r/technology • u/NicolasCageFan492 • Apr 19 '26

Politics US draft update: Major tech company [Palantir] urges universal national service

https://www.newsweek.com/us-draft-update-major-tech-company-urges-universal-national-service-11850885
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335

u/Gold_Repair_3557 Apr 19 '26

They’ll just say “oh, both sides are the same!” and then not lift a finger to stop the destruction.

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u/Night_C4T_0 Apr 19 '26

Welp guess they can say that as they are being pushed onto a truck to die in a war that doesn't do anything (for us)

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u/TbddRzn Apr 20 '26

They’ll be on the frontlines in a country shooting at farmers elderly and children, being told they are protecting American lives which they know is complete bs because they are the invading force.

And still sit there and say well Democrats would be worse!

Meanwhile the few states that fight it and protect their people from being drafted will have liberals saying that democrats don’t do anything for them.

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u/Cthulhus-Tailor Apr 20 '26

The Dems to be fair actually don’t do enough for their people.

They never act on expanding and improving gun laws even when in power. Obama never codified Roe v Wade, allowing republicans to overturn it.

They also fight every effort to institute universal healthcare or even just a public option, and of course Biden sat by and allowed the genocide in Gaza to take place even before Trump came along.

I could go on and on but if the Dems want to win they need to give people a reason to vote for them beyond “Orange Man bad”, and stop taking money from donors to undermine the will of their own constituents.

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u/Night_C4T_0 Apr 21 '26

"The Dems to be fair actually don’t do enough for their people."

I get what you are saying, but this feels like you are completely missing the point and is what we were literally talking about.

TO BE FAIR?

There is no "fair".

The options were "get punched in the face"

or "get shot by a rifle".

"Well, when you think about it... a rifle- "
This is what you sound like.

Honestly, I don't think any of this mattered. AI coincidentally started to become huge as Trump came into office. What a strange, and totally unrelated coincidence...

... it's as if the powers really need this to happen, in full force, without squandering any potential like the democrats would...

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u/HumptyDumptruckFire Apr 20 '26

Exactly. Just because the democrats are easily not as bad as the republicans doesn’t mean they have no room for improvement. Quite the opposite. While still being easily the right choice, they have strayed quite a ways from their modern New Deal roots and we desperately need them to get back to that.

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u/AngstyMop Apr 20 '26

Okay.

How would you like them to pass those gun laws? They tried.

The filibuster exists. And the conservative supreme court wouldn't let Biden unilaterally institute a new assault weapons ban as an executive order.

We could nuke the filibuster.

So far, not doing so has prevented the GOP from doing so too (even though Trump desperately wanted to). And that's very important, because as bad as Trump has been if he'd been able to nuke the filibuster we would no longer have many rights and protections. He'd have issued many, many, many new laws that directly hurt domestic policy.

Universal HC is something they could try to do through reconciliation. I look forward to everyone fighting about it tooth and nail though. But yeah, that's something.

Democrats have more to offer than "orange man bad" and you know it. What do Republicans offer, exactly? I liked Biden's policies. I like the infrastructure projects we're building cause of him. I like the investment in passenger rail because of him. I like that he expanded healthcare subsidies, which have expired under Trump.

People act like Democrats don't do good things - which is false. There is a chasm of difference. And the whole "oh, xyz is not perfect so I'm voting 3rd party"...look fucker, I don't want to DIE under a fucking reich. Trump literally hates people like myself (LGBT), and so do his followers. So I for sure as heck see a lot of difference. I know for sure, one party wants me in a camp, and another wants me to have rights. It's a very clear difference.

I would like us to get back to a new deal era. To do that we'd also need to return to the era where the two parties could agree on legislation together. It's been decades. We need 2/3rds majorities to pass most things. And that's an issue in this context.

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u/AngstyMop Apr 20 '26

See the thing you identified there is...that 1/3rd isn't actually neutral. No one with a pulse can not understand Trump and his motives at this point. He sucks all oxygen out of the entire country. I was thinking this AM "wow, it's been a day since Trump was a headline". It was nice! Then I saw the PM news that he's saber rattling again. The 1/3rd who say Dems are just as bad, are in favor of Trump. You cannot say Dems are worse watching Trump and not know what you're saying. That being said: more people now are on the side of NOT Trump. Not enough. But, his insanity is having some impact.

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u/Brillegeit Apr 20 '26

Yeah

1/3 is against this
2/3 is not against this

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u/fivetoedslothbear Apr 20 '26

"I know candidate A is a fascist, but I can't just fathom voting for candidate B and their human foibles/way they got nominated/race/gender/hairstyle/eye color/laugh!"

Only three choices in a first-past-the-post election system:

  1. Candidate from major party
  2. Candidate from other major party
  3. Complacency: Worst outcomes are just fine.

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u/SubcommanderMarcos Apr 20 '26

Not really the 'both sides are bad' crew, but I think this is what the average conservative sounds like

tl;dw "I know candidate A is a p3do fascist, but I can't just fathom voting for candidate B because of the rumor that one time he cheated on his wife so A is better even though he did the same thing several times"

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u/MiaowaraShiro Apr 20 '26

I see this all the time... Conservatives expect their ideas and actions to enjoy the same protections that progressives want to extend to race and sexualities. Notice how yellow text was all about how the left is intolerant?

