That’s not the operative principle in a democracy where people with many different moral ideologies must cooperate under the banner of a single government.
Not trying to be contrarian here, but I don’t get the problem. What’s wrong with Palantir producing weapons or military intelligence? How is it different from making guns?
Is the problem what those things are used for, or is it the way Palantir does it?
For me, it's the blur between who makes decisions. I don't love our government making decisions about who lives or dies, but I much prefer decisions to be made by a/ a human b/ one who isn't beholden to shareholders.
I think fewer people would care about Palantir (and several other notable companies) if their CEOs/founders weren't using the company as a platform for their own ambitions and ideologies.
Allowing private-sector warfare manufacturers creates a profit motive for warfare, surveillance etc. It’s in palantir’s (or Raytheon, or Northrop, or BAH…), and their stockholders’, economic interest to promote and extend conflict. Many people think this is bad (including me).
He shows no remorse for any innocent lives lost during these operations. He emphasizes that the "minimum" number of innocent deaths has been achieved, and for him, that's job done.
You can accept that warfare is sometimes necessary and that innocent lives are sometimes lost. But necessity shouldn't be enough to wipe away any semblance of remorse if you have a functioning moral conscience.
Karp may be right on the merits right now, but he's clearly a broken human being. This is not someone I want involved in our country's warfare apparatus for the long term, because eventually his sociopathy will kill people who didn't need to die.
Palantir aggregates immorally collected advertisement data and de-anonymizes it before selling it to the government. It's abuse of a dual-use data source that has no opt-out for any free citizen; maybe that concerns you, maybe it doesn't.
Their biggest issue is their leadership, though. If Alex Karp had two ounces of morality to rub together then it might be an easier pill to swallow, but instead he harps about how proud they are to kill people with AdSense data. It feels like the immorality is the point.
Look at what's happening in Lebanon, Palestine, Iran. Everyone involved in helping with those mass murders is evil.
Edit: I see I'm being downvoted. What is your argument in favor of this? How big of a degenerate, amoral, psychopath do you have to be to justify this?
"Israel has carried out at least 37 attacks against healthcare workers and facilities in Lebanon, including against the state civil defence and Lebanese Red Cross, since the current hostilities began, Lebanese authorities said.
The war in Lebanon started on 2 March after Hezbollah launched a volley of rockets at Israel, triggering a swift Israeli bombing campaign across the country. Fighting has since escalated, with Hezbollah continuing its rocket fire and Israeli troops invading south Lebanon.
At least 826 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes, according to the ministry of health, and about 1 million have been displaced."
"You're attacking the person who's protecting you – idiot. [..] You may hate this, but there's one person protecting your rights to be a conspiracy theorist that actually has a seat at the table, and that person is me. [..] You may not want to hear that truth, but it's fucking true."
The way Alex Karp views himself is scary; he gives himself (and his company) carte blanche when it comes to morality. He's basically become the Jack Nicholson character from A Few Good Men.
Yes, America needs technology to succeed. But it can't be unchecked.
I'd take the Jack Nicholson character from A Few Good Men over Komeini or Osama or whoever your Islamist despot of choice is, personally. And I'd choose it that way 100% of the time.
For many of us, the end of this extreme cultural and intellectual relativism couldn't have come soon enough.
You're misreading the hesitation about going into places like Iran.
It's not because we think the regime is/was good, but rather because of the completely predictable next 10-50 years of shit we're going to experience as a result.
Regime change is hard and oftentimes has the opposite effect of what you want. For example, see the current Iran regime.
Solving the problem is difficult when you prioritise civilians/UN nonsense/virtue signalling from irrelevant parties, like for example what the UK or Australia or India think you should do (just to throw some out there).
There are of course many in the West who see this as an existential fight on a number of fronts and assume that there are multiple ways of solving the Islamist problem (remember, they also see themselves in an existential struggle with us, too) - regime change is merely one of those solutions. Whether Trump fully commits to those other approaches is doubtful, but then again he can't get reelected and he really doesn't have a whole lot to lose. But he surely could save us the trouble of dealing with those, as you accurately say, '10-50 years of shit' that are otherwise going to come down the pipeline.
I'd put it to you that this is a problem that is intractable if you look at it through the lens of modern human rights nonsense. It is not intractable if you look at it through the lens of the global hegemon fighting for its existence.
You shouldn't kick the hornets nest unless you are going to exterminate the hornets fully. Now that he's kicked it we can only hope he follows through.
There are always companies profiting from war. When ypu sre one of those, take the money, work silently. But being loud about being proud to be part of a war… this is just disgusting.
I think a lot of progressives have this huge blind spot right now where they fundamentally cannot empathize with their opponents at all. Of course Palantir is proud of their work, this is basically their raison d'etre. They are not somehow evil and also deeply ashamed of what they're doing, they genuinely think what they are doing is right.
Just believing that what you're doing is right doesn't make it right?
