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Comment by Ozzie_osman | Hacker News Reader

I posted this a few days ago on a separate Palantir-related thread, but it probably is more relevant here. The world could use fewer Alex Karps. -- This quote from the CEO of Palantir (Alex Karp) haunts me. --- > “I actually am a progressive,” he said. “I want less war. You only stop war by having the best technology and by scaring the bejabers — I’m trying to be nice here — out of our adversaries. If they are not scared, they don’t wake up scared, they don’t go to bed scared, they don’t fear that the wrath of America will come down on them, they will attack us. They will attack us everywhere.”

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Is he wrong?

This has historically been very true. The nuclear deterrent has significantly decreased the probability of civilian or armed forces dying as a result of conflict globally.

The nuclear deterrent works because of MAD. If only one nation had the capacity for nuclear weapons, there's a strong case to be made that we'd be living in a totalitarian world state or at the very least vassals to the dominant state.

The US had a monopoly on nuclear weapons for nearly four years.

Cool, now imagine if Nazi Germany had that monopoly.

Or what would happen if something like it would happen today.

Russia is pretty much nazi now (superior Russian genes and soul + genocide of Ukrainians) and they are not exactly swinging them but definitely sabre rattlin.

Israel is not using theirs on Gaza either.

Russia does not use nukes because the US and EU exists as deterrents.

Also there's a reasonable chance that some of them won't work correctly which will then weaken Russia's show of strength

To be clear I'm referring to a new superweapon or defence scheme being invented that somehow makes nukes obsolete.

Imagine what Trump would do. He is already trying (and mostly failing) to strong-arm all his allies today.

And the DoD pushed - several times - for their use in China to limit it's economic growth. Look it up.

I'm sure they planned to use them everywhere. Hell, we planned to blow up nuclear weapons US in order to make canals.

Yet, it never happened. Actions matter.

It's not my impression that an extremely aggressive attitude helps safety, no. There is a reason for "they will attack us everywhere" and quite some part of that is the "wrath of America" coming down on them some time in the recent past (either directly or via proxy, like Israel).

Obviously having a military is a necessity and there is some truth to what he is saying, but it's also superficial and short-sighted. It's a strategy that works great right up the moment your back is turned or you're not paying attention for a minute. There's always going to be nutjobs out there doing nutjob things, but at times the US has almost gone out of their way to create enemies.

I think this is a reference that if you want peach, one must prepare for war.

That includes offensive and defensive options, and being able to show you can stand up to others when it comes to other nations that have other views and moral beliefs.

You can do that without creating a single unaccountable entity housing everyone's data. In fact, it is a weakness to have a single point of failure.

Strength is a deterrent, no doubt. But there's a difference between having strength, and wanting your so-called enemies to go to bed scared and wake up scared.

Never been punched in the face I see?

I haven’t given anyone a reason to want to punch me in the face :)

The attacks happen unprovoked and usually at the weak

Your argument is that stronger nations bully weaker nations, and somehow this supports the idea that there should be only one strong nation.

Seems exactly like someone who knows the equivalent of being punched in the face. Thats not a deterrent, it's an action that provokes retaliatory action from a place of fear of needing to defend ones self. If a group is dangerous enough for one to think they could do harm, leaving them without options/scaring them is an awful strategy

You want to deter wild animals, not scare or corner them. Rattlesnakes want to deter you from stepping on them, not scare you into doing so.

If I'm stuck living with someone and they regularly punch me in the face for "preventative" reasons, I'll put rat poison in their coffee.

Domestic abuser logic seems ill-advised as foreign policy. Everyone already knows the US MIC can kill them personally with impunity if wished.

Yet Russians are laughing in America’s face every way imaginable.

That's because we elected a clown, not because our military is weak.

Obama and Biden were clowns?

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken

"I can get the drug prices down… 1000% 600% 500% 1500%. Numbers that are not even thought to be achievable." - Donald J. Trump, POTUS

Your military will get weak when the clown replaces competent people with clowns loyal to the top clown.

Is it worth it? Like 70 million people died in WWII but an estimated 5 billion will die in a full nuclear exchange. That's like 70 world wars worth of people.

Was the nuclear deterrent a tool that could be used outside of war to spy on basically anyone on earth?

George Orwell famously argued that the decline of the English language contributes to muddled thinking and political dishonesty. He probably can't imagine how far this can actually go

The reality of course is that he is right. The entire history of the world including as late as 2022 demonstrates that.

Almost a paraphrase of the Melian dialogue in Thucydides

Progressive dementia, perhaps. If you get human beings who are ideologically programmed to go on suicide missions and believe they're reaping an eternity in heaven it blows the most enormous hole in such transparently self-serving, as cartoonishly idiotic as insane logic.

It's not wrong. Putin felt free to attack Ukraine because he wasn't scared of the consequences. You need psychopaths to make a coldly rational decision not to mess with you, in international relations, and you do that by being prepared and willing to respond.

You're making the case for why it is so dangerous for the world that one nation/company has this much power over others.

Absolutely not. He's making exactly the opposite case. America behaved too weakly towards Russia and that's how they got away with starting a bloody war.

All nations are only beholden to their own citizens and only cooperate with other nations out of self interest.

The only periods of relative peace that the world has ever seen have been during the reign of a supreme hegemonic power.

Again, you're not making the argument you think you are.

"Russia attacked a weaker country because it is stronger. This is why we need one country to be stronger than any other country."

Mutually Assured Destruction works because of the Mutually part.

You're not reading what I'm saying then. Never did I mention anything about MAD. I talked about hegemony. The opposite thing. If you insist on understanding the opposite from what I write again then I must interpret it as willful.

> Putin felt free to attack Ukraine because he wasn't scared of the consequences.

That doesn’t change by letting palantir build the surveillance state.

Putin wasn’t scared of the consequences because he knew it would be politically suicidal the west to risk escalation to a large mainland European war that’s been mostly considered a relic.

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