agoYou don't think most people are motivated by their personal paychecks? People need paychecks. Not everyone is going to get to build and lead their own businesses?
- welcome_dragon 9mo agoWhen we stop tying our health insurance to our employment, we'll see a drastic uptick in people starting their own businesses. Working at company Z because their health insurance is fully paid for by the employer vs working at company Y where it costs you 1,400 a month for HDHP but the salaries are the same shouldn't be a thing At least that's my theory.
- silverquiet 9mo ago> JP Doherty did not want to sign the email. But he knew he didn’t have a choice. His son, Rhys, was scheduled to have strabismus surgery in January, correcting an eye issue that made it difficult for him to walk on his own. The procedure cost $10,000 out of pocket. Doherty discussed the decision with his wife, and while she wanted him to be able to quit, they both knew the kids needed his health insurance. [0] Regarding Musk's "hardcore" ultimatum at Twitter. [0]https://www.vanityfair.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-ultimatum https://www.vanityfair.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-ultimatum
- wat10000 9mo ago"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" Getting a worker to understand that their work negatively affects innocent people is a big uphill battle.
- praptak 9mo agoThat's not my experience from the time I worked for Google. The popular sentiment was actually "We now work for a company that dropped 'don't be evil' and that sucks". See Manu Cornet comics - they are a pretty good reflection of the sentiment I'm talking about, a random example https://goomics.net/387 https://goomics.net/387 And it's not like everyone just complained for moral posturing and then continued to wipe the tears of disgust with wads of cash. Many people who left also mentioned the ethics part as why they left.
- foobiekr 9mo agoDue to background, I know a lot of people who work at google, and while many of them will give lipservice to ethical concerns, none of them have made any changes at all because, and this is an exact quote, "the money is too good."
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- alecco 9mo agoIn a thread last year a Palantir employee said most of them were either Indian, East Asians, or laid off and/or unemployable White males. Good luck guilt-tripping any of them. Note: I'm not American, nor White/WASP, nor Asian.
- basket_horse 9mo agoI don’t think it’s really this simple. Palantir is a major government contractor that enables it to be more tech savvy. It’s embedded through hundreds of teams / agencies. You can’t remain a credible partner if you play morality police on every workflow. Palantir has worked through multiple administrations of both parties and have to support whoever is in power to have a seat at the table. Ultimately the question is just: would you prefer to have a competent or incompetent government? Otherwise you can agree or disagree with government policies, but that shouldn’t be directed at tech vendors, it should be directed at politicians and people in government / at the voting booth.
- chinathrow 9mo ago> Ultimately the question is just: would you prefer to have a competent or incompetent government? Is this a joke? Have you looked at the current administration?
- basket_horse 9mo agoHaha, true, although I meant competent from a tech perspective. The reason Palantir is even in the building is because the government is notoriously bad at technology. You need to separate government institutions ability to use tech from Trumps obvious buffoonery.
- rootusrootus 9mo agoI am thinking that whether I want a technically competent federal government depends entirely on who I think will be running it in the future. Right now the technical incompetence, such that it exists, works to our advantage.
- 3form 9mo ago> You can’t remain a credible partner if you play morality police on every workflow Sure. That's the price to pay for not setting morality aside. One that they're not willing to pay.
- fifilura 9mo agoNot surprised. At least 30% of the population voted for the current president. Should be some software developers among those?
- rootusrootus 9mo agoA fair number, I assure you, I know plenty.
- johnnyanmac 9mo agoWouldn't be surprised if proportionately more software devs supported this. Tech is still a fast track to riches so they would fall for the narrative more than the average worker.
- moolcool 9mo ago"The most monstrous monster is the monster with noble feelings"
- aagha 9mo agoYou forgot another point--or it could be related to #3: off-shoring and H1B. Many people are just working the job and working on a small piece of software where they don't know or care about the ramification of project. They're getting paid and even if they know what's happening, they're not incentivized to care about what happens in America.
- libraryatnight 9mo agoI assume if someone works for Palantir they're an unabashed Yarvinist and fine with it.
- no-dr-onboard 9mo agoThat's a pretty broad generalization, but OK I'll bite. - I think Yarvin has a lot of good points. No one should be ashamed to admit the truth of a matter. I can't stand his voice, I think he has annoying mannerisms, but nonetheless the man has a point and I'm not ashamed (especially by unknown and strange online personas) to say so. - Palantir is objectively a profitable job. I've learned a lot here and the people I work with are brilliant. - I don't think I have "blood on my hands" and rather instead think that people who use that tactic are resorting to strange emotional manipulation in place of a salient argument. Let's be honest, simply conjecturing that someone ascribes to a political view isn't discourse. It's a potshot. You're assuming that anyone who reads your comment and leans in your direction is going to agree and vote with you. This is literally the lowest and cheapest form of engagement. It's also the most self serving. It does nothing to advance the conversation or prove your point. Most importantly, this is the exact type of behavior that is furthering political polarization and discouraging actual discourse. Really shows the state of things right now tbh.
