I’ve never worked at Palantir, but once you get past the noisy leadership’s villain virtue signaling, every report I’ve read about the platform itself gives me strong “typical enterprise vendor” vibes. A lackluster software offering that is overhyped to institutional purchasers, then shoved down frontline employees’ throats because the vendor is good at navigating the sales and compliance labyrinth to secure deals.
The goals and motivation for using these tools, and their broad allowance of access to what should be highly controlled data (or in some cases even not collected at all) is the problem. Don’t give Palantir the bad-boy street cred they crave, focus on the policy decisions that are leading to agencies wanting tools like this in the first place.
bri3d 1 hours ago [-]
This is my understanding of Palantir too: it's a consultancy with a map, a graph database, and some "AI" nonsense. They sell expensive "forward deployed engineers" (aka, consultants) to customize this map and graph database to specific use cases.
I'm not trying to argue Palantir is an ethical company; my views on "company ethics" are nuanced but I wouldn't put them anywhere near my "places I want to work" bucket. But (contrary, perhaps, to their name), they're not some weird deep demonic trove of personal information; that's supplied to them by their customers, which is where change needs to happen.
Well, at least they're paying those consultants a lot of money, since they're charging a lot for them... right? Right?
vscode-rest 53 minutes ago [-]
Yes. If you worked at pltr as a FDE you are now wealthy.
genidoi 1 hours ago [-]
Referring to engineers with top secret+ security clearances as "consultants" seems reductionistic.
bri3d 55 minutes ago [-]
In what way? I'm genuinely curious; I would describe an engineer who is provided to build a customer product alongside a customer as either a "contractor" or a "consultant," depending mostly on their employer. A security clearance just changes what customers and products they work for.
vscode-rest 52 minutes ago [-]
Contractor makes sense, consultant is a bit weird because the typical understanding is that a consultant comes in to share knowledge, not build product.
coredev_ 35 minutes ago [-]
I do not agree at all. The problem is both Palantir AND their customers. You have a choise not to make the tools and you have a chiose not to use the tools.
sippeangelo 1 hours ago [-]
Governments using Palantir services as a loophole to enable mass surveillance by linking data is the evil part.
bri3d 58 minutes ago [-]
How is Palantir a loophole?
I see this theory a lot (sometimes to justify their valuation, sometimes as a moral judgement, sometimes as an alarmist concern) but I genuinely don't see how this line of thought works in any of these dimensions. My understanding is that they're consultants building overpriced data processing products. As far as I know there isn't even usually a separate legal entity or some kind of corporate shenanigan at play; my understanding is that they send engineers to the customer to build a product that the customer owns and operates under the customer's identity as the customer. I certainly see how businesses like Flock are a "loophole;" they collect data which is unrestricted due to its "public" nature and provide a giant trove of tools to process it which are controlled only by what amounts to their own internal goodwill. But this isn't my understanding of how Palantir works; as far as I know they never take ownership of the data so it isn't "laundered" from its original form, and is still subject to whatever (possibly inadequate) controls or restrictions were already present on this data.
cheese4242 42 minutes ago [-]
They also used Google, Facebook, etc... as a loophole for suppressing freedom of speech in the past (and could still be for all I know).
SilverElfin 6 minutes ago [-]
There’s a lot of weird hype around Palantir, and I suspect bots that are propping them up in social media. For example look at how many meaningless comments on Twitter/X or YouTube videos mention Palantir’s “ontology”, whatever that means. Many of these comments literally will just say the word “Ontology” and nothing else, as if it is some mysterious superpower that Palantir has discovered. I suspect it is, as you said, just basic software but from a company that has no moral limits to what their software does.
26 minutes ago [-]
jeron 52 minutes ago [-]
>because the vendor is good at navigating the sales and compliance labyrinth to secure deals.
it's not just that. Alexandr Wang from Scale AI once said in a talk that they had to compete against Palantir for a gov contract. Palantir's salesmen have a high closing rate because they sell the software as if it were written by God itself. It's one hell of a sales strategy
cg5280 1 hours ago [-]
> The goals and motivation for using these tools, and their broad allowance of access to what should be highly controlled data (or in some cases even not collected at all) is the problem ... focus on the policy decisions that are leading to agencies wanting tools like this in the first place.
That's how Karp seems to justify these things. Palantir's job is to (in theory) make government better at doing government things. It's up to voters to keep the government in line.
thatguy0900 1 hours ago [-]
I mean you can say stuff like that but the reality is they purposefully named themselves after a super villains magical spy apparatus so I'm not inclined to take his word about them being ethically neutral. Like I'm not really sure what they could name themselves after that would be more ominous
ahazred8ta 39 minutes ago [-]
The palantirs were made by the elf lord prince Fëanor of Valinor, one of the good guys. The one we see in the film was given to the kings of Gondor and then pilfered by Saruman. (elvish palan 'far', tir 'watch over')
datsci_est_2015 26 minutes ago [-]
This almost makes it funnier? As if it’s the folly of creators to believe that their creations are by virtue untethered to morals and ethics, and it’s only through their use by amoral or unethical actors that they become so.
db48x 4 minutes ago [-]
Tools are always neutral. The hammer doesn't become evil merely because you used it to bash someone's brains in. Tools do not make choices; humans do.
ceejayoz 1 hours ago [-]
> they purposefully named themselves after a super villains magical spy apparatus…
Worse, that spy apparatus inherently corrupts its users.
From what I understood they were to read our data and provide some kind of insights. I don't think any of this happened, at least while I was there.
