This might be the best forum for this kind of discussion because I am sure a lot of Palantir employees regularly post on here.
And to them, I ask: what do you think about this?
Sometimes tech workers from companies like Google [0] and Microsoft [1] protests against the companies ties to whatever Israel is doing in Palestine. Why don't we see Palantir workers protesting against their company policies? (I can only find news of other people protesting Palantir, not workers themselves). Am I right to assume that Palantir workers generally support this?
I think Meta employees don’t protest either for the genocides its platforms aided and supported or the other harms caused to kids in general. Maybe the pay is so good that one can convince oneself they’re on the good side. Maybe these companies attract a certain type of personality that doesn’t necessarily care much about others.
Concur; while Meta does have a role in determining the content people see, interacting with their platform is mostly voluntary. Palantir's platform interacts with you, not the other way around.
The answer is that responsibility is diffused. Very few people are actively building the 'Genocide Palestine' or the 'Illegally detain and torture immigrants' system, but a lot of people have submitted CLs to microservices that the 'Genocide Palestine' system (as well as a thousand others) calls.
Modern America is the complete antithesis of 'The Buck Stops Here.' It's more of an 'I have absolute power, and none of the accountability' sort of place.
If the president, or one of his armed, masked thugs with a license to kill can't ever be held accountable for the evil, vile shit they do, why should some low-level SWE feel any remorse or responsibility for those CLs?
---
The solution? Don't tolerate it. Don't settle for no accountability. Don't think this is no big deal, or business as usual. The only way out of this, if power is ever taken back, is disproportionate punishment for the guilty. The country can move on and heal after justice is fairly apportioned.
Incidentally, both war crimes, and deprivation of rights under color of law are capital crimes in the United States.
Well have you met Alex Karp? He is quite mesmerizing, pays well and the most powerful people in the world are in meetings with him 24x7. If they all have no problem then who am I to question anything.
Depends on specific cases, I have on good authority of how in few "bleeding edge" ones they essentially repacked/wrapped YOLOv3. Purpose was specifically tracking in adversarial conditions (smoke, including smokescreen, obstacles, etc)
For realtime on the edge the YOLO series is pretty good, I don't think anyone would disagree. Most of the really advanced stuff like Vision Language models all require a lot more compute and power budget.
I skimmed through the article. I didn’t understand what role AI supposedly plays in this case for tracking aid deliveries. For tracking you need sensors and connectivity from the mode of delivery, location information, some analytics and databases. What does this AI do for tracking? I can understand a sales pitch that says AI decides where to provide aid, how much, when, etc. But tracking deliveries? It’s a head scratcher for me.
There's nothing to understand. The article is solely for the purpose of bashing Israel and bashing Palantir. It's a political hit piece masquerading as a technology related topic.
As part of the ceasefire agreement the US has agreed to take control of aid delivery to Gaza. Israel has decided that it will not cooperate with any organizations that they consider to be allied with Hamas. This article is sort of mixing these things up where they really have nothing to do with each other. Those NGOs that operate inside Gaza are not subject to Israel's restrictions, those restrictions apply in Israel, and anyways the subject of how aid gets to Palestinians is not in Israeli hands any more.
Israel's critics have consistently been complaining about aid delivery to Gaza. So now that there [EDIT: clearly] is aid getting to Gaza they decided they're going to complain about how that aid is monitored.
I'm not the expert and the details that the company would put out are obviously obtuse, but: image detection/identification, predictive policing, and planning. The latter sounds to me like they'd have some system where people enter reports in natural language and an LLM assembles the information together and then proposes some plan of action. As opposed to having to have a more structured data entry and the friction that comes with it. It's all in the article if you read between the lines, really.
And why draw the line at Gaza? Why not talk about who manufactured the arms the soldiers from the islamic of Iran used to execute tens of thousands of peaceful protesters in a matter of days a few weeks ago? What about their phones, computers, Internet infrastructure: it's not as if Iran was building all these. It's all imported.
But, somehow, there's a very selective outrage going on on HN where there's a very vocal pro-Gaza crowd which happen to very often overlap with the crowd that does never say a word about the tens of thousands that were slaughtered in Iran by islamists.
I think none have their place on HN but as long as those with a pro-Gaza / anti-Israel slant shall keep posting I shall keep pointing out their dark double standards. And I'm not jewish.
