14 ms·

Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys

964 points by pavel_lishin 6mo ago

ubermonkey 6mo ago
They are, in fact, the bad guys.
gigatexal 6mo ago
now? what took them so long??
- TaylorSwift 6mo ago
  stock price hit an ath and have been falling since
  - bell-cot 6mo ago
    Every True Capitalist knows to use the golden rule as their moral compass.
zawaideh 6mo ago
No need to wonder
jeffwask 6mo ago
A real "Are we the baddies?" moment for them
- sorokod 6mo ago
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY ...now it is complete
- eloisant 6mo ago
  Sounds really late, honestly. It's been apparent from people outside the company for years, and employees realize it just now?
  - mrhottakes 6mo ago
    Now it's in the news where their normie friends and family see it
    - rvz 6mo ago
      The truth about a particular company is always told in 10 years time. Palantir now has too many eyes to the average person on the street and its reputation is negative. We will have the same conversation about OpenAI, Anthropic, Mechanize, Inc. and the rest of all the other AI labs just like we are doing with big tech companies.
QuercusMax 6mo ago
For a company supposedly full of smart people they sure do work hard to turn their brains off
- jameskilton 6mo ago
  Never underestimate the lengths and depths people will go in the name of a salary.
  - QuercusMax 6mo ago
    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair
- Jtsummers 6mo ago
  I've been working in the aerospace (now space) arena my entire career, and there's a lot of overlap there with the defense industry. What I've seen is that it's very easy for people to look at their work as a narrow area and to forget about the consequences of it (how it's used, what it actually does when used). I think many (I won't say the majority but it wouldn't surprise me) in the defense and intelligence sector don't think, either willfully or because of lack of introspection in general, about these things.
  - palmotea 6mo ago
    > What I've seen is that it's very easy for people to look at their work as a narrow area and to forget about the consequences of it (how it's used, what it actually does when used). Or it's a lot more complicated and doesn't lend itself to blank-and-white answers. Say you're working on nuclear weapons technology: is your job building weapons to enable the genocidal destruction of another country, or to prevent that kind of thing through a credible MAD deterrent? Both things are simultaneously true. And then there's no way to predict the future: what's true today when you build it may not be true tomorrow when it's used, because there's a different leader or political system in place.
leonidasrup 6mo ago
Palantir employees should understand that they are not regular employees at a regular company. They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company. Also Palantir customers should understand that by buying Palantir services/products they are doing business with U.S. defense company. I don't say that this is positive or negative, it just clarifies the relationships and it should set the expectations.
- ch4s3 6mo ago
  Yeah, for sure. Defense contracting is as good or bad as the policies of the government which is going to change over time. All else being equal, if we want to live in a safe and successful society we want good/talented people working in defense. The trick is holding the government accountable for its policies and profligate defense spending.
  - discreteevent 6mo ago
    > Defense contracting is as good or bad as the policies of the government which is going to change over time. This is true sometimes. But many times the companies and the government get together to kill people for money (The dead people's money or the taxpayers money - they don't mind which, money is money)
    - ch4s3 6mo ago
      > The trick is holding the government accountable for its policies and profligate defense spending.
  - jmward01 6mo ago
    I don't agree with this. Just because the DOD says it is ethical doesn't mean it is so contractors have a duty to maintain ethical standards in the face of changing DOD standards. To me this means a DOD contractor decides before they go in that they will have limits and sticks to them. I think anyone working for Palantir right now should be considering the limits they have and if the company is going beyond them or not. I know that I for one do not consider their work ethical and would not work for them even though the DOD says it is ok. Understand before you sign.
nohell 6mo ago
https://archive.ph/9UjjI https://archive.ph/9UjjI
sjsdaiuasgdia 6mo ago
Alex Karp is a fascist. The whole company should be ended.
- ZunarJ5 6mo ago
  That manifesto was antihuman.
  - therobots927 6mo ago
    I’m sure a copious amount of ketamine was involved in its production.
    - uoaei 6mo ago
      It read like a longtime adderall addict who switched to clean meth a while ago.
      - kjs3 6mo ago
        It read like a C- college sophomore dudebro who read some Ayn Rand and Raspail and Yockey and said "I fucking am John Galt", hit a bong, and got to scribbling their 'manifesto'.
        therobots927 6mo ago
        All three of these suggestions are likely true. I’ve never done Ketamine but I’ve heard it can seriously degrade the user’s “quality control” of their ideas, meaning that ideas that they have, or ideas they get from others, that are intellectually subpar appear to be quite brilliant. The dissociation is also helpful for overcoming moral qualms if they were ever present. Combine that with speed and a insular SV culture steeped in the ideology of Ayn Rand and Nick Land (who likely suffered from amphetamine psychosis) and you get something like this Palantir manifesto. I would feel sorry for them if they weren’t building skynet.
        6mo ago
ai-x 6mo ago
[flagged]
- devindotcom 6mo ago
  literally none of this is true
- queenkjuul 6mo ago
  Anti-tech sentiment is completely the tech industry's fault. Nobody likes tech because tech sucks to use. End of.
ed_balls 6mo ago
Palantir delenda est
- lamasery 6mo ago
  A lot of things delenda est. The ever-growing length of the delenda-est list and the nonexistent rate at which we're est'ing all those delendas is quite worrisome at this point.
jimmar 6mo ago
Seems analogous to employees of a missile manufacturer being upset that their missiles were used for their intended purpose.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- angry_octet 6mo ago
  Except the missiles are being used in a civil war instead of against a foreign adversary.
  - polski-g 6mo ago
    The Confederacy was a foreign adversary the moment they seceeded.
    - angry_octet 6mo ago
      I'mm referring to the present day.
- jonstewart 6mo ago
  '"That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.'
ethagnawl 6mo ago
I look forward to all of these comments being Hoovered into their autonomous surveillance machine in short order. Also, yes, they are.
- therobots927 6mo ago
  The anti Palantir / anti AI / anti tech / anti billionaire sentiment is just way too strong. Far, far to many people post inflammatory things for the data collection to really matter. Contrary to Karp’s fantasies, he will not have the capability to send fent-laced piss drones to every single person who’s ever criticized him. In addition, the more data they have on us, the higher the odds they have something “bad”. So the irony of them increasing the volume of surveillance data is that it becomes pointless for people to “behave” in front of the camera once they’ve “crossed the line”.
  - wormpilled 6mo ago
    Doesn't really matter if you talk shit online, it's just passive aggressive pressure relief. What matters is you not being able to effectively protest or do anything about it.
    - therobots927 6mo ago
      Well actually it does make a difference. Precrime only works if they can separate signal from noise. Much like how the more users there are on the Tor network, the easier it is to blend in, overriding the system with “threat signals” just adds noise to their predictive models. And in addition to that, talking shit online lets others know they’re not alone. It increases the odds of coordinated action. The best propaganda trick up the CIA etc.’s sleeve right now is the illusion of inevitability and learned helplessness. Online voicing of opinions is critical to fighting both of these tactics.
      - Terr_ 6mo ago
        > Precrime only works if they can separate signal from noise. IMO a lot of these debates depend on implicit assumptions about the threat and how it operates. For example: 1. Lawful Evil: They care about good data and going after the "worst" offenders, even if I might disagree about what is "bad". 2. Lazy risk-averse evil: The data needs to give them something to justify the existence of the program, they'll go after whomever is convenient. 3. Cover-your-ass evil: The data archive exists to let them make a plausible case for someone they've already decided to persecute for other reasons. 4. Fraudulent evil: The data archive is just to make it easier to fabricate a fake reason to go after someone. 5. Blatant evil: The data doesn't matter because they can just do stuff to you by fiat. Some of those groups would be hampered by noise, some would benefit from noise, and the last just won't care.
palmotea 6mo ago
> ...about working for a company named after J. R. R. Tolkien’s corrupting all-seeing orb. Wasn't the the problem that Sauron had one so he could corrupt the other users through the orb, but the orb itself was not corrupting?
- sfink 6mo ago
  It was, which is why it makes such a perfect analogy. Surveillance has lots of good and bad uses, and is morally neutral itself. Powerful but neutral. The problem comes when the users use it for bad purposes, and in fact it is so tempting that they can't help using it for more and more bad purposes. If every palantir (either one) user was a "good guy" who refused to use it for bad purposes, it would be a potent force for good, and that's why they were created in the first place.
  - OkayPhysicist 6mo ago
    I thoroughly disagree. Surveillance is an invasive tool of control, and as such intrinsically immoral. Just like a slew of other immoral actions, it may be a net positive when applied for a greater good, but if not used for anything, it's evil. This is trivially true to most common moral understandings. If my neighbor installs a camera pointing through my window and into my shower, applying some fancy technique to see through clouded glass, most of us would justly think that was immoral of him, even in complete absence of any other immoral actions facilitated by that surveillance.
    - sfink 6mo ago
      That depends on the definition of "surveillance". Should a foreman not pay close attention to his workers? Should a hospital not track its patients' locations and vital stats while within the hospital? Are cameras in a jewelry shop morally wrong? Your neighbor's surveillance of you is bad because they're violating your privacy, and using the tool of surveillance to do it. If you lived in a foggy area and they were monitoring their front walkway with a camera that was good at seeing through fog, and they happened to get a corner of your property in the camera's field of view, then you might have something to complain about but I wouldn't call it morally wrong. I agree that surveillance is a tool of control. So are fences. It's ok to control some things. I also agree that surveillance gets into sticky territory very, very quickly. I definitely don't have a clean dividing line between what I'd like the police to be able to see and what they shouldn't. (Especially when the temptation to share that data is so strong and frequently succumbed to.) I would probably say in some useless abstract sense, mass surveillance is also morally neutral. But given that it's proven to be pretty much impossible to implement in a way that doesn't end up serving more evil than good, I wouldn't object to calling it immoral.
