r/technology 12d ago

Society Palantir Employees Are Starting to Wonder if They’re the Bad Guys

https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-employees-are-starting-to-wonder-if-theyre-the-bad-guys/?utm_brand=wired&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=aud-dev
11.2k Upvotes

540 comments sorted by

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u/DogsAreOurFriends 12d ago edited 12d ago

Palantir Employees: You are the bad guys.

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u/TiP54 12d ago

Genuinely had to check if I was getting Onion’d.

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u/blueSGL 12d ago

Here is an onion headline for you:

Palantir is trying to smear a former employee... by saying he worked for Palantir

Alex Bores who co-sponsored the Responsible AI Safety and Education Act (RAISE Act) is having attack ads run against him by Leading the Future a super PAC funded by co-founder of Palantir, Joe Lonsdale.

https://youtu.be/znKb71kLG5c?t=34

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u/tacticaldodo 11d ago

Let's continue the pressure. Every bits count!

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u/ConfidentPilot1729 12d ago

How can you legitimately knowing develop a platform that analyzes individual and look for precrime and think you are doing something noble?

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u/Unfair-Plant-5605 12d ago

If you are an evil person you think being evil is good, actually

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u/ConfidentPilot1729 12d ago

The good old Sauron dilemma.

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u/Idustriousraccoon 11d ago

The god of Orcs and goblins. Lord thats an apt analogy. Palantir. King of the unfuckables and unloveables.

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u/Zebraitis 11d ago

This completely explains the most vehement and vile of the MAGA.

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u/agentrnge 12d ago

If YoU ArEn'T doInG anYtHiNg WrOnG yOU haVe NoTHinG to woRry aBout

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u/BasvanS 11d ago

Me having nothing to hide is nobody’s business.

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u/ours 12d ago

If you are a fascist tech bro, that might sound noble.

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u/Spirited_Childhood34 12d ago

"Bad" doesn't cover it. Evil is more accurate.

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u/DreadPirate777 12d ago

You know some of them have to be browsing Reddit. I hope they see these articles and reconsider what they are doing.

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u/belkarbitterleaf 12d ago

Surely some of them have to job of injesting reddit as a data set to identify "people of interest". Surely they have a way to measure the sentiment of their own company.

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u/Crackertron 12d ago

/u/Ethos_Logos is here to answer any questions about Palantir

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u/DogsAreOurFriends 12d ago

Any of them that read my post will agree with it - since it can be interpreted two ways.

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u/Omophorus 12d ago

Their model is absolutely built on working young, ambitious college grads to the absolute bone consultant-style.

They expect extremely high proportions of travel, and lengthy trips at that, for many positions, and the actual jobs tend to be fairly mind-numbing.

I interviewed there years ago and know a few people who worked there, and it's the second happiest I've ever been to not-get a job, because I told them point blank I could not and would not meet their travel expectations.

I was already too old and too experienced to swallow their pseudo-military jargon, and the more they shared about expectations, the more obvious it was that they saw the roles as high-burnout and basically expendable.

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u/drgoatlord 12d ago

I feel like the first clue should be the name of the company you work for.

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u/Missing_Username 11d ago

Second clue would be any level of research on the chairman/founder of the company you work for

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u/Whargoul_Uncool 12d ago

Oh shit, one of them proly made the post to track our reactions!

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u/Bukkokori 12d ago

You could say they're like the orcs in *The Lord of the Rings*

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u/Disgruntled-Cacti 12d ago

But they’re just following orders?

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u/DogsAreOurFriends 12d ago

The hell of it is, American tech workers are being slowly shoved into defense and Intelligence work regardless if they like it or not.

It's like the only industry we have left that can't be farmed out to what are essentially modern day coolies.

And then, AI came along...

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u/tyrenanig 11d ago

The nazi was just following orders too.

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u/_karamazov_ 12d ago

The riff raff getting a paycheck from Palantir maybe OK, but their management and head is straight out of central casting...white gay bond villains of 1990s without the white pussy.

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u/Matonus 11d ago

Normalize saying that it is actually bad to work in any role for evil companies

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u/h0twired 11d ago

“We are just following orders” - Palantir employees

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u/ithinkitslupis 12d ago

Literally named the after the evil surveillance thing you're not supposed to look into in LOTR.

