Reflections on Palantir

I worked there in the weird era. A couple things.

1. As per usual, the things that make palantir well known not even close to being the most dubious things.

2. I agree that the rank and file of palantir is no different from typical sv talent.

3. The services -> product transition was cool, I didn't weigh it as much as should've, but I did purchase fomo insurance after they ipo'd

4. The shadow hierarchy was so bad, it's impossible to figure out who you actually needed to talk to.

It would also be interesting to hear thoughts on the company of somebody like Cory Doctorow.

Edit: aha, found. https://doctorow.medium.com/how-palantir-will-steal-the-nhs-...

"Palantir is one of the most sinister companies on the global stage, a company whose pitch is to sell humans rights abuses as a service. The customers for this turnkey service include America’s most corrupt police departments, who use Palantir’s products to monitor protest movements.

Palantir’s clients also include the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal agency who rely on Palantir’s products for their ethnic cleansing..."

Basically because everyone here is an immigrant of some sort just maybe not first generation. Also because the vast majority of people who show up at the Mexican border are fleeing horrific violence and when you are fleeing horrific violence it is difficult to always do things by the book. And also it is a reaction to just how poorly these people that otherwise would be classified as refugees get treated. Under Trump in particular family separation became the norm and courts who oversaw immigration cases had kids as young as 4 brought before a judge without family or legal representation.

A week ago Alejandro Arcos was decapitated right after he took office as mayor of the city of Chilpancingo, a city of around 280,000 people.

Some approximate stats:

Mexico has 45,000~ murders a year. The United States has about 25k a year.

The population of Mexico is 130m. The population of the US is 350m.

One can't derive the distribution of motivations that bring immigrants from these statistics. That said, I'd call that an alarming about of horrific violence. It's safe to say it's not evenly distributed over the whole of Mexico. It's easy to imagine being motivated to move by those statistics/events.

Like everything, it's probably a spectrum of motivations. More opportunities, better schools, fewer decapitations?

I agree that's very bad, but shouldn't in this context "horrific violence" be kept for countries under actual war ?

(And specifically the towns where most buildings have been destroyed and most people died or fled.)