chromacity 6mo ago
I think this is a weird side effect of how we portray evil corporations in fiction and in journalism. We imagine that everyone working there is a moustache-twirling villain. And then we get a job at Meta or Flock or Palantir, look around, and don't see any moustache-twirling villains. There's no one saying "ha ha, we should hurt people just for fun". So, it must be that we're the good guys. Even if some of the outcomes seem reprehensible, it's not really evil because we're good people. We do it in a responsible and caring way. We're truly sorry that your grandma is now hooked up on endless AI-generated slop, but shouldn't the media be talking about all the other grandmas whose lives are enriched by our AI? We have strict safety rules for the types of cryptocurrency ads that can target the elderly, too.
- FireBeyond 6mo ago
  > There's no one saying "ha ha, we should hurt people just for fun". So, it must be that we're the good guys. It can get pretty close at times. Witness Meta and Zuck being told, in clear terms, that there was clear material threats to Burmese dissidents with some of the asks of Facebook. "The features matter more."
  - giraffe_lady 6mo ago
    Or like, anything peter thiel says ever.
- elzbardico 6mo ago
  Let me tell you. I worked at a IRS equivalent service in another country, and a lot of what I did was not very different from spying in our own citizens. And you know what? there's a pervasive ideology in the place that justifies it all. One day you wake up, and you realize that you see the tax payer as a cunning and evil adversary that needs to be reigned upon, and you see that all the jokes, the water cooler talk, the general ethos is toward this vision of the tax payer, even if the official documents say otherwise. And we are talking about Tax Payers here. Now imagine an organization like Palantir that can de-humanize their targets marking them with the Terrorist label. It is easy to convince people that they are on the right side.
shevy-java 6mo ago
Starting to wonder? Everyone know what Palantir was. The name is a dead-give-away. I think it is really time that the superrich are downsized. Certain companies that are working against the people also need to be removed. Key considerations in any democracy need to be consistent. Palantir (and others) create inconsistencies. Granted, none of this will be fixed while the orange king is having his daily rage-fits, but sooner or later this is an inter-generational problem, no matter which puppet is taking over.
- dessimus 6mo ago
  Probably thought "Total Surveillance" was too on-the-nose when starting up.
- sleepybrett 6mo ago
  The palantir of the novel weren't surveillance tools. They were a party line, the Gondorians used them to talk to their various outposts throughout middle earth, the three we see in the movies (there may be more in the books, it's been a long time) were at Isenguard, Minis Tirith and the Palantir of Minis Ithil (now Minis Morgul) that Sauron took to Baradur. When Sauron took Minas Ithil and captured the Palanir that was kept there the Kings of Gondor forbade the use of them. It is shown that Sauron can use them to corrupt and read the thoughts of the other users. We also see him use them for their intended purpose when he conspires with Saruman. All to say Peter Thiel doesn't understand Lord of the Rings.
waffletower 6mo ago
The company also chose to name itself after a fantasy scrying device corrupted by evil. There might be an ounce of self-fulfilling prophecy here.
- seattle_spring 6mo ago
  Their stock is up something like 1500% since IPO. I can't imagine most employees there feeling like they're undervalued with that sort of equity valuation.
swader999 6mo ago
Thought it was an onion article at first glance.
rconti 6mo ago
Weird. I worked near a Palantir office in 2017 and I remember thinking it would be "morally challenging" to work there. 9 years later, it's just becoming apparent?
- KaiserPro 6mo ago
  A recruiter tried to get me to interview there in 2018. I asked them about their reputation and they went cold after that.
  - Maxatar 6mo ago
    Most high paying companies would do the same, irrespective of their reputation.
- babymetal 6mo ago
  I was contacted by Palantir recruiters about 15 years ago. I found the name troubling along with the gov't contracts, as well as learning that spending one night a week at the office was encouraged.
  - zasz 6mo ago
    I visited the office near University Avenue, once, many years ago. I found the freezer full of ice cream, the fragrant gaming room, and the heavily used bunk beds very disturbing. I'm not surprised they encouraged employees to spend one night a week there.
- MengerSponge 6mo ago
  It's not like these guys have any media literacy or emotional intelligence to speak of. If they did, they wouldn't have gone to work for Thiel and Karp's perfectly named company. I'm pretty sure this is the same population of people who lost (and may still be losing sleep) over Roko's Basilisk. They're clever but not smart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager
- gorbachev 6mo ago
mdni007 6mo ago
[flagged]
- therobots927 6mo ago
  I know exactly what you’re trying to say and you need to understand that it’s highly counterproductive. The United States was built on genocide of the natives, slavery of captives from Africa, and multiple unecessary wars that have killed millions of innocent people. This is not a new thing.
  - vlowther 6mo ago
    It also isn't a unique thing. See (for example) the entire history of, well, pretty much any country. There is a reason Utopia literally means "no place". * Genocide of the natives? Literally all countries in the Americas, for starters. * Slavery of captives from Africa? Pretty much everyone with colonies in and around the Caribbean was guilty of that too. * Multiple unnecessary wars that have killed millions of people? That encompasses more or less all of European history. By all means, criticize Palantir. But don't pretend US history has anything in particular that would set up the prerequisites for it to exist.
    - therobots927 6mo ago
      I know it’s not unique. I just assumed the parent was a nick fuentes America First type who wants to transfer all of our guilt and sin onto Israel (and in the parent’s case a specific ethnicity). It’s more common in the US than you would think.
hd4 6mo ago
It was always really obvious but that recent full-throated-fascist manifesto has left no doubt. One thing Palantir have going for them is this deranged movie-villain-style transparency about their intentions, they don't even care about hiding it.
Insanity 6mo ago
'no shit sherlock' comes to mind.
jmyeet 6mo ago
When your product is used by a military occupation to target and kill civilians and their families [1][2], it's kind of shocking that there's any doubt. But as Upton Sinclair said: > “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” I would go further and argue that Palantir employees are just as valid military targets as occupation soldiers are. [1]: https://www.business-humanrights.org/es/%C3%BAltimas-noticias/palantir-allegedly-enables-israels-ai-targeting-amid-israels-war-in-gaza-raising-concerns-over-war-crimes/ https://www.business-humanrights.org/es/%C3%BAltimas-noticia... [2]: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
BugsJustFindMe 6mo ago
Only "starting" to wonder does not speak well of Palantir employees.
Ritewut 6mo ago
Everyone in this industry should be required to read Careless People by Sara Wynn-Williams about her tenure at Facebook. Not because the book is about how evil Meta/Facebook is as a company but because you get to see the lengths people go to mentally convince themselves they are the good guy. Repeatedly in the book she tries to assure herself she's making the world better and that there's actually an ethical, positive company inside Facebook and she just had to navigate the politics to make it known despite all evidence to the contrary.
- ien24sdq 6mo ago
  This is a really important thing that people on the left in particular seem to consistently overlook: local incentives, emergent corporate behaviors, and the unconscious need to believe you’re “right” have way more explanatory power than “X is actually evil”.
  - alex1138 6mo ago
    Yeah but keep in mind what Zuck specifically has done. He copied Snapchat multiple times, Facebook overwrote people's public-facing emails, "dumb fucks" in IMs
    - Ritewut 6mo ago
      Zuckerberg is awful person but he alone is not "Meta." It is a company made up of thousands of employees and each of those people play their role in enshittifying the internet. Some of do it gleefully and others do it because they think the battle is better fought in the company than out of it. The large salary also doesn't hurt.
  - jdgoesmarching 6mo ago
    If your incentives and emerging behaviors land at an evil result, it is evil. I’d argue the problem is everyone who constantly generates these “well actually” reasons to excuse the consequences. Marx wrote about people being simultaneously perpetrators and victims of capitalism over 150 years ago, I assure you the left isn’t overlooking this very obvious mechanism. It’s also a little funny to turn a thread about the blatant failures of a neoliberal “success” story into a weird criticism of the left.
uoaei 6mo ago
I remember seeing postings for "Forward Deployed Engineers" and thinking that this naming convention targets folks who don't like to work out but still have a military fetish and want to feel important. It's self-aggrandizing egos all the way down/up (to Alex Karp).
groos 6mo ago
Yes. The answer is yes.
Ancalagon 6mo ago
Honestly doesn't even look like they pay that well compared to other major tech companies. Like why justify it if it economically isn't even that advantageous? Ya'll are laughable.
howmayiannoyyou 6mo ago
[flagged]
- bobsomers 6mo ago
  > We're not perfect. We've done bad. But, you won't find another nation on earth or in history who has contributed as much to global progress, stability and well-being. Ooook... but > Defending the United States of America is never the wrong move. is not the correct logical conclusion from that. The correct conclusion would be that it is our ability to reflect on the bad things we've done that have allowed us to make forward progress. Universally defending something without considering the circumstances and context is rarely ever the correct stance.
  - throwaway23597 6mo ago
    OK, well the "circumstances and context" here are that most people commenting on HN live in the United States, so obviously they will be better off if the United States does well. I don't think your "um actually, you can't ALWAYS support something in all cases, sweaty" critique really adds anything to the discussion here.
- panzagl 6mo ago
  As far as I can tell the main crime Palantir commits is actually delivering what it's asked for, instead of just stringing the government along like the other contractors do.
- adipose 6mo ago
  [dead]
myth_drannon 6mo ago
Palantir must be working on something amazing if they are constantly assaulted by Iranian/Chinese bots,Left fascists,"but GenOcide in HAZA" and others. Curiously not Boieng, not drone companies, but Palantir. Time to load up on Palantir stocks?
- gordonhart 6mo ago
  Truly. People are calling for Palantir employees to be targeted by foreign militaries right here in this comments section! I'll ride this thread with you to the bottom of the page.
- 0x3f 6mo ago
  Relative to other government contractors, Palantir is pretty good. More so because the bar is typically so low, though. But that's priced in. Them featuring in conspiracy theories is just because there's a cultural treadmill for all these things, isn't there? You can't harp on about Raytheon forever. Those are the villans of the past. Back when Bush was the great evil, or something. To get engagement, you need to frame things in the current meta.