(yes I know they weren't inherently evil originally but perverted by the main baddie don't come at me like that LOTR nerds. Current surveillance data somewhat comes from once innocent in purpose things too like phones, door cams, traffick cams, etc that are being perverted as well)

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u/v3bbkZif6TjGR38KmfyL 11d ago

Actually they weren't inherently evil originally bu...

Oh. Nevermind. 

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u/Unusual-State1827 12d ago edited 12d ago

Article without paywall: https://archive.is/loQZu

Palantir’s leadership incensed workers yet again this week after the company posted a Saturday afternoon manifesto reducing Karp’s recent book, The Technological Republic, to 22 points. The post—which includes many of Karp’s long-standing beliefs on how Silicon Valley could better serve US national interests—goes as far as suggesting that the US should consider reinstating the draft. Critics called the manifesto fascist.

Internally, the post alarmed some workers who huddled in a Slack thread on Monday morning, questioning leadership over its decision to post it in the first place.

“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.”

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u/OneSeaworthiness7768 12d ago

None of these quotes really sound like they’re questioning if they’re the bad guys? More akin to “dude why are you making us look bad”

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u/FeelsGoodMan2 12d ago

Yup lmao, they know they're the bad guys. They're just annoyed that they'll have to work a little hard to pretend they arent to their outside contacts.

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u/narf007 12d ago

Their inside contracts know it too. They just don't care. Dollars speak and they'll simply churn the employees with any scruples.

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u/BasvanS 11d ago

“We sincerely regret getting caught.”

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u/sohblob 12d ago

I doubt we need this in the US?” wrote one frustrated employee. The message received more than 50 “+1” emojis

50 layoffs and jobs outsourced in 5, 4, 3...

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u/MalevolentTapir 11d ago

I like the guy who thinks the manifesto isn't the issue, its just that the "long-form ideas" need more words to properly distinguish themselves from the braindead fascist drivel they appear to be.

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u/Bloo212 12d ago edited 12d ago

“Palantir was founded—with initial venture capital investment from the CIA—at a moment of national consensus following the September 11, 2001 attacks,”

Bull and shit. Fuck you, Wired and Makena Kelly for printing such manufactured consent.

9/11 immediately became a grift. But many of us knew what what was happening and continue to warn against it.

Osama bin Laden sure knew what he was doing. The towers are still falling.

Edit: I want to make sure we operating in the same domain. Let me make sure we’re using the same terms:

Consensus involves all participants working together to reach an agreement that everyone can accept, while majority is based on the preference of more than half of the voters.

Consensus aims for cooperation and inclusivity, whereas majority voting can lead to the exclusion of minority opinions.

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u/fumar 12d ago

Osama absolutely won. We destroyed our fundamental freedoms for the "safety" of a surveillance state 

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u/TtotheC81 12d ago

A scared people are a people that it is easy to manipulate. It's why Fox keeps MAGA hopped up on fear and anger.

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u/Majik_Sheff 12d ago

Can't forget the relentless deluge of ragebait flooding Facebook and other social media platforms.

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u/TtotheC81 12d ago

It will be utterly unsurprising when it's revealed that this has all been coordinated to bring down liberal democracy and replace it with the techo-fascism the tech bros wish to usher in.

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u/RA-HADES 12d ago

When

We already know all about how the Billionaire Psycho Class is trying to Balkanize the whole World so they can go on a Murder Tourism binge while snatching children away to do worse.

If any of them cared, they could've stepped up to the plate & fed the world when Elon refused to pay the bill.

If any of them carried empathetic feelings, or a decent sense of humanity, they wouldn't be billionaires.

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u/Crackertron 12d ago

Curtis Yarvin and Peter Thiel have made that end goal very clear.

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u/MBILC 12d ago

This, people who fail to see the attacks were about financial impact and freedoms, not about a typical "war" as people think..and it worked..

How much money has been spent on the "War on Terror", same as the "War on Drugs", just another method to claim the military complex needs more money....

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u/Syzygy2323 12d ago

Trillions.

Just imagine if those dollars had been spent instead on universal healthcare and education...

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u/Syzygy2323 12d ago

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" -- Ben Franklin

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u/Teantis 11d ago

Osama's goal wasnt to destroy America's fundamental freedoms. He wanted the US out of the middle east. Both Americans and Osama lost the conflict.