They talk about government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) - it's most likely the reason the company got into this contract, so Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac get some kind of data that they need in their systems.
phoehne 1 hours ago [-]
In another comment, I referenced Eichmann. A train is not a good thing or a bad thing. A rail car is not a good thing or a bad thing. Having an app that aggregates multiple different data sources and puts them together is not a good thing or a bad thing. It's the morality behind the hands into which we put that tools that matters. The more capable the tool, the more good or evil you can do with it. Maybe we should ask ourselves if this kind of a tool should exist at all, or there should be some level of process before it can be used. But the engineer at Palantir is just as guilty or not guilty in your eyes as the engineer fixing the trains or laying new track.
gegtik 1 hours ago [-]
any opinions on the german WW2 engineer laying neutral tracks toward Auschwitz
EDIT: sorry, that was glib. However I want to make the argument that the argument of doing "neutral" physical work is not absolutely morally absolving.
phoehne 41 minutes ago [-]
Yes. It's not, and I agree. There's no bright line that says you're morally culpable or you are not morally culpable for what you do. But all of us should think about our roles in that light. If Palantir uses Git, does that mean new Git contributions are part of what is arguably an ethnic cleansing? I wouldn't be able to sleep at night and work on this project. (I do not work at Palantir).
But the point is also that maybe we should take one step back and think about the morality of the people we put in decision making roles. The technology is morally neutral, but the intention is not. And helping to realize that intention is not. And sometimes the things we build can be used in horrible ways unless we also think about safeguarding their use.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. It is my very real fear that a lot of information has been aggregated into Palantir and other applications and is usable with no restraint. And that even if you just run the build system, across hundreds of apps, you might be culpable as well.
Shalomboy 29 minutes ago [-]
Well that's clearly an example of putting the cart before the horse. You should be able to sleep at night so long as you remember that Git isn't what enables Palantir to power an army of federalized brownshirts; it's the people making the tools explicitly for an army of federalized brownshirts with Git that are morally culpable.
shrubble 33 minutes ago [-]
There wasn’t anything built there until well after the tracks were laid, if I understand the logistics of that area correctly.
pfortuny 1 hours ago [-]
Mmmmhhhhhh it depends on what the engineer knows about the realistic uses of the tool. As a sibling comments, fixing the railroads to Auswichz might me morally wrong.
Eichmann knew what he was doing and, in any case, forcing dozens of thousands of people to move with less than a week's notice does not soynd quite "amoral".
miltonlost 56 minutes ago [-]
If you're working at Palantir, you know what you're working on.
Y-bar 56 minutes ago [-]
Producing Cyclon B is a doing a neutral thing apparently? So is building a system cataloguing all Jews and socialists in Berlin also a neutral thing? The officer ordering the legal building of large ovens and carpenter doing the bidding are not guilty? The soldier following the rules written by law that he should coral the ”visitors” and ”workers” is doing no good or bad thing because he has instructions and is not taking judgement on his work?
hydrogen7800 46 minutes ago [-]
>Producing Cyclon B is a doing a neutral thing apparently?
Without searching for references, it's my understanding that Fritz Haber developed this decades before the war, in conjunction with making synthetic fertilizer. It was later used for the purpose you referenced.
Y-bar 39 minutes ago [-]
I consciously used the word ”produce” rather than ”develop” or ”invent” to try to be clear that I meant ”[produce] from a factory”.
hydrogen7800 37 minutes ago [-]
Fair enough. In that case I agree.
thatguy0900 58 minutes ago [-]
You're missing the part where they named their train after a iconic artifact of evil famously used to do evil train stuff with for this metaphor to work
Y-bar 1 hours ago [-]
Palantir reminds me of IBM 85 years ago, only following requirements and requests from the government, never an accomplice. Extracting shareholder value from human suffering should not be criticised because the effect is one step removed from the engineering and company leadership. Why do the ethical thing when instead you can become rich?
When it's a government system, your issue is not really with the vendor, your issue is with the policymakers.
dabinat 49 minutes ago [-]
Sorry, but Palantir doesn’t get off that easy. They know full well how their technology is used. Just because a market exists that doesn’t mean you need to fill it. The tech industry could have taken a moral stand like the chemical industry did with execution drugs.
ambicapter 18 minutes ago [-]
If you watch any entrepreneur-focused channels, the entire premise of Palantir was "what if we just didn't care about what people think is ethically dubious? What if we went into business in all the places that people have traditionally shied away from for moral reasons?" It's part of Thiel's "Monopoly is good/You want to build the 0 to 1, not jump into a crowded market" mantra.
calvinmorrison 1 hours ago [-]
This is just an inversion of culpability. We know that theres virtually no relationship in our Republic with popularity of an initiative and it's passing into law.
But don't people elect their representatives? oh of course!
If your issue is with policymakers, then it is with the people.
This is also very stupid because - essentially when the government is evil you become skeptical of your neighbors, not 538 people who really control your life.
dpoloncsak 1 hours ago [-]
I think its kind of a conspiracy/"Open Secret" that Palantir was funded by the government to side skirt any "Government cannot...." rules. It's not the government breaking privacy regulations, its a private company doing it....just under contract of the government.
Thats the rhetoric on good ole r/WallSteetBets, atleast.
Theil and Karp definitely play into this angle as well, but that doesn't really prove anything other than they're hungry for investors
pixelready 1 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I don’t have any evidence for this but it certainly would make sense. It seems likely that the US government was catching wise to the data brokering loophole around the same time as the PayPal mafia was cashing out and Thiel would have been in the right circles to run into any well-connected gov’t types sniffing around for the most morally flexible big names in the valley. But it seems equally likely that Thiel just wanted to continue accumulating wealth and power to pursue his other authoritarian projects and the government had the biggest bag of cash around so he worked backwards from that.
If next I hear he’s planning to build a fabulous underwater city in international waters, I won’t be surprised. He enjoys his biblical themes, perhaps he can name it Rapture.
dpoloncsak 57 minutes ago [-]
Karp put out a whole book about how "Silicon Valley needs to be more willing to work with the government" too, post launch of Palantir.
Idk...any and every of these companies fielding government contracts with a name from LOTR seem off to me. Palantir, Anduril, Erebor....
anthem2025 1 hours ago [-]
[dead]
periodjet 21 minutes ago [-]
Why have we all lost the ability to think in a nuanced way? It’s very disturbing to witness, particularly on a forum like HN, ostensibly populated by smart people.
