I do agree blocking Palantir is a good move but the Spanish government is doing it for the wrong reason. Spain is storing all sort of data on Chinese servers, including their Intelligence, and Judicial wiretaps.
> Spain is “making a big mistake,” said Bart Groothuis [...] “Spain is now dependent on the country with the largest and most sophisticated offensive espionage program directed against us.”
I highly doubt he's naive enough to believe the "against us" qualifier exempts the operator of the largest and most sophisticated offensive espionage program ever.
> In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically and economically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources.
I don't have any insight into what to call it right now, but I thought for several decades after WWII it was still fascist? If anything being a banana republic might not be as as bad as what it used to be
Politicians and governments like to introduce crap like blacklisting when they have a good excuse to (a target the public agrees with) so that later it's easier for them to use against arbitrary targets.
indeed, and he has apparently already been walking the walk
>"Burnham did not grant the US tech company any contracts during his nine years as Greater Manchester mayor, and is minded to take the same approach in Downing Street."
The aspect where they do not integrate and stay in their ethnic groups, where they bring their religion, where they do not adopt local tradition and customs, when they refuse to learn the language properly, where they refuse to work legally but still enjoy the fruits of public services
Oh? I did not realize there were warlord armies rampaging through the countryside in hope of establishing dynastic Muslim rule. Pat yourself on the head for such an astute historic parallel.
Why would they rampage through the countryside when western countries let them in without a fight?
Immigration on Hacker News is like the dumbest topic here. Nobody considers any downsides of any sort, just lockstep agreement that it is a fundamental good.
Yet a single change to the behavior of Postgres will be met with wild, exuberant debate.
> Immigration on Hacker News is like the dumbest topic here
"Dumbest" wouldn't be the word I'd use here, considering the views on immigration are sharply divided by education level. I reckon HN has an overrepresentation of people with (at least) a college degree, relative to the general population.
I don't know, but I'm not deranged enough to say that Muslim immigrants in my country are part of an invading force. All the ones I know are quite nice, actually.
Personally, I care far more about the dehumanization of my fellow human beings than how open or closed the borders are.
but see, that's my point: you don't even have the ability to say what is good or bad migration. Ever. Because to do so would violate some religiously held viewpoint that you have that migration is always some inherent good and to say otherwise is some sort of blasphemy.
As I said above, I care far more about the dehumanization of my fellow human beings than how open or closed the borders are. (It's possible to have sensible and humane immigration policy along any point on that axis.) Slandering immigrants as "invaders" or "parasites" should be met with the harshest possible rebuke, if not outright prosecution for hate speech.
Better to have an economically stangnant country than tp have no country at all. The people make the country. We are not economic units to be moved around so that the line goes up. Immigration leads to erosion of a country.
It's around 55–60% of immigrants who come from Spanish-speaking countries.
Also, this uses official numbers, which reflect a larger Spanish speaking share than there is in reality (as people from Spanish-speaking countries have more straightforward visa processes).
So the real percentage is probably much lower (as there are a lot of undocumented migrants. 1.2 million applied for "legalization").
Which is a political choice - not necessarily a resource problem. Germany, if any, would have the resources to help with integration but for decades most people and politicians were living in denial that people from other countries that came to Germany actually wanted to stay and _live_ there or were living in a world were state debt was seen as the devil's spawn.
Besides the mentioned comments Spanish speaking immigration is much more welcomed by radical right
AND
Germany had a lot of German speaking immigration from Eastern Europe. There are just no German speaking minorities left in other countries.
If you went to Japan in the 90’s, 00’s or 10’s, you’ll find the issue is that Japan still feels mostly the same. It’s a wonderful country, but post-Japan’s asset bubble and crash there’s been noticeably less change.
A country with narcissistic criminal as leader who damages the US science for decades, kills people by dismantling USAID. The raising costs because of his four-week-war against Iran doesn’t help either but damages the economy worldwide.
I didn't say I think so - I said in current discourse - e.g. this site and x.com. The narrative is that Europe is stagnant and US has pulled ahead, at least economically.
