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by Manuel_D 80 days ago
> Palantir controls insights, models, and outcomes,

No, Palantir's customers are the ones gleaning insights. To re-use the Excel analogy, this is like saying Microsoft is controlling insights and outcomes because organization use Excel.
1 comments
text0404 80 days ago
Palantir's products are not Excel. Palantir's founders and executives are well aware of what their tools are designed for and what they enable, and they're proud of their role.

As far as I know, Microsoft executives don't brag about Excel being used to create a unified "kill chain" [1], nor do they market software intended for targeting for weapons of mass destruction [2], nor do they claim that their products are designed for use in lethal military operations [3].

As much as you'd like to hand-waive away their role, a war profiteer is a war profiteer. IBM also used to just make computers to manage supply chains in WW2; who they sold it to, the purposes it was used for, and why they sold it is still important. Based on interviews, Thiel and Karp are gleeful about their role in the military-industrial complex and embrace it [4], so likening their products to Excel is disingenuous at best.

[1] https://www.palantir.com/platforms/gotham/

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/26/ai-got-the-blam...

[3] https://www.heise.de/en/news/Palantir-defends-its-role-in-th...

[4] https://futurism.com/future-society/palantir-ceo-war-crimes

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Manuel_D 80 days ago
But wouldn't all of that apply to Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, General Motors, Colt, Browning, and countless more companies that don't just build software for the military but actual weaponry? Yet those companies don't receive even a fraction of the hate that Palantir does.
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text0404 80 days ago
Many people (myself included) have a lot to say about those companies as well. But their existence doesn't excuse Palantir, the company at the focus of the article that we're discussing in this thread. We're on a tech-focused forum which is probably why you hear more about tech-first companies here like Palantir and Anduril than "legacy" weapons manufacturers.
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