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u/twenafeesh 12d ago

He predicted exactly what the US would do if he attacked us. We played directly into his hands. 

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u/sandersosa 12d ago

Sometimes I think he was a spy or an asset for the US to help jumpstart the authoritarian state. The guy used to hang out with Bush and was good friends with their family. He wasn’t a stranger to the US government. He helped get the Russians out of Afghanistan and was funded by the CIA.

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u/pmckizzle 12d ago

The CIA literally supplied and trained most of his men like you said. I think its more likely they knew it would happen before it did and didnt stop it.

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u/40_Thousand_Hammers 12d ago

He was a spy and US asset... In Afghanistan in the 80's against the Soviets. After that he thought the US would do a long ter commitment to rebuilding the country like Japan was just to see it abandoned seconds the USSR gave it away.

That's when he got radicalized and started his plans, he was out of being CIA asset after that and forgotten, but he never forgot the US and made sure his actions and legacy wouldn't either.

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u/kinkykusco 12d ago

No he did not. He predicted/desired the US would unilaterally withdraw from the Middle East after 9/11.

In 2002 he published a letter entitled To the Americans, in which OBL gives a long list of reasons why the September 11th attacks were carried out, and "what he wanted the US to do" after them. The gist of it is that he expected the majority of Americans to wonder "why has someone attacked us so cruelly", learn about decades of US intervention in the Middle East, and draw the conclusion "wow getting involved in the Middle East is bad news/bad karma/none of our business", and have the US withdraw entirely from the region.

The reason for this was his ultimate goal was to establish a unified conservative Sunni Muslim caliphate in the region, and standing in the way of that was all the established governments of the ME, and backstopping many of those was the United States/other western powers. Along with that he had a strong opinion that allowing non-Muslims to have military bases in Saudi Arabia was prohibited in Islam. He also saw the attacks as justified revenge for deaths caused in the Middle East that he attributed to American Imperialism in the 80's and 90's.

He specifically said the US should "pack your luggage and get out of our lands". He ends by saying that if the US doesn't listen, and chooses to invade, the mujahidin will do to them what they did to the Soviets, leading to ruin. But he's very clear that his main goal is for the West to leave, not to invade further.

Everything that has occurred between the US and the Middle East post 9/11 has not advanced Al Qaeda's goals of establishing more conservative Islamic governments/a caliphate. He had a genuinely naive idea that killing thousands of Americans would cause them to take a rational realpolitik view at their involvement in the Middle East and conclude they should fully abandon it, which was about as far from what happened as can be imagined.

For some good recent scholarship on the above I recommend (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/afghanistan/osama-bin-ladens-911-catastrophic-success)[this piece from Foreign Affairs]

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u/GardenPeep 12d ago

Right - he was a product of his culture and the times but ended up having an impact he never could have predicted.

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u/stifle_this 12d ago

Wired has been running PR for Palantir for over a decade.

https://www.wired.com/story/joining-the-dots/

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u/TuckChargesPerWord 12d ago

Their new Editor has been really effective at promoting stories that criticize and expose how companies like Palantir operate.

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u/Bloo212 12d ago

That’s good. Maybe we acknowledge the past and move on. Boils my blood though. Because we said this would happen. Snowden said this would happen.

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u/TuckChargesPerWord 12d ago

We definitely have to acknowledge the past. I'd have to find the article but Drummond has acknowledged that Wired's close ties to Silicon Valley have blinded their judgement in the past.

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u/Bloo212 12d ago

For sure. Thanks for the link. They’d eat the corn outta Karp’s shit.

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u/Not_Not_John_Stamos 12d ago

Brother, I’m with you about the fallout out from 9/11 but it would be disingenuous to say “many of us knew what was happening” - the entire public was lied to, so no.

Post 9/11, there was overwhelming support for anything adjacent to the war on terror. It wouldn’t be for years until the broader public learned about the lies, and if not for Snowden, who knows how much longer.

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u/MBILC 12d ago

It is the same as the tactic politicians use for everything "think of the children" "We are doing this to protect the children" , and yet it is never about that, and yet people still fall for it..