  - tdeck 6mo ago
    Americans who don't like Palantir think (correctly) that the surveillance might affect them. Far fewer seem to care about war crimes committed against people in other countries.
    - 0x3f 6mo ago
      Right but was Booz Allen not dealing in mass surveillance too? There's something that's narratively appealing about Palantir in this context. The name, Thiel as a key figure, the mission statement, the branding. It may even be that they have an image of effectiveness that others don't.
PunchyHamster 6mo ago
[flagged]
seydor 6mo ago
Wired does sanewashing now?
mrhottakes 6mo ago
Taking a job at Spy Orbs For Evil Wizards Inc., reading the CEO's addled technofascist manifesto, and wondering if I'm the bad guy
- jrflowers 6mo ago
  Hearing my boss, Muad’Dib, say “There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.” and wondering what he means by all that
- lpcvoid 6mo ago
  Yeah, the mind boggles how anybody at Palantir can honestly be on the fence about them being the baddies.
michaelsshaw 6mo ago
Little Eichmanns unable to feel good about themselves now that there's so much bad press? They should've known, in fact, most of them DID know about who they work for and what they do. They just can't handle the pressure. Name, shame and move on, fellas. No words worth listening to from Palantir employees.
hn_user82179 6mo ago
> “I’m curious why this had to be posted. Especially on the company account. On the practical level every time stuff like that gets posted it gets harder for us to sell the software outside of the US (for sure in the current political climate), and I doubt we need this in the US?” wrote one frustrated employee. The message received more than 50 “+1” emojis. > “Wether [sic] we acknowledge it or not, this impacts us all personally,” another worker wrote on Monday. “I’ve already had multiple friends reach out and ask what the hell did we post.” This message received nearly two dozen “+1” emoji reactions. > “Yeah it turns out that short-form summaries of the book’s long-form ideas are easy to misrepresent. It’s like we taped a ‘kick me’ sign on our own backs,” a third worker wrote. “I hope no one who decided to put this out is surprised that we are, in fact, getting kicked.” entirely possible they're phrasing their concerns on the corporate slack to be 'pro-company' so they don't worry about getting fired for their views but it doesn't actually sound like they're wondering anything, they're just bothered that it's being brought to light.
- mech422 6mo ago
  Sounds like they're having a 'NSA Moment'. After the leaks, there was a Bunch of high profile stories about employees leaving after their neighbors/friends/normies found out the sorts of stuff NSA was up to....
- Nition 6mo ago
  I wouldn't say they necessarily aren't personally concerned as well. I think quite often if people disagree with their employer but don't want to lose their jobs, it's more amenable to phrase disagreement like they have there. Yes it would be braver to just come out and say "I really don't like this", but at least it's braver than saying nothing at all.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- judge2020 6mo ago
  [dead]
Everhusk 6mo ago
Yes, the answer is yes they are.
josefritzishere 6mo ago
To quote the Declaration of Independence "...all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
HaloZero 6mo ago
If you haven't listened/read it, I think the Ezra Klein interview with Alex Bores (who formerly worked at Palantir) and how he talks about how it was in 2014 vs now. It's also insane that a PAC campaigning against Bores is funded by current Palantir employee Lonsdale. Their critical ads literally criticize him for working for Palantir. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-alex-bores.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...
- dbt00 6mo ago
  Joe Lonsdale left Palantir in 2009 and moved on to Formation 8 and then 8vc. He was vocally pro-Palantir and used his co-founder status in the press a lot, but was off the board by 2010 and operationally had nothing to do with them since then.
- nutjob2 6mo ago
  > It's also insane that a PAC campaigning against Bores is funded by current Palantir employee Lonsdale. Their critical ads literally criticize him for working for Palantir. It's life imitating The Simpsons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsCTpREM48M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsCTpREM48M
_-_-__-_-_- 6mo ago
https://archive.is/veTal https://archive.is/veTal
BrenBarn 6mo ago
Another case where "starting" is the ha-ha-sob part. There's never been anything good about Palantir.
Bengalilol 6mo ago
[dead]
herrwolfe 6mo ago
Starting???
thih9 6mo ago
The title is likely a reference to a sketch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_We_the_Baddies%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_We_the_Baddies%3F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY Although it could be unintentional - the phrase is mainstream now and not hard to produce independently either.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- angry_octet 6mo ago
  It's clearly intentional, and apt.
deeg 6mo ago
While I believe it's good that we call it out, there will always be enough people willing to do evil for money. It'll have to be shut down from the outside and that's where our focus should be.
- angry_octet 6mo ago
  But not competent evil people. For example, most of the Nazis were completely inept, and a great aid to the allies.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
herrwolfe 6mo ago
Starting?!
mirrorlogic 6mo ago
Nerds are ruining this great nation.
mirrorlogic 6mo ago
Nerds that did not get love in high school or college are ruining America.
cchrist 6mo ago
Yea, the same innovations that enable freedom can also be used for control. What else is new?
- hightrix 6mo ago
  Palantir enables freedom in the same way salt water quenches your thirst. It doesn’t.
  - ReptileMan 6mo ago
    Salt water totally quenches thirst if under 0.5%. Sea water doesn't.
jeffrallen 6mo ago
I talked with a friend there around 2018 and he dissuaded me from applying, then quit a few months later. He already knew...
soVeryTired 6mo ago
The company is named after the evil telepathic orbs from lord of the rings. Wasn't that the first clue that everything might not be hunky dory?
vcryan 6mo ago
Reminds me of the day I realized that, during my lifetime, my country, the US, caused the death of 1M Iraqis -- for no apparent reason.
dcchambers 6mo ago
The Department of Defense is now the Department of War. They've made their goals clear. You are not in defense contracting. You are in the business of war contracting. Take from that what you will.
Devasta 6mo ago
This is trying to manage their personal image; they know exactly what they are and what they do. They are just annoyed Karp is breaking Kayfabe
asdfman123 6mo ago
I'm sure this is especially true of Palantir employees, but I feel like everyone in big tech is increasingly wrestling with this. (Don't ask me how I know.)
- win2k 6mo ago
  [dead]
- peter_griffin 6mo ago
  how do you know?
- dannersy 6mo ago
  I am paid far less than what I'm worth to work at a company that is as close to ethically neutral as I could find. The next step would be nonprofits, but there aren't many and a lot of times they can't justify my pay, understandably. Good luck convincing people to not just take the money.
- projektfu 6mo ago
  I can understand why. In the 50s-60s, tech was highly military, or corporate. The NASA people came from building ICBMs to the space program and joined a similarly staid, regimented culture. The IBM guys were notoriously square. Silicon valley was also started and funded by these types (e.g. Shockley from Bell Labs), but then at the same time there was the LSD-influenced counter-culture developing around Stanford and Berkeley. Eventually these people, with desires of consciousness-expanding, world-changing, even revolutionary outcomes, started to populate the labs and develop new companies. Apple wasn't alone among companies that thought they were doing something with counter-cultural and utopian ideas. "Digital Research" of CP/M fame was originally called "Intergalactic Digital Research". Many of these types were highly influenced by science fiction and probably had a little adjacent experience with the hippies. Many people envisioned a future where there wasn't a phone company intermediating a long-distance call, where you could participate in a virtual economy without government interference, and where many more products were not much affected by capital and scarcity. After all, once you have the computer, the software possibilities are unlimited, even if the hardware might not be ready yet. People could extrapolate from dial-up modems to neural linkages and participation in a virtual or holographic universe which was free from physical constraints. What we have in the 2010s and beyond is people coming to terms with the reality that what they developed is actually a more effective straight-jacket than the previous constraints of physicality, and at the same time it is hollowing out traditional human relationships and social constructs. The fact that things like MAGA, Qanon, Ziz, and 764 are transnational and transcultural now is bizarre. These are all disappointing developments from the dystopian side of 70s-80s science fiction, not what people thought they were building when they were creating the first addictive smartphone apps.
tristor 6mo ago
I was once targeted for recruitment by Palantir. I looked into it, I decided not to apply. This was circa 2018. I think it'd be really difficult to justify to myself joining Palantir then, I can't even imagine doing it in 2026.
- tdeck 6mo ago
  Fascism is one of the few market segments on an upward trajectory.
ricardorivaldo 6mo ago
yes
theturret 6mo ago
As I said in another comment, I think it’s important to debate what these companies are doing, how they’re doing it, and whether the United States’ actions are morally and legally justified. But I also think we need to get more smart people interested and working in national security. That’s the way you get the best balance between effective security and the minimum negative side effects to civil liberties or collateral damage, by having the smartest people inside these companies coming up with the best tech while also shaping the conversation from the inside. It’s easier to just dunk on the big bad company (and maybe they are bad!) but I don’t think that solves anything. National security should be something more people participate in, not less.
- zasz 6mo ago
  We had a few smart people in national security, but they're getting fired. The Navy Secretary was just forced out. There's nothing that can help when the problem is upper management.
  - theturret 6mo ago
    Yes, and the same can be said for the civilian workforce. The Pentagon’s labs and technical expertise are being hollowed out, and I worry we’re being left with an acquisition corps that’s incapable of holding its own in technical conversations with profit-maximizing contractors. “Would you like the undercarriage coating for your new Abrams?”
  - anon84873628 6mo ago
    But FYI, Phelan was just a private equity guy installed by Trump. The reason he was fired is because he wasn't building the "Trump class" battleships Trump wanted. Which were supposed to have WW1 era appearance because Trump is an "aesthetics guy" and doesn't like the look of modern stealth ships. I kid you not.
    - applfanboysbgon 6mo ago
      > Which were supposed to have WW1 era appearance because Trump is an "aesthetics guy" and doesn't like the look of modern stealth ships. Wait, that's actually based as fuck. The 20th-century battleships were the pinnacle of human architecture, let him have this one.
