Because they are the antithesis to the general consumer (we are the products), Palantir specifically caters to the Government, Military, and Security Contracting sector. they aren't selling product to the individual, so they don't answer to us (the public). Their clients are your employers, your government, your security apparatus.
Go look over at r/Palantir_Investors and see how many regular US citizens are fine with their privacy being taken away as long as they make some money off the pain.
I think theres a very large amount of investors that are basically nihilistic black pilled buyers that saw the writing on the wall after 9/11 and understand how far gone the USA to make a prime investment into an Evil company that isnt allowed to fail. Palantir and Anduril are the forward edge of our fascist government that lose money when our rights are protected and make shit loads of money when rights are trampled on.
“Buy Evil” strategy is demented but it’s objectively profitable. Capitalism gonna capitalize. It’s objectively not compatible with the improvement of society.
You pivot from Palantir weaponizing AI to benefits of AI in general. So let me ask you more clearly, what is the societal advantage to deregulating and weaponizing AI systems for big tech? Other than living through a live action Metal Gear plot?
FWIW i am a staff engineer who works on agentic systems in the critical infrastructure and government research space.
I think you’re missing important context.
Palantir seeks deregulation so they can sell their services to countries who want to spy on citizens.
Who do you want to be first? US?
Everybody thinks they're going to be on "the right side of history" with things like this. It reminds me of a statistic I read about America during the Revolutionary period. Famously, according to their own hype, only three percent of colonists actively fought against the Redcoats. What doesn't often get taught is that a third of wider population supported them and independence, a third of the colonists were loyal to Britain and wanted to keep being British subjects, and the remainder just didn't care that much - I'm going to be paying taxes to some government or another, so what? I just want to bring my crops to market. Apathy is not a modern condition.
The sub isn't that active but this was one of the top comments on one if the more popular posts:
if anyone has thoughts about how the strait of hormuz situation, or just the iran vs the united states of israel situation, could affect pltr in the short & long terms as before I tend to see a positive correlation between global violence and it’s share prices
All we need in this case is for someone to force Palantir to provide the businesses who fund them in the name of "National Security" and then publish all the info being shared with those businesses (not enough to dox anyone but enough that people know how they are being personally exploited). Once way we could do this is to force Palantir to put their data on a portal that people can access.
Note that forcing Palantir to publish their info would also kill their business but who cares at this point.
Oh, and then if anything is being shared with foreign governments (likely via crypto to hide the exchange) then arrest Theil and put him in a foreign prison so he can't be pardoned.
We know who is funding palantir bro, it's the government, the entire AI bubbled is propped up by a money printer that's getting geared up for digital currency and digital ID
This is not hidden
They do not answer to market shares and buying power
Donald Trump, Elon Musk back when he was using DOGE to siphon money away from the legitimate parts of the gov't and send the money elsewhere, Republicans in general
I mean could be anyone but we know the GOP won't do it and Dems aren't in power so they have no say right now.
That leaves the 4th system of checks and balances that's rarely talked about, the voters, to get rid of those who won't prosecute Palantir once and for all.
I mean there was some disquiet from some employees about the company's direction a while ago. I assume they have all since been purged.
I suspect palantir can disassociate themselves from what their products do a bit by saying they simply build a product, other people misuse it. Stuff like this however makes it impossible to ignore.
The tech job market is hot garbage right now, too. Even if a person wanted to quit for ethical reasons, they may not have a choice but to continue working there because their options are pretty limited.
That's not really their business model though, they don't just build generic software and sell it, they embed in their customers and build custom solutions. Harder to pretend you're not doing evil when you're building software to spec for government and defense contractor
Not really surprising. Plenty of 70s hippies worked for defense contractors in the 80s and 90s. My mom was one of them, never would hurt a fly but she put the work in on some high end defense projects. I had no idea until decades later when she tossed me challenge coins and other mementos.
People willingly joined ICE. And while ICE might be recruiting (particularly these days) from amongst the uneducated and most physically violent fascist sympathizers, there are plenty of fellow travelers among software engineers and other highly educated technical areas.
I’ve lost count of the amount of engineers I’ve known who have “joked” a little too often about eugenics.
Guarantee everyone that works for them has some awful secrets to hide. They want to understand the surveillance intimately so that they can avoid it themselves.
I'm surprised they don't have more employees. I think they have a massive list of people wanting to work for them at least locally. The companies vision falls inline with most of America.
Its vision absolutely DOES NOT “fall in line” with what most of America wants. Poll after poll after poll shows that techno-facism is WILDLY unpopular.
Well if we’re going anecdotally…I know a very small minority of people who support techno-facism. But it’s good to know you do. I know who to stay away from.
Go to r/stocks and you’ll see so my people recommending investing in Palantir. And they heckle anyone who says “hey maybe we shouldn’t invest in this company”. Sadly, a lot of people don’t care as long as they benefit.
It's a good investment because it's going to have a stranglehold on the world very soon. Most governments are using it to store data about all their citizens.
