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Everyone should say no to palantir anywhere, especially outside the US.
So what are they using this software for, what's the proposed alternative, and what makes that alternative work better for their use case?
> the British people love the NHS because we’re suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

LOL I've said the same thing! Turns out I do have something in common with Peter Thiel.

The difference is he's speaking in the context of US which makes his comments on the NHS just disgusting hypocrisy.

Clicking "no thanks" on their cookie banner does absolutely nothing. What a sleazy website.
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I can't say I understand the Palantir hate. Isn't it just a database analytics SaaS? Why not hate Google as well because government employees who do things you don't like use Google? Is the Palantir hate just manufactured pointless rage or is there an actual reason behind it?
I don't know if you all know this, but Palantir offers ai/analytics services that are not just for governments. That's how they started out, but don't be surprised seeing random companies using them same as they would elastic, splunk and the like.

I won't comment on Palantir themselves, I doubt I could add anything there, but I think there is a glaring pattern to be observed there. Companies really are not people, if people don't want them, they can cease to exist. If the UK for example is really able to say no to Palantir, can they do it countrywide?

Fines aside (let's be real, they're just taxes at this point since no company goes bankrupt from fines these days), what company is facing meaningful consequence for harming society?

Vote with dollars? Ok...but back to my pessimism earlier, I guess I don't need to vote at the ballot then right? Let's just vote with our wallets instead?

If Palantir really is so evil (and I'm not saying that, I don't know enough , although I've probably used their stuff more than most), at minimum, tell me what sort of a vote will lead to their extinction. if they broke the law, tell me who I can vote for to imprison the law breakers. If they didn't break the law because one didn't exist to prohibit their actions to begin with, then who will pass the laws required so I can vote for them? Why are we not talking about whatever practice Palantir is in the habit of doing, and how to criminalize that? Maybe we can't in the US, but this is Europe, I would hope they'd have better luck.

This sort of thinking and action-taking doesn't seem to exist here in the US. I don't think we're able to function that way anymore.

To friends in Europe and elsewhere: Take heed and be warned. Being able to organize and resist companies and laws, that's something you should fight with all your strength over.

But looking at this site, it isn't very convincing. I know of more serious accusations against Palantir that aren't listed there. Enabling mass deportations and gaza, yeah.. that's Microsoft, Google and Cisco as well. Their CEO, yeah.. Elon says a lot worse things about a lot more things, are his satellites banned in the UK? at least is the UK gov banned from using them? He's been caught aiding Russia with his sats a couple of times now.

My observation is that a more holistic approach and measures are needed. A glaring lack of consequences over all.

My main question generally is, why is palantir doing the work that research institutions should be doing for governments.

Make the data public if you want to see progress

There are a few answers to that but the most obvious reason is quality of work. You can expect a lot more out of a contractor whose billed rate is $250 an hour versus a grad student. The second point is that least in the United States, all government jobs are purely clerical and administrative. The government, as you know it does nothing for itself, except may be law-enforcement. Contractors do everything. Space flight, building the roads, managing construction programs, hauling trash, everything. In this particular case there are “national security“ interests that have inserted themselves into the healthcare domain who want the data and to control treatment. You don’t get to say no to people who with unlimited resources and a “by any means necessary” MO.
Palantir provide the software stack, they don't do the research.
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Why would any non US country pay for a dependency anymore on US military products under the current administration...
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lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Karp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies

You could have at least read Palatir's wiki before commenting.

Here are some hightlights:

> Karp and Zamiska argue that American technological dominance requires deeper integration of Silicon Valley and defense interests.

> Karp contends that China operates with fewer ethical constraints than American defense companies, making technological leadership essential for national security

> According to the Journal, for two years the company continuously revised its technology based on the demands of analysts from the intelligence agencies, introduced to them by In-Q-Tel.[1

Do you need more? That's a single paragraph.

