Is the problem what those things are used for, or is it the way Palantir does it?
Their biggest issue is their leadership, though. If Alex Karp had two ounces of morality to rub together then it might be an easier pill to swallow, but instead he harps about how proud they are to kill people with AdSense data. It feels like the immorality is the point.
It's in a business' best interest to maximize demand for its products. Which is mostly fine for society, country, and the world by large if you're selling paper cups.
However, if you want to sell more weapons you are interested in lobbying for events that increase the consumption of weapons, in other words: wars.
See the problem yet?
Read that speech. Read “War is a racket” by Smedly Butler.
Do you think it’s a good thing that Palantir execs (Shankar and Bob Mcgrew, now at openAI) have been made Lt Cols of the U.S. Army?
They aren’t just making guns or information systems. They’re running the show and profiting on it.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/03/1255164460/1a-army-07-03-2025
Edit: I see I'm being downvoted. What is your argument in favor of this? How big of a degenerate, amoral, psychopath do you have to be to justify this?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/14/lebanon-israel...
"Israel has carried out at least 37 attacks against healthcare workers and facilities in Lebanon, including against the state civil defence and Lebanese Red Cross, since the current hostilities began, Lebanese authorities said.
The war in Lebanon started on 2 March after Hezbollah launched a volley of rockets at Israel, triggering a swift Israeli bombing campaign across the country. Fighting has since escalated, with Hezbollah continuing its rocket fire and Israeli troops invading south Lebanon.
At least 826 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes, according to the ministry of health, and about 1 million have been displaced."
Palantir leadership has a long history of needing to be cruel and antisocial in a very loud way in order to feel alive .
It doesn't have to be! Being an arms dealer is also a moral failing.
You can accept that warfare is sometimes necessary and that innocent lives are sometimes lost. But necessity shouldn't be enough to wipe away any semblance of remorse if you have a functioning moral conscience.
Karp may be right on the merits right now, but he's clearly a broken human being. This is not someone I want involved in our country's warfare apparatus for the long term, because eventually his sociopathy will kill people who didn't need to die.
1. Certain users do not like "political" topics on the front page. But as I said, the very idea of "apolitical" tech news is naive, especially in times like these.
2. Some users want to suppress it because it goes against their own political interests.
Either way, it's a gross misuse of the flag button. I am wondering: are there any consequences for wrongly flagging submissions?
I "value" their opinions insofar as they have an outsized influence on our world:
I feel like if I want to stay tapped into the progress folks are making on building the Torment Nexus, this website is where I will find folks breathlessly cheering it on.
The way Alex Karp views himself is scary; he gives himself (and his company) carte blanche when it comes to morality. He's basically become the Jack Nicholson character from A Few Good Men.
Yes, America needs technology to succeed. But it can't be unchecked.
Where are the ginormous protests that happened during the Iraq invasion?
Me thinks it was not about right or wrong but fear of a new Vietnam type draft.
Now that war has changed there are not similar type of protests because it's the missiles and drones doing the killing
Things like Iran are sadly the exception, as far as my experience goes.
There was no attempt to sway public opinion as to the right or wrong on this one. They just piled in with no warning.
As far as I can tell, these current assholes don't really care what the folks in the US think about their actions, so they don't spend time making cases- they just go do whatever dumb shit they want to do. Hell, I suspect that even they don't have a firm idea of what they are doing.
Tony Blair is now widely reviled in the UK, and you can hardly find anyone who will admit to have supported the war.
However, attitudes shifted almost immediately after Trump ordered U.S. airstrikes on Iran. A survey conducted after Trump’s bombing campaign showed support climbing to 85% among Republicans."
At the same time, I wish that protesting felt effective; the stated goals weren't achieved, and that is a fact. I've never been satisfied with being "right" about these horrors, even if I've been "right" a lot in my life.
And protesting is way more fun and less risky than the direct actions that seem to be for more effective in having measurable effects on efforts around ICE.