Critique of Palantir (and other emerging military tech companies) often comes with the pre-assumption that we ourselves are our biggest threats. But outside of the luxuries of the West, people don't think like that. The Chinese, the Iranians, the Russians are not going to have moral qualms developing such technology because they remain aligned to the interests of their nations first over external enemies. That same assumption is held for those in Palantir, although for Pro-Palestine, I would imagine they are already the "enemy".
The idea of treating your enemies as you will your friends is a highly contentious position even today. Not everyone is going to have that same position, and in fact very may be that the very assumption of such a stance is enough for you to be labelled out of group. Which at that point, it's a ideological conflict, not a moral one.
Your statement assumes that nations only use this technology against other nations but from the article it is clear that this technology is being used within nations to target people who disagree with the state. Tolerating those who think differently is a democratic value and hence using this technology against those who disagree with the state is anti-democratic. Treating political differences as security threats is exactly why this is a moral issue rather than an ideological one.
So… give up freedom for security from ambiguous external threats to our nation that in all likelihood are blowback from exactly the type of thing Palantir is helping to orchestrate in Gaza. Got it!
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45297446
Critique of Palantir (and other emerging military tech companies) often comes with the pre-assumption that we ourselves are our biggest threats. But outside of the luxuries of the West, people don't think like that. The Chinese, the Iranians, the Russians are not going to have moral qualms developing such technology because they remain aligned to the interests of their nations first over external enemies. That same assumption is held for those in Palantir, although for Pro-Palestine, I would imagine they are already the "enemy".
The idea of treating your enemies as you will your friends is a highly contentious position even today. Not everyone is going to have that same position, and in fact very may be that the very assumption of such a stance is enough for you to be labelled out of group. Which at that point, it's a ideological conflict, not a moral one.
Your statement assumes that nations only use this technology against other nations but from the article it is clear that this technology is being used within nations to target people who disagree with the state. Tolerating those who think differently is a democratic value and hence using this technology against those who disagree with the state is anti-democratic. Treating political differences as security threats is exactly why this is a moral issue rather than an ideological one.
This is why the military is supposed to stay out of US cities and spy agencies respect citizens privacy.
Cowards all around with no moral compass.
So… give up freedom for security from ambiguous external threats to our nation that in all likelihood are blowback from exactly the type of thing Palantir is helping to orchestrate in Gaza. Got it!
Excellent insight Peter.