Absolutely. People can ignore it all they wish, but the Gaza genocide is a testbed for weapons, surveillance technology, and techniques for quashing resistance and protests in general.
I hope US folks understand that, with the learnings from Gaza, the 2nd Amendment will mean absolutely nothing in the not too distant future.
Try to set aside ideology and preconceived notions for just a minute here and really think about it. A Qassam (Hamas military wing) fighter in Gaza is approximately as (poorly) equipped as a typical US militia fighter would be in a hypothetical US uprising. Gaza is an extremely urban setting akin to a mid-sized US population center (combination of a few cities).
Outside of the scorched earth policy (b/c you would hope the US wouldn’t raze a city to the ground), the Israelis have been experimenting with all sorts of techniques to squash any form of resistance. And the US is learning and advising.
The only situation in which 2A will stop mattering is if the government decides it is willing to level American cities to achieve its future goals.
You cannot kick down doors with AI. You cannot infiltrate meetings with AI (well, at least not if the meeting holders have good opsec).
AI is great if you want to identify targets, but it does not move the needle very much on an occupation. If you want to preserve the area you're occupying then you will have to pay for it in blood.
Not really. Drones give you pretty good tracking/murdering capability. I suspect ground based systems either similar characteristics will be deployed soon.
> The only situation in which 2A will stop mattering is if the government decides it is willing to level American cities to achieve its future goals.
That wouldn't even be necessary. A siege/blockade would cripple any resistance after enough attrition. Take any moderate or large city. It's hard to maintain hundreds of thousands to millions of people with no running water, electricity, agriculture, fuel, healthcare, etc..
> the 2nd amendment will mean absolutely nothing in the not too distant future
It hasn't for many decades now. The armaments that civilians are allowed to legally own pale in comparison to what the military has. AI powered drones would just automate turning people into pink mist.
I agree, but I believe Gaza is the culmination of this reality due to the cross-section of advanced surveillance, drone tech, and AI-based warfare. It is the first time this combination is fully applied to a non-conventional military/guerilla group in a highly concentrated, urban setting.
Also, given that many 2A proponents still believe in it as a legitimate “correction” mechanism, Gaza should be the final wake up call.
No, not wrong. Hutu committed genocide. Turks committed genocide against Armenians. But the war in Gaza is not a genocide once you consider facts and compare to other modern conflicts.
So edgy; is being an apologist really the noble calling you think it is? Both are just words, mappings to concepts in our minds; "genocide" is an invented term, but it has a widely shared definition that the UN helped formalize, and in the minds of many, many people all over the world, the term applies here.
"War" could one day be waged against whatever group you belong to, as well. You may wish for the country waging it to follow the Geneva Convention so that your sons gain a small chance of becoming POWs and returning to you, instead of being destroyed by an autonomous drone. Comments like yours endorse the actions that are being done; we're beginning to recognize the term "hasbara" for them.
> So edgy; is being an apologist really the noble calling you think it is?
Is it your noble calling? From the Temporary Constitution of the State of Palestine (2026)[1]:
Article 4 – Islam, Sharia and Christianity
1. Islam is the official religion in the State of Palestine.
2. The principles of Islamic Sharia are a primary source for legislation.
Not sure how anyone can possibly defend a literal religious autocracy, especially while espousing liberal ideals (right to self-determination, statehood, free markets, rule of law, etc.).
We can see that your own noble calling is to be an apologist for a genocidal state. It's a pity that in reality you likely do not actually get paid for the task, though I must imagine you have people accusing you of that on a regular basis. I'm not sure if it would improve or worsen the moral calculus if you did.
I have no issue with Islam being the religion of Palestine, at least not an issue so strong that murdering its people seems like the correct path forward to me. I suppose your moral reasoning differs on the topic, but it's obviously motivated reasoning based on loyalties I cannot share.
Doesn't the Geneva Convention state that if militants build an underground base beneath a civilian building, that civilian building becomes a military target?
Gaza is Swiss-cheesed with hundreds of miles of military tunnels. If any attack on a tunnel is disallowed because of civilian buildings above it, I predict many countries will start adopting the Hamas strategy of putting military bases under civilian buildings. That way, every attack on your bases becomes a war crime by your enemy - you can't lose!
