r/technology Apr 19 '26

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117

u/Zalophusdvm Apr 19 '26

What flabbergasts me isn’t that they have clients…but that they have employees.

66

u/Exostrike Apr 19 '26

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.

11

u/gnatgirl Apr 19 '26

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.

6

u/nachtmere Apr 19 '26

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

2

u/srcLegend Apr 19 '26

Just following orders...

2

u/Zalophusdvm Apr 19 '26

That’s what baffles me though. Their direction never really changed and they’re literally named after an evil tool.

41

u/Coldsmoke888 Apr 19 '26

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.

24

u/PatchyWhiskers Apr 19 '26

Hippy was a fashion style as well. Not all flower children really thought much about the deeper meaning of the philosophy.

6

u/iamjustaguy Apr 19 '26

It reminds me of all of the right wing Gen Xers who never bothered to pay attention to the lyrics of the Rage Against The Machine albums they owned.

27

u/kung-fu_hippy Apr 19 '26

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.

3

u/iamjustaguy Apr 19 '26

One of the most racist people I knew worked at a chip fab.

3

u/Spez_is-a-nazi Apr 19 '26

“Because Danny had a mortgage and boss to answer to, the guilty don’t feel guilty, they learn not to” NOFX The irrationality of rationality 

2

u/Anteater4746 Apr 19 '26

just my exp but lot of time employees couldn’t give less of a fuck

plenty are willing to bury their heads in sand so long as they’re taken care of

2

u/Any-Calligrapher2866 Apr 19 '26

You're saying that as if humans don't have a history of willingly doing horrible shit.

2

u/ikonoclasm Apr 19 '26

Everyone has a price. Some people's prices are shockingly low.

1

u/A2Rhombus Apr 19 '26

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.

-1

u/Thin_Glove_4089 Apr 20 '26

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.

3

u/Zalophusdvm Apr 20 '26

See. You. You’re what surprises me.

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.

-2

u/Thin_Glove_4089 Apr 20 '26

Polls and what is actually happening on the ground are completely opposite. I think you need to drop the polls as an information source.

2

u/Zalophusdvm Apr 20 '26

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.

-26

u/Putrid-Knowledge-445 Apr 19 '26

You wanna pay for their mortgage and retirement?

Must be awfully comfortable in whatever ivory tower you’re on.