enlightenedfool 6mo ago
Is the morality different from being a citizen or tax payer of USA?
- plaidfuji 6mo ago
  It’s all moral relativism
amelius 6mo ago
Hey, it could have been worse; at least they're not working in ad-tech.
- ReptileMan 6mo ago
  Or shipping locked blootloaders.
- bigyabai 6mo ago
  Ads can generally be blocked, NSA agents on the other hand...
- nickthegreek 6mo ago
  pretty sure they slurp up ad tech data for their all seeing eye.
Henchman21 6mo ago
Am I the only one that thinks that naming your company after a magical device that was corrupted by evil might be a bad look?
quantified 6mo ago
Palantir is not wrong that AI diminishes the power of Democrat and more-educater women voters. It will just diminish Republican and less-educated male voters too. Unless it is being trained and applied to suppressing certain groups. Karp said a not-so-quiet goal out loud.
chmorgan_ 6mo ago
[dead]
smilbandit 6mo ago
Did they recently add skulls on their badges and branded swag?
mystraline 6mo ago
Yes. Yes you all are. Thats all.
RIMR 6mo ago
I work at a non-defense tech company, and it's basically a running joke that no matter how bad the job market is, none of us are soulless enough to go looking for work at Palantir, even if the pay is good. I would have trouble trusting the kind of person who would work at Palantir. It seems like it could be career-limiting in the long run.
- eudamoniac 6mo ago
  That is strange. I work at Cisco and nobody has mentioned the slightest political aside about anything, ever. No one would ever say something like that about Palantir or its opposite. I would have trouble working at the kind of place with those running jokes in the office.
  - crimsoneer 6mo ago
    I suspect the difference is working in continental Europe...?
pedalpete 6mo ago
55% Palantir revenue comes from government contracts and 50% from the US govenment. With this "are we the bad guys" perspective, I wonder how much of the "evil" they are apparently doing is a result of the current view a majority of people globally have with the current administration? Though we may find it difficult to separate the two, because it seems leadership and the founders of Palantir are supportive of, and in some ways responsible for, Trump getting elected, but with different leadership using the tools in different ways, would we still consider Palantir the bad guys?
- zem 6mo ago
  personally yes, i've considered them the bad guys from day one. they have always publicly portrayed themselves as enabling mass surveillance so i'm not even sure why this sudden crisis of conscience, unless the trump administration has finally made it clear to even the thickest-headed of them that mass surveillance is not a good thing.
jasonmp85 6mo ago
[dead]
digitaltrees 6mo ago
Eyes without the E
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
rubyfan 6mo ago
I watched the James Bond movie Spectre recently and came away feeling like the Spectre organization and Ernst Stavro Blofeld were modeled on Palatir.
- markus_zhang 6mo ago
  Palantir is definitely “on our side”.
yowayb 6mo ago
There's never been a single day in history without war. Indeed, there's never been a moment in all of biological life without violent conflict. In high school, I had a visitor from West Point. My dad (Killing Fields survivor) was so excited. I (16 year old boy who only knew video games, porn and comics) later threw an impressive tantrum that defeated my father. I threw away a golden ticket to see the world for what it is (instead of from within my cocoon in the suburbs of Los Angeles) and become a man at a more appropriate age. Instead, I became an overpaid Peter Pan in San Francisco. Theres some effect, I can't remember the name, where experts in one field (engineering) think they understand other fields (war) because they're so smart at their own field. I think this very much applies here. If you're at Palantir and think you're the bad guy, first make the honest effort to convince yourself otherwise. Failing that, leave and make room for patriots. I don't like hurting others, but you really need to understand there are others that absolutely want to hurt you for basically no reason, and that hurting them first is highly effective, and as both firepower and intelligence (Palantir) improve, it becomes less fatal (clear historical trend).
- pstuart 6mo ago
  [dead]
rexpop 6mo ago
> I'm going to tell you about how I took a job building software to kill people. But don't get distracted by that; I didn't know at the time. — Caleb Hearth 1. https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBdBoWAtLNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBdBoWAtLNI
biker142541 6mo ago
“Starting”… hmmm
mbgerring 6mo ago
Starting?
next_xibalba 6mo ago
Mandatory public service is fascism? Deporting illegal immigrants is fascism? There are ~68 countries with mandatory military service in the world [1]. To say nothing of countries with some other form of mandatory public service. How many of them are fascist? The U.S., with the backing of widespread public support, passed bipartisan immigration enforcement laws in 1996 with an aim of rapid and mass deportation of illegal immigrants, and it was not viewed as "fascism". Those laws remained on the books since that time and were only recently under enforced with dramatic consequences. I honestly feel like we're increasingly living in separate realities driven by media bubbles and wanton historical illiteracy and dishonesty. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-mandatory-military-service https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...
- eudamoniac 6mo ago
  I agree; I don't see how anyone can read that manifesto as plainly fascistic. I am guessing most people didn't read it. I'm also guessing of those who did, they interpret every point as a dog whistle with secret double meaning, as they would with absolutely anything written by their "enemies".
  - skissane 6mo ago
    The term “fascist” has been watered down to the point it doesn’t really mean anything the way many people use it now I think the real standard for “fascist” has to be - how similar is what someone is doing to what Mussolini did? If there’s a genuine similarity there, the term “fascist” may be appropriate; otherwise, it isn’t
karim79 6mo ago
Are we the baddies? https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?is=ncWhlGOB3l721Lri https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?is=ncWhlGOB3l721Lri
eudamoniac 6mo ago
"a company named after J. R. R. Tolkien’s corrupting all-seeing orb" Desperate for some negative sentiment aren't we? The orbs were not "corrupting" in any way. Can we just have reporting anymore without everything being slanted? The "manifesto" Palantir posted seemed pretty reasonable to me given their company mission and alignment. I don't get the backlash. It's much less worse than what they're already accused of, I think. It doesn't make me think worse of them at all.
tonetheman 6mo ago
[dead]
jdkee 6mo ago
Wired used to be a great magazine but has clearly deteriorated in reporting quality and focus since 2017 or so.
whatsupdog 6mo ago
With Facebook laying off 10% employees today, and others following suit soon, I don't think palantir will ever run out of willing people to hire.
ozozozd 6mo ago
I’m not being facetious when I say: are they that slow or really suffering from Messiah Complex? I have no problem that they are doing what they’re doing. Someone was going to do it. But to be so oblivious to it is a problem. One would argue that it’s a national security problem.
anonymousDan 6mo ago
Hint: you are and always have been
ulfw 6mo ago
Oh please. Were they really so willfully ignorant not to know who they are working for and on what?
throwaway302340 6mo ago
>Join as skynet developer for EvilOrb corporation run by an actual cartoon villain >Skynet trained by MoralArmy(tm) in Gaza >Blows up an elementary school in opening strikes of war >SurprisedPickachuFace.webp
lucy_hnatchuk 6mo ago
This is exactly the kind of ethical tension big‑tech workers need to talk about more: you can build “cool” systems, but if the use case is harm, is it still worth it? Wonder how other engineers in the room would act in the same position.
SilverBirch 6mo ago
One aspect of my job is that I have a lot of autonomy and the work I do is such that I could push something out to the production environment and cause massive problems. We have processes in place to make sure that doesn't happen, but they're not robust processes, if you really wanted to you could get something out there that is harmful to the company. Now, there are two ways of looking at that - one is that it's really important to have robust processes to make sure that doesn't happen. But the other is you need people who understand that responsibility and take it seriously and whose personal values are such that they aren't just going to carelessly do stuff. At the end of the day the processes are only good if they're followed. So one of the things I strongly look for when hiring is for people who have a high sense of personal responsibility. They're not going to just throw shit out there because it's easy or quick. They know they are responsible for what goes out and they really are going to own that responsbility. In the same way, take a look at anything senior management says about their ICE or military contracts. It's not that I think they're doing something bad or that the military shouldn't have access to good technology. It's that at best they seem entirely disinterested in that what they're doing could be harmful or that they have any responsibility if it is. It's not that I think Palantir is helping the US government bomb Iranian school chilren. It's that I don't think it would bother them if they were.
sfc32 6mo ago
The engineering team at Palantir "Are we the baddies?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h242eDB84zY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h242eDB84zY
The-Old-Hacker 6mo ago
https://archive.ph/loQZu https://archive.ph/loQZu
smag 6mo ago
When your mortgage, everything you eat, the clothes your wife and children wear all come from one company, it is not hard to convince yourself that "this company might not be moral, but if I weren't here, someone else would be." And most people never even consider the ethics and morals of their workplace.
- red-iron-pine 6mo ago
  they fuckin should, since most legit engineering schools have an "ethics in engineering" course
- ivraatiems 6mo ago
  But you didn't have to start working there, is the thing. That's what always confounds me. If you are capable of being hired at Palantir, there are thousands of non-evil companies who would be happy to have you.
- nyantaro1 6mo ago
  Unfortunately, "If I don't steal your house, someone else will" at scale, will lead to a very dark place for humanity
chaosbolt 6mo ago
I mean it's another case of "Are we the baddies?" where they talk about having the skull on the uniform. Like your company is literally called Palantir, after the object from the Tolkien universe (if you're living under a rock), which allows the user to see things happening in other places, and allows "A wielder of great power such as Sauron could dominate a weaker user through the stone". Not only that but your company's founder goes around the world doing lectures about the Antichrist. And if that wasn't enough, you're working with governments around the world to oppress citizens and have been complicit in a literal genocide by partnering with Israel in the past years. I mean if you're not the baddies, then maybe Voldemort is just misunderstood, and the Joker is the good guy, etc.
bobbruno 6mo ago
There's a saying in Germany: if 10 people are at a table, a nazi sits at the table and they don't leave, 11 nazis are sitting at the table.
davidfekke 6mo ago
Hmm, Wired Magazine. Isn't this the same publication that said that Firewalls were bad?

