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Comment by ralop | Hacker News Reader

Palantir is extremely bad, but this not making the point you want to make. Hamas infamously wears civilian clothes during combat and operates out of civilian structures in civilian zones. We ought to oppose the destruction of democracy and the arrival of dystopia without defending terrorism.

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My point is about military efficiency, which is measured by avoiding civilian casualties.

Palantir's tech is the opposite of that.

But they aren't civilians, the computer said so! /s

The Nuremberg defence meets "a computer must never make a management decision."

Relevant book: Unaccountability Machines - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo252799...

Amusingly, I started reading it without knowing it was from the same author as another book I'd read before about the economics of scams, Lying For Money.

They avoided larger number of civilian casualties/deaths.

The strikes will happen, and if you did not know of the approximate location, you will then use more saturation strikes for _even more_ locations to ensure target is hit.

The fact that a target _needs_ to be hit is indisputable.

> The fact that a target _needs_ to be hit is indisputable.

At best, you're confusing "indisputable" with "an input or requirement imposed by the user."

At worst, the software is suggesting who ought to be killed, the user trusts the software, and then the software trusts the user's choice, and the magic of circular-logic supposedly absolves everyone involved of responsibility when murder happens.

The underlying ethos here is “the target must be hit, regardless of the number of civilian casualties,” which is actually evil. “Palantir allowed us to go from 10000 civilian casualties per target hit to 9000” is not some win, it’s a confession of genocidal intent.

Do you expect Hamas to line up in a field and go to war like it’s the 18th century?

My memory is a bit rusty, but I can't recall any time that "we would have lost if we didn't do it" was used as a successful defense at a war crimes trial.

Normally you go with "that didn't actually happen" or "that was an isolated incident by rogue commanders".

I have no idea what your point is? I suppose you’re implying they should just give up? Sure I’d support that so long as the other side also give up.

And let’s be clear, Isreal commit plenty of war crimes of their own using excuses you describe. Personally that seems more morally reprehensible to me given it is utterly unnecessary.

I am curious with all the import restrictions how easy it is to get non-civilian clothes. Proper uniforms would not be high on my list.

> We ought to oppose the destruction of democracy and the arrival of dystopia without defending terrorism.

One might argue that tech like this was built thanks to terrorism.

Criticising an ongoing genocide, one aided by """AI""" sv tech at that, is not defending terrorism. Jesus Christ.

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