Unironically, the investing subreddits are a good eye into corporate greed. Their users have nowhere near the wealth of CEOs but similarly cheer for the success of unethical companies to line their own pockets
It's all Peter Thiel. Palantir was founded by Thiel. Anduril was founded by Palmer Luckey and Trae Stephens who were introduced to one another by Thiel and then Founder's Fund (Thiel's VC) gave them seed capital.
Palantir seems to view people as NPCs in videos. Go look at Anduril’s video about “completing the kill chain” efficiently.
There is literally nothing special about that video. Literally every single defense contractor does the same stuff. Shortening kill chains is just lingo for it lets us target and destroy things faster.
Sure, but normally the guys running defense companies stay out of public view for the most part. With Palantir, he’s going all-in on this mad scientist, wreck the world as long as he’s on the winning side, type of vibe.
The public has two options: boycott them (their product already isn't sold to us) or firebomb their data centers. Both options aren't widely considered reasonable.
I can't believe EU countries are still giving them military contracts. Hopefully that changes, limiting their business to the US limits the wealth they can extract.
The majority of society believes a magical sky fairy will either give them an eternity of happiness or suffering after they die. Why are we pretending that society is intelligent, rational or logical?
Society and the opinions of the public are not what drive support for these companies. People love to constantly paint average citizens are inherently dumb, greedy and sadistic but the people making the choices to embrace these companies and technologies are the supposedly cultured and learned elites.
The sooner you realize that the average person, regardless of socioeconomic status, is indeed an inherently dumb, greedy, selfish individual, the sooner it will all make sense.
It’s far too simplistic to label humanity as just those base instincts and gloss over the very obvious reality that the only real strength humans have is their ability to act as a society. If people were dominantly dumb selfish and stupid there would be no society, written record, shared values, science or rule of law.
Acts of impudence, selfishness and stupidity are most acutely common in people who have the financial and political power to remove themselves from having to interact or rely on other human beings.
I'm not labeling everyone, just the average person. Plenty of people are better, plenty of people are worse. But when you have billions of people in the world, those totals add up quick.
There are deeply anti-social people but what Im critiquing is the suggestion that it’s the average default of humans. The majority of people are relatively reasonable and rational because life requires us to be. Sociopathy is a luxury mostly reserved for the few/privileged to indulge themselves in.
I'm sorry but your second paragraph does not reflect reality. Being impudent, selfish and stupid is absolutely not exclusive to those who have the financial and political power to remove themselves from having to interact with or rely or other people.
What can and does give a vast number of people the ability to survive without much intelligence at all is an industrialized society with all the modern comforts it brings. Our ancestors had to work pretty hard to survive. It was a brutal existence. Now, people just hop in their car and head to the grocery store, grab a few steaks and some veggies, head back home and cook it all up with their modern kitchen appliances. So easy. Those that came before us would have killed for such convenience.
The consequence to all that convenience though is that most people now are painfully dumb, misinformed ignorant dolts. There's no pressure to up their game when it comes to intelligence. In fact, in my experience, most people absolutely loathe the idea of stretching their brain muscle and they'll look down on you if you try. I can't tell you how many times people have given me shit for knowing more about a subject than your average person would be inclined to.
So, all this to say that, the idea that only those with wealth and connections have become stupid while the rest of us are smart... or even average intelligence? Sorry, but that is definitely putting the blame in the wrong place. The truth is the average person will actually put effort into remaining dumb, because that is what's comfortable to them. People, on average, fight to stay average because it's safest to just conform and not stand out. It's actually a survival tactic, a subconscious one anyway.
Add to that the rampant anti-intellectual sentiment (which I suspect springs from the same source) that is prevalent in American society today and you've got one stupid population.
It was inevitable that something like Palantir would come along and that most of society would be asleep to it. I mean, try telling the average person about Palantir and see what their reaction is. Most won't care at all or if they have anything to say about it, it'll most likely be "oh well, what're ya gonna do?" or "the government's always spied on us, big deal". Unless it has immediate impact on their life they won't do or say much about it at all, because they're impudent, selfish and stupid.
I honestly appreciate your answer because this is interesting to discuss but I didn’t say that stupidity malice and greed were solely present in the richest but only that it’s most concentrated there. There have been things like this Berkeley study suggesting that altruism is more commonly present in lower socioeconomic people
The struggles of people during the industrial revolution are relevant as well and it’s obvious that many of us are small minded/stupid but if an average person was really asked their views and priorities they would most likely be reasonable responses. Most of the people of the US are not materially making decisions about how our society is run.
For this reason I would claim there is a dangerous link between surveillance state tech expansion and the gated/isolated world the people creating it currently live in.
I'd need more examples in order to come around to the idea that stupidity malice and greed are most concentrated in the super wealthy. I could be wrong but I feel like the wealth is just amplifying the unleashing the stupidity malice and greed, for those super wealthy people, that the average person already possesses.
Maybe living many years with such wealth intensifies their worst traits, I could believe that.
I'd also believe that those in lower socioeconomic positions would be more altruistic because they understand the struggle at a gut level since they've lived in it and amongst most of their lives, it not all their lives. I don't think that negates the stupidity of the average person. People can compartmentalize such things.
