Palantir: The Most Evil Company

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

What Palantir Actually Does

  • Some see Palantir as essentially a “body shop”/consultancy with branding, contacts, and government access, not a magical black box.
  • Others argue it really is a sophisticated surveillance/data-integration and AI/ML platform with few Western rivals, which is why governments like Denmark keep buying despite political unease.
  • There is broad agreement it functions as a modern defense contractor, but in data/cyber/AI rather than bombs.

Is Palantir Uniquely “Evil”?

  • One camp: if Palantir didn’t exist, another firm would fill the niche; blame the system, laws, and demand for such tools, not the vendor.
  • Opposing camp: specific choices matter—Palantir decides which clients and use cases to support and concentrates immense power in one private entity; that’s distinct from being a generic supplier.
  • Some think calling it “most evil” is exaggerated compared to historical arms makers and other abusive industries.

Ethics, Investment, and Responsibility

  • Contentious debate over whether ethics should impact investment decisions:
    • One side: “anything can be used for good or bad,” avoiding stocks on moral grounds is naive.
    • Others counter that scale and intent matter (nukes vs kitchen knives); if ethics don’t influence investments, that’s itself an ethical stance.
  • “Hate the game, not the player” is criticized as abdicating responsibility; systems and actors form a feedback loop, so companies share blame.

Hegemony, Deterrence, and Karp’s Rhetoric

  • Karp’s argument that peace comes from making adversaries wake and sleep in fear of American “wrath” is seen by some as Orwellian, almost domestic-abuser logic applied to geopolitics.
  • Defenders say history shows strength and deterrence reduce large-scale war; critics reply nuclear risk, blowback, and permanent fear undermine that logic.
  • A claim that supporting Palantir is equivalent to supporting a stabilizing US unipolar order is widely attacked as a false, supremacist dichotomy.

Alternatives, Systemic Critiques, and Big Tech

  • Some point to Palantir’s pandemic logistics and hospital work as clear public-good use cases; others view Operation Warp Speed as itself harmful.
  • Concern is raised that smartphones and platforms from other tech giants, by enabling pervasive tracking, may be more fundamentally “evil,” since they provide the raw data Palantir exploits.