US Army Appoints Palantir, Meta, OpenAI Execs as Lt. Colonels(thegrayzone.com) |
US Army Appoints Palantir, Meta, OpenAI Execs as Lt. Colonels(thegrayzone.com) |
I'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44270660 - June 2025 (68 comments)
The Army’s Newest Recruits: Tech Execs From Meta, OpenAI and More - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44268547 - June 2025 (191 comments)
- [Meta] A social media company that has all your personal conversations & pictures, video, audio
- [Open AI] Something many people at work & school are uploading sensitive data to
- All run by acolytes of Peter Thiel
- Current president & vp are bankrolled Peter Thiel
- Top executives formally recruited into US Army.
USA is sleep walking into something very nasty. I still don't know what it is.
But please when it unravels. Let us not pretend we never saw it coming.
I am very worried about this. Something is being set up.
Maybe there's something fast & vicious in the works, but it could just be the merciless grasping at any shred of power these Hostis Humani Generis do.
The big move is writ large. It's multi-front sell off of the enduring value of America. Fullscale assault on schools. Destruction of science and medicine. Giving up on USAID then FEMA. Selling off millions of acres of land.
The network state ideology is that you should have to know someone and be in a network to get anything. If you aren't born into or allowed entrance into a network you get nothing. Reducing what government does to nothing melds well with the Christo-fascist ideology that likewise resents any state not run by and for the church: two sides of the same coin.
I do fear for my US friends and everyone else that is being impacted by what is happening.
It's called fascism.
https://verfassungsblog.de/the-authoritarian-regime-survival...
Though, personally, I'm having a lot of trouble following some of them...
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/curtis-yarvin-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/magazine/curtis-yarvin-in...
Trump really can't get anything right.
Privacy advocates, cypherpunks, hackers, et cetera have been sounding the alarm bells since Room 641A, if not earlier. Not only has the Internet at large failed to heed these warnings, some of those "conscientious objectors" who refused to willingly submit their information to these systems of surveillance capitalism were actively demonized and hunted.
After all, if you are not willingly signing up for these services, social media, and voluntarily forfeiting your data to these systems, then there is something wrong with you and you should probably just sign up for that Meta account already.
You are the ones who have kept these systems running by voluntarily feeding them your time, attention, and/or data. Now the beast has reached maturity and it is too late to do anything about it.
Everything comes down to the desperation to survive in a world where abundant (ABUNDANT) food, shelter, and clothing still must be "earned" (so say our elites).
Just because there's risks with something or side effects with something doesn't mean people want the side effects
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone
[2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/06/02/grayzon...
It's how Pete Buttigieg got his commission, for example.
That's not Palantir's market segment.
Also, give a brief thought to those troops who signed on for their full hitch to defend their country and get to watch a handful of politically-connected billionaires leapfrog their way into custom-built field grade slots without having to attend basic or OCS, or even pass APFT.
You probably can’t have both — not they couldn’t pass APFT (with varying degrees of fitness program required) but more likely they cannot commit the time required to do OCS and APFT, and if forced to choose will simply not participate.
It’ll stick in some people’s craw that this is dual standards, however you can’t please all the people all the time — someone concluded the compromise was worth it to obtain access to technology experience.
You’ll have to salute, though.
They probably have fewer rights than citizens , no?
Another similar commissioning was the founder of Dragos, Robert M Lee who was previously a Cyber officer in the Air Force.
We need top talent from industry. These highly skilled individuals will be good pickups for the work confronting our nation in securing vital infrastructure and enabling for the future of high performance compute and AI.
https://www.robertmlee.org/back-in-military-service-from-blu...
[0]: https://www.army.mil/article/286317/army_launches_detachment...
It's just a way to re-link the military with the tech industry, which is arguably how we won the previous world wars. If the US falls behind, then be prepared to learn Mandarin.
I guess creating an ecosystem of these products in the form of having most of them come from the same venture capital company WAS the answer, and he was doing it so well - that even In-Q-Tel gave up on their efforts to compete with that strategy.
But Thiel said it best in that regard; "competition is for losers".
- Benito Friedman
In fact, Wikipedia has already done this:
"The English Wikipedia formally deprecated the use of The Grayzone as a source for facts in its articles in March 2020, citing issues with the website's factual reliability."
And paywalled links are allowed on HN [2].
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/06/02/grayzon...
Fair, but is that what they're doing here? I don't know much about the individuals involved, but I sure know the companies they're associated with. The concerning part for me is that this new "Detachment 201" seems less about these individuals' expertise and more about the companies they represent and can provide access to.
Robert M. Lee, as the CEO and co-founder of Dragos, Inc., brings a wealth of expertise in industrial control systems (ICS) and operational technology (OT) cybersecurity, which aligns closely with the U.S. Army’s requirements for cyberspace operations and infrastructure protection. Commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army National Guard in February 2025, Lee’s extensive background positions him to make significant contributions to the Army’s mission of securing critical infrastructure and enhancing cyberspace capabilities. His prior experience as a U.S. Air Force Cyber Warfare Operations Officer, where he developed a pioneering mission at the National Security Agency to identify threats to industrial infrastructure, equips him with a deep understanding of the cyber threats facing military and civilian systems. Additionally, his leadership in investigating high-profile cyberattacks, such as the 2015 and 2016 Ukraine power grid attacks, the 2017 TRISIS attack, and the 2021 Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident, demonstrates his ability to address sophisticated threats to critical systems, a key focus for the Army’s cyberspace operations.