It’s possible to simultaneously believe that ICE has a clear and ethical mandate while also believing that they are going about fulfilling that mandate via bad methods that need to change.
It’s possible to simultaneously believe that people shouldn’t be marked as intrinsically “illegal” while also believing that an immigration queue should exist and skipping it is immoral and should be illegal.
Etcetera, etcetera.
You don’t HAVE to dedicate yourself to a fully polarized set of beliefs. Nuance is possible. What the hell is causing us to lose our minds like this? Is it really just social media? So frustrating to witness.
datsci_est_2015 1 minutes ago [-]
Unfortunately while proselytizing about nuance, the side with the power and the guns is working overtime to make it so there is only one valid set of beliefs, and those beliefs are “American”. This is no longer a symmetric conflict of ideologies, I’m not sure what it’s going to take for people to realize this. A tidal wave of blue in the midterms I think is the only hope a lot of us have left. Maybe if that doesn’t come to fruition, either legitimately or illegitimately, despondent Russian literature will start to resonate much more strongly for us.
insane_dreamer 9 minutes ago [-]
Because the use of ICE and its actions has become so extreme that it can’t be simply “moderated”. The Trump Admin is pushing it to extreme action. So unless that is removed the only possible response is a strong reaction. ICE gutted its own nuance.
R_D_Olivaw 10 minutes ago [-]
Yes yes, shoot mothers in the face in her car.
Grab human beings from their homes and detain them thousands of miles away with no due process.
Send human beings to detention camps in another country NOT the one they are from
Please, people, have some decency and maintain the nuance. We're not barbarians here! Sheesh.
periodjet 6 minutes ago [-]
This comment is a pretty robust example of the problem I was referring to.
smokel 13 minutes ago [-]
The core issue is not that people cannot think with nuance, but that nuance is costly and poorly rewarded.
periodjet 6 minutes ago [-]
I fear you may be right…
mentalfist 1 hours ago [-]
Since it's inception, Palantir has extracted roughly 10 billion usd taxpayer money from the US government. God bless America.
shevy-java 1 hours ago [-]
It is a de-facto corporate state right now. Everyone in the current government tries to see how much money they can steal.
stronglikedan 28 minutes ago [-]
It's been crony capitalism for decades now. Trump has been the only one that the corporations couldn't buy, hence why he's such a thorn in their sides, and by extension the sides of every other federal politician.
Ritewut 49 seconds ago [-]
This is one of the most insane things I've ever read. You have to be so disconnected from reality to believe this.
SaltyBackendGuy 13 minutes ago [-]
> Trump has been the only one that the corporations couldn't buy
Hasn't he accepted donations from many mega corporations? My assumption is that a corporation wont donate money, without the expectation of ROI.
1 hours ago [-]
helterskelter 1 hours ago [-]
I'm so free, I'm so free
I'm so free, I'm so free
Feel so good, now, I'm so free
Oh oh oh, I'm so free
detourdog 1 hours ago [-]
Lou Reed lyrics?
big_toast 1 hours ago [-]
Can people bring higher effort posts to this discussion so that this thread doesn't get pulled like the others?
Is there a specific product line that this app is using? What FOIA laws are applicable to its use? What kind of data does this provide? something else?
fudged71 12 minutes ago [-]
To tech leaders and hiring managers at other companies: If you're reading this, please consider publicly stating that your company will interview Palantir engineers who want to exit on moral grounds. Create an explicit off-ramp. Lower the barrier to leaving. Make it a tech industry norm that we offer refuge to engineers trying to do the right thing.
Only an idiot will think all of this is about "illegals"; this is a whole infrastructure of mass surveillance and "rogue" police. They might be after specific targets now, but once it's fully normalized, you are next. From data collection and aggregation, the invasive surveillance like Flock and Ring, the use of AI and apps, it's being carefully planned and rolled out for such a mission. There should be a platform to track the people who worked on building these technologies and apps. I would never trust or hire someone who has no morals and worked and spent hours making ELITE app or Flock Android systems or similar; these people are the enablers for such surveillance and should be held accountable.
bdangubic 7 minutes ago [-]
if you go by “morals” every FAANG employee (current and previous) would need to go plumbing school
randommar 1 hours ago [-]
Ah yes, beta-tested on Palestinians, how generous of them to ship the polished version to everyone else.
I have no strong feelings towards palantir. But the ones I do have are mostly negative.
However it seems crazy to me that even the idea of deporting people who have no legal status in this country is immediately branded Nazi. This just feeds extremism because it is extremism in and of itself
insane_dreamer 6 minutes ago [-]
People have been deported for decades but the manner in which deportations occur is important. There’s a world of difference between law enforcement and these brownshirts.
hnbad 2 hours ago [-]
Of course it's Palantir.
phoehne 2 hours ago [-]
"I was only in charge of transport" was not an excuse.
34 minutes ago [-]
backlava12 1 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
JKCalhoun 1 hours ago [-]
Don't they get a trial though? Do you send them to "rape prisons"?
Forgeties79 1 hours ago [-]
So you don’t care how cruel, humiliating, or terrorizing the process is because “it’s the law”?
backlava12 1 hours ago [-]
So you are okay with deporting illegals but you just don't like the way it's being done?
Could you please explain what deportation process you would find acceptable?
castis 59 minutes ago [-]
I for one would find it far more acceptable if the people carrying out the deportations would be a little less "shoot U.S. civilians in the face for not listening" about it.
variadix 45 minutes ago [-]
“Not listening” is really an incredible framing for trying to flee being detained for obstruction, and in the process hitting and nearly running over a federal agent in your SUV.
cheese4242 32 minutes ago [-]
Agreed. I'm continually shocked at the level of gaslighting still occurring around this event when we have clear footage from multiple angles.
cheese4242 46 minutes ago [-]
The person you are referring to rammed an ICE agent with their vehicle and the agent suffered internal bleeding as a result.
