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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

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 5mo 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 5mo 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 5mo 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 5mo 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.
    - guzfip 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      - applfanboysbgon 5mo ago
        Not autistic, but if that's what autism is I certainly wouldn't want a cure for having a personality. God forbid somebody find something visually appealing, wouldn't that be a crime against the raw efficiency of making everything on the planet a drab grey box. It's a stupid vanity project with no practical purpose, if billions are going to be wasted on it anyways why not let it be eye-pleasing?
bigyabai 5mo ago
> by having the smartest people inside these companies coming up with the best tech while also shaping the conversation from the inside. The smartest people don't get that choice. Oppenheimer, Teller and Ulam were all ignored in matters of policy, the Manhattan Project was not designed to integrate their political feedback. Conversely, the scientists at Peenemünde never got to question the effectiveness of V-1 bombs with a CEP measured in miles. Their participation in policy was deliberately severed, ultimately to the detriment of the Wehrmacht. When you start seeing technologies that affront humanity - warrantless surveillance, civilian terror weapons, chemical/biological agents - that's when normal people step out. No amount of sanewashing will fix the underlying administrative issue, it only exacerbates the underlying moral dilemma.
- dudefeliciano 5mo ago
  > that's when normal people step out. So Oppenheimer Teller and Ulam were not normal/sane people. In other words, they had the choice, and made a decision. Everything is political.
- theturret 5mo ago
  Fair point. I don’t think that simply working at a defense-tech would or should give someone sway over political decisions. Which might be also good: von Neumann advocated for a U.S. nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union. In the context of this thread my claim is simply that smarter people will yield smarter solutions that balance the tradeoffs mentioned earlier. The choice to use those weapons still lies with our elected leaders.
  - bigyabai 5mo ago
    I guess that's what I'm confused by, then. Americans don't have a duty to prevent their government from descending into crony capitalism. As long as the Fed undervalues intelligent labor, the smartest Americans are incentivized to go the private ownership route and extort the defense industry themselves. Protecting DARPA and preserving valuable Pentagon assets is the federal government's job - nobody else is paid to care about it, nobody else can fix it. > smarter people will yield smarter solutions that balance the tradeoffs mentioned earlier. That's conjecture, as far as I'm aware. Again, the earliest researchers of spacecraft were being forced to design a pitiful terrorist weapon. Those same scientists wouldn't meaningfully progress peaceful space exploration until decades later. There is no balance inherent to having good ideas or executing them well, the procurement process can (and frequently does) excise intelligent thought when tensions run high. FWIW, I bear little ill-will towards the defense industry or US service members. I just think that "shaping the conversation" is a fool's errand when "the conversation" is warrantless surveillance, and "shaping" simply means finding the best way to do it. An intelligent humanitarian would be fired long before they instill an ounce of ethical change.
adipose 5mo ago
can you be more specific about what you mean by "smart people" like what are some examples of the kinds of people you mean -- what degrees are they getting, what causes are they applying their intellect to right now that are _not_ national security, etc.
arthurjj 5mo 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. I think it's sometimes hard to debate these issues in tech circles. In my experience something like 5-10% of techies are vocally critical of these companies or anything National Security related. This article headline is a great example, a serious debate is difficult when you compare people who disagree with you to Nazis I was discussing resume screening with a jr engineer and unprompted he mentioned he would filter out anyone who worked at a defense contractor, not knowing I had worked at one. I tried to make sure he was removed from interviewing as he obviously wasn't mature enough for it.
- sneak 5mo ago
  Not wanting to work with people who are ok with the MIC is not a sign of immaturity.
  - arthurjj 5mo ago
    Thank you for demonstrating my first point while trying to contest my second.
    - joquarky 5mo ago
      Whatever helps you sleep at night...
- sofixa 5mo ago
  > This article headline is a great example, a serious debate is difficult when you compare people who disagree with you to Nazis You know that the Nazi comparison isn't because of the disagreement, but because of what that disagreement is based on? It's really not hard to compare ICE to the Gestapo or SA, core Nazi institutions. They're kidnapping people off the streets in brutal manners, targeting them based on immutable visual characteristics, sending them to camps from where many are never heard of again. Including people who are citizens and thus not even "guilty" of the crime which is supposedly being targeted. Palantir as a company enables that. In the same way we legitimately call out Dehomag (IBM's German subsidiary) for them enabling all Nazi atrocities, we can call out Palantir for enabling the current atrocities. It's not "disagreement", it's "if it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it's a fucking Nazi duck".
tastyface 5mo ago
The trendy SV defense companies (Palantir, Andruil) seem to be all "killing is fun and good, actually" with an underlying current of white nationalism. We might need defense technology, but not like this. Super fucked up.
- danny_codes 5mo ago
  At first I thought their marketing was some sort of tongue-in-cheek satire of themselves. But no, they are genuinely white supremicists.. odd since their CEO is a black-ish Jew

zasz 5mo 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 5mo 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 5mo 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 5mo 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.
  - guzfip 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - applfanboysbgon 5mo ago
      Not autistic, but if that's what autism is I certainly wouldn't want a cure for having a personality. God forbid somebody find something visually appealing, wouldn't that be a crime against the raw efficiency of making everything on the planet a drab grey box. It's a stupid vanity project with no practical purpose, if billions are going to be wasted on it anyways why not let it be eye-pleasing?