964 points by pavel_lishin 6mo ago

ubermonkey 6mo ago

They are, in fact, the bad guys.

gigatexal 6mo ago

now? what took them so long??

TaylorSwift 6mo ago
stock price hit an ath and have been falling since
- bell-cot 6mo ago
  Every True Capitalist knows to use the golden rule as their moral compass.

zawaideh 6mo ago

No need to wonder

jeffwask 6mo ago

A real "Are we the baddies?" moment for them

sorokod 6mo ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY ...now it is complete
eloisant 6mo ago
Sounds really late, honestly. It's been apparent from people outside the company for years, and employees realize it just now?
- mrhottakes 6mo ago
  Now it's in the news where their normie friends and family see it
  - rvz 6mo ago
    The truth about a particular company is always told in 10 years time. Palantir now has too many eyes to the average person on the street and its reputation is negative. We will have the same conversation about OpenAI, Anthropic, Mechanize, Inc. and the rest of all the other AI labs just like we are doing with big tech companies.

QuercusMax 6mo ago

For a company supposedly full of smart people they sure do work hard to turn their brains off

jameskilton 6mo ago
Never underestimate the lengths and depths people will go in the name of a salary.
- QuercusMax 6mo ago
  “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair
Jtsummers 6mo ago
I've been working in the aerospace (now space) arena my entire career, and there's a lot of overlap there with the defense industry. What I've seen is that it's very easy for people to look at their work as a narrow area and to forget about the consequences of it (how it's used, what it actually does when used). I think many (I won't say the majority but it wouldn't surprise me) in the defense and intelligence sector don't think, either willfully or because of lack of introspection in general, about these things.
- palmotea 6mo ago
  > What I've seen is that it's very easy for people to look at their work as a narrow area and to forget about the consequences of it (how it's used, what it actually does when used). Or it's a lot more complicated and doesn't lend itself to blank-and-white answers. Say you're working on nuclear weapons technology: is your job building weapons to enable the genocidal destruction of another country, or to prevent that kind of thing through a credible MAD deterrent? Both things are simultaneously true. And then there's no way to predict the future: what's true today when you build it may not be true tomorrow when it's used, because there's a different leader or political system in place.

leonidasrup 6mo ago

Palantir employees should understand that they are not regular employees at a regular company. They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company. Also Palantir customers should understand that by buying Palantir services/products they are doing business with U.S. defense company. I don't say that this is positive or negative, it just clarifies the relationships and it should set the expectations.

ch4s3 6mo ago
Yeah, for sure. Defense contracting is as good or bad as the policies of the government which is going to change over time. All else being equal, if we want to live in a safe and successful society we want good/talented people working in defense. The trick is holding the government accountable for its policies and profligate defense spending.
- discreteevent 6mo ago
  > Defense contracting is as good or bad as the policies of the government which is going to change over time. This is true sometimes. But many times the companies and the government get together to kill people for money (The dead people's money or the taxpayers money - they don't mind which, money is money)
  - ch4s3 6mo ago
    > The trick is holding the government accountable for its policies and profligate defense spending.
- jmward01 6mo ago
  I don't agree with this. Just because the DOD says it is ethical doesn't mean it is so contractors have a duty to maintain ethical standards in the face of changing DOD standards. To me this means a DOD contractor decides before they go in that they will have limits and sticks to them. I think anyone working for Palantir right now should be considering the limits they have and if the company is going beyond them or not. I know that I for one do not consider their work ethical and would not work for them even though the DOD says it is ok. Understand before you sign.

nohell 6mo ago

https://archive.ph/9UjjI https://archive.ph/9UjjI

sjsdaiuasgdia 6mo ago

Alex Karp is a fascist. The whole company should be ended.

ZunarJ5 6mo ago
That manifesto was antihuman.
- therobots927 6mo ago
  I’m sure a copious amount of ketamine was involved in its production.
  - uoaei 6mo ago
    It read like a longtime adderall addict who switched to clean meth a while ago.
    - kjs3 6mo ago
      It read like a C- college sophomore dudebro who read some Ayn Rand and Raspail and Yockey and said "I fucking am John Galt", hit a bong, and got to scribbling their 'manifesto'.
      - therobots927 6mo ago
        All three of these suggestions are likely true. I’ve never done Ketamine but I’ve heard it can seriously degrade the user’s “quality control” of their ideas, meaning that ideas that they have, or ideas they get from others, that are intellectually subpar appear to be quite brilliant. The dissociation is also helpful for overcoming moral qualms if they were ever present. Combine that with speed and a insular SV culture steeped in the ideology of Ayn Rand and Nick Land (who likely suffered from amphetamine psychosis) and you get something like this Palantir manifesto. I would feel sorry for them if they weren’t building skynet.
        6mo ago

ai-x 6mo ago

[flagged]

devindotcom 6mo ago
literally none of this is true
queenkjuul 6mo ago
Anti-tech sentiment is completely the tech industry's fault. Nobody likes tech because tech sucks to use. End of.

ed_balls 6mo ago

Palantir delenda est

lamasery 6mo ago
A lot of things delenda est. The ever-growing length of the delenda-est list and the nonexistent rate at which we're est'ing all those delendas is quite worrisome at this point.

jimmar 6mo ago

Seems analogous to employees of a missile manufacturer being upset that their missiles were used for their intended purpose.

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
angry_octet 6mo ago
Except the missiles are being used in a civil war instead of against a foreign adversary.
- polski-g 6mo ago
  The Confederacy was a foreign adversary the moment they seceeded.
  - angry_octet 6mo ago
    I'mm referring to the present day.
jonstewart 6mo ago
'"That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.'

ethagnawl 6mo ago

I look forward to all of these comments being Hoovered into their autonomous surveillance machine in short order. Also, yes, they are.

therobots927 6mo ago
The anti Palantir / anti AI / anti tech / anti billionaire sentiment is just way too strong. Far, far to many people post inflammatory things for the data collection to really matter. Contrary to Karp’s fantasies, he will not have the capability to send fent-laced piss drones to every single person who’s ever criticized him. In addition, the more data they have on us, the higher the odds they have something “bad”. So the irony of them increasing the volume of surveillance data is that it becomes pointless for people to “behave” in front of the camera once they’ve “crossed the line”.
- wormpilled 6mo ago
  Doesn't really matter if you talk shit online, it's just passive aggressive pressure relief. What matters is you not being able to effectively protest or do anything about it.
  - therobots927 6mo ago
    Well actually it does make a difference. Precrime only works if they can separate signal from noise. Much like how the more users there are on the Tor network, the easier it is to blend in, overriding the system with “threat signals” just adds noise to their predictive models. And in addition to that, talking shit online lets others know they’re not alone. It increases the odds of coordinated action. The best propaganda trick up the CIA etc.’s sleeve right now is the illusion of inevitability and learned helplessness. Online voicing of opinions is critical to fighting both of these tactics.
    - Terr_ 6mo ago
      > Precrime only works if they can separate signal from noise. IMO a lot of these debates depend on implicit assumptions about the threat and how it operates. For example: 1. Lawful Evil: They care about good data and going after the "worst" offenders, even if I might disagree about what is "bad". 2. Lazy risk-averse evil: The data needs to give them something to justify the existence of the program, they'll go after whomever is convenient. 3. Cover-your-ass evil: The data archive exists to let them make a plausible case for someone they've already decided to persecute for other reasons. 4. Fraudulent evil: The data archive is just to make it easier to fabricate a fake reason to go after someone. 5. Blatant evil: The data doesn't matter because they can just do stuff to you by fiat. Some of those groups would be hampered by noise, some would benefit from noise, and the last just won't care.

palmotea 6mo ago

> ...about working for a company named after J. R. R. Tolkien’s corrupting all-seeing orb. Wasn't the the problem that Sauron had one so he could corrupt the other users through the orb, but the orb itself was not corrupting?

sfink 6mo ago
It was, which is why it makes such a perfect analogy. Surveillance has lots of good and bad uses, and is morally neutral itself. Powerful but neutral. The problem comes when the users use it for bad purposes, and in fact it is so tempting that they can't help using it for more and more bad purposes. If every palantir (either one) user was a "good guy" who refused to use it for bad purposes, it would be a potent force for good, and that's why they were created in the first place.
- OkayPhysicist 6mo ago
  I thoroughly disagree. Surveillance is an invasive tool of control, and as such intrinsically immoral. Just like a slew of other immoral actions, it may be a net positive when applied for a greater good, but if not used for anything, it's evil. This is trivially true to most common moral understandings. If my neighbor installs a camera pointing through my window and into my shower, applying some fancy technique to see through clouded glass, most of us would justly think that was immoral of him, even in complete absence of any other immoral actions facilitated by that surveillance.
  - sfink 6mo ago
    That depends on the definition of "surveillance". Should a foreman not pay close attention to his workers? Should a hospital not track its patients' locations and vital stats while within the hospital? Are cameras in a jewelry shop morally wrong? Your neighbor's surveillance of you is bad because they're violating your privacy, and using the tool of surveillance to do it. If you lived in a foggy area and they were monitoring their front walkway with a camera that was good at seeing through fog, and they happened to get a corner of your property in the camera's field of view, then you might have something to complain about but I wouldn't call it morally wrong. I agree that surveillance is a tool of control. So are fences. It's ok to control some things. I also agree that surveillance gets into sticky territory very, very quickly. I definitely don't have a clean dividing line between what I'd like the police to be able to see and what they shouldn't. (Especially when the temptation to share that data is so strong and frequently succumbed to.) I would probably say in some useless abstract sense, mass surveillance is also morally neutral. But given that it's proven to be pretty much impossible to implement in a way that doesn't end up serving more evil than good, I wouldn't object to calling it immoral.

chromacity 6mo ago

I think this is a weird side effect of how we portray evil corporations in fiction and in journalism. We imagine that everyone working there is a moustache-twirling villain. And then we get a job at Meta or Flock or Palantir, look around, and don't see any moustache-twirling villains. There's no one saying "ha ha, we should hurt people just for fun". So, it must be that we're the good guys. Even if some of the outcomes seem reprehensible, it's not really evil because we're good people. We do it in a responsible and caring way. We're truly sorry that your grandma is now hooked up on endless AI-generated slop, but shouldn't the media be talking about all the other grandmas whose lives are enriched by our AI? We have strict safety rules for the types of cryptocurrency ads that can target the elderly, too.

