Hacker News Reader

Comment by rvz | Hacker News Reader

You should also include Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI, IBM, Anthropic, and any tech company that has a defence contract with the US Department of Defence / War and ICE or any government.

Yet the big problem is of course for those being “principled” about this subject are not serious themselves as some either work there and profit from it, continue to use their products including LLMs or will concede to using them due to social inertia.

The only time this is taken seriously is when all these contracts are scrapped. (They won’t be.)

View on HN

I think the difference is that Palantir is significantly more focused on federal contracts, particularly those related to defense/surveillance.

Large tech companies are defense contractors now.

WDYM "now"? Companies that get large enough get contracts. Even apple sold power macs iphones and ipads to us mil.

I'm throwing out my iPhone and moving to Tibet.

China occupied Tibet?

Logical choice if you hate America and oppose the idea of defending it.

Companies that submit bids for contracts get contracts. You would be surprised at the diversity of size and scale of companies which service defense contracts in particular - very small companies can end up in big supply chains because they're the ones who turn up to make the part.

Is there a time they weren’t?

Google got their first DoD contract in 2003 from DARPA.

Facebook was Life Log, Oracle was Project Oracle. None of the household names in tech are playing straight.

What does “Playing straight” mean?

There doesn’t exist a serious technology company ever in the history of technology that didn’t support the state they incorporated in.

Of course that's the goal, but stopping new contract is 1 step toward the goal my friend, got to stop whining and take baby step.

You are saying stopping new coal mine means that everyone need to stop heating now and freeze to death this winter.

Don't let the best be the enemy of the good.

As a worker in one of the companies above, I can tell you that we aren’t willing to do just “whatever” to win contracts. We have real responsible AI reviews etc. We would not just hand over data to the US government. It doesn’t seem that way at Palantir.

But the issue is, and I am not someone saying we should or can throw everything out, that if the US gov demands it, you have to hand over the data right? If your HQ is in the US? Palantir, for me, is worse because of what they are and their communications as you say, but all of these, when compelled by the courts, have to hand over right?

best not to do business with any foreign country then. neo-isolationism becomes global and all it took was a second Trump term.

"all it took was a total loss of international confidence"

Absolutely. We should not contract any of these companies and use British companies instead.

I'm sure AMSTRAD could knock up a few data centres for a couple o quid

Why stop there? You should also boycott the investment firms behind these tech companies, like Y Combinator, and their Internet forums like Hacker News.

When one domino falls, it will cause many to fall at once

As cliche is it to cry whataboutism, this clearly is. Incrementalism is better than nothing. Sanctimony is FUD. If even one company is suffers at least it’ll serve as a warning to the others.

So we can’t take it seriously until the problem is already solved?

I think the worry regarding Palantir is that it is explicitly and openly fascist rather than just doing fascism on the side

Reply on news.ycombinator.com