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Comment by FrankWilhoit | Hacker News Reader

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FTR I don't necessarily believe that designing better arms is inherently unethical. But if one did, this is why your counterargument wouldn't make sense:

Knife sales are close to zero-sum, but Palantir is innovating with its lethal technology for the sole purpose of being a more effective weapon. If you were stabbed to death by a knife that is somehow designed specifically to be deadlier or harder to defend against, would you call its designer evil?

> If you were stabbed to death by a knife that is somehow designed specifically to be deadlier or harder to defend against, would you call its designer evil?

No, I’d call them innovative if that’s what the market was looking for.

Would you have said the same thing about a medieval blacksmith cresting a new type of sword?

Peter Scully was morally just because there was a market for his content

> No, I’d call them innovative if that’s what the market was looking for.

Well you wouldn't call them anything because you'd be dead. But it's nice that even in death, you're still considering shareholder value above all else.

> Would you have said the same thing about a medieval blacksmith cresting a new type of sword?

I mean yeah, probably, if it's uniquely bad and uniquely dangerous.

Yes building evil things is evil. To me, that isn't controversial. If I build the torment nexus I'm probably an evil person.

Obviously, there's levels here, and I think appealing to... sigh... knives is pretty disingenuous.

Everything is a matter of scale. What's the difference between a nuclear bomb and a knife? I mean, besides plutonium. Scale. One can harvest the lives of millions in the blink of an eye, and one is a knife.

That's why I don't cut my bread with a nuclear warhead.

Knives are useful for things that help everybody. Everything Palantir makes hurts somebody.

it's not their fault but we still have a social need to regulate the tool. We shouldn't enable mass surveillance on Americans. There is a 100% chance that it will be abused.

Selling knives might not be evil, but that doesn't imply that there's no level of weaponry that would be immoral to sell. Would selling fully automatic rifles be evil? What about chemical weapons, or nuclear bombs? The question is where to draw the line, which is subjective, but I'd argue that most people would draw the line _somewhere_, and I don't think it's as clear-cut as you're trying to imply where stuff like auotmated surveillance software falls.

If that knife was a legal person, then yes

this would be more like an autonomous knife stabbing machine than a knife. palantir automates the use of weapons. they don't make weapons themselves

It needs to be a "cloud connected" autonomous knife stabbing machine if you want that sweet VC money.

That is so ten years ago. Back then, we needed mobile-first knife-stabbing machine control software. Today's VC money only goes to knife stabbing machines with onboard ML for autonomous, on-the-fly targeting decisions.

I personally wouldn't, but to play devil's advocate and going with the Lord of the Rings theme.

Yeah weapons and objects themselves are often referred to explicitly as imbued with lightness and darkness in universe.

A company is not an inanimate object; it is a collection of people working towards a shared goal. A knife cannot be evil, but a company (or, if you wish to be pedantic, the people who make up the company) can be.

What would a knife manufacturer have to do to be considered evil?

Make knives that can only be used to kill people and solicit/provide the knives to bad actors who you know will use the knives for the purpose they were developed for?

make an AI-powered knife that wants to stab as many people as possible, then market and sell it to despotic regimes.

I mean, I kind of reject where this line of questioning is going; I consider most of Palantir's product line to be inherently unethical, so I reject the notion that they can be considered a simple tool manufacturer, like a knife manufacturer could be.

The manufacturer giving the knives out to government agencies explicitly so that they can stab civilians more efficiently

I think it would be fitting to call knives which sole purpose is to stab people evil. A trench knife for instance would have no purpose in the modern world outside of being evil.

I might say the knife sales man who stands outside bars known for violence yelling “my knife stabs better!” could be evil.

...would you pay for the upkeep of the knife because of its notoreity, and the hopes that it doesn't stab you?

I think this analogy is dishonest.

What is a company if not the people who work there and drive some vision forward?

What would Tesla be without Elon?

It sure looks like the company is a tool for Peter and his ilk, to enable and extend state surveillance, to limit people’s capacity to stand up to corrupt and evil governments.

I’d suggest you read up on Thiel’s and Yarvin’s beliefs. Palantir sure seems more of a projection of those beliefs rather than a mere tool that by itself has no purpose.

You sound as if you think he would go on with it even if he had no customers.

It’s worth reading 0 to 1, it outlines Thiel’s views on startups, which can be illuminating on his broader views.

He emphasizes that sales and distribution are just as important as the product itself, and he is particularly blunt about the need to convince people to become customers, even if your product is truly superior.

> “If you’ve invented something new but you haven’t invented an effective way to sell it, you have a bad business — no matter how good the product.”

Thiel argues that great products don’t sell themselves, contrary to the romanticized idea many founders have. Even if your product is objectively better, people won’t automatically understand or adopt it. You must persuade them, market effectively, and create distribution channels — either through salespeople, viral growth loops, partnerships, or targeted marketing — to bridge the gap between product and user adoption.

...all of which (vile and horrifying in its own right, but not at all original) applies to mass-market products. The market for Palantir is extremely small and the demand -- even, or especially, at the level of a wish-list -- extremely inelastic. I still say, without that demand, no Palantir -- unless Thiel had funded its entire development out of his own pocket. (Perhaps he did; all the sicker.)

Yes, demand can be created; but where it is spontaneous, it is also the only possible target of blame.

Doing unethical things for a profit motive doesn't magically make them ethical.

If said knife were used to murder a child then, yes, I would consider the knife to be an evil object.

A knife developed and sold by a company that collects usage and personal data of everyone that touches it and does central analysis for political purposes: Yes, that's an evil knife company.

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