FireBeyond 6mo ago
> There's no one saying "ha ha, we should hurt people just for fun". So, it must be that we're the good guys. It can get pretty close at times. Witness Meta and Zuck being told, in clear terms, that there was clear material threats to Burmese dissidents with some of the asks of Facebook. "The features matter more."
- giraffe_lady 6mo ago
  Or like, anything peter thiel says ever.
elzbardico 6mo ago
Let me tell you. I worked at a IRS equivalent service in another country, and a lot of what I did was not very different from spying in our own citizens. And you know what? there's a pervasive ideology in the place that justifies it all. One day you wake up, and you realize that you see the tax payer as a cunning and evil adversary that needs to be reigned upon, and you see that all the jokes, the water cooler talk, the general ethos is toward this vision of the tax payer, even if the official documents say otherwise. And we are talking about Tax Payers here. Now imagine an organization like Palantir that can de-humanize their targets marking them with the Terrorist label. It is easy to convince people that they are on the right side.

shevy-java 6mo ago

Starting to wonder? Everyone know what Palantir was. The name is a dead-give-away. I think it is really time that the superrich are downsized. Certain companies that are working against the people also need to be removed. Key considerations in any democracy need to be consistent. Palantir (and others) create inconsistencies. Granted, none of this will be fixed while the orange king is having his daily rage-fits, but sooner or later this is an inter-generational problem, no matter which puppet is taking over.

dessimus 6mo ago
Probably thought "Total Surveillance" was too on-the-nose when starting up.
sleepybrett 6mo ago
The palantir of the novel weren't surveillance tools. They were a party line, the Gondorians used them to talk to their various outposts throughout middle earth, the three we see in the movies (there may be more in the books, it's been a long time) were at Isenguard, Minis Tirith and the Palantir of Minis Ithil (now Minis Morgul) that Sauron took to Baradur. When Sauron took Minas Ithil and captured the Palanir that was kept there the Kings of Gondor forbade the use of them. It is shown that Sauron can use them to corrupt and read the thoughts of the other users. We also see him use them for their intended purpose when he conspires with Saruman. All to say Peter Thiel doesn't understand Lord of the Rings.

waffletower 6mo ago

The company also chose to name itself after a fantasy scrying device corrupted by evil. There might be an ounce of self-fulfilling prophecy here.

seattle_spring 6mo ago
Their stock is up something like 1500% since IPO. I can't imagine most employees there feeling like they're undervalued with that sort of equity valuation.

swader999 6mo ago

Thought it was an onion article at first glance.

rconti 6mo ago

Weird. I worked near a Palantir office in 2017 and I remember thinking it would be "morally challenging" to work there. 9 years later, it's just becoming apparent?

KaiserPro 6mo ago
A recruiter tried to get me to interview there in 2018. I asked them about their reputation and they went cold after that.
- Maxatar 6mo ago
  Most high paying companies would do the same, irrespective of their reputation.
babymetal 6mo ago
I was contacted by Palantir recruiters about 15 years ago. I found the name troubling along with the gov't contracts, as well as learning that spending one night a week at the office was encouraged.
- zasz 6mo ago
  I visited the office near University Avenue, once, many years ago. I found the freezer full of ice cream, the fragrant gaming room, and the heavily used bunk beds very disturbing. I'm not surprised they encouraged employees to spend one night a week there.
MengerSponge 6mo ago
It's not like these guys have any media literacy or emotional intelligence to speak of. If they did, they wouldn't have gone to work for Thiel and Karp's perfectly named company. I'm pretty sure this is the same population of people who lost (and may still be losing sleep) over Roko's Basilisk. They're clever but not smart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager
gorbachev 6mo ago

mdni007 6mo ago

[flagged]

therobots927 6mo ago
I know exactly what you’re trying to say and you need to understand that it’s highly counterproductive. The United States was built on genocide of the natives, slavery of captives from Africa, and multiple unecessary wars that have killed millions of innocent people. This is not a new thing.
- vlowther 6mo ago
  It also isn't a unique thing. See (for example) the entire history of, well, pretty much any country. There is a reason Utopia literally means "no place". * Genocide of the natives? Literally all countries in the Americas, for starters. * Slavery of captives from Africa? Pretty much everyone with colonies in and around the Caribbean was guilty of that too. * Multiple unnecessary wars that have killed millions of people? That encompasses more or less all of European history. By all means, criticize Palantir. But don't pretend US history has anything in particular that would set up the prerequisites for it to exist.
  - therobots927 6mo ago
    I know it’s not unique. I just assumed the parent was a nick fuentes America First type who wants to transfer all of our guilt and sin onto Israel (and in the parent’s case a specific ethnicity). It’s more common in the US than you would think.

hd4 6mo ago

It was always really obvious but that recent full-throated-fascist manifesto has left no doubt. One thing Palantir have going for them is this deranged movie-villain-style transparency about their intentions, they don't even care about hiding it.

Insanity 6mo ago

'no shit sherlock' comes to mind.

jmyeet 6mo ago

When your product is used by a military occupation to target and kill civilians and their families [1][2], it's kind of shocking that there's any doubt. But as Upton Sinclair said: > “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” I would go further and argue that Palantir employees are just as valid military targets as occupation soldiers are. [1]: https://www.business-humanrights.org/es/%C3%BAltimas-noticias/palantir-allegedly-enables-israels-ai-targeting-amid-israels-war-in-gaza-raising-concerns-over-war-crimes/ https://www.business-humanrights.org/es/%C3%BAltimas-noticia... [2]: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

BugsJustFindMe 6mo ago

Only "starting" to wonder does not speak well of Palantir employees.

Ritewut 6mo ago

Everyone in this industry should be required to read Careless People by Sara Wynn-Williams about her tenure at Facebook. Not because the book is about how evil Meta/Facebook is as a company but because you get to see the lengths people go to mentally convince themselves they are the good guy. Repeatedly in the book she tries to assure herself she's making the world better and that there's actually an ethical, positive company inside Facebook and she just had to navigate the politics to make it known despite all evidence to the contrary.

ien24sdq 6mo ago
This is a really important thing that people on the left in particular seem to consistently overlook: local incentives, emergent corporate behaviors, and the unconscious need to believe you’re “right” have way more explanatory power than “X is actually evil”.
- alex1138 6mo ago
  Yeah but keep in mind what Zuck specifically has done. He copied Snapchat multiple times, Facebook overwrote people's public-facing emails, "dumb fucks" in IMs
  - Ritewut 6mo ago
    Zuckerberg is awful person but he alone is not "Meta." It is a company made up of thousands of employees and each of those people play their role in enshittifying the internet. Some of do it gleefully and others do it because they think the battle is better fought in the company than out of it. The large salary also doesn't hurt.
- jdgoesmarching 6mo ago
  If your incentives and emerging behaviors land at an evil result, it is evil. I’d argue the problem is everyone who constantly generates these “well actually” reasons to excuse the consequences. Marx wrote about people being simultaneously perpetrators and victims of capitalism over 150 years ago, I assure you the left isn’t overlooking this very obvious mechanism. It’s also a little funny to turn a thread about the blatant failures of a neoliberal “success” story into a weird criticism of the left.

uoaei 6mo ago

I remember seeing postings for "Forward Deployed Engineers" and thinking that this naming convention targets folks who don't like to work out but still have a military fetish and want to feel important. It's self-aggrandizing egos all the way down/up (to Alex Karp).

groos 6mo ago

Yes. The answer is yes.

Ancalagon 6mo ago

Honestly doesn't even look like they pay that well compared to other major tech companies. Like why justify it if it economically isn't even that advantageous? Ya'll are laughable.

howmayiannoyyou 6mo ago

[flagged]

bobsomers 6mo ago
> We're not perfect. We've done bad. But, you won't find another nation on earth or in history who has contributed as much to global progress, stability and well-being. Ooook... but > Defending the United States of America is never the wrong move. is not the correct logical conclusion from that. The correct conclusion would be that it is our ability to reflect on the bad things we've done that have allowed us to make forward progress. Universally defending something without considering the circumstances and context is rarely ever the correct stance.
- throwaway23597 6mo ago
  OK, well the "circumstances and context" here are that most people commenting on HN live in the United States, so obviously they will be better off if the United States does well. I don't think your "um actually, you can't ALWAYS support something in all cases, sweaty" critique really adds anything to the discussion here.
panzagl 6mo ago
As far as I can tell the main crime Palantir commits is actually delivering what it's asked for, instead of just stringing the government along like the other contractors do.
adipose 6mo ago
[dead]

myth_drannon 6mo ago

Palantir must be working on something amazing if they are constantly assaulted by Iranian/Chinese bots,Left fascists,"but GenOcide in HAZA" and others. Curiously not Boieng, not drone companies, but Palantir. Time to load up on Palantir stocks?

gordonhart 6mo ago
Truly. People are calling for Palantir employees to be targeted by foreign militaries right here in this comments section! I'll ride this thread with you to the bottom of the page.
0x3f 6mo ago
Relative to other government contractors, Palantir is pretty good. More so because the bar is typically so low, though. But that's priced in. Them featuring in conspiracy theories is just because there's a cultural treadmill for all these things, isn't there? You can't harp on about Raytheon forever. Those are the villans of the past. Back when Bush was the great evil, or something. To get engagement, you need to frame things in the current meta.
- tdeck 6mo ago
  Americans who don't like Palantir think (correctly) that the surveillance might affect them. Far fewer seem to care about war crimes committed against people in other countries.
  - 0x3f 6mo ago
    Right but was Booz Allen not dealing in mass surveillance too? There's something that's narratively appealing about Palantir in this context. The name, Thiel as a key figure, the mission statement, the branding. It may even be that they have an image of effectiveness that others don't.