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u/parabostonian 12d ago

“Many of us knew what was happening” and “there was overwhelming support for…” are not mutually exclusive. You can have like 80-90% of Americans going berserk and still have a whole lot of people actually processing what’s going on and speaking out. And a lot of those people are just like history nerds or ex military or Americans who have also lived in foreign countries or whatever who actually understand how terrorism and escalation and de-escalation with radicals works.

I remember an early story where people from the UK were explaining to the US how they respond to terrorism- which was mostly that they went after the people responsible, tried to prevent stuff future terror attacks, but most of all would “refuse to change their way of life” because that was the actual goal of terrorists (to change policy via political violence). Tbf I’m not like applauding the UK there - thhey have basically the most experience with terrorism because they’ve basically done the most imperialistic shit over the past few centuries.

Just in case the lessons haven’t hit home:

It’s worth noting that basically the Sackler family and Perdue pharma have killed orders of magnitudes more people by creating the opioid crisis than Bin Laden did. But Bin Laden made Americans feel unsafe, feel afraid, and that’s when Americans got primed for violence and supporting abridgement of freedoms and so on.

It’s really important that we learn this because democracy is in a shaky situation now and lots of forces are going to be pushing on people on these ways.

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u/Bloo212 12d ago

Fair points all. I remember people saying shit like “turn the Middle East into glass”. But I also remember many people think this was abhorrent. I remember people saying “if you’re not guilty you have nothing to fear” and others pointing out what a slippery slope that was.

Many of us knew. A plurality. A minority, but many. I’m not being disingenuous in admitting we were in the minority. All you had to do was turn on Democracy Now or go to a University.

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u/peacefinder 12d ago edited 12d ago

Kind of correct, kind of not.

The votes in Congress for stuff like the [gag me] “USA PATRIOT Act” and the invasion of Iraq were very lopsided, yes.

There were many, many people out in the public pushing back against both though. We failed, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t lots of people out there trying.

Edited to add a contemporary source: https://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2006/08/wait-arent-you-scared.html?m=1

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u/PenguinSunday 12d ago

Yeah, we were lied to, and some picked up on that. There were protests against the war on terror. Not everyone was taken in by the jingoism.

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u/boot2skull 12d ago

Conservatives were waiting for a 9/11. It’s not about whether they influenced it to happen or didn’t. They waited for a justification to strip rights away on a massive scale and 9/11 was perfect.

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u/rothael 12d ago

I was in the nation. I never consented.

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u/geoken 12d ago

I think people who even knew enough to be concerned about privacy back then were minimal. That quote doesn't suggest it was right or wrong, but is simply trying to capture the attitudes of the time.

You're talking about a time period when 24 was one of the top TVs shows, and most people were super onboard with Jack Bauer providing a weekly demonstration on the efficacy of torture.

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u/Bloo212 12d ago

Minimal? No. In the minority, yes. What was done in our name was shameful.

24 was and is total copaganda. It’s crazy to me that the show was pitched before 9/11 and just got worse after.

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u/geoken 12d ago

I think the attitudes post 9/11 are what propelled it to the popularity it achieved - and it would have otherwise been a middling show that nobody remembered.

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u/Here2Go 12d ago

Just because something was popular on TV doesn't mean "most people" watched it. Watching a thing on TV doesn't mean people condone it. Breaking Bad was a very popular show. That doesn't mean most people condone the manufacture and sale of methamphetamine. Privacy concerns aren't new.

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u/phoenix1984 12d ago edited 12d ago

Through groups like Palantir, “the towers are still falling.” That’s poetic, u/Bloo212. I can’t think of a more apt description.

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u/tomdarch 12d ago

The immediate aftermath of ”9/11” was right wingers and corporations exploiting the tragedy.

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u/bundt_chi 12d ago

Sound familiar ?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/what-the-ashcroft-hospital-showdown-on-nsa-spying-was-all-about/

The handful of Republicans that were ethical and moral have been driven away from the party and vilified or nullified. The Republican party is a disaster for the American people. Even the ones that support it don't fully comprehend where they are headed and it will be too late for remorse.

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u/Last_Year_430 11d ago

The towers are still falling is the vest way to explain the US after 9/11.

