I think the proper counter move is to seize all assets of oligarchs and distribute it among The People. That way those Vietnam 2.0 loving guys won't get any say in anything anymore.
If that's the case, then every war to be fought needs to have the say so of those that will be doing the fighting and not the solitary decision made by a delusional leader that had already circumvented the required process from Congress.
Hell, require the approval of 3/4 of governors as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
> Butler, a retired Marine Corps major general, testified under oath that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization with him as its leader and use it in a coup d'état to overthrow Roosevelt.
(In the book, the "future" Congress had called war referenda on three occasions; each time, the vote was overwhelmingly "No," and historians believed those decisions were justified.)
I still cannot help but look at Palantir as a company that just sends $ to the "oligarchs". I still wonder what real value Palantir provides the US Gov.
After reading the article, are they looking for cheap tech labor. Is that because no one in tech wants to join the military due to pay ?
> After reading the article, are they looking for cheap tech labor. Is that because no one in tech wants to join the military due to pay ?
Cyber in the military has abysmal retention because of the pay. You can get an immediate ~$50k pay raise doing the same work as soon as you leave the military.
Their "product" has always been some hacky database joins behind a web app with a dark mode interface that makes the baby brains at DOD feel like they're in a 90s hacker movie
If the President had to make the case that taking on Iran would cost each American around $1000 on top of higher prices for fuel and food, how many would sign off on that?
So I guess I agree with Palantir. Be honest about the actual costs of war and chances are we will get into fewer.
in the long term maybe, in the short term its mass debt of trillions
The pentagon has NEVER been successfully audited.
This is a naive comment. The people deciding to send people to war do not concern themselves with the costs. The people concerned about the cost have no say in deciding to start military conflicts.
imagine if tim cook or satya came out and talked about how there needs to be a draft. people would say lol shut up nerd and move on.
some dorkus who heads a company that's just providing over reaching surveillance data to governments so they can do dumb data analytics should have no say in these affairs, and we should promptly discard what they have to say. peter thiel is a sociopath, karp is a dork, these people just want to be known as "the guy with the ideas" and they've crossed deep into the "what are you even saying right now" territory.
tbh we should jettison them into the sun they're kind of a scourge on civilization and clearly lake any real stakes that keep them grounded in the world.
Perhaps this would lead to more peace.
See concepts like Auftragstaktik, command intent, mission command.
Nobility lost most relevance now so I'm sure it's different now, owning a castle or a weird last name doesn't make you rich or powerful.
It’s no different than the republicans that are violently against abortion and then you find out they’ve funded multiple for their mistresses. They’re perfectly fine with a law banning it because they know it will never apply to them.
I would agree with that, but its debt is to the people of that country, not their current government. But instead, Palantir conspires to surveil and repress those people at the bidding of an elite, anti-democratic minority.
And would the leaders of Palantir still argue it had a moral debt to serve the government if it was a left-wing one, engaged in a process of wealth redistribution? No, they wouldn't. This supposed moral ideology is a facile sham.
What?
BUT - this really only works if there's a social contract in place. In the United States it's hard to see how compulsory service works if people don't feel like the country is showing up for them.
These days, what are American soldiers dying for? A society with great health care? Fantastic education? Wealth and social stability? Absolutely not! Until that changes I don't see any good reason why we should send our young people off to die. (EDIT: if you want a sobering experience, visit a military graveyard and pay special attention to the ages of the soldiers. We might as well call a military graveyard a children's graveyard).
And to agree with others on this thread, the folks who push for war should 100% be required to participate in them and lead from the front. Don't sell the rest of our lives while you hide in a nice air conditioned bunker.
It never happens because those in power use their power to avoid it, even if they bind the rest of us with rules they enforce. By saying they "should be required", you are promoting the idea that their desire for war is acceptable as long as they codify certain standards, which they are able to use their powers to personally circumvent.
I am not.
This was part of Charles Rangel's (D) reasoning to propose bringing back the draft. [1]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_National_Service_Act
And when contrasting with earlier times like the Civil War, where a draft was unpopular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrollment_Act
War has become too remote and comfortable for most Americans.
Otherwise I agree that the incentives are warped.
Is there a study of soldiers who enlisted but only because their draft number was low? There were substantial benefits to enlisting, because you could choose your branch of service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging
A major reason why the draft was stopped is that because when you take a disunified and unwilling populace and start giving them weapons, their target may not be the enemy.
Israel
(The name of my next punk band.)
Good name for a punk band though.
Agree. That's what we saw during Vietnam. The public finally got involved because it couldn't be ignored that the children of "normies" were being sent overseas to die in a meaningless and stupid war.
Yes and no. Of course people should be free, at the same time you live in a society and not a state of nature.
If someone never has to put back into society, that's dangerous. It could lead to people feeling that society has no value, that there's no sense in investing in it, that since nobody else cares why should I.
That's not a world I want to live in.