- disgruntledphd2 9mo agoI'm vouching for this comment (even though I disagree with it) as it's important to hear dissenting views.
- wat10000 9mo agoCan you elaborate on some of Yarvin's points you think are good?
- ceejayoz 9mo agohttps://x.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744 https://x.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744
- 9mo ago
- 10xDev 9mo agoPLTR stock peaked at $200 last year and has been going back up so far this year. People are investing in CCP style tech and don't care.
- CapricornNoble 9mo agoA Palantir rep was supporting one of our exercises late last summer, and he said "Knowing what I know about how the military is going all-in on Maven....I recommend buying Palantir stock." I picked up a few shares, but I haven't checked if Palantir's growth has been unique or part of a general military-industrial complex melt-up.
- drcongo 9mo agoFree blood money.
- CapricornNoble 9mo agoNah, free blood money was when my General Dynamics shares went from $60->$120, then did a stock split and went from $60-> ~$100. I think that was in....2005? The Stryker (a GD product) was coming into service in Iraq, which drove my purchasing decision. I was an E-4 in Korea at the time and thought I was a defense stock-picking genius.
- embedding-shape 9mo agoI had to pull out of US stocks/market completely last year after I felt dirty just having money in a country sliding into authoritarianism. Interesting where different people draw different lines :)
- footy 9mo agoSame. I was actually disappointed to find out my "excluding US" fund had 0.93% exposure to the US. I want it to nil.
- 9mo ago
- jonnybgood 9mo agoThe US gov (including ICE) uses all of Microsoft Office for coordination and planning: email, spreadsheets, powerpoint, document generation, etc. Would you say Microsoft employees have blood on their hands too? If not, what makes Microsoft different?
- miniBill 9mo agoThe same difference between a kitchen knife and an AK 47
- Feldwaffel 9mo ago[flagged]
- benrutter 9mo agoFrom the article for context: > Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s current address So essentially, the relevant app here is custom built in order to help ICE raids. That's substantially different from generic office tech where ICE happen to be one of millions of users.
- Amezarak 9mo agoYou're going to have to explain to me why it's a bad thing or immoral for the government to be aware of where immigrants who legally need to be deported live.
- tremon 9mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
- Amezarak 9mo agoThat’s not an answer. Please explain why it’s a bad thing that Palantir had produced an application that shows ICE agents the probable addresses of people they’re supposed to deport along with information about them. If the answer is “I don’t believe in immigration law and the government should not enforce it regardless of what people vote for”, that’s a completely acceptable answer.
- webdoodle 9mo agoHopefully John Connor is one of them. Deeply embedded, slowly implanting backdoors and kill switches into the Skynet system they are building.
- DetectDefect 9mo agoPalantir does not work in a vacuum - it requires other technology, platforms and systems to operate and succeed - many of which are designed and maintained by the users of Hacker News. Take a look at Palantir's trust center: https://palantir.safebase.us https://palantir.safebase.us Schellman did their audit and compliance - do they have blood on their hands? How about AWS, GCP, Azure cloud resources used by Palantir - are they stained, too?
- dawnerd 9mo agoYou can’t minimize the damage Palantir is doing with simple whataboutism.
- DetectDefect 9mo agoIt is in fact the contrary: I am trying to maximize it by pointing out how big tech platforms makes it possible.
- dawnerd 9mo agoNo you literally went the what about route.
- LargeWu 9mo agoPalantir is built explicitly for surveillance, in a way the other companies you listed are not. There is no comparison here. It's like saying the City of Minneapolis is complicit because they maintain the roads ICE is driving on.
- rvz 9mo agoExcept that the owners of AWS (Amazon) GCP (Google) and Azure (Microsoft) are all defense contractors for the Department of War. All of them work directly / indirectly with ICE.
- basket_horse 9mo agoNot really. Palantir is data integration and analysis software that in some cases (like ICE) can be used for surveillance. There are also thousands of commercial clients who use Palantir for completely non surveillance workflows, as well as many other government teams who use Palantir for non surveillance things. This is all public information.
- haritha-j 9mo agoIn general, if you're working for Palantir, you're unlikely to find yourself in the right side of history. Whenever you hear of tech being used for questionable purposes, Palantir seems to have their fingers deep in the pie.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- luxuryballs 9mo agoWouldn’t it be even more fair to say that the people who allowed or even encouraged illegal immigration have blood on their hands because they know what they were doing and how the government would have to respond under the law? If we are going to use the line of reasoning you suggest then this should easily be on the table also.
- plorg 9mo agoThis rests on the assumption that the government has to respond with violence.
