Palantir is pretty awful. I knew a guy who took a job there, a bunch of years ago. When he said where he was going, I asked “But what if they work on something really shitty? Like spying on people?”. He was like, “Meh”, with a big shrug.
He was friendly and kind to the people around him, but I guess he just didn’t care about anyone he didn’t know personally right now.
Yup. I’ve worked in tech for nearly 20 years. Most people who work in tech don’t give a shit about the ethics of what they do or where they work if the money is good.
This is a screenshot from one of the discords of current and/or previous coworkers, but the sentiment is everywhere
Unfortunately many of the people I work or have worked with are from all over the world, and many of them share these ideals. I took a big pay cut 5 years ago to move from the ad/ecommerce industry to work at an emergency management SaaS company.
The app I now work on is used to save lives, whereas the customers I was producing work for at my last job would do anything for the extra dollar. Knowing where my time is going towards the general good is very rewarding. Yet many people I spoke to in my industry were confused at my decision.
Late stage capitalism and fascism I think eventually are inseparable. Just the centralization of power and wealth consolidation that fails everyone involved in the system except those at the top
Lol are you telling me that the people that I’ve worked with directly in small 5-10 person discord servers that we set up when I worked with them, are in fact investor imposters, and instead the actual coworkers are secretly using separate slack setups? Or do you just imagine that anecdotally how ever your coworkers have communicated is how all people communicate without exception?
I think it can be difficult to relate to such abstract concepts and consequences that you don’t feel directly. After all, it’d be much easier to press on a button that’d kill 10 000 people living 10 000 km away from you than to stab one person to death. Out of sight out of mind.
My point being that I don’t think he’s indifferent to people that he doesn’t know, he’s simply not able to process all the ramifications of this particular thing. The effects of data collection and manipulation is quite subtle, after all, like the frog in the slow burning pot
You just described that he is in fact indifferent.
It is not like we don’t have easy to access knowledge about authoritarianism and how it plays out. It is not like we lack information about the criminal and murderous stuff Palantir is involved. FFS the company is owned by a guy who lets himself be “refreshened” with the blood of younger people.
Anyone who does a minimal level of due diligence in looking up his employer knows what kind of company it is. And it is an intelligence company, so the type of people working there must bring a higher level of research and diligence skills.
They know exactly what they are doing and they are fine with it.
He was a pretty smart guy, so I’m pretty sure he understood the ramifications. This isn’t like a plumber working in a building that happens to house an evil company. This was directly working as a high ranking software developer at a shitty software company.
I haven’t thought through all the scenarios and edge cases, but generally spying on the public seems dicey and ripe for abuse. Especially if it’s just like “the public, all the time, whenever we feel like it,” instead of “ok we got a warrant signed by a judge to investigate Joe Bombguy”.
Palantir is pretty awful. I knew a guy who took a job there, a bunch of years ago. When he said where he was going, I asked “But what if they work on something really shitty? Like spying on people?”. He was like, “Meh”, with a big shrug.
He was friendly and kind to the people around him, but I guess he just didn’t care about anyone he didn’t know personally right now.
I’ve heard that’s how a lot of wealthy people feel. They want the absolute best for people in their family, and that’s about it.
Yup. I’ve worked in tech for nearly 20 years. Most people who work in tech don’t give a shit about the ethics of what they do or where they work if the money is good.
This is a screenshot from one of the discords of current and/or previous coworkers, but the sentiment is everywhere
Sleepwalking into nazi germany with that attitude.
Unfortunately many of the people I work or have worked with are from all over the world, and many of them share these ideals. I took a big pay cut 5 years ago to move from the ad/ecommerce industry to work at an emergency management SaaS company.
The app I now work on is used to save lives, whereas the customers I was producing work for at my last job would do anything for the extra dollar. Knowing where my time is going towards the general good is very rewarding. Yet many people I spoke to in my industry were confused at my decision.
Late stage capitalism and fascism I think eventually are inseparable. Just the centralization of power and wealth consolidation that fails everyone involved in the system except those at the top
Ex pal people are on slack, not discord. This is probably an investor server
Lol are you telling me that the people that I’ve worked with directly in small 5-10 person discord servers that we set up when I worked with them, are in fact investor imposters, and instead the actual coworkers are secretly using separate slack setups? Or do you just imagine that anecdotally how ever your coworkers have communicated is how all people communicate without exception?
I think it can be difficult to relate to such abstract concepts and consequences that you don’t feel directly. After all, it’d be much easier to press on a button that’d kill 10 000 people living 10 000 km away from you than to stab one person to death. Out of sight out of mind.
My point being that I don’t think he’s indifferent to people that he doesn’t know, he’s simply not able to process all the ramifications of this particular thing. The effects of data collection and manipulation is quite subtle, after all, like the frog in the slow burning pot
You just described that he is in fact indifferent.
It is not like we don’t have easy to access knowledge about authoritarianism and how it plays out. It is not like we lack information about the criminal and murderous stuff Palantir is involved. FFS the company is owned by a guy who lets himself be “refreshened” with the blood of younger people.
Anyone who does a minimal level of due diligence in looking up his employer knows what kind of company it is. And it is an intelligence company, so the type of people working there must bring a higher level of research and diligence skills.
They know exactly what they are doing and they are fine with it.
Aside from the moral aspect, did his AI tell him that would work?
He was a pretty smart guy, so I’m pretty sure he understood the ramifications. This isn’t like a plumber working in a building that happens to house an evil company. This was directly working as a high ranking software developer at a shitty software company.
That could be the result of our training. After all, people die for our way of life and we have to cope.
If I’m reading this right, you would basically say that any company that helps government institutions spy on people is awful, is that right?
I haven’t thought through all the scenarios and edge cases, but generally spying on the public seems dicey and ripe for abuse. Especially if it’s just like “the public, all the time, whenever we feel like it,” instead of “ok we got a warrant signed by a judge to investigate Joe Bombguy”.
To me, spying and spying on the public en masse are very different things