I do not blame the people of Palestine for taking the defensive actions they deem correct. I do not consent to the idea of civilians becoming legitimate targets due to defensive architecture. Yes, war crimes are being committed; your comment makes you bear complicity to them, in a small degree, as you serve as an apologist for such actions online.
Of course, both of our posting is pointless, as we know neither will convince the other. You have an advantage in that your particular side is in power; but I bite my thumb at you.
> is being an apologist really the noble calling you think it is? Both are just words, mappings to concepts in our minds; "genocide" is an invented term, but it has a widely shared definition that the UN helped formalize
Great. Which describes a very specific thing. good.
> and in the minds of many, many people all over the world, the term applies here.
In minds of many people many things were acceptable. I am not sure this kind of reasoning is a good strategy. In minds of many Hutu, Tutsi did not deserve to live. Were Hutu right?
> "War" could one day be waged against whatever group you belong to, as well. You may wish for the country waging it to follow the Geneva Convention so that your sons gain a small chance of becoming POWs and returning to you, instead of being destroyed by an autonomous drone.
This is very good point. Unfortunately, Palestinians did not follow Geneva convention. Firing unguided rockets in barrages towards population centers with the goal of overwhelming air defense systems is very much non-conventional.
> Comments like yours endorse the actions that are being done;
How come? Do you see a difference between saying "it's okay to kill civilians" and debating the merits of using one term vs. another to describe an event?
> we're beginning to recognize the term "hasbara" for them.
It seems to me an easy way out. Why discuss the merits of an argument, if you can simply say "it's hasbara" and walk away?
I don't need to involve other conflicts in this situation. This is a "whataboutism". Wrongful actions in another conflict do not justify future conflicts. The actions the world has seen do not simply go away because of your comment. I don't need to rehash every factual news article on the topic to justify my position, nor do I need you to rehash the glazing opinion pieces that justify yours; we won't move the needle that way, will we?
> if you can simply say "it's hasbara" and walk away
I'm not walking away, but surely we can both see that there will be no agreement between us. All that I request is that you do not place an explosive device in a pager and send it to me, as that would be very inconsiderate; my neighbour works the night shift and the resulting shockwave would ruin his daytime sleep.
> I don't need to involve other conflicts in this situation. This is a "whataboutism".
No, “whataboutism” is using shifting a conversation to a different issue. For example:
Person A: "The democrats did X!"
Person B: "But the republicans..."
Person B is engaging in whataboutism.
I am not discussing Hutu. What I am doing is I am providing you an example why the reasoning that majority is never wrong is a fallacy via an example.
> Wrongful actions in another conflict do not justify future conflicts. The actions the world has seen do not simply go away because of your comment.
Neither because of yours. Palestinians shoot rockets towards civilians for the past 20 years. Tells us quite a lot who’s the “genocidal” here.
> I don't need to rehash every factual news article on the topic to justify my position, nor do I need you to rehash the glazing opinion pieces that justify yours; we won't move the needle that way, will we?
I am not trying to change your mind. I am posting here for others to see your double standards and flaws in your reasoning. They will see and judge themselves.
> All that I request is that you do not place an explosive device in a pager and send it to me, as that would be very inconsiderate; my neighbour works the night shift and the resulting shockwave would ruin his daytime sleep.
Interesting choice of words here. Should I ask you not to blow yourself on the bus, or in a cafe? Or in a wedding? This is good that you wrote it, it shows exactly what I wanted to see.
> As of 21 February 2026, at least 75,226 people (73,188+ Palestinians[4] and 2,039+ Israelis)[7][8][9][10] have been reported killed in the Gaza war according to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including 248 journalists and media workers,[11] 120 academics,[12] and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, a number that includes 179 employees of UNRWA.[13] Scholars have estimated 80% of Palestinians killed were civilians.[6][5][14] A study by OHCHR, which verified fatalities from three independent sources, found that 70% of the Palestinians killed in residential buildings or similar housing were women and children.[15][16]
> Should I ask you not to blow yourself on the bus, or in a cafe?
Nope, that's the wrong prejudice for my intersectional group, but it certainly reveals some of your own biases.
And to them, I ask: what do you think about this?
Sometimes tech workers from companies like Google [0] and Microsoft [1] protests against the companies ties to whatever Israel is doing in Palestine. Why don't we see Palantir workers protesting against their company policies? (I can only find news of other people protesting Palantir, not workers themselves). Am I right to assume that Palantir workers generally support this?