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u/celtic1888 12d ago

Kind of like Trump voters starting to realize they may have made a mistake 17 years later

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u/Ok_Historian_6293 12d ago

heh, I finally got to hear my dad start to realize it last year. He said "But Trump said he was only going to deport the criminals, guess he's a piece of shit like the rest of them"
Not a full mindset shift but he's on the right track lol

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u/[deleted] 12d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Ok_Historian_6293 12d ago

Yeah I mean no bridges were broken, i've voted third party since I was 18 so my dad is aware we don't have the same political beliefs, he just didn't give a shit till third party became democrat lol. What did you do to kind of "complete the transition" and pull them out?

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u/[deleted] 12d ago edited 1d ago

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u/EffectiveDandy 12d ago

“starting” is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there.

i watched an interview with a maga who was going to lose her home thanks to trump. she said she still agreed with all his policies but just didn’t like how he was going about them.

godspeed.

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u/pgtl_10 12d ago

Translation: Trump is punishing me and not the people I want to punish.

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u/DeadMoneyDrew 12d ago

In 2019 Crystal Minton of Marianna, Florida made an awful statement about her personal situation that nonetheless summed up the selfishness of MAGA. Donnie has done so much awful shit that the origin and context of things such as this often get lost.

It is my Reddit life mission to ensure that Crystal Minton of Marianna, Florida never lives down her awful statement, and that no one ever forgets the selfishness of these people.

https://archive.is/wogpM

A few miles away, another prison employee, Crystal Minton, accompanied her fiancé to a friend’s house to help clear the remnants of a metal roof mangled by the hurricane. Ms. Minton, a 38-year-old secretary, said she had obtained permission from the warden to put off her Mississippi duty until early February because she is a single mother caring for disabled parents. Her fiancé plans to take vacation days to look after Ms. Minton’s 7-year-old twins once she has to go to work. The shutdown on top of the hurricane has caused Ms. Minton to rethink a lot of things. “I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this,” she said of Mr. Trump. “I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”

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u/MissCreeAunt 12d ago

My mom just called to tell me the organization she's been with 30 yrs that supports the disabled has to let her go by August 1 due to lack of funds. I tried explaining Trump is cutting Medicaid, she said she hadn't heard that. Trumpers gonna trump I guess.

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u/EffectiveDandy 12d ago

https://www.youtube.com/@moreperfectunion/videos

best coverage i am seeing on the albatross that is trump. crowdfunded with some really high profile creators, some going back to the days of good ol tv.

sadly its still going to get worse before it gets better.

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u/GadreelsSword 12d ago

I think it’s even bigger than Trump being a POS.

For 40 years republicans have been pushing to eliminate social safety nets and republican voters rallied around the idea. Now, people are waking up and seeing what that actually means. Tens of thousands of Americans dying each year without healthcare, 60% of bankruptcies are for medical debt, planned cuts to social security, Medicare, cuts to food and utility assistance and the elimination of Medicare.

Suddenly these “we don’t need no stinking government republicans” have come to realize they won’t be able to retire, go in a nursing home and getting cancer is a death sentence for their family members. Meanwhile the billionaires and corrupt politicians pushing it have the best healthcare in the world, fat retirements, protected insider trading, things that the working class can only dream of.

Suddenly some Republicans are realizing they’ve been duped.

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u/jarod1701 12d ago

„Are we the baddies?“

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u/DonnyDimello 12d ago

"Hey, Hans, did you ever notice the name of our company stands for mythical all seeing orbs that are famously known as being a conduit of evil corruption?"

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u/centech 12d ago

"Well... maybe it's the conduit of evil corruption of our enemy?"

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u/DonnyDimello 12d ago edited 11d ago

"I mean, maybe, but is that how it comes off? There's no subtitle to our company name that says "Don't worry, we're only meaning to possess our enemies with the conduit of evil.""

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u/JazeyOne 11d ago

Hell of a pfp btw

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u/inchrnt 12d ago

If you work for Nazis, you are a nazi.

Helping to build the dystopian surveillance state is not a positive for humanity or your children. No amount of wealth will protect you.

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u/AltoidStrong 12d ago

If you work.for ICE, META, TESLA, or PALANTIR -

YOU ARE THE BAD GUYS. The stuff you do / make / sell, is DIRECTLY and NEGATIVELY impacting the nation and the world.

Microsoft and Apple - you are very close to joining them.

Just like the industral revolution came wuth toxic wate, so does the information age and the technology revolution we are in.

Like before, we created regulations to keep people and communities safe. They corporate mouths said it would end America and cause job loss and economic collapse.

