Reflections on Palantir

> During the 2016-2020 era especially, telling people you worked at Palantir was unpopular. The company was seen as spy tech, NSA surveillance, or worse.

Lots of people still see it in exactly this way. The fact that Palantir IPO'd and is a magnet for investors doesn't contradict this. Palantir always had a reputation for champagne and surveillance.

So does AT&T and Verizon which would fall in the morally neutral category. Even big tech - Google/meta are probably classified as morally neutral but in reality gray areas. The US government probably has access to all that data - with our without warrants.

I also agree with his premise. There is really no gray area working for defense tech in the US. In my opinion people have a rather lopsided view of that. You would rarely find any other nation that where defense tech companies are turned away from job fairs. Kinda ridiculous.

>You would rarely find any other nation that where defense tech companies are turned away from job fairs. Kinda ridiculous.

Probably because US MIC is weird political place. On one hand, it's turns out really cool tech and US needs defense. On other hand, who are we defending from and why are spending all this money on world police when we have a ton of internal problems? Throw in some pork barrel in there to add to political stuff.

When people post memes about "You are about to find out why US doesn't have free healthcare." with some overwhelming American firepower equipment in the image, it's not hard to see why a lot of people find it a grey area.

> On other hand, who are we defending from and why are spending all this money on world police when we have a ton of internal problems?

Because someone has to be this if you want the continuation of the post-WWII rules-based international order that underpins the entire global economy. The Department of Defense and US hegemony are essentially overhead that is the Least Bad Option to stop WWIII from kicking off or the world from fragmenting into spheres of influence (which is starting to happen already). Who else would do this and not screw over everyone else even worse? Russia? China?

Great. So Americans get to be the suckers propping up the decent lifestyles of the rest of the western world and much of Asia and the ME.

This country has a collapsing middle class, horrendously bad health outcomes, ever increasing amount of corruption and little chance to turn things around because of entrenched interests.

I can just picture the thought process going in your head(and many others) right now. If you hate it so much why dont you leave.

> Americans get to be the suckers propping up the decent lifestyles of the rest of the western world and much of Asia and the ME

America benefited greatly from this position though, it's just the gains have not been equally distributed, and one can make an argument that Americans simply vote for that outcome. It is very unclear to me how the situation of the middle class in the US becomes any better if the US gives up its leverage for Chinese to dictate the terms. FWIW pre-WW1 the US had even worse inequality while not propping up anyone's lifestyle abroad.

>It is very unclear to me how the situation of the middle class in the US becomes any better if the US gives up its leverage for Chinese to dictate the terms. FWIW pre-WW1 the US had even worse inequality while not propping up anyone's lifestyle abroad.

This was explained in the other post which I will reproduce here:

"looking at history of the US, the only time the people at the top ever gave any semblance of crumbs to everyone else was when they knew they were in deep trouble and were forced to part with whatever little they could give to calm the masses.

Think of Medicare, Social Security etc. We saw it again with Obamacare. The country was in a rage so out came the bare minimum. Elimination of barbaric things like pre-existing conditions in exchange for guaranteed income for the insurance companies. Absolute breadcrumbs but it was something.

We just need something like that on a worldwide level. Maybe China rising will finally put pressure on the US given that the EU never amounted to much more than being a US vassal state."

We saw the best of the US system during the cold war. The system had to prove itself. Im not advocating for communism nor Chinese style fascism just more competition.

The third world is already taking advantage of this situation. Nearly every country in the global south has been negatively damaged by the US or Europe at some point. They don't have many options other than to tough it out and hopes the West leaves them with whatever scraps they can get by. If they got too powerful, then the West topples them over. See Pakistan or Bolivia as a recent example. Now China has entered the scene and it has provided the ability for countries to start playing the US and China off of each other to see what they can get out of both countries. Djibouti and its military bases is a small example but we see it with countries like Brazil and Pakistan as well.

How would this help the middle class in the US? Well if the elite in the US start to think they will lose out they will start to enact change that will bring the middle class up to snuff in order to better compete...and lets be honest for a moment, whatever they say goes.

If you believe that the progress is achieved when the masses have it the worst, then the deteriorating condition of the American middle class will naturally help it. What's the point in this accelerationism with allies as casualties then?

>If you believe that the progress is achieved when the masses have it the worst, then the deteriorating condition of the American middle class will naturally help it.

Thats what we have seen historically. People always demand improvements. The leadership of this country hasn't actually done it until they really have a pissed off populace at their doorstep. I wouldn't believe it if it weren't for the historical precedent.

>What's the point in this accelerationism with allies as casualties then?

Americans should be first in line when it comes to who the government serves but if you just look at the US government's actions vs other governments in the west, the US government clearly does not have their citizens interests first and foremost.

Think of all the rights and regulations the EU(or hell even many third world countries) have vs the US.

It manifests itself in so many ways:

Some easy examples demonstrating small issues as well as big ones:

1. EU countries mandate physical addresses for VOIP number registration. US spends years not implementing its half assed regulations Result: Americans are drowning in spam calls

2. EU negotiates drug prices as a government and refuses to pay more than a specific %. Companies would rather get something vs nothing from the EU market. US despite being the largest market, refuses to negotiate as a government even though they have a universal health program(for seniors only but thats a different issue). Result: American made drugs are sometimes up to 10x more expensive in the US than elsewhere. A vial of insulin in EU: ~9$ USA: ~99$

3. US sends its Navy to patrol world seas, ensuring flow of goods. Result: EU does not meet required 2% of NATO spending and instead funnels that money into social services like subsidized colleges. Result: US citizens either drown with a lifetimes worth of college debt or take a chance in the Military for subsidized college after giving up 4+ years of their young adult life serving their military contract while EU citizens graduate debt free and take a gap year traveling instead.

I can go on for literal dozens of examples. I specifically chose to go from small to big to show that the problem is systemic and permeates all aspects of American life. In many ways the American system is one giant scam and they only people benefiting are people who have managed to survive in the upper echelons of the income stratosphere or are foreigners.

If the US changed its focus to be more inward, it can focus on rebuilding manufacturing which would increase jobs availability and give more power to workers which would lead to other rights for the common man such as demanding more from the government to help US peoples among many other examples.