Anonymous modernartisass 16w

Maybe disinvest.

3

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

Or divest. Or whatever the word is

5

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

Probably won’t divest yet cause of how successful the stocks been, I mean I got in late last year and it has little less than doubled in value. I’m waiting to see how the AI race plays out and if I start seeing the ship sinking I’ll probably take my winnings and bail.

-2

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

… maybe you should divest for ethical reasons

5

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

I mean it’s not really that unheard of not to condone it, I mean your personal data gets sold and bought an unheard of amount of times per day anyways. But no I’m not going to divest yet until I get some decisive news on the AI front.

-2

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

So even though Trump has tapped this company to start compiling a master-database of all of our data to enable precise government surveillance and targeting more coordinated than ever before,,, that doesn’t make you want to put your money in another company, that’s like doing yknow good things??

5

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

I can guarantee you that the FBI has been spying on the American population in such an effective manner and fashion for the last 20 years that you have no secrets if you’ve ever voiced them on the internet in any capacity.

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Anonymous modernartisass 16w

Like genuinely if you think this hasn’t been happening since the 2000’s and this is some brand new thing and concern I don’t know what to tell you

-2

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

Why are you trying to flash a red herring and distract from the ethical dilemma at hand? Just because other companies do bad things doesn’t mean we can look at this specific company and your willingness to give it money which enables it.

5

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

*cant

3

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

Like I understand the desire to distance yourself from the situation.

3

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

If you wanna debate this company and your involvement we can do that but if you just wanna spiral with me, have a nice Saturday. This investment “it’s just money” attitude is exactly what’s wrong with this country.

2

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

That’s not how the stock market works, Palantir doesn’t see a cent of what I used to buy the stock. Moreover, I’m not flashing a red herring because I’m talking about the same issue you are which is state surveillance. I’m simply just bringing up the fact that this really isn’t new at all and the state has been spying on your personal data for the last 20 years.

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Anonymous modernartisass 16w

You're right that they don’t see your dollars directly. But your investment helps inflate the company’s market value and public profile—which makes it easier for them to raise future capital and justify their practices to shareholders. It's not neutral.

5

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

Yes, the state has been spying on us for decades—but that’s the problem. The normalization of mass surveillance is what allows companies like Palantir to thrive. Your support helps normalize and grow it further. If we all shrug and say ‘this isn’t new’ or ‘I’m not directly funding them,’ then the worst actors continue with zero resistance. I can’t stop you from profiting off that, but I can remind you that your choices reflect your values—whether you admit it or not

4

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

And even if your investment was somehow neutral, that’s not the point. We should approach this neutrally.

5

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

*shouldnt

3

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

I get the concern, but I’m not trying to play moral referee with every decision. There’s a line between awareness and paralysis and I’m choosing to keep moving. If I were to decide everything using moral optics I simply wouldn’t be in the stock market at all, but that would be a foolish endeavor. You cannot expect me to simply handicap myself for systemic issues and faults that cannot be solved by the individual. In short, hate the game and not the individual playing it.

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Anonymous modernartisass 16w

I hear you—you’ve chosen your priority, and it’s not ethics. That’s your right. But if enough people did the same, we wouldn’t have any ethical accountability left at all. That’s not a game I want to keep playing.

3

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

What you’re getting at is exactly the problem. ‘Hate the game, not the player’ is neoliberal detachment—the idea that individuals bear no moral weight in systems they participate in. But the ‘game’ only exists because millions of players choose to keep playing it regardless of the stakes for other people. That’s not neutrality—it’s complicity in motion

3

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

In the future you should own your position like you did just not and not try to deflect. Own your abandonment of ethics. Be honest to others about your position. You are here to make money and profit so that you can benefit, regardless of the ethical implications.

3

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

*just now

3

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

I hear you, but I think it’s a stretch to place the burden of systemic reform on individual choices within a rigged system. I’m not claiming neutrality I’m just not convinced that symbolic gestures scale into meaningful change. Also trying to lean into moral absolutism and trying to pin structural harm on the individual isn’t exactly going to bring about change either.

