The more I read about Palantir, the creepier and weirder it becomes. The CEO brags about wanting to kill all journalists with fentanyl, or brags about how their software will be used to kill people, and how readily they're willing to work for the convicted fraudster that America felt fit to give the nuclear codes.

And despite this company being creepy and weird and bizarre and secretive, they are also trying to make themselves a lifestyle brand by selling merchandise. If I felt like spending $150 for a Palantir-based hoodie, I guess I can normally do that [1], but disturbingly it is apparently "sold out". Apparently a lot of people really want to buy an overpriced sweater, or maybe they're trying to preemptively buy social credit.

Who knows. Everything is terrible.

[1] https://store.palantir.com/

I'd be surprised if they cannot provide services which translate to outcomes successive governments want. So in that sense, "has no place" is about alignment to goals, as much as desires. Palantir is able to do things which the government wants done. If this pits government against citizenry in terms of what people think, thats not unusual.

The big-4 would happily also do this. Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC Would take money to provide outlines and project management for an in-house, or an outsource to somebody other than Palantir. It wouldn't neccessarily be either cheaper, or faster, or for that matter any more socially acceptable.

I don't like the source, I could agree with the opinion (broken clock write 2x a day..) but to pretend government doesn't want what Palantir is selling is faux naieve and stupid.

What alternative is there, and why is "don't do it" viable?

This is "defund the police" wolf howling at the moon stuff.

Correct. Neither do Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Apple - realistically they're even more dangerous, see the ICC. Ironically the first three being the main hosts of.. you guessed it, Palantir.

Picking and choosing US big tech in this context is pointless, they're all as much of a risk as each other. And don't come with "you have to start somewhere", because you do, but then the place to start is slowly step-by-step getting off of the most critical ones, which are the first four I mentioned.

The UK is building/has built a surveillance state using the boiling frog method. So even if you change vendors, surveillance will continue. You have accepted it as par for the course. Unless you reject it and subsequent politicians don't double-cross you, surveillance will continue. No question.

It's hard not to see a sort of oligarchy vs the people battle shaping up, that's for sure.

Zahrah Sultana is a racist conspiracy theorist and not someone to take seriously on any matter.

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/mps-mcdonnell-and-sultana-addre...

Sultana is also on record stating the grooming gangs were a racist smear (which is odd as there were multiple races involved)