I think that can be consistent with Trump destroying the long term future of the country and the planet.
They seem to have been granting contracts to manage all kinds of critical data to Huawei's Palantir equivalent lately, so it's probably less about security risks and more about the current source of the bribe money.
If they cared about security they would not outsource this kind of stuff to foreign companies. Spain is not Somalia, why not let Indra do it?
Much of Spain is indeed getting very unpleasant in the summer with climate change, but in the north there are still regions that are quite fine at the moment. Where I am, we recently beat the all time temperature record with 35 degrees, but that was a single day. Most days these weeks it isn't going over 25, and I don't think we hit 30 in June except for that single day and maybe one other day.
The problem is that the right is poised to win the next election and will probably undo all the policies you like. They're pretty much against everything that has been done in the last 7 years. I still have some hopes that Sanchez might clinch another term because he's a political survivor, but prospects are not great.
Canary Islands are part of Spain and probably unaffected from climate change - we have 19-22°C all year round. If it raises to 25° still pretty livable.
It isn't that simple, Canary Islands already counts with 2.2 million + tourists people and the fresh water is a highly risk resource even when desalinization plants are widespread, the groundwater aquifers are severely compromised.
The mild weather heavily depends on the trade winds. But models predict that due to fact of being so close to Africa heat waves are prone to be more and more frequent compromising the water resources.
Islands are extremely vulnerable to climate change all over, as they are completely dependent in near-term precipitation for all their water (no rivers, no aquifers).
No rivers and no water is reality here for quite a while already. The islands rely a lot on desalination, and there is a big EU-funded project going on to create a desalination plant that not only is used to supply tap water, but the water basin of a new hydroelectric plant [0]. Desalination pretty much solves water issues, IF you have the energy (ideally renewable).
Someday, the US will be just a bubble where no other country gives their data to.
We continue this decent into fascism to the point that nobody likes us.. or values us. Is this their idea of Utopia?
Palantir is profoundly untrusted in Europe in part because of Alex Karp. He is viewed as a dangerous neo-nationalist (not incorrectly).
Never really sure why Anduril doesn't catch the same grief; they are maybe even creepier. Perhaps Palmer Luckey is just a less visible obvious Bond villain crackpot.
> Anybody here think that Palantir is not a security risk for Spain?
It boggles the mind a bit, but I’ve seen a few comments on here with people defending them to the tune of “what’s the big deal, they just help governments with their data! They're innocent” which is uh, either aggressively naive, or just paid PR behaviour.
> The firm holds a €16.5 million contract signed in 2023 with the Armed Forces Intelligence Center (CIFAS), which is scheduled to expire this upcoming November.
> Military leadership, including the Chiefs of Staff of the Army and Navy, has lobbied Defense Minister Margarita Robles to renew the contract, citing the platform's operational superiority.
Palantir wins contracts because they are better at what they do. If Europe wants to maintain digital sovereignty while not being left behind they need to have a heart-to-heart conversation about how to fix that.
they have a great IT company in Spain, it's been winning a lot of contracts recently, that of the software genius Begoña Gomez (despite having no studies, just happens to be the wife of the mafia Capo Pedro Sanchez, but I am sure it's just a coincidence)
I find it unbelievable that the current chief of Nato (Rutte) is basically an extension of Palantir. He is making sure countries are signing contracts with this extreme company that on pair with the Nazi ideology. They would support mass extermination camps. You probably think this is over exaggerated. But no its not. This company is evil.
You're out of your mind -- and politically radicalized -- if you think that Palantir is on part with the Nazis. And this kind of facile comparison is offensively trivializing those who died in the holocaust.
There is a certain brand of conservative Republicans who have learned to weaponize antisemitism against Democrats. The general operating theory is that, since the Holocaust, anyone with even Jewish heritage can do no wrong (though I question the sincerity of the view).
Palantir's CEO, Alex Karp, is the son of a Jewish man. I specifically say "son of," because I understand Jewish heritage to be matrilineal and I don't see Alex Karp engaging in any specifically Jewish traditions. But he does also seem to be one of the "Weaponize the Holocaust" Republicans. Thus, you get defenders such as this.
https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-huawei-contract-judici...
