In 2023, the then-Conservative government awarded Palantir with a £330m contract to “build a new NHS data platform”. The move proved controversial because Palantir is a US spy tech firm and its co-founder Peter Thiel is a prominent Trump donor with links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Now, a trove of leaked emails have shone further light on Thiel’s connections.

  • Deflated0ne@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    It’s 100% safe to assume anyone who even leans in the direction of supporting supply-side economics is a diddler.

  • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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    I assume y’all on the other side of the pond are just learning about Palantir for the first time and that’s why you’re looking for bombshell headlines. I can assure you as someone from Silicon Valley that there is literally no single headline that can possibly convey the pure evil that is Peter Thiel. He literally believes that it is morally and, from his perspective, objectively correct that a few pre-selected technocrat elites (his words) should rule city-states that “compete” with each other. He is currently miserably failing at building a libertarian “eutopia” (his words) out in the desert to the east of San Francisco. He promises it would be done by this year. It hasn’t even started.

    He founded PayPal and got mad when he immediately learned that banks exist for a reason. He was such a piece of shit that Elon Musk couldn’t work with him.

    • Tweak@lemmy.world
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      Dude, the US has been lagging behind the UK for the last decade. We voted for Brexit because of Cambridge Analytica, then you voted Trump for the first time because of Cambridge Analytica. We voted for Boris in 2019, you got Trump again in 2024. We’re probably going to vote in Nigel Farage next and then the US will be like “Hold my beer!”

      Palantir is just another symptom of this wider problem.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        Ok, but hear me out: what if we got Nigel Farage in a 10 gallon hat with Liz Truss in a 10 gallon hat for VP.

    • zeezee@slrpnk.net
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      uhm idk who’s not familiar with Thiel but the blueprint of his “utopia” - “The Sovereign Individual” was literally co-written by no other than William Rees-Mogg a conservative house of lords cross-bencher who’s also the father of two other conservative MPs that have served in the UK Parliament.

      the 2014 reprint of the book has a foreword by Thiel, where he says that it’s “the most influential book he had read”

      so as usual the theoretical frameworks have been drafted in the heart of empire and implemented in the “land of the free”

    • Frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      Well, Elon wouldn’t work with him because Elon had a shitty idea that Thiel said was shitty and wouldn’t let Elon do it. Elon was forced to settle for becoming filthy rich.

      That project is where the name “X” originally comes from.

    • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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      Wikipedia classifies him as a “thinker”. Does your wiki entry classify you as a thinker? Check and mate, lib.

      • Rose@slrpnk.net
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        Being a “thinker” isn’t exactly a high bar. A fish can do it (depending on the definition). I mean I suppose I can think, but I wouldn’t brag about it.

        • lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de
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          if you have nothing worth bragging about, resorting to basic functions of sapient life for clout is the best you can do. I’m a thinker too. I’m also a breather, an eater and plenty moee things that aren’t special.

          I’ve got some actual achievements too, such as being a former piece of shit, so I’ve actually got a leg up on him!

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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      The first time? Hardly, for anyone who can read and find proper news sources. I’ve been telling people for years that the most dangerous people in the fascist middle northern america are not in the white house, but in the silicon valley - and that the most evil motherfucker is Peter Thiel.

    • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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      I can assure you as someone from Silicon Valley that there is literally no single headline that can possibly convey the pure evil that is Peter Thiel. He literally believes that …

      Fuck, you spoiled my plan to drop a nuke there.

        • shads@lemy.lol
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          I knew what that was going to be before I checked the link. I see you are a cultured individual.

      • Saleh@feddit.org
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        They are both linked through their families colonizing history in South Africa, including staunch Nazi support in their families.

  • ALLGLORYTOHYPNOTOAD@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Peter Thiel is pure evil. This tie is not surprising at all. The piece of shit is un-ironically giving a lecture on the antichrist in September.

  • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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    Its cofounder Peter Thiel is basically a doomsday culter who wants to be the one to herald doomsday for most of the population.

    • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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      Oof, can’t wait till this asshole dies off just like every other doomsday wannabe fucktard.

      • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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        Don’t worry, it’s cool, he has a great bunker and a few private islands to chill on. If he doesn’t put you on the “cull” list.

          • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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            It does seem like the muttering, scrawny weirdo would be the first to get put out on their arse post-apocalypse by… literally anyone currently in their employ.

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      The UK has been doing some seriously batshit things lately. Obviously we’re not ones to talk but - yeah. It’s sad.

    • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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      It’s universally true that having more and better information can improve business and efficiency. (This of course has limits, yes.)

      I’m sure they were offering data that would help the agency.

      Now the ethics, and creepiness? I’m not commenting on that. Palantir is not ethical. They labor under twisted logic.

      And every time we mention their name online, we probally get a demerit in their database.

      • brianary@lemmy.zip
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        The liability is obviously not high enough if keeping and sharing this data works out positively. Even if the parties involved weren’t obviously evil, the risk to the people is too high for them to accept the risk with only trivial, speculative improvements.

      • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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        fuck Palantir

        fuck these bots that only just predict, regurgitate and are not intelligent

        fuck peter dick eater (he is ashamed of his own desire) thiel

        i bet he wanted that Epstein dick deeply

    • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz
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      Yeah I’m not surprised about the Thiel/Epstein thing, I’m more surprised that the NHS is considering any sort of private health data handling by PALANTIR of all companies.

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        Somebody is going to be getting a Non-executive board membership or millionaire consulting “gig” from one of Tiel’s companies or one from one of his friends…

        By this point in time in Britain that kind of I thing has been going on long enough to almost be tradition.

    • ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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      NHS England has tens of millions of patients. Most patient records are undigitised and must be couriered when patients move to a new area or when specialist care is required.

      It’s also a huge, publicly funded service so big data can be crunched to improve outcomes and efficiencies.

      Palantir wanted a big system to use as the testbed for its move into healthcare data systems and offered a low bid.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        Do y’all not have any software engineers domestically? I thought you invented the whole ordeal?

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            Unless I am presented with contradictory evidence (I am not accepting feedback) I will assume nobody over there is willing to program a machine of any type out of fear that their balls will be cut off by the government like daddy Turing’s were.

            Edit: (to be clear, I’m just taking the piss. Please for the love of dog, do not touch Palantir with even the tip of any of your extremities.)

    • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      Oh yeah they are in deep cahoots you should read the investigative journalism article they mention from earlier this summer.

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOP
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    Journalists have reported on Thiel’s links to Epstein for some time. In 2019, journalist Whitney Webb reported on the links between Epstein, Israeli tech company Carbyne, and the American intelligence apparatus. In the piece, she reported:

    Not long after Epstein’s arrest, and his relationships and finances came under scrutiny, it was revealed that the Israeli company Carbyne911 had received substantial funding from Jeffrey Epstein as well as Epstein’s close associate and former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist and prominent Trump backer Peter Thiel.

    Webb added:

    Another funder of Carbyne, Peter Thiel, has his own company that, like Carbyne, is set to profit from the Trump administration’s proposed hi-tech solutions to mass shootings. Indeed, after the recent shooting in El Paso, Texas, President Trump — who received political donations from and has been advised by Thiel following his election — asked tech companies to “detect mass shooters before they strike,” a service already perfected by Thiel’s company Palantir, which has developed “pre-crime software” already in use throughout the country. Palantir is also a contractor for the U.S. intelligence community and also has a branch based in Israel.

    The latest revelations around Thiel come from the leaked emails of the aforementioned Ehud Barak (former Israeli prime minister). Writing in Reason, Matthew Petti reported:

    Epstein invited Barak to come to a meeting with Thiel, cofounder of PayPal and the surveillance contractor Palantir, in May 2014. Although Barak couldn’t make that meeting, Epstein insisted that Barak “spend real time with peter thiel [sic]” and offered to set up a dinner the following month.Epstein

    Barak wrote to a different business associate a few days later, without mentioning Epstein’s role, that he and Thiel would have a “first date” and “probably spend it talking just geopolitics” with an unnamed third person. In that email, Barak added that he had met Thiel once before in Davos, Switzerland, but speculated that Thiel “probably doesn’t even recall it.”

    Brace Belden of the TrueAnon podcast added that Barak suspected Thiel was “under some drug impact” when they met, according to the emails:

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      Another funder of Carbyne, Peter Thiel, has his own company that, like Carbyne, is set to profit from the Trump administration’s proposed hi-tech solutions to mass shootings.

      This willingness to let billionaires offer for-profit tech solutions to social problems is a sickness, and this is the clearest example yet.

      • goodnighttothe_spoon@lemmy.today
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        It’s called greed. That big shiny bag of money behind them is a very compelling motivator for most people, especially the wealthy politicians.

  • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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    I find this very hard to believe, he’s such a good boy and helps grannies cross the street.

    I think it’s time we send some F-16s to fire missiles at Chinese weather balloons, our real enemies.

    • OozingPositron@feddit.cl
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      It’s worse, they sent an F-22 to shoot a 400k USD missile, I bet the balloon’s radar never saw it coming!

      • 3abas@lemmy.world
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        It’s way worse, shooting weather balloons make them sound like angels.

        https://investigate.info/company/palantir

        They provide police state technology currently used by ICE to target immigrants and several US cities police departments use their tech for “predictive policing.” Not to mention they are actively and enthusiastically testing predictive generative AI to plan war crimes and hallucinate targets in the Gaza genocide. Technology they will bring home as “battle tested.”

        • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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          Also a lot of right-wing government are planning to use the same exact tech to “completely remove homosexuality from society” among others.

        • Zink@programming.dev
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          I don’t know which all aircraft were involved at different points, but there was absolutely a shoot-down by an F-22.

          I don’t know anything about this website but it was one of Wikipedia’s sources. I remember seeing the pictures/videos with the F-22 clearly visible, plus the noteworthy stats like being the first f-22 kill, being the first engagement over US territory since WW2, and that it was probably the highest air to air kill.

          https://www.twz.com/f-22-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon-off-carolinas-with-missile

          • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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            Oh I agree, I wasn’t making an exclusive statement. It’s just pretty wild that this was 2 years ago and feels like a fever dream now.