Sorry but there is no scenario where you can strike law enforcement with your car after being repeatedly ordered to exit your vehicle where their wouldn't be a justifiable use of lethal force. Trying to frame it as "shoot U.S. civilians in the face for not listening" is extremely disingenuous.
datsci_est_2015 22 minutes ago [-]
Regardless of the exact circumstances of that scenario, there has been no efforts towards even the most token forms of accountability, and your echoing of state propaganda only furthers their success. You are on the wrong side of history with this one. An armed state police force that exists above accountability (except to the executive) is by definition a Geheimestaatspolizei.
kevinsundar 33 minutes ago [-]
So the “ICE agent” presented identification to her showing he was law enforcement? Nope. Oh so he got out of a vehicle marked as ICE? Nope.
Do you want to live in a country where an unidentified masked individual with a gun can say “im a fed”, stop a car and force someone out without proper ID? That’s what you’re in support of. I’d say one would have a right to self defense.
Also internal bleeding was literally just a bruise, like the internal bleeding I get from walking into the corner of my coffee table.
These raids are the indiscriminate door to door raids right? There are lots of disturbing reports from these. For example ICE agents showing up at a white family’s door to ask which houses have Asian people living in them. The raids are blatantly unconstitutional (fourth amendment) but also, regardless of laws, they are well beyond the pale in terms of morality. It’s crazy that tech companies are willfully participating in this. Palantir must be treated as a criminal enterprise by the next non-GOP administration, and there should be consequences for everyone there. As someone else said, you don’t get to just say "I was only in charge of transport".
rambojohnson 1 hours ago [-]
This, along with the AI slop and agentic nonsense gutting real work, is exactly why I pivoted my career. The industry feels like it's being driven by chest-thumping, siege-heiling authoritarian inbreds at the top, propped up by tepid company-man shills who clap along and call it innovation while the place rots from the inside. my feed on LinkedIn gives me hives. I've since cancelled my account as well. good riddance. tech is dead and I hope the public doesn't have to yet again bailout some late-stage capitalist bullshit when yet another bubble bursts. /rant
1234letshaveatw 1 hours ago [-]
Doesn't your indiscriminate label preclude the involvement of tools like Palantir? Unless you want us to believe that the tooling is worthless. But then again, I find most of the anti-ICE arguments to be nonsensical.
buffington 34 minutes ago [-]
Indiscriminate can be defined as "done at random or without careful judgment" - I think the latter part of that definition perfectly describes ELITE.
I find it nonsensical to dismiss an anti-ICE argument because of one word.
SilverElfin 6 minutes ago [-]
Palantir is directing them to neighborhoods. The doors are being chosen indiscriminately and people are being stopped or detained on the street indiscriminately. So I don’t think those are in conflict.
> But then again, I find most of the anti-ICE arguments to be nonsensical.
That’s certainly your right and choice. But when we’re spending tens of billions a year on harassing immigrants, you should ask if it is better to just spend the money on supporting them instead. Our economy benefits greatly from immigrants.
farceSpherule 15 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
therobots927 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
baddie_twoshoes 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
casey2 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
noncoml 2 hours ago [-]
Fascistic is the word you are looking for
doktor2un 1 hours ago [-]
I tell my family to go out and be productive citizens.
Let’s see where they all are in a bunch of years.
Hikikomori 1 hours ago [-]
Sign up for ice and kill some libs?
shevy-java 1 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
cheese4242 44 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
oldjim798 40 minutes ago [-]
Do their boots taste good?
Just because you are nice to the oppressors, doesn't mean they won't come for you too.
cheese4242 38 minutes ago [-]
TIL if you can't ram somebody with your vehicle whenever you want to you are being oppressed
kevinsundar 23 minutes ago [-]
You can when they are wearing a mask and a gun and are trying to pull you out of your car. It’s called self defense.
cheese4242 21 minutes ago [-]
By this logic anybody could legally kill a police officer trying to arrest them.
alphawhisky 18 minutes ago [-]
TIL blind and deaf people can post on forums. Her last words were "It's ok, Im not mad". She received two orders from two agents, one to stay and one to leave. She tried to leave. History will remember you as a fascist and a traitor to your country.
cheese4242 5 minutes ago [-]
I mean it's pretty clear from the video that she and her wife were quite mad. They had been following ICE to multiple locations that day in an attempt to disrupt them and were blocking the roadway on purpose. Just because somebody says they aren't mad doesn't mean its true...
The person saying "Drive, baby drive" was her wife, not an agent.
She was clearly told 4 times to get out of the car in the seconds leading up to her pressing the accelerator. Can you please timestamp where some other agent told her to leave?
You are working so hard to build and manufacture the narrative that fits in your mind, to the point where it can justify the actions of the officer.
There is no justification for shooting a woman point blank in the face, and you know it.
wat10000 32 minutes ago [-]
Internal bleeding? Where do you get this nonsense? I keep seeing completely imaginary "facts" parroted about this case and I really want to know where they come from.
It’s kinda funny that conservatives don’t have the ability to think for themselves and rather just repeat what others tell them.
Internal bleeding = a bruise
cheese4242 19 minutes ago [-]
So you agree he was struck by the vehicle?
kevinsundar 16 minutes ago [-]
So you think there no other way in the world that ice agent would have a bruise? Is there any proof the bruise was from this incident? Did he have any bruises before from any other ice activity?
They are grabbing people day in and day out.
Again, think.
This was the same incident where the administration said they guy was fighting for his life after being struck by the car however:
“Eventually, the agent who shot the motorist approaches the vehicle. Seconds later, he turns back around and tells his colleagues to call 911. Agents blocked several bystanders who attempt to provide medical care, including one who identifies himself as a physician. At the same time, several agents, including the agent who opened fire, get in their vehicles and drive off, apparently altering the active crime scene.”
