[Terr_]

So what? This was never about the moral culpability of the inanimate object itself. (Charitably ignoring, for the moment, that the One Ring was instead a part of Sauron, infused with his own life force. )

This is about the morality and judgment of any person who'd consciously choose to found "One-Ring Controls" (ORC inc.) selling the "Ringraith 3000" that spies on employees and punishes them for not working hard enough.

"Don't criticize me for my branding because fictional crystal-balls and rings are just objects" is not a credible defense.

[db48x]

I haven’t defended Palantir the company at all. I don’t know anything about them. I was merely correcting misstatements about the fictional devices called palantiri.

Frankly the name is amazingly great branding. It makes the customers think, even if only subconsciously, that they have bought a literal crystal ball. That’s genius marketing. Once you’ve got your customers thinking magically about your product you can bamboozle them until the end of time.