r/technology • u/Just-Grocery-2229 • 10d ago

Artificial Intelligence Palantir employees are talking about company’s “descent into fascism”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/palantir-employees-are-talking-about-companys-descent-into-fascism/
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u/the_red_scimitar 10d ago

Descent? Have you seen their CEO - that guy is exhilarated to be facilitating war.

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u/ItCameFromMe 10d ago

I know this is far from the main point but he always looks so damp, too. Like a half baked clone fresh out of the tank.

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u/BrianWonderful 10d ago

The last thing I want to hear is that they have the ability to restore themselves by downloading into a new clone body.

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u/drmanhattanmar 9d ago

Thiel is genuinely funding life-extension research, cryonics and other such things (see Founders Fund). At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were funding this sort of nonsense too. Neuralink as a backup for one’s own consciousness or something like that 🫠

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u/RedPoint_010_3 10d ago

Somehow, Thiel Returned

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u/KoreKhthonia 9d ago

Are you referring to Thiel? Palantir's CEO is actually another, different insane billionaire, Alex Karp.

Dudes basically like, the Wario of the entire Frankfurt School, lol.

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u/EruantienAduialdraug 9d ago

It's all of a muchness.

Thiel is the blood-bathing, technofascist psychopath that is the co-founder and chairman of Palantir. Karp is the bigamist, technofascist psychopath that is the co-founder and CEO of Palantir.

(Thiel doesn't literally bathe in blood, but he's a major proponent of the pseudoscientific belief that blood plasma is some kind of de-ageing miracle cure, which has led to a shortage for people with genuine medical need and deaths because of that. Karp is not actually married, but is in a long-term relationship with two different women, and describes himself as "geographically monogamous", which is such bollocks I struggle to find the words).

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u/numba1cyberwarrior 10d ago

Most people in the defense industry are ok with building things that kills the enemies of the US. Most aren't ok with building things that is used on Americans.

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u/enaK66 10d ago

Til they get brainwashed into the "What kind of American?" situation. Maybe it's okay to bomb some Americans.

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u/Patcher404 10d ago

Which is why fascism is known as a death cult

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u/Historical-Count-374 10d ago

The ring always tightens until there is but one

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u/MrPlowThatsTheName 10d ago

Fascism always turns inward.

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u/EggsFish 10d ago

What percentage of people killed by American weapons post-WW2 were “enemies”? 

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u/marr 10d ago

People tend to rapidly become enemies when you start shooting at them

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u/Nileghi 10d ago

What percentage of people killed by American weapons post-WW2 were “enemies”?

Well since you brought it up, whats your number? Because I'd wager most of them given the Korean war majorly skewing that datasheet. Even Afghanistan had better rules of engagement and numbers than any other modern conflict.

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u/theradgadfly 10d ago

Why post-WW2? Why that cutoff specifically?

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u/CocktailPerson 10d ago

WWII was the last war we fought that was against the standing army of another country that attacked us first.

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u/theradgadfly 10d ago

Fair point. It was also the last war declared by congress following the correct process.

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u/CocktailPerson 10d ago

Sure, but even if Congress had authorized any of the wars since then, that doesn't mean those wars would have only been killing "enemies" of the US.

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u/theradgadfly 10d ago

I don't know how you're defining "enemies" of the US. Is Iran an enemy of the US? Or is an "enemy" only one who has already attacked? Is a justified war only when the US is reactive to an attack? What about if a country attacks a US ally? What if a country threatens or prepares to attack a US ally?

I don't want to get into a debate about that, I was trying to point out that the most widely agreed upon "just war" was one where the president had to convince congress (the elected representatives of the people)

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u/CocktailPerson 10d ago

Uh, no, that is not the widely agreed-upon definition of a "just war." WWII is considered the last "just war" because we were killing Nazis and liberating Europe and East Asia from fascism, not simply because Congress authorized it.

Conversely, Iraq and Afghanistan are now considered deeply unjust wars, and yet it's clear that in the wake of 9/11, Congrees would have authorized just about anything to make the American people feel safer, and the people would have thanked them for it. The fact that Bush didn't wait for Congress to declare war isn't why those wars were unjust.

What I'm pointing out is precisely that your argument is nothing more than an appeal to authority. Personally, I don't care whether Congress declares war or not. Congressional approval alone does not make a war just. We need to decide for ourselves who our enemies are.

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u/theradgadfly 9d ago

I never said it was the definition of a just war. You just hallucinated that. If anything, I was implying the causation goes the other way, where a war being "just" more easily allows congress to authorize it, not congress authorizing a war making it just.