Think for yourself.
wat10000 26 minutes ago [-]
Has this been independently confirmed? I trust nothing these people say. Especially when the video shows nothing happening.
altruios 17 minutes ago [-]
'officials say' anything now-a-days... What a trustworthy time to be alive. /s
No. Wheels were turned away from the gestapo, gestapo was not hurt, gestapo is lying about injuries.
doktor2un 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
bradley13 1 hours ago [-]
The question you have to ask yourself, us this: How do you deport with millions of illegal immigrants? Propose a better system, considering the realities on the ground.
And, no, ignoring their existence is not an option, unless you want "millions" to become "tens of millions" or even more. Note also that mass deportations also happened under Biden and Obama - they just didn't attract the same publicity.
nitwit005 21 minutes ago [-]
You're assuming deportations work, but the evidence doesn't suggest that. Huge numbers of deportations have happened, with some people deported multiple times. Do you feel the problem is solved?
Ultimately, you have to fix the incentives. Fine the people hiring them, making it uneconomical, and you will remove the main incentive for people to enter the US illegally.
Our politicians have simply seemed fairly uninterested in holding business owners accountable.
idle_zealot 1 hours ago [-]
1) You don't deport them, you don't ignore them, you document them. Then you let them live their lives. They're people, not a mold outgrowth that needs culling.
2) Check those stats a bit more closely. The vast majority of "deportations" were people turned away at the border.
cheese4242 29 minutes ago [-]
Would you support deporting people who are criminals? Or have no intention of ever working and just want to live off various welfare programs? Trying to find some common ground here.
palmotea 17 minutes ago [-]
> 1) You don't deport them, you don't ignore them, you document them. Then you let them live their lives. They're people, not a mold outgrowth that needs culling.
I don't think that's a policy that would get majoritarian support in the US. The only people who can and should get deported are those who are not already not authorized to be here. If you don't deport them, it's functionally equivalent to an open-borders policy. Do you want more MAGA? Because open-borders is how you get more MAGA.
What you're proposing is also roughly analogous to a policy of not evicting squatters. If someone breaks into your house and decides to start living in one of your bedrooms, are you going to want them out or give them a key? The squatter is a person too, not a mold outgrowth that needs culling.
comrh 5 minutes ago [-]
There is broad support for Dreamers. It's not as simple as deport everyone here illegally and the public seems to understand that.
casey2 1 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
michaelmrose 59 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
cheese4242 46 minutes ago [-]
Godwin's Law invoked in record time. Such hyperbole is not conductive to real discussion.
michaelmrose 20 minutes ago [-]
Literal Nazi stuff
"These people are akin the mold growing upon a rotting city-state economy. They have to be removed." --our poster
"humanity suffers today under Jewish parasitism" --Adolf Hitler
It is this fake injury or mis-assignment of blame for real harm that serves as justification for actual crimes against humanity be they at CEDOT or Dachau
Immigrants aren't hurting us by existing.
sndkdkldl 50 minutes ago [-]
I bet houses in your suburb are a million a pop
negzero7 49 minutes ago [-]
This is disgusting hyperbole. Nazis killed millions of innocent people; a nation enforcing border laws by asking illegals to leave or removing them when they don't is not that.
michaelmrose 8 minutes ago [-]
We sent people who committed no crimes to a foreign concentration camp in a country that they aren't from and have killed several including citizens.
Our present admin holds that it can detain anyone it merely asserts is illegal without trial or any due process and ship them to such camps or hold them domestically indefinitely in fetid slums that if we fill with the millions they want picked up will become death camps due to illness, climate, privation, lack of medical care.
They have variously called for imprisoning and even executing law makers who speak up, shooting protesters, killing them and shutting down journalists who run negative press.
aswegs8 1 hours ago [-]
Since you're only getting blowback, I think taking tough action on immigration was a long time coming. I don't agree with the violent tactics, but exactly those people who couldn't settle on some sensible solution are the ones that fostered the current situation where the (anti-)immigration pendulum swings back hard.
commandlinefan 52 minutes ago [-]
That's where I'm stuck on this. When you have certain cities (or even entire states) saying "we will resist _any_ deportation effort", what choice does a deportation officer have than what they're doing right now?
NickC25 28 minutes ago [-]
>How do you deport with millions of illegal immigrants?
Make E-verify the federal minimum standard for ALL employers nationwide.
Fine the shit out of all businesses that don't comply. Fine the shit out of employers that hire illegal labor. We know who they are.
You don't deport them, you give them no reason to stay here because there'd be no work for them.
daheza 1 hours ago [-]
How about we treat people humanely?
How about we focus on the criminals and dangerous people first instead of getting people that have pending citizenship appointments. How about we don't grab people from hospitals, schools, and places of worship?
How about we try to get citizenship easier access for these folks who are clearly living and contributing successfully to our society?
How about we don't have masked thugs grabbing anyone of color off the street?
Its extremely easy to do better than they are. Biden and Obama did in fact do this and successfully. They are not trying to do it well, they are trying to do it cruelly. The cruelty is the point.
commandlinefan 50 minutes ago [-]
> focus on the criminals and dangerous people first
That's what they say they are doing? Every time I read about them arresting somebody who was "just picking their kids up from school", it turns out to be some professional agitator who was trying to get arrested in exchange for a photo op.
buffington 32 minutes ago [-]
> Every time I read about them arresting somebody...
You're clearly not reading enough and are a part of the problem if you believe what you're saying to be true.
commandlinefan 30 minutes ago [-]
I'm not 100% sure what to believe, but I have been around long enough to take everything I read with a grain of salt.
ambicapter 13 minutes ago [-]
Gonna need more than a grain these days.
negzero7 47 minutes ago [-]
They can self deport and get paid doing so, it doesn't get any more humane than that really.
cheese4242 26 minutes ago [-]
Cost-free travel back home, a $1,000 exit bonus, and forgiveness of any "failure to depart" fines. Quite generous.