PunchyHamster 6mo ago

[flagged]

seydor 6mo ago

Wired does sanewashing now?

mrhottakes 6mo ago

Taking a job at Spy Orbs For Evil Wizards Inc., reading the CEO's addled technofascist manifesto, and wondering if I'm the bad guy

jrflowers 6mo ago
Hearing my boss, Muad’Dib, say “There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.” and wondering what he means by all that
lpcvoid 6mo ago
Yeah, the mind boggles how anybody at Palantir can honestly be on the fence about them being the baddies.

michaelsshaw 6mo ago

Little Eichmanns unable to feel good about themselves now that there's so much bad press? They should've known, in fact, most of them DID know about who they work for and what they do. They just can't handle the pressure. Name, shame and move on, fellas. No words worth listening to from Palantir employees.

hn_user82179 6mo ago

> “I’m curious why this had to be posted. Especially on the company account. On the practical level every time stuff like that gets posted it gets harder for us to sell the software outside of the US (for sure in the current political climate), and I doubt we need this in the US?” wrote one frustrated employee. The message received more than 50 “+1” emojis. > “Wether [sic] we acknowledge it or not, this impacts us all personally,” another worker wrote on Monday. “I’ve already had multiple friends reach out and ask what the hell did we post.” This message received nearly two dozen “+1” emoji reactions. > “Yeah it turns out that short-form summaries of the book’s long-form ideas are easy to misrepresent. It’s like we taped a ‘kick me’ sign on our own backs,” a third worker wrote. “I hope no one who decided to put this out is surprised that we are, in fact, getting kicked.” entirely possible they're phrasing their concerns on the corporate slack to be 'pro-company' so they don't worry about getting fired for their views but it doesn't actually sound like they're wondering anything, they're just bothered that it's being brought to light.

mech422 6mo ago
Sounds like they're having a 'NSA Moment'. After the leaks, there was a Bunch of high profile stories about employees leaving after their neighbors/friends/normies found out the sorts of stuff NSA was up to....
Nition 6mo ago
I wouldn't say they necessarily aren't personally concerned as well. I think quite often if people disagree with their employer but don't want to lose their jobs, it's more amenable to phrase disagreement like they have there. Yes it would be braver to just come out and say "I really don't like this", but at least it's braver than saying nothing at all.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
judge2020 6mo ago
[dead]

Everhusk 6mo ago

Yes, the answer is yes they are.

josefritzishere 6mo ago

To quote the Declaration of Independence "...all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

HaloZero 6mo ago

If you haven't listened/read it, I think the Ezra Klein interview with Alex Bores (who formerly worked at Palantir) and how he talks about how it was in 2014 vs now. It's also insane that a PAC campaigning against Bores is funded by current Palantir employee Lonsdale. Their critical ads literally criticize him for working for Palantir. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-alex-bores.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...

dbt00 6mo ago
Joe Lonsdale left Palantir in 2009 and moved on to Formation 8 and then 8vc. He was vocally pro-Palantir and used his co-founder status in the press a lot, but was off the board by 2010 and operationally had nothing to do with them since then.
nutjob2 6mo ago
> It's also insane that a PAC campaigning against Bores is funded by current Palantir employee Lonsdale. Their critical ads literally criticize him for working for Palantir. It's life imitating The Simpsons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsCTpREM48M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsCTpREM48M

_-_-__-_-_- 6mo ago

https://archive.is/veTal https://archive.is/veTal

BrenBarn 6mo ago

Another case where "starting" is the ha-ha-sob part. There's never been anything good about Palantir.

Bengalilol 6mo ago

[dead]

herrwolfe 6mo ago

Starting???

thih9 6mo ago

The title is likely a reference to a sketch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_We_the_Baddies%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_We_the_Baddies%3F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY Although it could be unintentional - the phrase is mainstream now and not hard to produce independently either.

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
angry_octet 6mo ago
It's clearly intentional, and apt.

deeg 6mo ago

While I believe it's good that we call it out, there will always be enough people willing to do evil for money. It'll have to be shut down from the outside and that's where our focus should be.

angry_octet 6mo ago
But not competent evil people. For example, most of the Nazis were completely inept, and a great aid to the allies.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

herrwolfe 6mo ago

Starting?!

mirrorlogic 6mo ago

Nerds are ruining this great nation.

mirrorlogic 6mo ago

Nerds that did not get love in high school or college are ruining America.

cchrist 6mo ago

Yea, the same innovations that enable freedom can also be used for control. What else is new?

hightrix 6mo ago
Palantir enables freedom in the same way salt water quenches your thirst. It doesn’t.
- ReptileMan 6mo ago
  Salt water totally quenches thirst if under 0.5%. Sea water doesn't.

jeffrallen 6mo ago

I talked with a friend there around 2018 and he dissuaded me from applying, then quit a few months later. He already knew...

soVeryTired 6mo ago

The company is named after the evil telepathic orbs from lord of the rings. Wasn't that the first clue that everything might not be hunky dory?

vcryan 6mo ago

Reminds me of the day I realized that, during my lifetime, my country, the US, caused the death of 1M Iraqis -- for no apparent reason.

dcchambers 6mo ago

The Department of Defense is now the Department of War. They've made their goals clear. You are not in defense contracting. You are in the business of war contracting. Take from that what you will.

Devasta 6mo ago

This is trying to manage their personal image; they know exactly what they are and what they do. They are just annoyed Karp is breaking Kayfabe

asdfman123 6mo ago

I'm sure this is especially true of Palantir employees, but I feel like everyone in big tech is increasingly wrestling with this. (Don't ask me how I know.)

win2k 6mo ago
[dead]
peter_griffin 6mo ago
how do you know?
dannersy 6mo ago
I am paid far less than what I'm worth to work at a company that is as close to ethically neutral as I could find. The next step would be nonprofits, but there aren't many and a lot of times they can't justify my pay, understandably. Good luck convincing people to not just take the money.
projektfu 6mo ago
I can understand why. In the 50s-60s, tech was highly military, or corporate. The NASA people came from building ICBMs to the space program and joined a similarly staid, regimented culture. The IBM guys were notoriously square. Silicon valley was also started and funded by these types (e.g. Shockley from Bell Labs), but then at the same time there was the LSD-influenced counter-culture developing around Stanford and Berkeley. Eventually these people, with desires of consciousness-expanding, world-changing, even revolutionary outcomes, started to populate the labs and develop new companies. Apple wasn't alone among companies that thought they were doing something with counter-cultural and utopian ideas. "Digital Research" of CP/M fame was originally called "Intergalactic Digital Research". Many of these types were highly influenced by science fiction and probably had a little adjacent experience with the hippies. Many people envisioned a future where there wasn't a phone company intermediating a long-distance call, where you could participate in a virtual economy without government interference, and where many more products were not much affected by capital and scarcity. After all, once you have the computer, the software possibilities are unlimited, even if the hardware might not be ready yet. People could extrapolate from dial-up modems to neural linkages and participation in a virtual or holographic universe which was free from physical constraints. What we have in the 2010s and beyond is people coming to terms with the reality that what they developed is actually a more effective straight-jacket than the previous constraints of physicality, and at the same time it is hollowing out traditional human relationships and social constructs. The fact that things like MAGA, Qanon, Ziz, and 764 are transnational and transcultural now is bizarre. These are all disappointing developments from the dystopian side of 70s-80s science fiction, not what people thought they were building when they were creating the first addictive smartphone apps.

tristor 6mo ago

I was once targeted for recruitment by Palantir. I looked into it, I decided not to apply. This was circa 2018. I think it'd be really difficult to justify to myself joining Palantir then, I can't even imagine doing it in 2026.

tdeck 6mo ago
Fascism is one of the few market segments on an upward trajectory.

ricardorivaldo 6mo ago

yes

theturret 6mo ago

As I said in another comment, I think it’s important to debate what these companies are doing, how they’re doing it, and whether the United States’ actions are morally and legally justified. But I also think we need to get more smart people interested and working in national security. That’s the way you get the best balance between effective security and the minimum negative side effects to civil liberties or collateral damage, by having the smartest people inside these companies coming up with the best tech while also shaping the conversation from the inside. It’s easier to just dunk on the big bad company (and maybe they are bad!) but I don’t think that solves anything. National security should be something more people participate in, not less.

zasz 6mo ago
We had a few smart people in national security, but they're getting fired. The Navy Secretary was just forced out. There's nothing that can help when the problem is upper management.
- theturret 6mo ago
  Yes, and the same can be said for the civilian workforce. The Pentagon’s labs and technical expertise are being hollowed out, and I worry we’re being left with an acquisition corps that’s incapable of holding its own in technical conversations with profit-maximizing contractors. “Would you like the undercarriage coating for your new Abrams?”
- anon84873628 6mo ago
  But FYI, Phelan was just a private equity guy installed by Trump. The reason he was fired is because he wasn't building the "Trump class" battleships Trump wanted. Which were supposed to have WW1 era appearance because Trump is an "aesthetics guy" and doesn't like the look of modern stealth ships. I kid you not.
  - applfanboysbgon 6mo ago
    > Which were supposed to have WW1 era appearance because Trump is an "aesthetics guy" and doesn't like the look of modern stealth ships. Wait, that's actually based as fuck. The 20th-century battleships were the pinnacle of human architecture, let him have this one.

enlightenedfool 6mo ago

Is the morality different from being a citizen or tax payer of USA?

plaidfuji 6mo ago
It’s all moral relativism

amelius 6mo ago

Hey, it could have been worse; at least they're not working in ad-tech.