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3gqw1d37l4o
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/19/microsoft...
Modern America is the complete antithesis of 'The Buck Stops Here.' It's more of an 'I have absolute power, and none of the accountability' sort of place.
If the president, or one of his armed, masked thugs with a license to kill can't ever be held accountable for the evil, vile shit they do, why should some low-level SWE feel any remorse or responsibility for those CLs?
---
The solution? Don't tolerate it. Don't settle for no accountability. Don't think this is no big deal, or business as usual. The only way out of this, if power is ever taken back, is disproportionate punishment for the guilty. The country can move on and heal after justice is fairly apportioned.
Incidentally, both war crimes, and deprivation of rights under color of law are capital crimes in the United States.
As part of the ceasefire agreement the US has agreed to take control of aid delivery to Gaza. Israel has decided that it will not cooperate with any organizations that they consider to be allied with Hamas. This article is sort of mixing these things up where they really have nothing to do with each other. Those NGOs that operate inside Gaza are not subject to Israel's restrictions, those restrictions apply in Israel, and anyways the subject of how aid gets to Palestinians is not in Israeli hands any more.
Israel's critics have consistently been complaining about aid delivery to Gaza. So now that there [EDIT: clearly] is aid getting to Gaza they decided they're going to complain about how that aid is monitored.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
been seeing lots of these attacks on defense companies without providing a better alternative and a concrete plan they can execute
But, somehow, there's a very selective outrage going on on HN where there's a very vocal pro-Gaza crowd which happen to very often overlap with the crowd that does never say a word about the tens of thousands that were slaughtered in Iran by islamists.
I think none have their place on HN but as long as those with a pro-Gaza / anti-Israel slant shall keep posting I shall keep pointing out their dark double standards. And I'm not jewish.
I hope US folks understand that, with the learnings from Gaza, the 2nd Amendment will mean absolutely nothing in the not too distant future.
Try to set aside ideology and preconceived notions for just a minute here and really think about it. A Qassam (Hamas military wing) fighter in Gaza is approximately as (poorly) equipped as a typical US militia fighter would be in a hypothetical US uprising. Gaza is an extremely urban setting akin to a mid-sized US population center (combination of a few cities).
Outside of the scorched earth policy (b/c you would hope the US wouldn’t raze a city to the ground), the Israelis have been experimenting with all sorts of techniques to squash any form of resistance. And the US is learning and advising.
You cannot kick down doors with AI. You cannot infiltrate meetings with AI (well, at least not if the meeting holders have good opsec).
AI is great if you want to identify targets, but it does not move the needle very much on an occupation. If you want to preserve the area you're occupying then you will have to pay for it in blood.
That wouldn't even be necessary. A siege/blockade would cripple any resistance after enough attrition. Take any moderate or large city. It's hard to maintain hundreds of thousands to millions of people with no running water, electricity, agriculture, fuel, healthcare, etc..
Due to the Iron Dome and shelter in every apartment building. The government prioritizes defense of its citizens.
It hasn't for many decades now. The armaments that civilians are allowed to legally own pale in comparison to what the military has. AI powered drones would just automate turning people into pink mist.
Also, given that many 2A proponents still believe in it as a legitimate “correction” mechanism, Gaza should be the final wake up call.
Bullshit.
War is not a genocide.
No, not wrong. Hutu committed genocide. Turks committed genocide against Armenians. But the war in Gaza is not a genocide once you consider facts and compare to other modern conflicts.
> and try to understand my wider point
Your point is founded on falsehoods.
"War" could one day be waged against whatever group you belong to, as well. You may wish for the country waging it to follow the Geneva Convention so that your sons gain a small chance of becoming POWs and returning to you, instead of being destroyed by an autonomous drone. Comments like yours endorse the actions that are being done; we're beginning to recognize the term "hasbara" for them.
Is it your noble calling? From the Temporary Constitution of the State of Palestine (2026)[1]:
Not sure how anyone can possibly defend a literal religious autocracy, especially while espousing liberal ideals (right to self-determination, statehood, free markets, rule of law, etc.).[1] https://constitutionnet.org/sites/default/files/2026-02/2026...