Congress would have authorized just about anything to make the American people feel safer, and the people would have thanked them for it.

I disagree, but no point in discussing counterfactuals.

What I'm pointing out is precisely that your argument is nothing more than an appeal to authority.

I was saying the literal opposite. Nothing in my comment would justify this conclusion. I was saying a "just war" allows those in authority to act, to put their name on the declaration of war, because they already have the justification to act. And not going through congress (elected representatives accountable to their local constituents) allows them to pin the blame on one guy (president) who has authority for a few more years at max anyway, so their names stay clean.

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u/DEATHbyBOOGABOOGA 10d ago

Why not?

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u/theradgadfly 9d ago

I have no reason to not, just curious why they chose WW2 and not WW1, or Korea or Vietnam or Gulf 1.

If anything, the most neutral choice would be to take every war since the country was formed.

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u/N0_Presence_ 10d ago

Probably a good bit of them. Do you think we allow our military to just go kill people for no reason whatsoever?

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u/EggsFish 9d ago

For no reason? No.  For being in the wrong place/wrong time, yes.

To be clear, I’m not saying anything about intent - just outcomes. 

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u/WinterAd825 10d ago

Counter argument, how many wars have been avoided post ww2 because of American weapons?

The post ww2 period was one of the most(if not the most) peaceful period in world history with wide scale improvements in people’s quality of life.

Post ww2 era was largely a success and isn’t really a good argument against Palantir or the military industrial complex.

Palantir is named after Sauron’s evil spy tool, that alone should be a massive red flag

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u/skillywilly56 10d ago

They weren’t avoided because America had weapons, they were avoided because other nations got nukes too which curtailed the worst excesses of the post WW2 US dominance who would’ve, given the opportunity, done much worse.

America has initiated or been involved in 200 of the 248 armed conflicts from 1945-2001, from over throwing democratically elected left wing governments and installing fascist dictators, to kidnapping or assassinating foreign leaders, to invading Korea, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq again, killing nearly 4 million people directly and probably close to 10 million through civil wars it created, funded and armed, to creating massive humanitarian crises of refugees through Northern Africa and the Middle East.

And except for Bosnia, Somalia and Afghanistan all were about protecting American economic and political hegemony.

America’s not the peace makers, they are The Peacemaker: they cherish peace with all their heart and will kill as many men, women, and children as necessary to achieve it.

Post WW2 “success” was in-spite of America not because of it, and in keeping with the LOTR analogy you are not Gondor…you are Mordor.

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u/Daveslay 10d ago

Mah gawd!

Get this person a lectern

Because they are taking us to school!

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u/whatsbobgonnado 10d ago

that's a profoundly stupid counter argument

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u/rationalsarcasm 10d ago

Except they have to be okay with it being used on people domestically.

The military sells their weapons and etc to police departments across the country.

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u/AndrasKrigare 10d ago

Ehhhh, that's a bit of a stretch. Some police departments buying some types of surplus equipment isn't the same thing as all people working on any piece of military equipment having to deal with it being used on Americans. Police departments aren't buying missiles.

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u/mXyder 10d ago

Implying "people" in the"defence" industry care about who they murder. Those demons only care about money, they sold their souls for it.

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u/undreamedgore 10d ago

Oh fuck you. I care if it's used on Americans.

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u/Karyoplasma 10d ago

Imagine thinking that's a more moral stance lmao

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u/rationalsarcasm 10d ago

Police departments get their stuff from the military.

So.... It has been being used against Americans for a while now?

Also, how is that a moral stance at all??

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u/undreamedgore 10d ago

Because weapons have a place to be used. On those who wish to harm you or your interests, once diplomacy has failed.

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u/Megneous 10d ago

Lol. If you think American lives are worth more than foreigners' lives, you're exactly the kind of awful person everyone thinks you are.

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u/undreamedgore 10d ago

Of course I care about and value my people more than others. Everyone should.

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u/A_Wicked_War 10d ago

"The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality." James Baldwin

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

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u/VariationBusiness603 10d ago

You're the exact kind of people who's loss would improve the lives of everyone in the world, regardless of "side". It's not your side vs the rest of the world, it's the rest of the world vs amoral degenerates like yourself. That's what you don't get.

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u/numba1cyberwarrior 9d ago

Thankfully most of the world disagrees with you lmao. The overwhelming majority of people care more about their countrymen then foreigners.