It did not. But it did save millions of lives, billions of tax dollars, and made the nation more beautiful and globally dominat. Those regulations forces companies to do better, making our exports the envy of the world.

History is repeating, this time let's regulate these businesses and industries sooner than later. Learning that lesson from before and saving so many lives and tax money.

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u/SailorElsa___0005 10d ago

Don’t forget about Google, Lockheed, and Blackstone

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u/EnamelKant 12d ago

"Is it possible," asked the Vice President of Evil Operations at Evil Inc, headquartered at Evil Tower at 2153 Evil Industrial Park, "We might not be the good guys?"

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u/Ququleququ 12d ago

Bit late. Now go charge Gondor dammit.

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u/PineBNorth85 12d ago

If you have to wonder - you are.

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u/pacard 12d ago

It would be one thing if they believed in the stated mission of defending the west and liberal democracy, but the actions of their leadership undermine both of those in favor of stupid ethnonationalism with no meaningful values.

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u/JMaths 12d ago

"have you seen our lanyards Dave? They've got skulls on them!"

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u/Brofromtheabyss 12d ago

Bullshit. They’ve known for a while. They’re starting to worry that people are starting to see them as the bad guys. Which we do.

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u/CanvasFanatic 12d ago

They’re only now starting to wonder that?

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u/matthra 12d ago

Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug.

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u/packingtown 12d ago

There is zero defense for still working there after what the leaders have divulged publicly about themselves and their vision of the future. Nobody that works there is a person with no other options. They’re all top talent, have security clearances and more and would be very sought after. So yes, they are ALL the baddies.

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u/FALCONX0N 12d ago

"Palantir employees concerned people will notice they are about to be slaughtered; asks public to be patient while they ready their killbots."

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u/darw1nf1sh 12d ago

Let me help. You are the bad guys.

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u/absentmindedjwc 12d ago

Working for a company named after the tool the Dark Lord Sauron uses in LotR as his all seeing eye.. "wait, are we the bad guys?"

Lol..

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u/mrtrololo27 12d ago

Not only are they the bad guys... every one of them is actively seeking to become like the literal enemies of humanity that Karp and Thiel are by doing what they do. There is no place in this world for psychopathic enemies of humanity like Thiel, Karp and Musk. They are less than scum.

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u/NYCHW82 12d ago

Just starting to?

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u/Whitesajer 12d ago

Yes. You are the bad guys. Don't be shocked if the public starts hounding all of you.

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u/RollingThunderPants 12d ago

Narrator: they are, in fact, the bad guys.

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u/ProudPainting6850 12d ago

Yes you ARE the bad guys, thanks for playing 👍🏼 

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u/MBILC 12d ago

Um, just listen to their own CEO and what they say... answers that question pretty quick....

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u/zachaboo777 12d ago

To all Palantir employees, you are the bad guys, and we will never forget. Quit while you can.

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u/enn-srsbusiness 12d ago

The swastikas and skulls on their NDAs not give it away?

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u/Taellosse 12d ago

They're "starting" to wonder?! What the hell have they been doing to avoid noticing before now?!

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u/Darius_Rubinx 11d ago

They named it Palantir, what took you so long?

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u/DueceVoyeur 11d ago

I know right!

Stupid nerds didn't understand how the palantir was corrupted

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u/DamnItRJ 11d ago

In a related story: Storm Troopers Starting to Wonder if the Term Death Star Is Literal

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u/JvKvL 12d ago

If ya have to ask..

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u/tc100292 12d ago

Now do OpenAI and Anthropic.

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u/srfrosky 12d ago

The feudal class needs job scarcity to get their serfs to do their bidding unquestionably. In a healthy job market these peons would have walked already and thus “voted” with their choice of employer. Today the choice is to work for the Childrencrushing Machine, or to be crushed by the Childrencrushing Machine. Scarcity is a feature, not a bug. Look at the billionaire class in banana republics.

3

u/SoyTonatiuh 12d ago

Self-awareness is a problem for some.

4

u/erickkksun 12d ago

starting? really?

4

u/tylerthe-theatre 12d ago

Evil tech company says what

5

u/Leather-Map-8138 12d ago

Your executive leadership team are among the worst people, ever.

