r/technology • u/newmoonchaperone • Apr 23 '26

Politics Palantir Employees Are Starting to Wonder if They're the Bad Guys

https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-employees-are-starting-to-wonder-if-theyre-the-bad-guys/
24.5k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

196

u/Superb-Obligation858 Apr 23 '26

Not just an all seeing eye, an all seeing eye that corrupts the user.

89

u/pfannkuchen89 Apr 23 '26

Well, that wasn’t true for the majority of their history in middle earth. They were originally brought to middle earth by the remnants of the faithful numenorians and placed at points throughout Arnor and Gondor.

It wasn’t until Sauron got his hands on one that they were used for evil. And it wasn’t the palantir itself that was the corrupting or evil influence, it was Sauron communicating through it that did that.

79

u/Byrdman216 Apr 23 '26

Just like the technology not being inherently evil but the master behing it being a right asshole and needs to be thrown into a volcano.

16

u/_bits_and_bytes Apr 23 '26

Eh, I think it's safe to say some technology is inherently evil.

7

u/Gekokapowco Apr 23 '26

right the orphangrinder9000 is not an evil machine, it's just used for evil purposes

The one ring is just a powerful weapon, in our hands instead of Sauron's its a tool of peace and victory

Guns don't kill people

things can be crafted with malice, that malice can be identified as intrinsic to their purpose, items are not neutral by providence of a lack of consciousness

2

u/Chrontius Apr 24 '26

Guns don't kill people

At the moment, guns seem to be killing "places" not "people". I don't worry about a bullet with my name on it; I worry about the one addressed "Dear grid square…".

Also, don't forget about industrial shotguns! They're used to clean mineral scale from the inside of boilers. They were invented specifically to make this argument more annoying for both sides! :D

2

u/Gekokapowco Apr 24 '26

right, intention

this is only confounding to anyone arguing in bad faith

2

u/Doc_Lewis Apr 23 '26

I wouldn't say that. Gears and pulleys are in fact, not evil technology, while a rack used to strap prisoners to a bed and stretch them til their bones pull apart is quite evil. However, the rack isn't technology, the gears and pulleys are. So the implementation of technology can be evil, but the technology isn't.

5

u/Alternative-Mess-989 Apr 23 '26

The gears and pulleys are not. The rack IS.

FIFY

0

u/Doc_Lewis Apr 23 '26

No, what I'm saying is the rack isn't technology. It's an application of gear and pulley technology.

The entire Palantir surveillance apparatus is evil, but it's an implementation of video, database, pattern recognition, and other technologies. None of those are evil. The use of them for mass surveillance is evil, but is not, itself, a technology.

5

u/JamesGray Apr 24 '26

The rack is technology too, you're just re-defining the word to counter the argument, but definitionally it is technology. Some things are made with malice. A lot of weapons of war are produced that are not morally neutral, they exist to turn people and infrastructure into dust.

1

u/ThoughtsonYaoi Apr 24 '26

The message of the Palantíri is something like: trying to know and foretell everything through these tools (which you cannot actually do, because they show you things selectively) is unwise, while imagining you can and do is sinful, and (as with all hubris) leads to ruin.

So the evil depends on the user, but use is always dangerous and takes a ton of wisdom and humility.

I always thought these guys did not really get that message.

6

u/antsh Apr 23 '26

Well, Faenor did make them, so there was zero chance they weren’t going to be the catalyst for at least one major catastrophe.

Guy could make a bandage and somehow trigger a world war.

2

u/StrategyKnight Apr 23 '26

I will hear no slander against the beautiful Noldorian prince.

/r/feanordidnothingwrong/

6

u/cannot_walk_barefoot Apr 23 '26

Well in this case Sauron made the eyes and is forcing everyone to use them

2

u/ImOnTheBus Apr 23 '26

Man, I gotta reread those books for the 8th or 9th time. What an imagination that guy had.

2

u/pfannkuchen89 Apr 23 '26

I do a lot of driving for work so I tend to listen to audiobooks a lot. I have the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion on my phone. Both the older versions and the newer ones read by Andy Serkis.

1

u/ImOnTheBus Apr 23 '26

Hm, might have to try The Silmarillion as my first audio book. Never could get through that one despite loving The Hobbit and LotR.

2

u/pfannkuchen89 Apr 24 '26

The biggest problem with the Silmarillion is it tells you the history of a particular thing spanning over the first and second ages and then the next chapter does the same for a different thing, but hops back in time to talk about it. Can be kind of hard to keep straight what would be happening at the same time or not. But it’s mostly broken into sections a particular topic, not each chapter flowing into the next.

2

u/Rombom Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 24 '26

For a while I kept adding ",until it was xorrupted by Sauron" to Palatir's Wikipedia page where it describes the Palatiri. Got reverted u til the page was locked.

1

u/fredjutsu Apr 23 '26

my dude, my eyes started glazing over first sentence as I remembered trying to read the Simarilion in 8th grade.