Lee’s role in the Army National Guard, specifically with the 91st Battalion in Virginia, involves designing and leading OT cybersecurity and response efforts. The Army’s cyberspace requirements, as outlined in documents like the Army Cyberspace Strategy for Unified Land Operations 2025, emphasize securing mission-critical systems, protecting infrastructure, and developing resilient networks against advanced persistent threats. Lee’s expertise in ICS/OT cybersecurity directly supports these goals, particularly in safeguarding infrastructure like power grids, water systems, and transportation networks that the military relies on. His work at Dragos, including the development of the Dragos Platform for threat detection and response, and the discovery of the PIPEDREAM framework, showcases his ability to deliver scalable, OT-specific solutions. These skills could be applied to enhance the Army’s defensive cyber operations, improve real-time threat intelligence, and strengthen partnerships with private sector entities to protect national infrastructure.
Furthermore, Lee’s experience as a SANS Fellow and creator of ICS515 and FOR578 courses highlights his commitment to education and workforce development, which could bolster the Army’s efforts to train cyber warriors. His strategic vision, evidenced by his testimony to Congress and advisory roles with the Department of Energy and World Economic Forum, positions him to help the Army develop policies and strategies for public-private collaboration in cyberspace. By leveraging his technical expertise and leadership, Lee could drive the integration of OT cybersecurity into the Army’s broader cyber operations framework, ensuring robust protection of critical infrastructure and enhancing national security in an increasingly contested digital domain.
However, for social media in particular, the desired effect is the side effect, which is the surveillance.
Also, why are you pasting responses to your AI prompts? Use your words.
I don’t want to get into a political debate here, but the DNC can thank itself for Trump since they coronated (with no primary!) a candidate who dropped out before Iowa when she ran in the primaries because she had zero support because no one liked her. They also basically ran on a platform of “if you don’t like our policies, you’re a bad person.” I’d imagine more than enough people to swing the election either way pulled the lever for Trump as an explicit rebuke of the DNC’s disdain for anyone outside their orthodoxy.
Anyway. When a party besides the Trump party remembers that persuading the rest of the public (not insulting them) is necessary to win elections, that’s when we’ll have relief from one-man rule by that jackass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Not...
Taking into account the strength of the arguments and those who did not distinguish between those options, there is a rough consensus for Option 4: "Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated".
Questioning the integrity of a source is not an ad adhominem argument. Saying that a conclusion is false because of the speaker would be an ad hominem.
Haven't we been saying it was stolen through suspect political maneuvering and the compromised nature of mass and social media as it exists today?
As a black person, it was not lost on me the difficulty CNN et al. had in finding black voters to interview, until the nation NEEDED to know that black South Carolinian voters definitely hated Sanders and backed Biden.
Political maneuvering isn't capitalism. But putting that aside, if your candidate could only win by having the moderate vote split five ways, you're the ones doing political maneuvering.
> As a black person, it was not lost on me the difficulty CNN et al. had in finding black voters to interview, until the nation NEEDED to know that black South Carolinian voters definitely hated Sanders and backed Biden.
Polls always showed that Biden was the Obama guy.
That's highly presumptive. Supporters of the other candidates made their initial choices for reasons. If they could have chosen someone other than Biden, they would have. The DNC purposely induced a panicked run to their chosen candidate (when they weren't calling heads instead of tails). That's as much a vote as the decision which door to exit out of after someone yells, "Fire," is a choice. To belabor the analogy: there was no fire. They pushed everyone to the leave the way that led to the concession stand instead of to the parking lot.
On the other hand, if your candidate can only win by forcing his ideological rivals out of the race with backdoor quid-pro-quo deals, not only is he now corrupt, he is still definitely only winning through political maneuvering.
>Polls always showed that Biden was the Obama guy.
Clarence Thomas and Strom Thurmond.
They could have chosen Bernie(they didn't want to).
> The DNC purposely induced a panicked run to their chosen candidate (when they weren't calling heads instead of tails). That's as much a vote as the decision which door to exit out of after someone yells, "Fire," is a choice.
Bernie's name was on the ballot. He was / is one of the most recognizable politicians in the U.S. He had plenty of money to campaign. My above point better explains his loss.
> On the other hand, if your candidate can only win by forcing his ideological rivals out of the race with backdoor quid-pro-quo deals, not only is he now corrupt, he is still definitely only winning through political maneuvering.
Force is massive cope. Do you think they would prefer to stay in, 100% lose, and get nothing for it? People that are closely aligned consolidate their efforts. That's how democracy works.
> Clarence Thomas and Strom Thurmond
Just look up the polls. Biden always crushed with African Americans.
All of these things represent influence - influence that, like other methods used to induce fear and panic, can undermine both individual's rational decision-making process and their capacity to express their raw feelings.
Let's be clear: there was zero broad enthusiasm for Biden's policies (partly because he refused to detail them). But leveraging influence can allow you to take an electorate that, by all measures, wanted Bernie Sanders' platform - with M4A and the GND in particular being wildly popular - and turn it into one that checks the box next to Biden's name instead. What you get is not an expression of the electorate's will or desire, but of their terror.
So, actually, the influence of Capitalism (through the means I spoke of earlier - in a word, corruption) readily explains Biden's win in 2020. He was not a good candidate, he was not a good president, and people did not want to vote for him, but felt forced to, because an overwhelming amount of capital was leveraged to that end. People, in fact, did choose Bernie, until coerced not to. And that was simply a matter of people with wealth getting what they wanted. It may very well be that you only get to stand up to that force once in a lifetime, and Millennials had already elected Obama.