Yet another reason why I find the haphazard comparisons to Nazi Germany/Gestapo so farcical.
1234letshaveatw 57 minutes ago [-]
Biden did not do it successfully, or most of anything really
michaelmrose 1 hours ago [-]
Number of immigrants has been slowly increasing or steady for decades. It's a fantasy that it's a crisis or that there is a risk of tens of millions flooding our shores. We mostly drastically benefit from products downstream from cheap labor while tacitly allowing those who don't get in trouble so we can continue to benefit from this.
We could have "solved" immigration decades ago with enough punative treatment of employers but didn't want to.
If you want to actually stop it you could just ramp up punative treatment of employers over the next 5 years while keeping other policies at Obama or Bush era.
Half the undocumented without us family members would self deport gradually whilst jobs dried up. Offer amnesty to productive people with family roots and no criminal record and you end up with a microscopic undocumented pop.
Meanwhile DSHS is tweeting a pic of an island paradise with the caption America after 100M deportations. There are around 12M undocumented but about 100M non-whites if you have trouble interpreting their meaning or intention.
1234letshaveatw 59 minutes ago [-]
Ah yes, the "fantasy" of housing price inflation and wage depression.
RIMR 1 hours ago [-]
1. You don't deport millions of undocumented people, you find a way integrate those who are willing to work (most of them) into your society.
2. Obama and Biden didn't get the same level of attention because they weren't being publicly antagonistic and racist, or using deliberately cruel tactics to accomplish their goals. Or breaking the law / violating the constitution to meet their ends.
whatthesmack 42 minutes ago [-]
> 1. You don't deport millions of undocumented people, you find a way integrate those who are willing to work (most of them) into your society.
How is that currently working out for all of Europe? Hint: not well at all.
> 2. Obama and Biden didn't get the same level of attention because they weren't being publicly antagonistic and racist, or using deliberately cruel tactics to accomplish their goals. Or breaking the law / violating the constitution to meet their ends.
You've made a lot of ambiguous accusations right here. Can you please give specific examples?
wat10000 30 minutes ago [-]
Example: Kavanaugh stops. Racial profiling is now legal thanks to our Supreme Court.
bongodongobob 1 hours ago [-]
[dead]
therobots927 1 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
kankerlijer 2 hours ago [-]
OK, so they've put together a dashboard. I don't like what's happening but this isn't some fearsome tech they're doing.
dghlsakjg 2 hours ago [-]
They put together a dashboard that presents probabilistic information. We already know from several facial recognition cases that some police have a hard time differentiating known facts from probabilistic guesses. We also know that many agents of the agency using this dashboard have relatively little training, and have demonstrated very loose understanding for of fundamental rights (47 days for new recruits currently).
I would be willing to lay a bet worth a significant portion of my net worth that this dashboard will end up being involved in multiple wrongful arrests of innocent people.
Anyone working on these products should ask themselves if they believe in what they build or if they are “just doing what they are told”. If the latter, consider the cohort of people who have previously used that justification.
warent 1 hours ago [-]
Palantir came to me multiple times over the years asking me to interview as a senior swe. The temptation was very strong back then. Insane pay package as you can imagine... but I had a really bad feeling about them and always turned them down.
What a huge relief. One of my best moments of foresight.
warent 2 hours ago [-]
Sure, they build innocent dashboards in the same way that your name is an innocent Dutch word. Obvious bad faith arguments coming from a troll.
kankerlijer 1 hours ago [-]
What exactly was my argument? Separate from what they are doing with it, a college grad could pop open PowerBI and build this thing quite easily. DHS gets their data from other agencies, not Palantir. Surely you must recognize that adding to Palantir's mystique as some bad ass tech company only perpetuates its appeal.
arjie 1 hours ago [-]
It appears that the name kankerlijer is an insult meaning "cancer patient", sort of like how in the US the phrase "fucking cunt" might be used (except without the gendered notion - just in severity).
a lot of dutch curses and insults come from diseases (kanker/cancer and typhus are common). one of a few things i really appreciate about the Dutch language is they really make the most of a relatively small common vocabulary (compared to english).
therobots927 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
bri3d 2 hours ago [-]
I don’t think this is true. Palantir are fundamentally a consultancy with a graph database and a map. They sell expensive “forward deployed engineer” consulting services to integrate things with their graph database and map. As far as I know they still don’t broker or share data - the customer provides the data and they provide the database and visualization. Has that changed?
therobots927 1 hours ago [-]
Okay so they have a “graph database” that transforms client data into actionable insights. I guess IBM didn’t tell the nazis who to kill either, they just sold them the punchcards so they could round them up.
bri3d 21 minutes ago [-]
I'm not trying to make an ethical judgement here; personally, I think there is certainly a reckoning to be had given the role ICE have taken on, and I don't think that "we just make the platform" excuses culpability.
However, my concern with the Palantir conversation (and your comment) is that people are giving them too much credit, essentially: there is a public opinion (stoked by Palantir leadership) that Palantir is some kind of superpowered evil fortress full of data allowing the government to circumvent checks and balances. As far as I can tell, really it's a consultancy with a graph database, and the checks and balances never existed in the first place. These two things are very different problems to solve.
> I guess IBM didn’t tell the nazis who to kill either, they just sold them the punchcards so they could round them up.
As an aside, this is a common talking point but has also struck me as odd because this is the foundational legal and ethical argument by which IBM continues to exist today. It's definitely food for thought but it's also not exactly a hot take.
gnarlouse 60 minutes ago [-]
I told somebody that Palantir is building the maid services and rat poison for a post-lower/middle class society. They didn’t believe me. Seeing this is vindicating.
backlava12 1 hours ago [-]
The thing is that a certain segment of the population if upset that illegals are being deported at all. So in articles/discussions like this I'm not sure how much of the concern is actually over the technology being used to do so or if the real concern is with the idea of deporting illegals period.