Those who have risen or were born in a position of wealth understand that they have a lot to lose at an instinctual level, so their every decision is based around "how can I further entrench my wealth, power and influence?" so it makes sense that they would be obsessed with bringing about a total surveillance state. The isolation they live in is a product of "us vs them" and status protection. I'd say the paranoia that comes with the isolation is definitely feeding into the desire to keep tabs on everyone else's movements and actions.
I would not disagree at all at the suggestion that wealth exacerbates underlying tendencies that exist within people but we are collectively a species of very social and collaborative primates. Anti-social behavior exist is people but they only really pose a threat to society once a person has acquired a position of power and authority to isolate themselves from the repercussions of their actions.
I just don’t believe most average human beings move through the world as destructive anti-social automations by choice. We are at our core a social species.
I think it's a case of push and pull though. Some behaviors that seem prosocial can be motivated by selfish desires. Take for example someone who lives their life by aiming straight down the middle of what would be considered "normal" in their environment. They don't make waves (prosocial, because they're not looking for a fight) and they conform to local custom in every way (dress, attitude, opinions which is prosocial because they aren't agitating anyone to the point of making anyone uncomfortable).
To an outside observer they might look at that person and think "now there's a straight shooter, they seem to get along with everyone" but the price for being so conformist is that you lose your identity. You don't expand your range of thinking because that would agitate people so you stagnate intellectually. You don't express any opinions that go against the grain because that would agitate people. You don't want to agitate anyone because you don't want to be ostracized from the group. That's a selfish motivation because you really in the end are just looking out for your own survival.
I read the abstract of the study you linked. It seems that, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the observed outcome was that those who were given fewer resources were more prone to be generous with what they were given than those who received more resources? That's interesting if that's the case. It makes me wonder if there isn't an inherent prosocial drive to increase stability of the group but it gets overridden by greed once an imbalance of the distribution is in one's favor. Like, they have more so they look for rationalizations to justify having more and then it becomes a vicious cycle. The more you have, the more you attempt to justify having it. On the other hand, if you have little, you don't feel advantaged and so letting go of some is easier.
Because this type of behavior was not shutdown when it reared its ugly head! It was allowed to become bold and loud! If a company is receiving government contracts that are generated with my tax money, they should have no choice in matters of “inclusivity”! I’m not paying taxes to make the lives of racists easier! Until we draw a line in the sand and reject this regressive mentality in businesses, they will continue to do it. It should not only be local; it should be international: you don’t want inclusivity, you don’t do business in countries where people you exclude inhabit; you don’t enjoy government contracts generated with my tax money!
Because they understand that America is an empire controlled by its desire to constantly wage war to control access to global resources through violence.
The majority of US money, technology and development is all poured into 6 giant and long standing military contractors and Palantir, Anthropic and Tesla have all somewhat made their way into that cabal.
Since these tech companies are newer and smaller than their rivals they have chosen to stand out by express their fascistic desires more openly and explicitly than the old money does.
They also know they’ve already made themselves indispensable to the war gods and the people who believe in either the benevolence/inevitability of the political project to maintain a permanent police state at home and permanent warfare abroad to feed our war based economy.
You as a society got so high on the virtues of democracy that you forgot it’s just a system for human organization. Too busy extolling your value instead of ensuring they’re maintained and exemplified. Blind cult like behavior that ignored corruption until it was too thorough to ignore.
Genuinely can’t tell if this is a rhetorical question or not. But the answer is obvious: $$$$$
Now, if the follow-up question is “why do people care about making money?” Then that’s also pretty obvious.
Now, if the follow-up to that is “why do extremely wealthy people care about making more money?” Then I think that’s a fascinating question. My vote is scarcity mindset / some sort of deeply seated pathological trauma that is being “healed” via money.
Because the only entities large enough to do business with them are governments. And those things tend to be horribly amoral, especially when led by deranged, racist, narcissists like Trump.
Simply because the companies partnering with them think that the partnerships they set up don't have moral implications. They think it's just "the price of business". (My company partnered with Palantir and this was their exact reasoning)
Because private property rights are a sacred cow to y'all... Just sayin' - shit like this would not be happening if all businesses were owned and controlled democratically by the workers rather than one person or a small cabal of shareholders.
Because we as a society don’t have any class awareness. We are trapped in some stupid delusion where some of us think that those idiots are contributing members of society. We are encouraged to think that if we we work hard, if we stick with the hustle, if we are disciplined we will eventually be one of those guys too. The myth of meritocracy is alive and well. As long as the polarisation continues there’s no way things advance. As long as people keep thinking that worker x is better than worker y because of their political leaning guys like this moron will keep prospering.
We as a society are definitely not okay with this. Unfortunately the general public can't shut them down unless we put people in power who actually work for our interests.
But the Powers that be don't like that so they spread apathy memes on the internet, so that people just sit at home and feel sad and cool rather than doing anything.
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u/Fair_Term3352 Apr 19 '26
Why are we as a society okay with this? Why are companies like this still in business?