- luxuryballs 9mo agothe government uses force for everything it does, it doesn’t need to resort to violence if you comply, (and yes it feels gross to type that) I hate to appear to defend something I hate but it’s because I understand the nature of it not because I approve of it: the point still remains that the people who facilitated the illegal entry knew without a doubt that this was going to happen afterwards, however far you want to extrapolate that onto their motives I don’t intend to speculate on here
- plorg 9mo agoEverything you write here assumes that the world is far more rigid and full of inevitability than can be justified.
- luxuryballs 9mo agoit only assumes that the government is aware of their own laws and has half a brain to realize what that means, what I wrote is being proved true right now
- plorg 9mo ago* It assumes that the government's priorities are malleable enough that it will eventually decide to prioritize these laws, but not malleable enough that they could change them. This is self-contradictory. * It assumes that a person's immigration status is not malleable and cannot be normalized. This is strictly false. * It assumes that immigration laws are static. Again, strictly false. * It implies that all force is equal in violence, which is something I usually only hear from high schoolers who have just encountered libertarianism and love it * It suggests that there is no moral agency in acting on behalf of the government, only in acting against the backdrop reality of this monolithic slab of granite. * It suggests even that the violence currently taking place is for the purpose of enforcing laws. This isn't true for the U.S. citizens by birth or naturalization who are being unlawfully detained, it isn't true for the thousands of non-citizens with legal status who are being detained and moved across state lines. It isn't true for the non-citizens who are being arrested literally while attending the process of maintaining their legal status. It isn't even true for those without legal status who are having their doors kicked in without warrants, and it isn't true for those without legal status who are being detained and tortured. None of this is actually according to the law, it's just what they can get away with and make a spectacle of violence. I'm not even exactly clear who the nebulous group of people is that you want to blame for getting people caught up in the government's violence. I guess if you're mad at coyotes, sure, be my guest? If you're mad at anyone involved in the process of asylum you're mad at people following the law. If you're mad at people helping their neighbors you've lost the plot. If you're mad at state or city governments not enforcing federal laws for then either you don't like federalism or you don't understand it, but at best your assumption is historically contentious.
- taude 9mo agoMeh, I blame social media specifically and media generally for the state of our country. Why call out just Palantir. The US, maybe the world, would be better off if companies like Meta (and others) didn't exist....
- ahmeneeroe-v2 9mo ago[flagged]
- embedding-shape 9mo agoYou don't seem to disagree with parent, and as long as you're aware you have blood on your hands, I guess cool? Why try to inflame the conversation even more? Just curious what you get out of it, because you're clearly not curious, or trying to understand something here.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 9mo agoThis is a thread about morals, not tech. Many people are talking about how immoral ICE (and therefore Palantir) is, and I want to present the side that they are in fact doing exactly what many people in our society thinks needs to be done (i.e. they are not immoral).
- dragonwriter 9mo ago> I want to present the side that they are in fact doing exactly what many people in our society thinks needs to be done (i.e. they are not immoral). The Nazis were doing what many people in their society thought needed to be done. It is a rather uncommon position (though, ironically, frequently a strawman position falsely attributed to their opponents to mock them by roughly the same political faction that backs the current ICE action) that “morality” is just whatever a sufficiently large number of people currently prefer.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 9mo ago[flagged]
- NickC25 9mo agoA guy I grew up with that works at Palantir. Here's his thinking: 1. He's white and lives in a blue state. Doesn't affect him. Oh, and money. 2. The attention on Palantir and their customers makes his stock and options go up. He's happy, because money. 3. His GOP-worshipping parents get to brag to their GOP-worshipping friends that their son is helping God's Gift to Humanity - Donald Trump. And making bank while doing it. 4. He believes that Palantir is doing good work, and that's the end of it. He believes himself to be a genuinely good guy, so if he's doing something, it must be good.
- SilverElfin 9mo agoIt looks like their CTO is an Indian or Pakistani: https://investors.palantir.com/governance/executive-management https://investors.palantir.com/governance/executive-manageme... I wonder how he feels about what the administration is doing and how his own work is directly helping them. Surely he is aware of all of the supremacist rhetoric coming from the official Twitter accounts of various government agencies or Elon Musk or Stephen Miller. Surely he has seen the kind of racist abuse that Vivek Ramaswami endured on Twitter, which led to him recently quitting social media. Doesn’t he see how all of this is going to come for people like himself next?
- ceejayoz 9mo ago> Doesn’t he see how all of this is going to come for people like himself next? People are often remarkably good at this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National_Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National...
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- empath75 9mo agoPalantir has been doing awful shit since it started, so you have to presume that anybody that works there is on board with it.
- rhubarbtree 9mo agoYou can apply similar arguments to many companies including Facebook. The programmer community as a whole is not ethical.