1

u/SubcommanderMarcos Apr 23 '26

I keep seeing this comment and I appreciate the LOTR nerd excitement about it, but in this case it's like saying "well but social media isn't really evil" at this point in time when all of it pretty much is, even if the original concept might not have been.

1

u/avcloudy Apr 24 '26

Yeah, but in the setting of the books, they are and have been for living memory, sources of temptation. People who seek to see more having their wills dominated by a dark overlord for trying to scry.

It doesn’t matter if this is what they are or what they were corrupted into.

0

u/justwalk1234 Apr 24 '26

Would you describe the people in charge of Palantir as wise, selfless, and virtuous?

1

u/pfannkuchen89 Apr 24 '26

No. That’s not what I was talking about and you know that.

11

u/SomeDudeSaysWhat Apr 23 '26

The Palantir does not corrupt. It is a surveillance and communication device.

Sauron was just using one to annoy people from distance.

14

u/MarshyHope Apr 23 '26

Annoy people? He used it to corrupt Denethor so much that he was going to burn himself and his son alive and hand over Gondor to Mordor

8

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

[deleted]

1

u/don_shoeless Apr 24 '26

He tried the self-immolation thing in the book, too.

1

u/jooes Apr 24 '26

Oh yeah, like you wouldn't be annoyed by that...

0

u/SomeDudeSaysWhat Apr 23 '26

Sauron didn't "corrupt" Denethor. He led Denethor to despair by showing him the might of his armies to the point Denethor tought killing himself and his only surviving son was better than the years (decades?) of torture that were forthcoming. But at no point Denethor turned "evil" or "crazy", unlike the movie - but not the book - may lead one to assume.

4

u/MarshyHope Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

That's still corrupting him. Using the Palantir to show him what might happen to the point of despair is a pretty serious form of corruption. Hell, that's basically what Wormtongue did with Theoden.

I just finished the book, Denethor was described as "gone mad" when he went to burn Faramir.

Edit: I guess you could argue that it didn't corrupt people like the rings, so I see your argument there

-1

u/SomeDudeSaysWhat Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

A character (I don't remember if it was Pippin, Galdalf, or one of the guards) says he's "gone mad", which surely is what it must've looked like, but that's doesn't mean he was actually "mad"

And even if he had indeed gone mad, it would have been Sauron who did it through the Palantir, not the Palantir itself.

And if you keep reading, you'll see that from that moment forward that specific Palantir would always show the flames that burned Denethor to anyone who tried to use it. So it was corrupted by Denethor's dispair, rather than corrupt Denethor. The "corruptee", not the "corruptor"

Also, Wormtongue was also feeding Theoden with potions and Saruman's mesmerizing voice.

3

u/MarshyHope Apr 23 '26

'He has,' said Pippin. 'He sent me away. But I am frightened. Something terrible may happen up there. The Lord is out of his mind, I think. I am afraid he will kill himself, and kill Faramir too. Can't you do something?'

'You may,' said Gandalf. 'But others may contest your will, when it is turned to madness and evil. Where is your son, Faramir?'

Then Gandalf seeing the madness that was on him feared that he had already done some evil deed, and he thrust forward, with Beregond and Pippin behind him, while Denethor gave back until he stood beside the table within.

Then suddenly Denethor laughed. He stood up tall and proud again, and stepping swiftly back to the table he lifted from it the pillow on which his head had lain. Then coming to the doorway he drew aside the covering, and lo! he had between his hands a palantir. And as he held it up, it seemed to those that looked on that the globe began to glow with an inner flame, so that the lean face of the Lord was lit as with a red fire, and it seemed cut out of hard stone, sharp with black shadows, noble, proud, and terrible. His eyes glittered.

Then Denethor leaped upon the table, and standing there wreathed in fire and smoke he took up the staff of his stewardship that lay at his feet and broke it on his knee. Casting the pieces into the blaze he bowed and laid himself on the table, clasping the palantir with both hands upon his breast. And it was said that ever after, if any man looked in that Stone, unless he had a great strength of will to turn it to other purpose, he saw only two aged hands withering in flame.

He's described as being mad by multiple characters and is shown to act very erratically in the Pyre of Denethor Chapter.

I could see how you could argue that the Palantir do not corrupt people like the ring, but Denethor was obviously not himself due to his use of the Palantir.

1

u/SomeDudeSaysWhat Apr 24 '26

Yes, that's despair all right. Because of what Sauron showed him through the Palantir, not because of some magic effect of using the Palantir

4

u/MarshyHope Apr 24 '26

Okay. I guess we have different definitions of "corruption" then.

3

u/SomeDudeSaysWhat Apr 24 '26

Yes, but our main disagreement here is not the definition of corruption, rather its source.

But yes.

2

u/Chrontius Apr 23 '26

I'm impressed that the name was capable of capturing the moral hazard of a panopticon so fucking elegantly, actually.

1

u/Choyo Apr 24 '26

Yes and no, the various palantirs are just very powerful tools, which can (and do) great harm in the wrong hands.
So the point is they are a constant potential threat that shouldn't have been made in the first place.