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Comment on Palantir may be engaging in a coordinated disinformation campaign by astroturfing these news-related subreddits: r/world, r/newsletter, r/investinq, and r/tech_news

jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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.

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anus@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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?

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- jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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”.
  
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  - anus@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    To me, spying and spying on the public en masse are very different things
    
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KumaSudosa@feddit.dk ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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

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- plyth@feddit.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  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.
  
  That could be the result of our training. After all, people die for our way of life and we have to cope.
  
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- jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - KumaSudosa@feddit.dk ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Sure he does, intellectually, just like I understand the ramifications of buying a smartphone, clothes “made in Bangladesh”, or using a public AI model. Still the human conscience doesn’t apply too much significance to something that abstract. It doesn’t keep me up at night that my lithium is mined by Congolese children - but if I had to buy it personally from a one-armed indentured labourer I’m sure I’d stop immediately. “Out of sight out of mind” isn’t an excuse for committing heinous acts, I’m just saying that it’s not simply that he “doesn’t care about other people”
    
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    jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Right, humans are bad about that kind of thing. I think it has to do with Dunbar’s number? The monkeysphere? It’s hard for us to model a lot of people as full people in our head, especially as they’re more removed from us.
    
    Like you probably don’t really think about the garbage man as a fully fleshed out guy with hopes, dreams, a favorite band, a love that got away, and all that. When you have some absolutely rancid trash, you probably just throw it in the can and forget about it. But if it was your mother or best friend that was going to have to deal with it, maybe you’d be more careful. Wouldn’t want the bag to rip and spray maggots all over Mom.
    
    That’s fine. That’s all of us.
    
    But I think there’s degrees. Shades. Like you mentioned cell phones. Most of us accept the out of sight horrors that go with them. But, like, some people are absolute assholes to wait staff. Just treat the waiter like shit, are rude to the coffee shop people, whatever. I think most of us recognize that as bad.
    
    Somewhere between those two points I think is “I’m going to build software to spy on people”. Personally, I think that should be ok the far side of the line. The not okay side. Why? A bit of self preservation, a bit of ethics, and a helping of “I don’t want to contribute to bad things happening to people, even ones I don’t know”.
    
    This post is getting long. I think you’re right that it’s not as simple as “doesn’t care about other people” but I think that’s a factor.
    
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- Saleh@feddit.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    the company is owned by a guy who lets himself be “refreshened” with the blood of younger people.
    
    Aside from the moral aspect, did his AI tell him that would work?
    
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DarkCloud@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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- kautau@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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
  
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  - anus@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Ex pal people are on slack, not discord. This is probably an investor server
    
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    kautau@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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 however your coworkers have communicated is how all people communicate without exception?
    
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  - zartemie@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Sleepwalking into nazi germany with that attitude.
    
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    kautau@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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
    
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