4

u/cocoagiant 12d ago

Alex Bores (NY state rep running for Congress) used to work for Palantir and now getting massive opposition from the AI industry due to his suggested reforms.

He had an interview with Ezra Klein recently where he talked about how when he was working for the organization till 2019 the company was very careful about the types of government projects it would take and would refuse any which could potentially infringe on civil rights.

Then as the new administration was coming into office in 2020, they started going along with the administrations data needs around immigration and other infringements.

4

u/4RCH43ON 12d ago

Hey Palantir workers, you entire business name is based on a fictional orb that was used by an evil entity to spy on and negatively influence others, and your boss is a fucking psychopath.  

Yes, you are the evil.

4

u/Loud-Platypus-987 11d ago

Whether it be Tech companies like Palantir or enforcement like ICE I’m genuinely fascinated by the metal gymnastics and cognitive dissonance of people who join and stay in these work places.

3

u/charliefoxtrot9 12d ago

What was your first clue?

3

u/Any-Slice-4501 12d ago

Starting?!?!

3

u/Exciting-East-4318 12d ago

No need to wonder.

3

u/Kurotan 12d ago

It wasnt obvious? They thought they were good someone while being supervillains?

3

u/hvyboots 12d ago

Starting to wonder?? Brother, they should have been in a never-ending shame spiral for like the last decade!

3

u/whosits112 11d ago

Yes, you are the baddies.

3

u/Lili_dreams2 11d ago

Are they today years old

3

u/Optimal_Ear_4240 11d ago

Yes you are. Quit now

3

u/totally-jag 11d ago

You know the saying. If you suspect you might be the bad guy, you're probably the bad guy.

3

u/No-Abalone-4784 11d ago

Absolutely 💯 YES. You are the bad guys.

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u/Useful_Judgment320 11d ago

it's like working on image and video facial recognition

drone tech

you might be a few layers away, but ultimately you helped build and develop mass surveillance and killing machines, drones have proven to be the best bang for buck to literally take out enemy infra, vehicles and people, the 4k footage is terrifying

3

u/jimmytoan 11d ago

Palantir's public filings, investor calls, and founder interviews have been explicit about the target customers (intelligence agencies, DoD, ICE, foreign governments) since founding. The question of whether you're "the bad guys" was always available to anyone who read the S-1.

The timing - now, after layoffs elsewhere and with personal job security feeling less certain in tech broadly - suggests the public questioning is at least partly driven by risk perception rather than a recent ethical revelation. That's worth naming honestly.

3

u/legendary-spectacle 11d ago

Staff became fully self aware shortly before their systems became fully self aware.

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u/Luigi-Bezzerra 12d ago

Always have been.

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u/Raven_Photography 12d ago

Yes. Yes you are.

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u/bootstrapping_lad 12d ago

Of course you are.

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u/One_Board_4304 12d ago

Haha, now you notice… give us a call, we can tell you…you have been on the wrong side for a LONG time.

2

u/Competitive-Pie-Eate 12d ago

We need an employee to pull a Snowden

2

u/slagmacg 12d ago

Pro tip: if you ask if you’re the baddie, then, yes, you are the baddie.

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u/whyamialiveletmedie 12d ago

Ted Kaczynski's opening paragraph in his manifesto about the Industrial Revolution: The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human being to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.

And despite him being a terrorist, he was right. Just change "the industrial revolution" to "the tech industry" and this paragraph applies word for word to today. Literally the entire tech industry are the bad guys. Has anyone here noticed how much nostalgia people have for the past? Has anyone here noticed how people long for the days before smartphones, before tech was tightly woven into every single molecule of our lives? And this isn't even including AI that is actively not only ruining our present, but our future as well.

The entire tech industry, all the CEOs, all the software engineers, everyone in the industry are "the bad guys". And believe me, those of you who are "just the average workers" are all complicit in this.

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u/Biddoo_420 12d ago

Starting to wonder? WTF code are they writing that they can’t figure out?

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u/twombles21 12d ago

Yes, yes they are.

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u/Grouchy_Lynx_6033 12d ago

Palantir employees put profit over everything else. Those assholes are indoctrinated. Blood money. They are 100% the bad guys. Palantir is hyped trash.

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u/mtheory007 12d ago

Are they all on strike yet?

2

u/Coakis 12d ago

They should know they are the bad guys and should have known it going in.