-1

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

You’re not being asked to reform the system singlehandedly. You’re being asked to recognize that your choices either help sustain harmful systems or resist them. Claiming symbolic gestures don’t matter is just a way of excusing inaction. The truth is, individual choices do scale, just not instantly. That’s how cultural shifts happen.

5

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

Anyways, I’m not here to argue moral philosophy with someone who’s already admitted ethics aren’t part of their equation. I just think people deserve to see clearly what that kind of position looks like when it’s laid bare.

2

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

I get the principle, I really do. I’m just more skeptical about the real-world impact of symbolic resistance. Everyone draws their ethical lines differently—mine just happen to include some calculated compromises. That doesn’t mean I don’t care, it means I don’t conflate every action with activism. Besides I don’t exactly to subscribe to the moral absolutism position that you’re trying to assert.

-1

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

I’m not asserting moral absolutism, I’m calling attention to a clear, tangible choice where harm and complicity are evident. That’s not black-and-white thinking, it’s a line many reasonable people would agree deserves to be drawn. You say everyone draws their line differently. Fine. But if your line permits investing in a company aiding authoritarian surveillance, I think it's worth challenging, not because I demand moral perfection, but because some compromises have real, harmful consequences.

3

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

Like don’t straw-man me as some purist. I think compromise can be useful and valid. Not this one. And you can claim moral relativity and subjective ethics but you’ve already said that ethics aren’t a part of your equation. So.

4

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

I get that you’re raising legitimate ethical concerns, and I’m not dismissing them out of hand, they’re just not central to how I’m making this decision. I’m looking at this through a pragmatic lens. I’m not pretending the system is clean, but I don’t think individual abstention does much to fix it either. Everyone chooses where to draw their lines, and I respect yours. Mine are just based on different priorities, ones that value tangible impact over symbolic purity.

-2

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

This isn’t about purity, it’s about harm. Calling ethical choices ‘symbolic’ only makes sense if you believe complicity doesn’t scale, when in reality, systems like this rely on individual investors, consumers, and voters deciding their choices don’t matter.

3

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

I’m not expecting you to fix the system. I’m just pointing out that you’re actively choosing to profit off something you admit is ethically concerning, and then calling that pragmatism. That’s not realism, it’s resignation. And I’m not sure that’s something to defend with pride

3

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

I absolutely understand where you’re coming from. Just be up front that you only care about money here. And no, I don’t respect your position at all. It is cruel.

3

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

This is exactly the contradiction at the heart of neoliberal moralism: speech and capital flows are treated like sacred, ethical battlegrounds when it’s about censorship or government overreach. But the moment someone scrutinizes where the money actually goes—or holds an individual accountable for enabling harmful structures—the same people suddenly retreat to moral relativism.

4

Anonymous modernartisass 16w

It’s not that they don’t care about ethics. It’s that they care about ethics only when they can frame themselves as the victims of overreach, not as participants in harm. That’s not moral pragmatism. That’s selective morality; convenient when defending personal freedom, disposable when it demands personal responsibility

2

Anonymous #2 16w

Hm?

1

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

The tech company Trump is contracting is called Palantir. The name is a reference to a device in JRR Tolkien’s universe which allows the wielder to see across the land. Basically a magic seeing orb. However, in Lord of the Rings, it was used mostly by Sauron (the big bad) and Saruman (the big bad’s sidekick who was once good).

1

Anonymous #2 16w

Ohhhh. I thought that that was called the eye of Sauron. I haven’t read the LOTR books 🫣

1

Anonymous .gaia. 16w

Nah, the eye of Sauron was (I believe anyway) a movie invention for the tower of Barad-dur, basically Sauron’s fortress in his controlled nation of Mordor. It was a way to give the metaphor that Sauron can see all a bit more clarity for the movie audiences.

1