bigyabai 5mo ago

> by having the smartest people inside these companies coming up with the best tech while also shaping the conversation from the inside. The smartest people don't get that choice. Oppenheimer, Teller and Ulam were all ignored in matters of policy, the Manhattan Project was not designed to integrate their political feedback. Conversely, the scientists at Peenemünde never got to question the effectiveness of V-1 bombs with a CEP measured in miles. Their participation in policy was deliberately severed, ultimately to the detriment of the Wehrmacht. When you start seeing technologies that affront humanity - warrantless surveillance, civilian terror weapons, chemical/biological agents - that's when normal people step out. No amount of sanewashing will fix the underlying administrative issue, it only exacerbates the underlying moral dilemma.

dudefeliciano 5mo ago
> that's when normal people step out. So Oppenheimer Teller and Ulam were not normal/sane people. In other words, they had the choice, and made a decision. Everything is political.
theturret 5mo ago
Fair point. I don’t think that simply working at a defense-tech would or should give someone sway over political decisions. Which might be also good: von Neumann advocated for a U.S. nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union. In the context of this thread my claim is simply that smarter people will yield smarter solutions that balance the tradeoffs mentioned earlier. The choice to use those weapons still lies with our elected leaders.
- bigyabai 5mo ago
  I guess that's what I'm confused by, then. Americans don't have a duty to prevent their government from descending into crony capitalism. As long as the Fed undervalues intelligent labor, the smartest Americans are incentivized to go the private ownership route and extort the defense industry themselves. Protecting DARPA and preserving valuable Pentagon assets is the federal government's job - nobody else is paid to care about it, nobody else can fix it. > smarter people will yield smarter solutions that balance the tradeoffs mentioned earlier. That's conjecture, as far as I'm aware. Again, the earliest researchers of spacecraft were being forced to design a pitiful terrorist weapon. Those same scientists wouldn't meaningfully progress peaceful space exploration until decades later. There is no balance inherent to having good ideas or executing them well, the procurement process can (and frequently does) excise intelligent thought when tensions run high. FWIW, I bear little ill-will towards the defense industry or US service members. I just think that "shaping the conversation" is a fool's errand when "the conversation" is warrantless surveillance, and "shaping" simply means finding the best way to do it. An intelligent humanitarian would be fired long before they instill an ounce of ethical change.

adipose 5mo ago

can you be more specific about what you mean by "smart people" like what are some examples of the kinds of people you mean -- what degrees are they getting, what causes are they applying their intellect to right now that are _not_ national security, etc.

arthurjj 5mo 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. I think it's sometimes hard to debate these issues in tech circles. In my experience something like 5-10% of techies are vocally critical of these companies or anything National Security related. This article headline is a great example, a serious debate is difficult when you compare people who disagree with you to Nazis I was discussing resume screening with a jr engineer and unprompted he mentioned he would filter out anyone who worked at a defense contractor, not knowing I had worked at one. I tried to make sure he was removed from interviewing as he obviously wasn't mature enough for it.

sneak 5mo ago
Not wanting to work with people who are ok with the MIC is not a sign of immaturity.
- arthurjj 5mo ago
  Thank you for demonstrating my first point while trying to contest my second.
  - joquarky 5mo ago
    Whatever helps you sleep at night...
sofixa 5mo ago
> This article headline is a great example, a serious debate is difficult when you compare people who disagree with you to Nazis You know that the Nazi comparison isn't because of the disagreement, but because of what that disagreement is based on? It's really not hard to compare ICE to the Gestapo or SA, core Nazi institutions. They're kidnapping people off the streets in brutal manners, targeting them based on immutable visual characteristics, sending them to camps from where many are never heard of again. Including people who are citizens and thus not even "guilty" of the crime which is supposedly being targeted. Palantir as a company enables that. In the same way we legitimately call out Dehomag (IBM's German subsidiary) for them enabling all Nazi atrocities, we can call out Palantir for enabling the current atrocities. It's not "disagreement", it's "if it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it's a fucking Nazi duck".

tastyface 5mo ago

The trendy SV defense companies (Palantir, Andruil) seem to be all "killing is fun and good, actually" with an underlying current of white nationalism. We might need defense technology, but not like this. Super fucked up.

danny_codes 5mo ago
At first I thought their marketing was some sort of tongue-in-cheek satire of themselves. But no, they are genuinely white supremicists.. odd since their CEO is a black-ish Jew