Not everything is subjective, and not every debate is worthy of middle ground. Sometimes, and I would argue autonomous kill robots is one of those times, just sometimes it's not really worth negotiating on. What would be the middle ground here? Just a little autonomous killing as a treat?
I don't know about progressives specifically, but I don't think 'cannot empathize with their opponents at all' is what articles like this are doing. It's more that the more people like Alex Karp talk the more they prove that their morality is something which should be opposed by the general public. IMO the more Palantir talks the better.
So what? I don't really care if you are proud of your work if I think you work is objectively evil. I imagine the designers of the Auschwitz's gas chambers were also proud of their "good" work. Yeah I ain't empathizing with them either and you can call that a "blind spot"
Where in the parent comment do you see them saying they are objectively “right”?
I read it as honestly subjective: “I see morality this way, you see it another way. If you act in a way that my morality deems evil, I will judge you for it regardless of how it fits into your belief system.”
If you can conclusively prove that liberals are evil, be my guest. Give me your rhetorical coup-de-grace that annihilates half of America's voting bloc.
Even the Nazis retained the ability to judge their opponents when WWII ended. Pity that their opponents were hangmen that wanted them to answer for murder.
Is your point here that people who do wrong always or usually know they’re doing something wrong? If it is, I disagree. Most things I consider morally abhorrent are justifiable under some morality system. And I think for most humans, it’s easier to believe you’re one of the good guys than one of the bad guys.
It must be nice to live in a world where your country is always morally right just because it's your country. It's much simpler that way.
It doesn't change the reality of what's happening, so I don't think this is worth much, but most people here don't think that.
Sadly I would argue that most do, about most of the things, most of the time. See the Propaganda Model.
Things like Iran are sadly the exception, as far as my experience goes.
I know, I was talking about Karp.
That’s not the operative principle in a democracy where people with many different moral ideologies must cooperate under the banner of a single government.
Nationalism has its benefits.
most people probably agree with that, but only until you mention a specific example then people loose their minds.
Karp is the number one enemy of civilised society.
Not trying to be contrarian here, but I don’t get the problem. What’s wrong with Palantir producing weapons or military intelligence? How is it different from making guns?
Is the problem what those things are used for, or is it the way Palantir does it?
There is a straight line from Eisenhower’s farewell speech about the perils of the military industrial complex to where we are right now.
Read that speech. Read “War is a racket” by Smedly Butler.
Do you think it’s a good thing that Palantir execs (Shankar and Bob Mcgrew, now at openAI) have been made Lt Cols of the U.S. Army?
They aren’t just making guns or information systems. They’re running the show and profiting on it.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/03/1255164460/1a-army-07-03-2025
For me, it's the blur between who makes decisions. I don't love our government making decisions about who lives or dies, but I much prefer decisions to be made by a/ a human b/ one who isn't beholden to shareholders.
I think fewer people would care about Palantir (and several other notable companies) if their CEOs/founders weren't using the company as a platform for their own ambitions and ideologies.
I don't know. What's wrong with being a serial killer?
Allowing private-sector warfare manufacturers creates a profit motive for warfare, surveillance etc. It’s in palantir’s (or Raytheon, or Northrop, or BAH…), and their stockholders’, economic interest to promote and extend conflict. Many people think this is bad (including me).
He shows no remorse for any innocent lives lost during these operations. He emphasizes that the "minimum" number of innocent deaths has been achieved, and for him, that's job done.
You can accept that warfare is sometimes necessary and that innocent lives are sometimes lost. But necessity shouldn't be enough to wipe away any semblance of remorse if you have a functioning moral conscience.
Karp may be right on the merits right now, but he's clearly a broken human being. This is not someone I want involved in our country's warfare apparatus for the long term, because eventually his sociopathy will kill people who didn't need to die.
Palantir aggregates immorally collected advertisement data and de-anonymizes it before selling it to the government. It's abuse of a dual-use data source that has no opt-out for any free citizen; maybe that concerns you, maybe it doesn't.
Their biggest issue is their leadership, though. If Alex Karp had two ounces of morality to rub together then it might be an easier pill to swallow, but instead he harps about how proud they are to kill people with AdSense data. It feels like the immorality is the point.
Look at what's happening in Lebanon, Palestine, Iran. Everyone involved in helping with those mass murders is evil.
Edit: I see I'm being downvoted. What is your argument in favor of this? How big of a degenerate, amoral, psychopath do you have to be to justify this?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/14/lebanon-israel...
"Israel has carried out at least 37 attacks against healthcare workers and facilities in Lebanon, including against the state civil defence and Lebanese Red Cross, since the current hostilities began, Lebanese authorities said.
The war in Lebanon started on 2 March after Hezbollah launched a volley of rockets at Israel, triggering a swift Israeli bombing campaign across the country. Fighting has since escalated, with Hezbollah continuing its rocket fire and Israeli troops invading south Lebanon.