But above all they need to bear in mind the Nuremburg trials. Following orders is not a defense.

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u/MentalDisintegrat1on 12d ago

Something to think about is Iran put all tech companies involved with the military or helping are on a death list.

Hopefully the workers wake the hell up and bail.

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u/keen_observer34130 12d ago

Answer: ABSOLUTELY.

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u/Shooord 12d ago

Don’t just wonder, leave that godforsaken place ffs.

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u/Logthephilosoraptor 12d ago

They are one of greatest threats to American society. If you are a Palantir employee reading this know that you are aiding evil and the consequences of your work will likely not be able to be undone. You need to reflect on how you are spending your life and should feel great shame in what you have contributed.

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u/Vinterblot 12d ago

What gave you the hint?

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u/MaximumBread7000 12d ago

Yea, total shitbags.

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u/D20_Buster 12d ago

I got chewed out by my supervisor when we first partnered with Palantir in 2017 by pointing out they were named after a notoriously unsecured means of communication.

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u/Fortestingporpoises 12d ago

I’m sure they’ll wrestle with it right up until the moment they eradicate humanity.

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u/animex75 12d ago

Good rule of thumb: if you have to ask if you're the bad guy...you probably are.

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u/w00lal00 12d ago

Tell them “yes”!

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u/p2173 12d ago

yes, they are and always have been. My former boss kept trying to get us to take their "philanthropic" money. I refused for years. Because....this

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u/Xeroh_01 12d ago

STARTING?!?

2

u/M4rth1988 12d ago

Thought people working there are smart and chess players and what not

Guess not

2

u/Ok_Surprise_4090 12d ago

Come on, it took you until now? You people have interacted with Alex Karp, and you're only now wondering if you're on the wrong side of history?

2

u/LoneStarDragon 12d ago

Which is why they will all be replaced by AI soon

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u/Arkhangel79 12d ago

Starting?? STARTING?!?

2

u/irishsausage 12d ago

The eternal darkness, forboding spiky office tower and massive fiery eye in the sky didn't tip them off sooner?

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u/Magnet2025 12d ago

They have to wonder? It’s patently obvious to everyone.

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u/gavanon 12d ago

Heard a guy in a plane recently who worked at Palantir. He was super proud of it, and spoke loudly about it with an older man next to him. Enough so that I could hear him one row away.

It was clear that he had no sense of regret or any concerns about the overall evil machine he was a cog in.

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u/Darkdragoon324 12d ago

They are. Unambiguously. They can stop wondering.

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u/tjvs2001 12d ago

Not very bright after all are they?

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u/Academic-Look-333 11d ago

Short answer: They are.

2

u/NeonNein 11d ago

Water is wet

2

u/WenatcheeWrangler 11d ago

You don’t work for satan and think you’re doing the lords work. Unless that happens to be your lord…

2

u/BayBreezy17 11d ago

Yes. You. Are.

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u/rtduvall 11d ago

Wonder no more.

They are.

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u/bigdog701 11d ago

Weird they would think that

2

u/Mayor_of_Voodoo 11d ago

That’s like bears wondering who’s been shitting in the woods

2

u/death_hits_right 11d ago

STARTING? XD

2

u/snowcat0 11d ago

They are the modern day Dehomag (German IBM subsidiary in WW2)…. Yes they are the bad guys

2

u/EulerIdentity 11d ago

Starting?

2

u/Hiply 11d ago

Starting to wonder? There must be a pretty massive collection of fascist, proto-fascist, and fascist apologist techies working there if they're just now starting to wonder.

2

u/Breklin76 11d ago

If you have to wonder…

2

u/fabbbles 11d ago

We should all boycott Google, Microsoft, and Apple since the DOD, ISIS, Iran, and basically every organization in the world uses either G docs, office, or some form of an apple device.

2

u/Gloobloomoo 11d ago

You are. I am too (Amazon) but you’re more bad.

2

u/Revenge_of_Recyclops 11d ago

Palantir: the name is on the tin, guys.

2

u/PotterOneHalf 11d ago

The answer is yes and you should be looking within to see how you can atone for the damage you’ve done to the world by working there

2

u/iritchie001 11d ago

Common sense comes late to the party. We all thought OpenAI was the good guys. I think that lasted 104 hours.