Technology

Absolutely a nuanced area. But on top of not modelling random people as full individuals it's hard to determine what spying on people might actually mean. I don't really want to defend working for a company as nefarious as Palantir - even if I honestly hardly knew them before Trump #2 - but convincing yourself that gathering people's data isn't problematic is quite easy, and we all inherently accept a wide array of surveillance measures as - willing or unwilling - members of state entities, be it a video camera in a clothing store or governments logging our tax data. Then comes the fact that employees below the level of "board of directors" usually don't know everything going on in the company; I wouldn't fault a junior dev choosing to work for, say, 'cool' Google or Apple in 2017.

Of course it's relevant that humans are egocentrical animals; I wouldn't give my own life to save five people that I don't know in Moldova. Being too empathetic is a poor trait in a dog eat dog world. Of course we need standards and to hold others up to these standards; I don't know your friend, what he does at Palantir or when he started working there - maybe he's a lazy ass that holds them back haha - and I do think, especially with all that's transpired the past 5 months, that it's a problematic company to be part of - I just wanted to discuss that I don't think it's just lack of empathy