> Spain is “making a big mistake,” said Bart Groothuis [...] “Spain is now dependent on the country with the largest and most sophisticated offensive espionage program directed against us.”
I highly doubt he's naive enough to believe the "against us" qualifier exempts the operator of the largest and most sophisticated offensive espionage program ever.
I will never understand this helplessness that comes from these European countries. They are choosing to be dependent on foreign powers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
What natural resource export is Spain’s economy dependent upon?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_transition_to_democrac...
At least they are doing stuff for the people
Edit: not sure what the downvotes are. Burnham literally said he’ll do it today.
>"Burnham did not grant the US tech company any contracts during his nine years as Greater Manchester mayor, and is minded to take the same approach in Downing Street."
Immigration on Hacker News is like the dumbest topic here. Nobody considers any downsides of any sort, just lockstep agreement that it is a fundamental good.
Yet a single change to the behavior of Postgres will be met with wild, exuberant debate.
"Dumbest" wouldn't be the word I'd use here, considering the views on immigration are sharply divided by education level. I reckon HN has an overrepresentation of people with (at least) a college degree, relative to the general population.
> Immigration on Hacker News is like the dumbest topic here.
Insert "We're All Trying To Find The Guy Who Did This" meme.
Personally, I care far more about the dehumanization of my fellow human beings than how open or closed the borders are.
I'm mocking your religious belief.
I'll listen up when you start railing against China for their restrictive immigration policies.
It's around 55–60% of immigrants who come from Spanish-speaking countries.
Also, this uses official numbers, which reflect a larger Spanish speaking share than there is in reality (as people from Spanish-speaking countries have more straightforward visa processes).
So the real percentage is probably much lower (as there are a lot of undocumented migrants. 1.2 million applied for "legalization").
Japan has an aging problem and a big misogyny problem too.
Say, I heard France has great cuisine, but I had street food in Paris and it was meh.
A country with narcissistic criminal as leader who damages the US science for decades, kills people by dismantling USAID. The raising costs because of his four-week-war against Iran doesn’t help either but damages the economy worldwide.
I think that can be consistent with Trump destroying the long term future of the country and the planet.
If they cared about security they would not outsource this kind of stuff to foreign companies. Spain is not Somalia, why not let Indra do it?
The problem is that the right is poised to win the next election and will probably undo all the policies you like. They're pretty much against everything that has been done in the last 7 years. I still have some hopes that Sanchez might clinch another term because he's a political survivor, but prospects are not great.
[0]: https://renewablesnow.com/news/construction-starts-on-200-mw...
I would also never use the word "solve", as this is just for human usage. The ecosystems themselves are irreversibly destroyed.
https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2025
I'm currently living in Mexico and here corruption is a much more serious issue.
What are the specific concerns?
that is all
Never really sure why Anduril doesn't catch the same grief; they are maybe even creepier. Perhaps Palmer Luckey is just a less visible obvious Bond villain crackpot.
Anybody here think that Palantir is not a security risk for Spain?
It boggles the mind a bit, but I’ve seen a few comments on here with people defending them to the tune of “what’s the big deal, they just help governments with their data! They're innocent” which is uh, either aggressively naive, or just paid PR behaviour.
> Military leadership, including the Chiefs of Staff of the Army and Navy, has lobbied Defense Minister Margarita Robles to renew the contract, citing the platform's operational superiority.
Palantir wins contracts because they are better at what they do. If Europe wants to maintain digital sovereignty while not being left behind they need to have a heart-to-heart conversation about how to fix that.
Palantir's CEO, Alex Karp, is the son of a Jewish man. I specifically say "son of," because I understand Jewish heritage to be matrilineal and I don't see Alex Karp engaging in any specifically Jewish traditions. But he does also seem to be one of the "Weaponize the Holocaust" Republicans. Thus, you get defenders such as this.
as no one wants to pay to hear you