I have no issue with Islam being the religion of Palestine, at least not an issue so strong that murdering its people seems like the correct path forward to me. I suppose your moral reasoning differs on the topic, but it's obviously motivated reasoning based on loyalties I cannot share.
Gaza is Swiss-cheesed with hundreds of miles of military tunnels. If any attack on a tunnel is disallowed because of civilian buildings above it, I predict many countries will start adopting the Hamas strategy of putting military bases under civilian buildings. That way, every attack on your bases becomes a war crime by your enemy - you can't lose!
Of course, both of our posting is pointless, as we know neither will convince the other. You have an advantage in that your particular side is in power; but I bite my thumb at you.
> your comment makes you bear complicity to them, in a small degree, as you serve as an apologist for such actions online.
Can Israelis act as they see fit in defense, or no?
Great. Which describes a very specific thing. good.
> and in the minds of many, many people all over the world, the term applies here.
In minds of many people many things were acceptable. I am not sure this kind of reasoning is a good strategy. In minds of many Hutu, Tutsi did not deserve to live. Were Hutu right?
> "War" could one day be waged against whatever group you belong to, as well. You may wish for the country waging it to follow the Geneva Convention so that your sons gain a small chance of becoming POWs and returning to you, instead of being destroyed by an autonomous drone.
This is very good point. Unfortunately, Palestinians did not follow Geneva convention. Firing unguided rockets in barrages towards population centers with the goal of overwhelming air defense systems is very much non-conventional.
> Comments like yours endorse the actions that are being done;
How come? Do you see a difference between saying "it's okay to kill civilians" and debating the merits of using one term vs. another to describe an event?
> we're beginning to recognize the term "hasbara" for them.
It seems to me an easy way out. Why discuss the merits of an argument, if you can simply say "it's hasbara" and walk away?
I don't need to involve other conflicts in this situation. This is a "whataboutism". Wrongful actions in another conflict do not justify future conflicts. The actions the world has seen do not simply go away because of your comment. I don't need to rehash every factual news article on the topic to justify my position, nor do I need you to rehash the glazing opinion pieces that justify yours; we won't move the needle that way, will we?
> if you can simply say "it's hasbara" and walk away
I'm not walking away, but surely we can both see that there will be no agreement between us. All that I request is that you do not place an explosive device in a pager and send it to me, as that would be very inconsiderate; my neighbour works the night shift and the resulting shockwave would ruin his daytime sleep.
No, “whataboutism” is using shifting a conversation to a different issue. For example:
Person A: "The democrats did X!"
Person B: "But the republicans..."
Person B is engaging in whataboutism.
I am not discussing Hutu. What I am doing is I am providing you an example why the reasoning that majority is never wrong is a fallacy via an example.
> Wrongful actions in another conflict do not justify future conflicts. The actions the world has seen do not simply go away because of your comment.
Neither because of yours. Palestinians shoot rockets towards civilians for the past 20 years. Tells us quite a lot who’s the “genocidal” here.
> I don't need to rehash every factual news article on the topic to justify my position, nor do I need you to rehash the glazing opinion pieces that justify yours; we won't move the needle that way, will we?
I am not trying to change your mind. I am posting here for others to see your double standards and flaws in your reasoning. They will see and judge themselves.
> All that I request is that you do not place an explosive device in a pager and send it to me, as that would be very inconsiderate; my neighbour works the night shift and the resulting shockwave would ruin his daytime sleep.
Interesting choice of words here. Should I ask you not to blow yourself on the bus, or in a cafe? Or in a wedding? This is good that you wrote it, it shows exactly what I wanted to see.
I'll just quote Wikipedia for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_war
> As of 21 February 2026, at least 75,226 people (73,188+ Palestinians[4] and 2,039+ Israelis)[7][8][9][10] have been reported killed in the Gaza war according to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including 248 journalists and media workers,[11] 120 academics,[12] and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, a number that includes 179 employees of UNRWA.[13] Scholars have estimated 80% of Palestinians killed were civilians.[6][5][14] A study by OHCHR, which verified fatalities from three independent sources, found that 70% of the Palestinians killed in residential buildings or similar housing were women and children.[15][16]
> Should I ask you not to blow yourself on the bus, or in a cafe?
Nope, that's the wrong prejudice for my intersectional group, but it certainly reveals some of your own biases.