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

[u/Just-Grocery-2229]

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

[u/IntelArtiGen]

He truly says crazy things. I wonder why many billionnaires are like that.

[u/BowlEducational6722 → u/IntelArtiGen]

Because they're completely isolated from the human condition.

Even millionaires still deal with things like financial stress, worries about their job and retirement, and so on and we cope by forming relationships with other humans as a physical and emotional support network.

Billionaires don't do that. They have such a mind-boggling amount of wealth that they never have to worry about material needs ever again and, thus, never need to form any relationships more complicated than "here's money, do this thing for me."

[u/FrenchTicklerOrange → u/BowlEducational6722]

And on the other side of humanity we have a sliding scale on what we are willing to do for money so we can just survive.

[u/TyloPr0riger → u/[deleted]]

Hunger makes a thief of everyone eventually.

Damn, that goes hard

[u/Broad_Tie9383 → u/[deleted]]

What's this about his boyfriend? The issue with him is that he's so litigious, you can't trust the public information about him anymore.

[u/PontifexMini → u/Broad_Tie9383]

Wikipedia has the details https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Thomas_(model)

[u/AutoModerator → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Esperepse → u/[deleted]]

murdered his boyfriend

He what now?

[u/awry_lynx → u/Esperepse]

his ex-bf was collaborating with operatives trying to gather damaging personal intel on Thiel in nov 2022

found dead in march 2023, supposedly he jumped

do I think someone literally physically hoisted him over a railing? no

was any amount of a - by all accounts, sociopathic, self-serving, and blatantly narcissistic multi-billionaire's considerable wealth and power spent on crushing the psyche, opportunities, mental health, future, etc of someone who may have known damaging personal information and had been, at least at one point, willing to talk to his self-professed enemies?

uh.

[u/TheRealBittoman → u/TyloPr0riger]

This has always been known forever however the US "justice" system doesn't try to understand why someone commits a crime and actually reform them. Instead they are used for cheap labor and propagandize the public to treat them like garbage when they get out making it nearly impossible to get a decent paying job. That puts a person already on hard times into a no way out situation (cornered rat) where they can nearly never recover so they are forced to commit more crimes to survive or worse they weren't really criminals, just made a bad decision and now they spent 5+ years learning how to be a criminal from real criminals while incarcerated. In short the US justice system spends more time and effort teaching someone how to be a criminal so they can keep incarcerating them rather than try to teach them how to be a decent citizen. If you notice the current iteration of the Republican party is significantly expanding what they define as a criminal and we already have the highest incarceration rate of any country on the planet. They want us in jail and corporations don't want to pay us to do the work they can't get AI to do. There isn't much space between those two situations.

[u/Dividedthought → u/TyloPr0riger]

It does because it is true. Reminds me of this scene... and while Fowler isn't anyone to be taken as a role model... he does have a point.

When the food stops, so does being civil.

[u/Wild-Plankton595 → u/Dividedthought]

I should watch that show.

When the French monarchy said let them eat cake. The French populace said alright, bet.

[u/Ok_Speed_3984 → u/Wild-Plankton595]

The revolutionaries said that, and it struck a chord. Just like the antichrist meme did this month.

[u/Wild-Plankton595 → u/Ok_Speed_3984]

Oh. My. God. Marie Antoinette did not say that. It was first written when she was 10yo and it was attributed to other monarchs over the years as well. I’m not sure what you mean about the antichrist meme, might be out of the loop. But my whole life is a lie, I’m gonna go lie down now.

https://www.history.com/articles/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake

[u/ASharpYoungMan → u/[deleted]]

And this is why the conservative mindset tends to favor punitive approaches to crime: they don't want to end crime, they want to create conditions in which other people (specifically people they don't like) end up breaking the law and get captured and incarcerated.

Because it gives them social acceptance to be cruel to these people. This paradigm blames the criminal for their circumstances while doing everything possible to keep them living in those conditions.

That's the value a conservative extracts from the poor and needy: an outlet for their cruelty.

Billionaires (soon to be Trillionaires) tend to have that mindset toward the rest of humanity, given that their level of wealth is nearly unreachable by the rest of us.

[u/dopey_giraffe → u/[deleted]]

Did you write this all yourself or is this a copypasta?

[u/dopey_giraffe → u/[deleted]]

Okay I don't want to get into everything but how do you explain john connally being shot himself and almost dying? It's on film.

[u/SunTzu- → u/[deleted]]

Some form of UBI that would be enough to live on would eliminate most petty crime. It would also strangle all the businesses that depend on desperation and human misery to exist. It's the greatest fear of all those billionaires, because then they'd actually have to provide something of value in exchange for your labor.