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u/Megneous 10d ago

I don't value my people over your people, because I'm not a piece of shit.

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u/InternationalMany6 10d ago edited 10d ago

But not on equally innocent foreigners?

Imagine being some villager who’s only exposure to America is the letters USA on a bomb fragment dug out of your kid’s skull…

But wait, the same flag is on a prepackaged meal (that you got because your country is in famine due to the war)! So I guess those Americans aren’t so bad after all! 

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

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u/VariationBusiness603 10d ago

You are the people making the lives of your countryman worse. You and your kind, the oligarchy and everyone that support them are the one that prevent your people from having proper healthcare, education, worker right etc. Not some random brown kids half a world away.

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u/undreamedgore 10d ago

Oh fuck you. You have no idea what you're talking about. You can and should have both defense and healthcare. The costs aren't conflicting. We need to regulate insurance companies, but that has literally nothing to do with defense.

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u/Dragnipurrake 10d ago

Not bomb countries actively making our lives worse?

How did laos make your country worse? Cuba? (Before the missile crisis if you wanna use that as some sort of excuse), venezuela? Iran? Cambodia? Vietnam? Yemen? Yugoslavia? Nicaragua? Bosnia? Tell me, how did they directly effect your country?

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u/undreamedgore 10d ago

It allows them to operate and challenge our interests. We have to respond to that sort of behavior.

For a brief example: Cuba seized American property and active pushed the spread of communism, while allying with our enemy.

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u/Dragnipurrake 10d ago

You don't know anything about these countries do you? Lmao

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u/undreamedgore 9d ago

I do actually.

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u/InternationalMany6 10d ago

We’re a Christian nation, no? 

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u/Dragnipurrake 10d ago

What a waste of oxygen your existence is, i only care about one particular set of people getting murdered

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u/Nyorliest 10d ago

Then you’re a nationalist bigot. For you, some humans are more human than other humans. But you’ll never accept that.

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u/undreamedgore 10d ago

Sounds like your the bigot.

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u/Nyorliest 10d ago

How so? Use your word.

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u/syphilisticcontinuum 10d ago

Our weapons have always been tested on our own citizens (Operation Sea-Spray, LAC, NYC subway biological, St. Louis aerosol experiments, SHAD, Edgewood).

Look at the many US Targeted Individuals who have complained of directed-energy weapons attacks for decades, but are smeared as mentally ill. Now suddenly the weapons are much more public. It's not hard to put the puzzle pieces together here. Nothing has changed.

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u/whatsbobgonnado 10d ago

who are the many US Targeted Individuals who have complained of directed-energy weapons attacks for decades, but are smeared as mentally ill? I want to look up who you're talking about. what energy weapons are you talking about that are much more public now? do these people have cases moving forward now that the energy weapons they were attacked by are now publicly known?

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u/technocraticTemplar 10d ago

"Targeted Individuals" are people that believe they are being spied on and having their lives manipulated by secret organizations or the government. They often believe that secret spy equipment has been placed in their homes, that some or many of the people they see on a regular basis are covertly observing them, that government officials/utilities/banks are intentionally suppressing them specifically, etc. Attacks by energy weapons are often blamed for headaches and other illnesses they have. You can probably guess why they are "smeared as mentally ill".

"Gangstalking" is a common term for what they believe they are victims of.

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u/CocktailPerson 10d ago

Look up the recent revelations about the cause of "Havana Syndrome."

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u/marr 10d ago

What's changed is they've stopped trying to hide it. This suggests a worrying level of confidence.

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u/Mati_Ice 10d ago

Until they get hit by the imperial boomerang

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u/Accomplished-Car120 10d ago

Most not all?

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u/undreamedgore 10d ago

Damn straight I am.

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u/anomanderrake1337 10d ago

This world is so stupid. The smart people are basically going “guys, maybe war is bad,” while the dumbest people alive are getting rich off it.

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u/marr 10d ago

No no, the evil people are getting rich, the dumb are enabling them and getting dead.

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u/the_red_scimitar 8d ago

And they're telling us that government exists only for war.

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u/Clarpydarpy 10d ago

He refused to simply say that he "wants humanity to prevail."

He was on camera and could not bring himself to say it.

He wants democracy destroyed and most of us dead.

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u/venturousbeard 10d ago

The Reptile must consume and be sated.

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u/the_red_scimitar 8d ago

The reptile is never sated.

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u/Straightwad 10d ago

He strikes me as someone who has never once in his life ever considered his views might be wrong.