51 minutes ago [-]
elephantum 16 minutes ago [-]
Sounds like Palantir built a useful piece of software, nice job
Rendered at 20:49:06 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
The goals and motivation for using these tools, and their broad allowance of access to what should be highly controlled data (or in some cases even not collected at all) is the problem. Don’t give Palantir the bad-boy street cred they crave, focus on the policy decisions that are leading to agencies wanting tools like this in the first place.
I'm not trying to argue Palantir is an ethical company; my views on "company ethics" are nuanced but I wouldn't put them anywhere near my "places I want to work" bucket. But (contrary, perhaps, to their name), they're not some weird deep demonic trove of personal information; that's supplied to them by their customers, which is where change needs to happen.
Well, at least they're paying those consultants a lot of money, since they're charging a lot for them... right? Right?
I see this theory a lot (sometimes to justify their valuation, sometimes as a moral judgement, sometimes as an alarmist concern) but I genuinely don't see how this line of thought works in any of these dimensions. My understanding is that they're consultants building overpriced data processing products. As far as I know there isn't even usually a separate legal entity or some kind of corporate shenanigan at play; my understanding is that they send engineers to the customer to build a product that the customer owns and operates under the customer's identity as the customer. I certainly see how businesses like Flock are a "loophole;" they collect data which is unrestricted due to its "public" nature and provide a giant trove of tools to process it which are controlled only by what amounts to their own internal goodwill. But this isn't my understanding of how Palantir works; as far as I know they never take ownership of the data so it isn't "laundered" from its original form, and is still subject to whatever (possibly inadequate) controls or restrictions were already present on this data.
it's not just that. Alexandr Wang from Scale AI once said in a talk that they had to compete against Palantir for a gov contract. Palantir's salesmen have a high closing rate because they sell the software as if it were written by God itself. It's one hell of a sales strategy
That's how Karp seems to justify these things. Palantir's job is to (in theory) make government better at doing government things. It's up to voters to keep the government in line.
Worse, that spy apparatus inherently corrupts its users.
From what I understood they were to read our data and provide some kind of insights. I don't think any of this happened, at least while I was there.
They talk about government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) - it's most likely the reason the company got into this contract, so Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac get some kind of data that they need in their systems.
EDIT: sorry, that was glib. However I want to make the argument that the argument of doing "neutral" physical work is not absolutely morally absolving.
But the point is also that maybe we should take one step back and think about the morality of the people we put in decision making roles. The technology is morally neutral, but the intention is not. And helping to realize that intention is not. And sometimes the things we build can be used in horrible ways unless we also think about safeguarding their use.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. It is my very real fear that a lot of information has been aggregated into Palantir and other applications and is usable with no restraint. And that even if you just run the build system, across hundreds of apps, you might be culpable as well.
Eichmann knew what he was doing and, in any case, forcing dozens of thousands of people to move with less than a week's notice does not soynd quite "amoral".
Without searching for references, it's my understanding that Fritz Haber developed this decades before the war, in conjunction with making synthetic fertilizer. It was later used for the purpose you referenced.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cdc-and-palantir-pa...
When it's a government system, your issue is not really with the vendor, your issue is with the policymakers.
But don't people elect their representatives? oh of course!
If your issue is with policymakers, then it is with the people.
This is also very stupid because - essentially when the government is evil you become skeptical of your neighbors, not 538 people who really control your life.
Thats the rhetoric on good ole r/WallSteetBets, atleast. Theil and Karp definitely play into this angle as well, but that doesn't really prove anything other than they're hungry for investors
If next I hear he’s planning to build a fabulous underwater city in international waters, I won’t be surprised. He enjoys his biblical themes, perhaps he can name it Rapture.
Idk...any and every of these companies fielding government contracts with a name from LOTR seem off to me. Palantir, Anduril, Erebor....
It’s possible to simultaneously believe that ICE has a clear and ethical mandate while also believing that they are going about fulfilling that mandate via bad methods that need to change.
It’s possible to simultaneously believe that people shouldn’t be marked as intrinsically “illegal” while also believing that an immigration queue should exist and skipping it is immoral and should be illegal.
Etcetera, etcetera.
You don’t HAVE to dedicate yourself to a fully polarized set of beliefs. Nuance is possible. What the hell is causing us to lose our minds like this? Is it really just social media? So frustrating to witness.
Grab human beings from their homes and detain them thousands of miles away with no due process.
Send human beings to detention camps in another country NOT the one they are from
Please, people, have some decency and maintain the nuance. We're not barbarians here! Sheesh.
Hasn't he accepted donations from many mega corporations? My assumption is that a corporation wont donate money, without the expectation of ROI.
Is there a specific product line that this app is using? What FOIA laws are applicable to its use? What kind of data does this provide? something else?
https://www.404media.co/elite-the-palantir-app-ice-uses-to-f...
https://archive.ph/wa32f
However it seems crazy to me that even the idea of deporting people who have no legal status in this country is immediately branded Nazi. This just feeds extremism because it is extremism in and of itself
Could you please explain what deportation process you would find acceptable?
Sorry but there is no scenario where you can strike law enforcement with your car after being repeatedly ordered to exit your vehicle where their wouldn't be a justifiable use of lethal force. Trying to frame it as "shoot U.S. civilians in the face for not listening" is extremely disingenuous.
Do you want to live in a country where an unidentified masked individual with a gun can say “im a fed”, stop a car and force someone out without proper ID? That’s what you’re in support of. I’d say one would have a right to self defense.
Also internal bleeding was literally just a bruise, like the internal bleeding I get from walking into the corner of my coffee table.
These are LEGAL immigrants who have done it the right way being denied. That is worthy of protest.
I find it nonsensical to dismiss an anti-ICE argument because of one word.
> But then again, I find most of the anti-ICE arguments to be nonsensical.