Wonder if they'll also have an AI kill chain for healthcare. Would be a neat little trick to reduce costs.
For all practical purposes this already exists and that's because practically speaking it has to. Obviously a health system can't deploy infinity money to save the life of every person who is sick.
> NHS England is rolling out software to run our health records from Palantir – a US spy-tech firm that has supported mass deportation in the US and enabled genocide in Gaza.

Forget politics, not everything has to be framed this way. This is simply something that should be done in-house. What if the UK's relations with the US break down, or there is a cyber attack on the infrastructure?

> One of Palantir’s founders is also openly against the NHS. Peter Thiel claimed it “makes people sick” and said that the British people love the NHS because we’re suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

Is the insinuation that Thiel will sabotage the NHS servers because he wants to see it fail, at the cost of billions if he were to be caught? Do we have to be politically aligned with absolutely everybody at all times in every part of life in order to be able to function?

> With the government putting NHS trusts under pressure to adopt the software, we need to act right now. If you want to keep Palantir out of our NHS, send an email to your local trust and Wes Streeting, secretary of state for health.

This Wes Streeting guy has a high chance of being the next UK Prime Minister in early 2026.

Yes. Billionaires with an authoritarian agenda will cost their businesses and their shareholders billions of dollars in pursuit of ideological goals. Throw a few fascist salutes and people stop buying your cars. Was that salute rational? Is rationality even the right question?
Peter Thiel says a lot of high and mighty things but has made pretty much all his money in mundane software, mostly ads. So if it offers any solace, I doubt his principles will get in the way of him making money.
So the US security apparatus will have DNA data on all UK citizens.

Nice...

What could possibly go wrong with giving UK citizen data to ICE, NSA, CIA, Trump, Trumps friends, Trumps friends corporations, Trump's friends foreign political connections, donors to the above etc...

Palantir and Anduril both have an altogether creepy fixation on the UK.

I hope Trump lives a long enough and cognitively healthy enough life to witness his own utter humiliating failures, which are inevitable. His coalition is collapsing, his wealthy backers will run away because they have no principles.

Corporate Trumpism itself may never die, though; it is ironic that someone so malevolent, reactive, instinctive and disordered might be the harbinger of that smooth, sleek, white marble, stainless steel and brightly coloured leather sofa corporate governance future that Rollerball promised us.

Excuse my delivery of bad news, but the time to say no would have been when the dystopian British government installed CCTV cameras everywhere. The Fox has been in the henhouse for several decades now, asking politely or just mumbling "no" under your breath is not going to do anything at all. You may as well just save yourself the further humiliation of inevitable defeat with that mentality. People are going to say no to the implementation of a system with direct, root ties to the "intelligence" (we really need a better term for that) triad, when the peasants are totally dependent on the centralized, ruling class controlled health services of the NHS???

Hello? Does no one else notice that the peasants are in a a dungeon, in a cage in that dungeon and shackled to the wall in that cage in the dungeon? And they're going to say "no"???? People clearly have either gone insane and are lying to themselves, or they have absolutely no idea what the reality is that they are experiencing all around them out of delusions or stupidity, or both.

The more access Palantir gets the more it becomes what I've feared for years, an unified database where they can use any or all of the following:

Location(s) Phone number(s) Ip(s) Email(s) document(s) comment history(ies)

so on and so on to gather every single thing you've ever done on the internet, it's very dystopia like and I cannot believe that it's legal outside the US for palantir to even operate in.

People seem to forget a healthcare system is an important part of a nations security apparatus. In a time of war, casualty numbers and information is very valuable, and so allowing access to this data to be controlled by a company (palantir) funded by a foreign nations security services (funding by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's VC fund) is short sighted.

Even if you think Palantir is a wonderful company, this should concern you for the reasons above.

What are some valid sovereign alternatives NHS can use?
I'm really confused as to why the Good Law Project thinks this is their fight.

NHS gives contract for cloud database to US cloud software company. This is not that shocking. I'm not clear what they outcome they're looking for .... Using Databricks instead and getting slightly shittier health outcomes so we can be smug we're not connected to Peter Thiel?

I can't read the article because the cookie dialog is broken and won't proceed. Chrome on iPhone