At least 826 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes, according to the ministry of health, and about 1 million have been displaced."
liberals have no problem with killing, they just want to be the ones doing it.
but they are doing it for the right, moral reasons /s
for people who don't get it: https://wbsm.com/massachusetts-elizabeth-warren-trump-speech...
"You're attacking the person who's protecting you – idiot. [..] You may hate this, but there's one person protecting your rights to be a conspiracy theorist that actually has a seat at the table, and that person is me. [..] You may not want to hear that truth, but it's fucking true."
The way Alex Karp views himself is scary; he gives himself (and his company) carte blanche when it comes to morality. He's basically become the Jack Nicholson character from A Few Good Men.
Yes, America needs technology to succeed. But it can't be unchecked.
I'd take the Jack Nicholson character from A Few Good Men over Komeini or Osama or whoever your Islamist despot of choice is, personally. And I'd choose it that way 100% of the time.
For many of us, the end of this extreme cultural and intellectual relativism couldn't have come soon enough.
You're misreading the hesitation about going into places like Iran.
It's not because we think the regime is/was good, but rather because of the completely predictable next 10-50 years of shit we're going to experience as a result.
Regime change is hard and oftentimes has the opposite effect of what you want. For example, see the current Iran regime.
Solving the problem is difficult when you prioritise civilians/UN nonsense/virtue signalling from irrelevant parties, like for example what the UK or Australia or India think you should do (just to throw some out there).
There are of course many in the West who see this as an existential fight on a number of fronts and assume that there are multiple ways of solving the Islamist problem (remember, they also see themselves in an existential struggle with us, too) - regime change is merely one of those solutions. Whether Trump fully commits to those other approaches is doubtful, but then again he can't get reelected and he really doesn't have a whole lot to lose. But he surely could save us the trouble of dealing with those, as you accurately say, '10-50 years of shit' that are otherwise going to come down the pipeline.
I'd put it to you that this is a problem that is intractable if you look at it through the lens of modern human rights nonsense. It is not intractable if you look at it through the lens of the global hegemon fighting for its existence.
You shouldn't kick the hornets nest unless you are going to exterminate the hornets fully. Now that he's kicked it we can only hope he follows through.
It is not a binary choice. This is the greatest illusion people in power manage to create, there are only two choices - pro or anti.
Sure, me too. But that was the point of his character – the false equivalence that he was the good guy, and those are the two options.
He justified ignoring the rules, which lead to the death of someone in his command, due to his own moral arrogance.
There's a third option. Someone who understands the weight of the role and holds themselves (or is held) accountable.
I choose neither.
Khomeini died almost forty years ago
There are always companies profiting from war. When ypu sre one of those, take the money, work silently. But being loud about being proud to be part of a war… this is just disgusting.
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I think a lot of progressives have this huge blind spot right now where they fundamentally cannot empathize with their opponents at all. Of course Palantir is proud of their work, this is basically their raison d'etre. They are not somehow evil and also deeply ashamed of what they're doing, they genuinely think what they are doing is right.
Just believing that what you're doing is right doesn't make it right?
Not everything is subjective, and not every debate is worthy of middle ground. Sometimes, and I would argue autonomous kill robots is one of those times, just sometimes it's not really worth negotiating on. What would be the middle ground here? Just a little autonomous killing as a treat?
I don't know about progressives specifically, but I don't think 'cannot empathize with their opponents at all' is what articles like this are doing. It's more that the more people like Alex Karp talk the more they prove that their morality is something which should be opposed by the general public. IMO the more Palantir talks the better.
So what? I don't really care if you are proud of your work if I think you work is objectively evil. I imagine the designers of the Auschwitz's gas chambers were also proud of their "good" work. Yeah I ain't empathizing with them either and you can call that a "blind spot"
you're not right just because you label your opponents as evil.
Where in the parent comment do you see them saying they are objectively “right”?
I read it as honestly subjective: “I see morality this way, you see it another way. If you act in a way that my morality deems evil, I will judge you for it regardless of how it fits into your belief system.”
That seems non-contradictory to me.
Nor are you right for denying the accusation.
i can name many reasons why liberals are evil but I'm not here to argue politics. just know you don't have a monopoly on judging your opponent.
If you can conclusively prove that liberals are evil, be my guest. Give me your rhetorical coup-de-grace that annihilates half of America's voting bloc.
Even the Nazis retained the ability to judge their opponents when WWII ended. Pity that their opponents were hangmen that wanted them to answer for murder.
you are insufferable
I've read this comment so many times, and every time posterity proves it wrong:
> Of course [FTX/Theranos/Boeing/Turing Pharma] is proud of their work [...] they genuinely think what they're doing is right.
Is your point here that people who do wrong always or usually know they’re doing something wrong? If it is, I disagree. Most things I consider morally abhorrent are justifiable under some morality system. And I think for most humans, it’s easier to believe you’re one of the good guys than one of the bad guys.