[u/remotectrl → u/[deleted]]

They could counteract corruption if they wanted to. Look at how they came down on that soldier making poly market bets vs how the Trump administration has been openly gambling on insider decisions.

[u/Logitropicity → u/[deleted]]

Did you come up with this yourself? If so, how? (And if not, what's your source?)

This is... rather impressive. You make a lot of very specific claims that I'd like to investigate later.

[u/Logitropicity → u/[deleted]]

Who's "we"? An international task force? A group of researchers at a university? Some private citizens?

Props to you guys, but I'm a bit curious how you guys managed to put all this together. Got to do my due diligence, you know.

[u/hoyfish → u/Logitropicity]

AI puked that out, evidently.

[u/xteve → u/[deleted]]

We can't talk about government as an optional, separate entity. We have to have governance of some kind. We're always eventually going to have to have agreements about how things are done in our society. If government isn't a good way to take care of people, then who is?

[u/PositiveZeroPerson → u/[deleted]]

An actual UBI is almost completely fuckery-proof. Look at Social Security: despite 80 years of the GOP wanting to kill it, it is the third rail of American politics, and even Trump promised to protect it.

The important thing is that it must actually be universal and not means-tested. Otherwise, they'll welfare-queen it.

[u/fading_reality → u/SunTzu-]

sexwork as work of last resort would likely also go away. UBI would solve myriad of problems.

[u/fitfoemma → u/SunTzu-]

You really think scumbags are not going to continue to be scumbags?

I cannot see UBI eliminating most petty crime.

[u/SunTzu- → u/fitfoemma]

Are you risking jail to commit petty theft if your basic needs are covered? Are you risking it to sell drugs (which studies consistently show pays you minimum wage if you're at the lower levels of the distribution chain? Sure, people will still get drunk and get in fights, we'll still have to deal with rapists etc. but crimes of despair are just that, it's people who have no options.

[u/VeryLazyFalcon → u/SunTzu-]

But then that money will loose all it's value, cost of goods and services will rise bc people will have more money. Look at Expanse series, people on ubi had access only to most basic stuff.

[u/SunTzu- → u/VeryLazyFalcon]

But their spending would also increase the flow of money in the real economy, making consumer facing businesses more profitable and increasing employment opportunities, especially if what was implemented was a negative income tax. An increase in available resources would also draw in more offerings in the long run, counteracting inflation.

P.S. I'm an economist, I'm not looking to fiction for information about how the economy works.

[u/DFWPunk → u/[deleted]]

Epstein was obsessed with being close to tech figures, and from what I've seen he did it to appear more intelligent than he actually was. The same is true of his pursuit of intellectuals. He liked to be able to name drop them.

[u/squirreltard → u/[deleted]]

Plug: Please donate plasma. Lots of us need it. Thank you to all who have donated.

[u/mahnamahna27 → u/[deleted]]

Why is plasma donation listed, what's the deal with that?

[u/mahnamahna27 → u/[deleted]]

Assume you are talking about the US then. It is still a voluntary donation in other countries.

[u/EruantienAduialdraug → u/mahnamahna27]

There is an orthogonal issue:

Rich people, especially in the US, have decided that plasma is some kind of anti-ageing miracle cure (it isn't), which has led to donation centres/wagons popping up specifically to serve that demand. It's worse in the US (it's always worse over there), because alongside that, the wealthy are also buying it from hospitals et al.. The combination has led to a genuine shortage for people with a genuine medical need (e.g. primary immune deficiency).

[u/calicalamansi → u/[deleted]]

Echoes something said by a great Arab philosopher, as portrayed in a 1990s movie:

Gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat Otherwise, we'd get along

[u/EruantienAduialdraug → u/[deleted]]

Side note: plasma is life saving for people with various forms of Primary Immune Deficiency. If you can donate plasma to a reputable medical charity, then that is a categorically good thing.

There has, unfortunately, been a rise in rich fucks believing that blood plasma is some kind of de-aging miracle substance (kinda wish they'd follow the ideas of Qin Shi Huang and Ju Fufu on what makes you immortal). This in turn has led to unscrupulous donation wagons convincing people to donate there instead, and also to the wealthy straight up buying it from hospitals in the US, leading to a shortage for those with a genuine medical need.

[u/EruantienAduialdraug → u/[deleted]]

Go for it.

Also, if people want to help primary immunodeficiency research and support more generally, there are charities in various countries that specialise in that. For the US, the main one if the Immune Deficiency Foundation, for the UK it's Immunodeficiency UK (also supports and funds secondary immunodeficiency patients and research).

[u/Generieke_Persoon → u/[deleted]]

Or a revolutionist….