That’s certainly your right and choice. But when we’re spending tens of billions a year on harassing immigrants, you should ask if it is better to just spend the money on supporting them instead. Our economy benefits greatly from immigrants.
Just because you are nice to the oppressors, doesn't mean they won't come for you too.
The person saying "Drive, baby drive" was her wife, not an agent.
She was clearly told 4 times to get out of the car in the seconds leading up to her pressing the accelerator. Can you please timestamp where some other agent told her to leave?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkOjILx3dO0
Possib
You are working so hard to build and manufacture the narrative that fits in your mind, to the point where it can justify the actions of the officer.
There is no justification for shooting a woman point blank in the face, and you know it.
Internal bleeding = a bruise
They are grabbing people day in and day out.
Again, think.
This was the same incident where the administration said they guy was fighting for his life after being struck by the car however:
“Eventually, the agent who shot the motorist approaches the vehicle. Seconds later, he turns back around and tells his colleagues to call 911. Agents blocked several bystanders who attempt to provide medical care, including one who identifies himself as a physician. At the same time, several agents, including the agent who opened fire, get in their vehicles and drive off, apparently altering the active crime scene.”
Think for yourself.
No. Wheels were turned away from the gestapo, gestapo was not hurt, gestapo is lying about injuries.
And, no, ignoring their existence is not an option, unless you want "millions" to become "tens of millions" or even more. Note also that mass deportations also happened under Biden and Obama - they just didn't attract the same publicity.
Ultimately, you have to fix the incentives. Fine the people hiring them, making it uneconomical, and you will remove the main incentive for people to enter the US illegally.
Our politicians have simply seemed fairly uninterested in holding business owners accountable.
2) Check those stats a bit more closely. The vast majority of "deportations" were people turned away at the border.
I don't think that's a policy that would get majoritarian support in the US. The only people who can and should get deported are those who are not already not authorized to be here. If you don't deport them, it's functionally equivalent to an open-borders policy. Do you want more MAGA? Because open-borders is how you get more MAGA.
What you're proposing is also roughly analogous to a policy of not evicting squatters. If someone breaks into your house and decides to start living in one of your bedrooms, are you going to want them out or give them a key? The squatter is a person too, not a mold outgrowth that needs culling.
"These people are akin the mold growing upon a rotting city-state economy. They have to be removed." --our poster
"humanity suffers today under Jewish parasitism" --Adolf Hitler
It is this fake injury or mis-assignment of blame for real harm that serves as justification for actual crimes against humanity be they at CEDOT or Dachau
Immigrants aren't hurting us by existing.
Our present admin holds that it can detain anyone it merely asserts is illegal without trial or any due process and ship them to such camps or hold them domestically indefinitely in fetid slums that if we fill with the millions they want picked up will become death camps due to illness, climate, privation, lack of medical care.
They have variously called for imprisoning and even executing law makers who speak up, shooting protesters, killing them and shutting down journalists who run negative press.
Make E-verify the federal minimum standard for ALL employers nationwide.
Fine the shit out of all businesses that don't comply. Fine the shit out of employers that hire illegal labor. We know who they are.
You don't deport them, you give them no reason to stay here because there'd be no work for them.
Its extremely easy to do better than they are. Biden and Obama did in fact do this and successfully. They are not trying to do it well, they are trying to do it cruelly. The cruelty is the point.
That's what they say they are doing? Every time I read about them arresting somebody who was "just picking their kids up from school", it turns out to be some professional agitator who was trying to get arrested in exchange for a photo op.
You're clearly not reading enough and are a part of the problem if you believe what you're saying to be true.
Over the Holidays they even increased the exit bonus to $3000: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/12/22/increased-incentives-dhs...
Yet another reason why I find the haphazard comparisons to Nazi Germany/Gestapo so farcical.
We could have "solved" immigration decades ago with enough punative treatment of employers but didn't want to.
If you want to actually stop it you could just ramp up punative treatment of employers over the next 5 years while keeping other policies at Obama or Bush era.
Half the undocumented without us family members would self deport gradually whilst jobs dried up. Offer amnesty to productive people with family roots and no criminal record and you end up with a microscopic undocumented pop.
Meanwhile DSHS is tweeting a pic of an island paradise with the caption America after 100M deportations. There are around 12M undocumented but about 100M non-whites if you have trouble interpreting their meaning or intention.
2. Obama and Biden didn't get the same level of attention because they weren't being publicly antagonistic and racist, or using deliberately cruel tactics to accomplish their goals. Or breaking the law / violating the constitution to meet their ends.
How is that currently working out for all of Europe? Hint: not well at all.
> 2. Obama and Biden didn't get the same level of attention because they weren't being publicly antagonistic and racist, or using deliberately cruel tactics to accomplish their goals. Or breaking the law / violating the constitution to meet their ends.
You've made a lot of ambiguous accusations right here. Can you please give specific examples?
I would be willing to lay a bet worth a significant portion of my net worth that this dashboard will end up being involved in multiple wrongful arrests of innocent people.
Anyone working on these products should ask themselves if they believe in what they build or if they are “just doing what they are told”. If the latter, consider the cohort of people who have previously used that justification.
What a huge relief. One of my best moments of foresight.
Didn't know so caching this here for others.
However, my concern with the Palantir conversation (and your comment) is that people are giving them too much credit, essentially: there is a public opinion (stoked by Palantir leadership) that Palantir is some kind of superpowered evil fortress full of data allowing the government to circumvent checks and balances. As far as I can tell, really it's a consultancy with a graph database, and the checks and balances never existed in the first place. These two things are very different problems to solve.
> I guess IBM didn’t tell the nazis who to kill either, they just sold them the punchcards so they could round them up.
As an aside, this is a common talking point but has also struck me as odd because this is the foundational legal and ethical argument by which IBM continues to exist today. It's definitely food for thought but it's also not exactly a hot take.