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Regardless of one's opinions of Thiel, most opposition to Palantir would be political rather than personal. This firm's actions have made society poorer and less free, in multiple nations.

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Care to cite an example?

Anyone who wants to quibble that it's fine to lock up people who lack documentation or who live across the street from a drug dealer, can have that conversation without me. I'm sure if you consult a search engine you can find lots of other stuff like this:

https://slate.com/technology/2019/05/documents-reveal-palant...

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict...

Which is it, detractors-- Palantir's products are smoke and mirrors, or they are effectual at making society less free?

Apparently some of Palantir's line is so secret we don't know about it. The products we have heard of, like "Gotham" (?!!), are ineffective at the task of "assisting police without violating human rights". That task is important to humans, but not to some of those who decide where police departments spend money. It's a principal-agent problem.

If a product aimed at law enforcement, say, doesn't work, but does make law enforcement more arbitrary, then both are satisfied.

Not saying that's the case here, but one could be forgiven for assuming that a lot of 'predictive policing' stuff is snake oil, but dangerous snake oil.

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