Palantir CEO Alex Karp gives $180k to ousted hermit River Dave (opens in new tab)

I mean everything Peter Thiel funds is basically a technology out of Minority Report combined with a name from Lord of the Rings on it

At this point you can probably reverse engineer that process. Invent something that persecutes minorities in some form, go to the lotr wiki, hit the random button and apply for a loan

Careful, there is a lot of propaganda against Palantir because they stand against big tech, Silicon Valley, and its political agenda - which controls the majority of the media.

For example: The first story, it was later confirmed Palantir declined it, even the whistleblower admitted that they were just talking but never amounted to anything https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/27/palantir-worked-with-cambrid...

I also encourage you to read in detail MiJente's report on ICE, I had to stop midway due to personal attacks on Thiel, nothing related to the business, it seemed like propaganda whitepaper.

There is no question how far big tech will go to brainwash the population with ads, as they profit from that business model and squash every opposition against them. Be very careful of what you read online, even in HN.

Also they help ICE deport uncodumented immigrants.

Here's how meaningless this smear campaign is:

> Palantir worked with Cambridge Analytica on the Facebook data it acquired

Google, PG&E, DoorDash, Edible Arrangements, worked with Cambridge Analytica...

> Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

The government does using some of Palantir's tools. Does Palatir itself do that?

> NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

So?

> Leaked Palantir Doc Reveals Uses, Specific Functions and Key Clients

So?

> U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians

Accuse being the key word.

> How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped expand the NSA’s global spy network

How Google, PG&E, DoorDash and Edible Arrangements helped expand the NSA's global spy network. Maybe the NSA is the problem here, not service providers?

> Britain gave Palantir access to sensitive COVID-19 patient records in £1 deal

Why did Britain give them access to that?

If anything, I'm interested in learning about why they should be in jail. I'm pretty uninformed on the subject.

What is so different between Evil Spymaster for the US Govt [1], and Evil Spymaster for every advertiser [2], and potentially other govts, and the Evil Spymaster that sells your data [3]? Perhaps the exception is that one doesn't mine on their own and merely integrates data, whereas the other 2 are actively weaponizing data against their own users?

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

[2] http://www.google.com/

[3] https://www.facebook.com/

One difference here is that in one case, we're talking about someone who's financially independent hundreds of thousands of times over, and has enough financial resources to do real good on a fairly large scale, versus @jdavis703, who still needs to work to provide for himself. One can argue (and this is becoming a stronger argument day by day as the whole "tax the rich" sentiment grows stronger and stronger) that the CEO has a responsibility to give back to the society that allows him to exist [0].

This isn't minimizing your personal act of charity. You don't have the power to, say, make sure that every unhoused person in your city has access to shelter, or that every American has access to an affordable source of potable water, or any of the other shameful situations that exist in the richest country in the world by total GDP[1]. This is bringing the scale of the CEO's act down to something the 99.999% of us who aren't billionaires can comprehend.

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[0]: Of course, I don't mean in the literal sense of "society allows this guy to live," but more that his billionaire status owes in large part to the fact that American society is set up to allow people to become billionaires.

[1]: This is to say nothing of fighting climate change, or any other, important, global issue.

But you don't get a news article about you. I think the implicit injustice here is that the public perception and appreciation of selfless giving is firmly stuck in absolute rather than relative terms.

The problem of course is if people started thinking in relative terms then there would be little or no incentive for the wealthy to give anything at all. In this version of a just world, this $180k gift would be just as ignored as the $7.50 gift. The fact that this person gave non-anonymously tells me that it was about PR as much as anything else.

BTW, truly blessed are the ones who give anonymously. That, to me, is the ultimate in giving, because you receive nothing, not even notoriety, in return.

I am happy he actually did something about it, and didn't just wear a virtue signalling shirt "Support the Homeless", or, go on bloviating about Global Warming while taking a private Jet to Davos Switzerland.

It’s the same green washing as a football club for Qatar or UAE but they can cover it by pointing to this guy as a proper libertarian. As a NH resident, I feel for the guy, but try squatting on Karps land or Theil’s if you can get to NZ and see how close to home their charity continues.

Actually, River Dave may have a pretty strong case for adverse possession [1] as he lived there for a very long time, over the 20 year limit for NH [2], and he was pretty active on the land.

[1] https://courts-state-nh-us.libguides.com/adversepossession

[2] https://www.nashualaw.com/adverse-possession-in-new-hampshir...

27 years ago was 1994. Society has been here a long time already. Lets be real. Its not like its a post 94 invention.

I get that he is not really harming anyone but he us squatting on someone else’s property. Theres all kinds if legal liability concerns for the property owner.

The US Gov and county tax assessors are worlds apart.

Stories are chosen for a reason. I don't know what that reason was, in this case, but you can be certain that it benefits those in control of the printing press. It is in this sense that all journalism is propaganda of one sort or another.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

This. It was (near the) front page news of most local newspapers that all get their news from the same Reuters-like sources/each other - stories like this are always popular water-cooler topics and spread rapidly as easy smalltalk.

I disagree with this assessment I think, and am rather disappointed that this post was flagged. In the future (for me) it would be useful to understand exactly what is meant by "fulmination" in the site guidelines. The definition is broad and ranges from "vehement protest" to "exploding violently". I'm not trying to split hairs, but "vehement protest" is also quite vague. I think what I wrote is a pretty concise critique of the public writings of one of the site's founders and it's relevant to the way the HN set interprets articles like this (billionaire donates to soup kitchen). If you could provide some feedback on what specifically led to you flagging the post, I'd appreciate it. Thanks dang!

not sure if you're spectacularly missing the point, but if not: the point i'm making is, he wouldn't have to mention it, period. but will do so to reap the tax benefits.

It's not hard to google, but I probably read something relatively local with an ugly interface (which might be the reason I didn't post) and a quick scan makes me think it was roughly a story like this one:

https://sentinelcolorado.com/uncategorized/river-dave-doesnt...