Why? I get the warm-and-fuzzy angle of "instilling civic responsibility", but you're effectively instilling that at gunpoint: the government forces you to do this, else you go to prison. Is that really such an enlightened thing to do?
It takes away two years of your life, possibly delaying your education, entry into the workforce, or having children. So again, what's the rigorous justification for this? The government already calls dibs on a good chunk of your economic output, on a percentage of every penny you spend, and on certain types of property you own; so why should they also be able to draft you for some free labor if there's no war or other emergency going on?
You can only prepare for a fire before it starts.
The strategic idea is to remain in a pose of compounding growth as long as possible by avoiding war and war preparations until they're known to be absolutely necessary. Peacetime investments like scientific research build on themselves, while military spending sits in a depot until it's obsolete and then costs even more to safely dispose. The same goes for replacing the first two years of professional school with standing around in a big shed.
The same goes for replacing the first two years of professional school with standing around in a big shed.
Exaggerated tropes like this don't make for useful discussion.
https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/research/nfpa-re...
I'm not sure anywhere expects people to do their national service for free - which is to say that such a programme would also likely be very expensive.
If the market figured it out we wouldn't be having these discussions in the first place.
In a developed society, I'm not sure what kind of labor an 18-year old can perform (what I mean is that it would be mostly unskilled labor), that would be better than taxing this same individual later in life, without delaying their education by 2 years.
I suppose there would have to be exemptions for college students as there typically are in such schemes in other countries?
You'll never guess what happens if you choose not to pay taxes.
First, "national service" does not necessarily mean relocation like a military deployment does. Second, there is no requirement that national service be free.
This has me thinking about a way to encourage some level of public service in exchange for better access to government programs, like an extra 10% in retirement benefits or something.
Reminds me of Starship Troopers: "Service Guarantees Citizenship!" Yes, I know it's a play on fascism.
Somebody who is confident enough to handle a rifle and throw a hand grenade is way more useful to me than someone who was forced to another literature or geology course.
Have someone demonstrate a command of the English language by following written instructions that require coordinating activities with a small group of people.
Instead of learning how to read a topographical map for first year geology lab final actually put the map in their hand with a compass and have them do an orienteering exercise as a group.
I'm so sick of libertarian tropes. Starting every argument with oerwrought emotionalism has made me increasingly indifferent to your 'plight' over the years, because it's just victimization politics. Perhaps if we rebalanced public/private obligations overall tax burdens owuld be lower and society would be more pleasant to live in.
Oh? I would argue that most of us in the United States live in complete blissful ignore that our entire way of life is propped up by this.
Edit: I'm for this BTW, I think everyone should have to do some form of service, but I'd also like to see anyone in the gov with the power to send people to war be required to have served in the armed forces.
I agree but I don't think it goes far enough. Leading from the front of the best equipped military in the world doesn't balance your incentives against the misery you are inflicting on the innocent denizens of the poor country you're pointlessly destroying.
There's also the economic destruction back home to balance against. So, those who call for war should be forbidden to privately fund their healthcare and children's education.
War is a mighty economic engine, this cannot be denied. But if we take an entire country to war, then it stands to reason that the entire country should benefit from the spoils (to the extent that there are any).
Isn't that the broken window fallacy writ large?
Why, they're dying for people like Alex Karp and Peter Thiel of course.
Yes, except it's not their own one.
I absolutely love the idea of me or my children going through a challenging few years as a tool of our society, whether that be military training or something else.
...with the enormous caveat that our society must be cohesive, which it is no longer (culturally, politically - you name it).
OK, sure, but only if we agree that a war should be fought. No more fighting a war because six rich guys in a back room decide we need unobtanium. Or because one rich guy doesn't like some other rich guy's religious values.
New markets to sell genocide tools to.
The hacker aesthetic has always been anarchist in nature, until the rich Californians decided that a hacker is an entrepreneur that participates into the game of capitalism. To be fair, even the concept of libertarianism was an offshoot of anarchism, until the Americans decided that it means right-wing party politics of the rich elite. Words don't mean anything any more, any concept that can equated to its opposite if it rewards one with internet points.
You do realize what sort of company you work for, right? Is it cognitive dissonance or are you really a paranoid right winger that's fully on board with Palantir's efforts to enable authoritarian governments akin to 1984's Big Brother?
I'm curious. Please feel free to explain how you go to work every day and do what you do. Fair warning, the rest of us are pretty disgusted with you.
For true believers though, which I'm sure exist there, I do wonder much the same things.
It worked in WWII because of Pearl Harbor and the Axis being cartoon villains. Direct US involvement also only lasted 4-5 years. Vietnam demonstrated that an unpopular, long-term conflict is ill-suited to the draft.
And let's be clear: Palantir executives want "other" people to die in wars, not them or their children.
What are they thinking lol
superkuh•1h ago
There's no point in addressing their propaganda, but the idea that that a draft leads to everyone from every class of life having to be involved in war equally is so obviously untrue it's a joke.