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Comment by throwaway5752 | Hacker News Reader

Of course it is Erik Prince's company.

to clarify: Erik Prince founded Blackwater, of the Nisour Square Massacre infamy in the GW Bush administration. He is deeply tied to Republican politics, mercenary work, and particularly the Trump administration. He is IPOing an autonomous lethal drone company, Swarmer, and his other company, Vectrus, is behind the events of this article.

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> Blackwater, of the Nisour Square Massacre infamy in the GW Bush administration

And sadly the infamy continued into the prior Trump administration. In 2020 Trump pardoned all four employees who had been convicted in 2014.

Haven't heard this name before, would someone care to fill me in on a tl;dr? Sounds horrendous.

Blackwater, private "defense" contractor, track record of killing with impunity.

What do all the worst companies in the world have in common? Blackstone, Blackrock, Blackwater ..?

Always that Black prefix, like something out of a bad action movie.

Well, where do you think they got their ideas from?

Well, palantier dont have black in the name and is the same awful.

Palantir is the seeing stone used by Sauron to do surveillance in LOTR

I've always wondered if they just didn't get the reference or if they are just self-aware that they are evil.

In the books its not just that sauron uses it for evil, he also can use it to turn anyone else that uses it evil.

To me it feels like an inside joke. Like there's one guy out there who pointed out that they're Sauron and they're fucking with him specifically.

The Palantir themselves aren’t evil, they were made by the elves long before the events of LOTR. Essentially they are just a tool.

However I heard that Thiels favourite book is the rewrite of LOTR from the perspective of Sauron, where Gandalf and the elves seek to destroy humanity and technology (at least that’s how I understood the gist, haven’t read it)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer

Technically the Palantiri were a force for good in the hands of Elves and Men, and could still be used for good, like Aragorn using it to challenge Sauron and forcing Sauron’s hand. So that’s a defense to the self-awareness argument. In fact that ambiguity is likely intentional.

Btw I always wondered why I was seeing droves of Palantir swag on Stanford campus back in early 2010s. I wouldn’t wear something that has a 50%+ chance of being interpreted as evil.

The AI of Sauron? The actual eye in the underworld and its proxy on Earth?

The scoundrels at Black & Decker

To be clear: https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/nx2yoe/a_guide_...

Blackwater renames itself every so often to get away from the bad press, so its not in the name anymore.

I dont know what blackrock did to be evil. Seems like a pretty generic company that sells basically every type of stock.

Blackrock provides management services for a significant percentage of all global wealth, which makes it an excellent target for:

* People who think a cabal of reptilian globalists control the world.

* People who think that capitalism is an emergent system that is destroying our culture, social cohesion, and environment.

Because you have motivated reasoning to dislike these companies, even though Blackrock and Blackstone are bog standard financial services companies and a random naming scheme is easy to grab onto.

All the worst companies seem to all be LOTR themed.

Also Black Cube, I had a long list but seem to have misplaced it. Black seems to hint at secretive when you can say spy agency.

Look into the black cube of Saturn.

(btw, it’s everywhere, even the kaaba)

Pretty much private mercenaries that work outside of the usual army structure as "private contractors". They're usually the ones the US contracts to do the worst atrocities, as that gives the government a thin veneer of plausible deniability because they were behaving "independently". The US also does its best to make sure they never face any legal consequences for their war crimes.

Also worth pointing out that, due to this "contractor" relationship, they never count towards official casualty figures. For example, if Iran were to kill 50k of them (I'm of course exaggerating to make a point), they wouldn't count towards US casualty figures, so it's also a way for the government to downplay the effects of foreign intervention to the general public.

> Also worth pointing out that, due to this "contractor" relationship, they never count towards official casualty figures. For example, if Iran were to kill 50k of them (I'm of course exaggerating to make a point), they wouldn't count towards US casualty figures, so it's also a way for the government to downplay the effects of foreign intervention to the general public.

This has happened throughout history in war, before even recorded history.

Russia is doing it right now with North Koreans. Also with Wagner Group, until they had their little uprising against Putin and then their plane happened to crash.

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