How does Peter Thiel, who is as much a libetarian as it gets, harmonizes his beliefs with what Palantir does?
Kinda like Ron Swanson the libertarian government employee who lives on taxpayers' dime. It's called hypocrisy and is an integral part of any political belief: you got libertarians who sell shit to government, progressives murdering children, and conservatives having BDSM themed orgies featuring gay trans participants. I'm a hypocrite libertarian myself, and member of the biggest labor union in America, called H1B.
libertarians don’t actually hate the state generally, since it’s currently the best way to enforce property rights
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He does not handle day to day running of the company. Heck he probably doesn’t handle year to year operations. Last time I saw him on campus was 3 years ago when he was promoting his book. So my vote is he doesn’t care much.
So think about what is the thing to do if you believe the government is too out of control. My answer to this question is not meant to convince you that this is how Peter Thiel is thinking, but it is meant to show how libertarian beliefs are actually very much aligned with a company like Palantir. After 9/11 the government passed laws and did things that completely invaded privacy, which would bother any libertarian. Having the attitude of "I will never work with the government and any moral person never should" wouldn't do anything to solve the problem. Government is still incompetent, and as more horrible things happen more of our civil liberties get taken away. So, if you are actually interested in preserving privacy while at the same time understanding that if the government doesn't do their job properly we will lose more privacy, the actual best thing you could do is start a company that will enable the government to do what it's meant to do, in this case find terrorists. Again, this is not to say the US government doesn't have its fair share of problems but you have to look at the counterfactual. The more terrorist attacks happen the more the government will invade your privacy and expand its control. So by creating a company that enables the government to do their job much better (achieving better results with less survailance and data necessary) and creates controls that didn't previously exist ( who can access what data, logging every access) you actually get less people in the NSA sending your dick pics around and more terrorist attacks prevented. All of this contributes to a better government and a better freer society. Try to think about this from this perspective letting go of the prejudice you might have about palantir and thiel and you'll see that creating a company like Palantir would be exactly what a person who cares about liberty but not about virtue signaling would do.
He is corrupt 😑