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btown 2 hours ago

Your point is well taken, though it's worth pointing out that literally yesterday Palantir was co-awarded a contract for building orbital weapons systems [0].

The broader point is Palantir's specific confluence of:

- access to granular, non-anonymized data across industry silos

- its chairman's specific pro-authoritarian mission (so pointedly so that the Catholic Church felt the need to make a specific rebuke a few days ago [1])

- a regulatory environment in which its monetary risks are arguably minimized if it takes the broadest possible reading of e.g. HIPAA's law enforcement exceptions that mention "written administrative requests" [2]

- documented concerns about governance [3]

Those concerned with this confluence are far from conspiracy theorists, and may be quite rationally interested in protecting e.g. the public reputation of their hospital networks, and ability to service - to say nothing of their desire to protect the privacy of their patients.

[0] https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2026-03-24/and...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/17/world/europe/peter-thiel-... - https://archive.is/2EOXa

[2] https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/faq/505/what-doe...

[3] https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/letter-to-palantir-techn...

remarkEon an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Have you considered that a weapons platform like that could be necessary? Or are you just opposed to Palantir being part of it.

AlotOfReading 44 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

This comment is written in an interesting way. If it's unnecessary, the OP's comment is fine. If the platform is "necessary" in some abstract sense, you've avoided articulating that argument by putting the burden back on OP to justify their position.

That seems like an interesting discussion though. Why would it be necessary?

remarkEon 30 minutes ago | parent [-]

There's ample evidence that medium range ballistic missile technology is proliferating, fired from land based systems. It is difficult to intercept these with ground-based launchers. But, if incepting from orbit the probability you score a hit is higher. The catch is that it is a) extremely complex, and b) very expensive to develop and implement a system like this. Enter Palantir and Anduril.

The weight of this argument rests on how much you care about being in range of MRBMs, how likely you think it is that MRBMs will be a decisive factor in a future conflict, and whether or not you want the United States to be victorious in this potential conflict. Many people do not care about this threat, don't think MRBMs will matter, and/or want the United States to lose. I am not one of those people.

twelve40 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

well, there _is_ this:

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

"bars states party to the treaty from placing weapons of mass destruction in Earth orbit, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or otherwise stationing them in outer space"

but 1. today's sentiment is: to hell with these treaties-schmeaties, and 2. what you mentioned is not yet a weapon of _mass_ destruction, so we're all good!

jazzyjackson an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Claiming a particular weapons system is “necessary” is war brained. There are other ways of survival besides bombing the shit out of each other.

remarkEon 22 minutes ago | parent [-]

True, I am partial to battle drill 1A.

Manuel_D 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The broader point is Palantir's specific confluence of:

> - access to granular, non-anonymized data across industry silos

Do you have evidence that Palantir itself - not customers using Palantir software - has access to this data?

beepbooptheory an hour ago | parent [-]

I think you are maybe reading into the initial claim too much and not hearing the follow ups. There are two things here: 1. the overall character, broad charter, and people that compose the company, and 2. the theory that it is a specific agent in illegal or harmful data trafficking. And sure, I think we can take 2 away completely here if we simply must assume good faith from these guys and the contracts that they make, but that still kinda leaves 1 which is pretty big. Like 1 answers your follow up question of why everyone hates them either way, but you still are countering it by trying to ask what it has to do with 2. If that makes sense?

And really, I don't think anyone wants to "oh sweet summer child" you in your doubts here, but it's really extremely hard to not want to just... gesture around the world right now and ask why you still believe in some kind of sanctity or infallibility of something like the legal contract or other various forms of de jure "accountability" when it comes to tech companies, especially one as big as this.

Manuel_D an hour ago | parent [-]

This pattern in which people make claims about Palantir having access to private information, then retreat back to something along the lines of "I don't like the character of the company" is exactly the kind of thing that leads me to believe people don't actually have tangible complaints with the company.

remarkEon 27 minutes ago | parent [-]

This is true, but Palantir also describes what they do in a way that is going to cause skepticism and confusion. When they talk about the ontology acting as a "digital twin" of the customer environment one could be forgiven for thinking this does actually mean Palantir is exfiltrating customer data and cloning it, which is not what happens.

Manuel_D 18 minutes ago | parent [-]

> When they talk about the ontology acting as a "digital twin" of the customer environment one could be forgiven for thinking this does actually mean Palantir is exfiltrating customer data and cloning it, which is not what happens.

This is basically saying you have the same DB schema on your dev environment as you do on prod. If anyone made that kind leap in logic, I would conclude they have little to no technical know how.