ReptileMan 6mo ago
Or shipping locked blootloaders.
bigyabai 6mo ago
Ads can generally be blocked, NSA agents on the other hand...
nickthegreek 6mo ago
pretty sure they slurp up ad tech data for their all seeing eye.

Henchman21 6mo ago

Am I the only one that thinks that naming your company after a magical device that was corrupted by evil might be a bad look?

quantified 6mo ago

Palantir is not wrong that AI diminishes the power of Democrat and more-educater women voters. It will just diminish Republican and less-educated male voters too. Unless it is being trained and applied to suppressing certain groups. Karp said a not-so-quiet goal out loud.

chmorgan_ 6mo ago

[dead]

smilbandit 6mo ago

Did they recently add skulls on their badges and branded swag?

mystraline 6mo ago

Yes. Yes you all are. Thats all.

RIMR 6mo ago

I work at a non-defense tech company, and it's basically a running joke that no matter how bad the job market is, none of us are soulless enough to go looking for work at Palantir, even if the pay is good. I would have trouble trusting the kind of person who would work at Palantir. It seems like it could be career-limiting in the long run.

eudamoniac 6mo ago
That is strange. I work at Cisco and nobody has mentioned the slightest political aside about anything, ever. No one would ever say something like that about Palantir or its opposite. I would have trouble working at the kind of place with those running jokes in the office.
- crimsoneer 6mo ago
  I suspect the difference is working in continental Europe...?

pedalpete 6mo ago

55% Palantir revenue comes from government contracts and 50% from the US govenment. With this "are we the bad guys" perspective, I wonder how much of the "evil" they are apparently doing is a result of the current view a majority of people globally have with the current administration? Though we may find it difficult to separate the two, because it seems leadership and the founders of Palantir are supportive of, and in some ways responsible for, Trump getting elected, but with different leadership using the tools in different ways, would we still consider Palantir the bad guys?

zem 6mo ago
personally yes, i've considered them the bad guys from day one. they have always publicly portrayed themselves as enabling mass surveillance so i'm not even sure why this sudden crisis of conscience, unless the trump administration has finally made it clear to even the thickest-headed of them that mass surveillance is not a good thing.

jasonmp85 6mo ago

[dead]

digitaltrees 6mo ago

Eyes without the E

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

rubyfan 6mo ago

I watched the James Bond movie Spectre recently and came away feeling like the Spectre organization and Ernst Stavro Blofeld were modeled on Palatir.

markus_zhang 6mo ago
Palantir is definitely “on our side”.

yowayb 6mo ago

There's never been a single day in history without war. Indeed, there's never been a moment in all of biological life without violent conflict. In high school, I had a visitor from West Point. My dad (Killing Fields survivor) was so excited. I (16 year old boy who only knew video games, porn and comics) later threw an impressive tantrum that defeated my father. I threw away a golden ticket to see the world for what it is (instead of from within my cocoon in the suburbs of Los Angeles) and become a man at a more appropriate age. Instead, I became an overpaid Peter Pan in San Francisco. Theres some effect, I can't remember the name, where experts in one field (engineering) think they understand other fields (war) because they're so smart at their own field. I think this very much applies here. If you're at Palantir and think you're the bad guy, first make the honest effort to convince yourself otherwise. Failing that, leave and make room for patriots. I don't like hurting others, but you really need to understand there are others that absolutely want to hurt you for basically no reason, and that hurting them first is highly effective, and as both firepower and intelligence (Palantir) improve, it becomes less fatal (clear historical trend).

pstuart 6mo ago
[dead]

rexpop 6mo ago

> I'm going to tell you about how I took a job building software to kill people. But don't get distracted by that; I didn't know at the time. — Caleb Hearth 1. https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBdBoWAtLNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBdBoWAtLNI

biker142541 6mo ago

“Starting”… hmmm

mbgerring 6mo ago

Starting?

next_xibalba 6mo ago

Mandatory public service is fascism? Deporting illegal immigrants is fascism? There are ~68 countries with mandatory military service in the world [1]. To say nothing of countries with some other form of mandatory public service. How many of them are fascist? The U.S., with the backing of widespread public support, passed bipartisan immigration enforcement laws in 1996 with an aim of rapid and mass deportation of illegal immigrants, and it was not viewed as "fascism". Those laws remained on the books since that time and were only recently under enforced with dramatic consequences. I honestly feel like we're increasingly living in separate realities driven by media bubbles and wanton historical illiteracy and dishonesty. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-mandatory-military-service https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...

eudamoniac 6mo ago
I agree; I don't see how anyone can read that manifesto as plainly fascistic. I am guessing most people didn't read it. I'm also guessing of those who did, they interpret every point as a dog whistle with secret double meaning, as they would with absolutely anything written by their "enemies".
- skissane 6mo ago
  The term “fascist” has been watered down to the point it doesn’t really mean anything the way many people use it now I think the real standard for “fascist” has to be - how similar is what someone is doing to what Mussolini did? If there’s a genuine similarity there, the term “fascist” may be appropriate; otherwise, it isn’t

karim79 6mo ago

Are we the baddies? https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?is=ncWhlGOB3l721Lri https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?is=ncWhlGOB3l721Lri

eudamoniac 6mo ago

"a company named after J. R. R. Tolkien’s corrupting all-seeing orb" Desperate for some negative sentiment aren't we? The orbs were not "corrupting" in any way. Can we just have reporting anymore without everything being slanted? The "manifesto" Palantir posted seemed pretty reasonable to me given their company mission and alignment. I don't get the backlash. It's much less worse than what they're already accused of, I think. It doesn't make me think worse of them at all.

tonetheman 6mo ago

[dead]

jdkee 6mo ago

Wired used to be a great magazine but has clearly deteriorated in reporting quality and focus since 2017 or so.

whatsupdog 6mo ago

With Facebook laying off 10% employees today, and others following suit soon, I don't think palantir will ever run out of willing people to hire.

ozozozd 6mo ago

I’m not being facetious when I say: are they that slow or really suffering from Messiah Complex? I have no problem that they are doing what they’re doing. Someone was going to do it. But to be so oblivious to it is a problem. One would argue that it’s a national security problem.

anonymousDan 6mo ago

Hint: you are and always have been

ulfw 6mo ago

Oh please. Were they really so willfully ignorant not to know who they are working for and on what?

throwaway302340 6mo ago

>Join as skynet developer for EvilOrb corporation run by an actual cartoon villain >Skynet trained by MoralArmy(tm) in Gaza >Blows up an elementary school in opening strikes of war >SurprisedPickachuFace.webp

lucy_hnatchuk 6mo ago

This is exactly the kind of ethical tension big‑tech workers need to talk about more: you can build “cool” systems, but if the use case is harm, is it still worth it? Wonder how other engineers in the room would act in the same position.

SilverBirch 6mo ago

One aspect of my job is that I have a lot of autonomy and the work I do is such that I could push something out to the production environment and cause massive problems. We have processes in place to make sure that doesn't happen, but they're not robust processes, if you really wanted to you could get something out there that is harmful to the company. Now, there are two ways of looking at that - one is that it's really important to have robust processes to make sure that doesn't happen. But the other is you need people who understand that responsibility and take it seriously and whose personal values are such that they aren't just going to carelessly do stuff. At the end of the day the processes are only good if they're followed. So one of the things I strongly look for when hiring is for people who have a high sense of personal responsibility. They're not going to just throw shit out there because it's easy or quick. They know they are responsible for what goes out and they really are going to own that responsbility. In the same way, take a look at anything senior management says about their ICE or military contracts. It's not that I think they're doing something bad or that the military shouldn't have access to good technology. It's that at best they seem entirely disinterested in that what they're doing could be harmful or that they have any responsibility if it is. It's not that I think Palantir is helping the US government bomb Iranian school chilren. It's that I don't think it would bother them if they were.

sfc32 6mo ago

The engineering team at Palantir "Are we the baddies?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h242eDB84zY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h242eDB84zY

The-Old-Hacker 6mo ago

https://archive.ph/loQZu https://archive.ph/loQZu

smag 6mo ago

When your mortgage, everything you eat, the clothes your wife and children wear all come from one company, it is not hard to convince yourself that "this company might not be moral, but if I weren't here, someone else would be." And most people never even consider the ethics and morals of their workplace.

red-iron-pine 6mo ago
they fuckin should, since most legit engineering schools have an "ethics in engineering" course
ivraatiems 6mo ago
But you didn't have to start working there, is the thing. That's what always confounds me. If you are capable of being hired at Palantir, there are thousands of non-evil companies who would be happy to have you.
nyantaro1 6mo ago
Unfortunately, "If I don't steal your house, someone else will" at scale, will lead to a very dark place for humanity

chaosbolt 6mo ago

I mean it's another case of "Are we the baddies?" where they talk about having the skull on the uniform. Like your company is literally called Palantir, after the object from the Tolkien universe (if you're living under a rock), which allows the user to see things happening in other places, and allows "A wielder of great power such as Sauron could dominate a weaker user through the stone". Not only that but your company's founder goes around the world doing lectures about the Antichrist. And if that wasn't enough, you're working with governments around the world to oppress citizens and have been complicit in a literal genocide by partnering with Israel in the past years. I mean if you're not the baddies, then maybe Voldemort is just misunderstood, and the Joker is the good guy, etc.

bobbruno 6mo ago

There's a saying in Germany: if 10 people are at a table, a nazi sits at the table and they don't leave, 11 nazis are sitting at the table.

davidfekke 6mo ago

Hmm, Wired Magazine. Isn't this the same publication that said that Firewalls were bad?