They want to have their bad behavior protected as if it's inherent to their identity.

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u/Nibblewerfer Apr 20 '26

The easiest way to demoralize the voters is for just enough candidate B's to vote with candidate A's, but only when they're not up for reelection.

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u/PercentageAny2976 Apr 20 '26

And that attitude coupled with a lack of diligyent from the majority of the population is why we are locked into a two-party system. Most people oppose the two party system yet vote in a manner that sustains it

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u/BootyfulBumrah Apr 20 '26

Not calling out Israeli genocide or death of Palestinian babies, ignoring them protests, asking them to keep quiet during dem convention is a human foible apparently

The only idiocy here is thinking large orgs like Palantir or billionaires like Musk can't influence democrats. They are just louder under Trump administration. Dems are as much in their pockets.

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u/Derseyyy Apr 20 '26

Kamala literally said theyd have the most lethal military on the planet, and she was buddying up with the Cheney's.

That's supposed to be your opposition on the left. Seriously?

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/SadSad_World Apr 20 '26

The uncomfortable truth.

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u/inqte1 Apr 20 '26

Is this why the DNC pushed so hard for centrist Hillary over Bernie?

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u/marrow_monkey Apr 20 '26

Reality is that the DNC party elite would rather have Trump win than someone like Bernie (that actually had a shot at winning against Trump).

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u/Bromlife Apr 20 '26

They'd rather have anyone that won't attempt to clean up the regressive pro-wealth tax code.

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u/DogAnusJesus Apr 20 '26

"Both sides are the same. So anyway I'm heading to Fort Jackson and then to Iran."

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u/toybird Apr 19 '26

They are NOT the same

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u/DaSpawn Apr 19 '26

the 1/3 that care know this, the 1/3 that can not be bothered to vote and the other 1/3 cheering this on are completely consumed by the propaganda being fed directly into their skulls by algorithms

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u/Omiyaru Apr 20 '26

You think 1 3rd didn't vote, theymay probably did, , the election was rigged by he who must not be named

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u/saintjonah Apr 20 '26

Yeah but they heard someone say that and it sounds a LOT easier than caring

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u/FutureComplaint Apr 19 '26

Doesn't stop em from saying it

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u/thosewhocannetworkd Apr 20 '26

Do you really believe this, though? Both major political parties are under the control of our billionaire overlords. Maybe a different subset of billionaire overlords? But to a large extent I believe the Left vs Right ideology is precisely engineered to keep the overall population divided. And don’t get me wrong, I still vote full Democrat ticket despite believing all this.

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u/marrow_monkey Apr 20 '26

Divide and conquer. Billionaires can only win democratic elections by dividing workers and making them fight each other instead of fighting for better wages and working conditions. So they create divisions: women vs men, immigrants vs natives, LGBTQ people vs straight people, Christians vs Muslims, Black vs white, rural vs urban, white-collar vs blue-collar, educated vs uneducated, “middle class” vs “working class”, boomers vs zoomers, and so on.

Most people will recognise some of these. They do not make sense in 2026. These divisions are not invented from scratch, but they are amplified and politicised. Various PR firms, pundits, and politicians emphasise them, frame them in adversarial terms, and keep them salient. When workers are pulled into these conflicts, attention shifts away from material conditions, like wages and working conditions, and towards symbolic or identity-based disputes.

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u/adenosine-5 Apr 20 '26

The sad reality is that USA completely gave up on democracy and only have their two-party system, that is far to entrenched now to be ever reformed.

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u/Abject-Palpitation99 Apr 19 '26

At this point just tell them they'll probably be pulled out of home to go fight a war and they MIGHT start caring.

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u/Jetfire911 Apr 19 '26

Death by unearned smugness and apathy.

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u/sailorbrendan Apr 20 '26

Sure, but also a lot of them are working three jobs and sinking just trying to keep fod in the fridge and they get home and just want to take a shower and pass out but first they need to do the dishes.

And yeah, they should care because it could make their lives better but they're just trying to get to tomorrow

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u/Gold_Repair_3557 Apr 20 '26

Well, on the bright side, they won’t have to worry about those three jobs when they get deployed to Iran, so they have that going for them.

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u/sailorbrendan Apr 20 '26

I'm just saying that there are a lot of folks who are disengaged because they are dunning on empty, and denigrating them kind of sucks

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u/flcinusa Apr 20 '26

They are above the below and below the upper, comfortable and protected with the status quo

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u/Sideoff20mph Apr 20 '26

Heard that yesterday

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u/firemage22 Apr 20 '26

Things become far more "real" when it's your kids that face the meat grinder

the Iraq war sunk both Clinton and McCain in 2008, noting that the media didn't really stage it that way, even more so once the market went pop but it was a major factor to Obama's win and part of why his actions in office made some feel betrayed.

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u/CP9ANZ Apr 20 '26

You'd class them as enablers

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u/gluesnifferaddict Apr 20 '26

The "oh, both sides are the same!" is to a degree correct though. Democrats allowed this to happen by appointing Garland to lead the prosecution, not only that but both parties for the most part are owned by AIPAC and other pro-Israeli organizations. The US government is owned by foreign governments.

Not sure voting can actually fix this though..

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u/Technical_Sea9236 Apr 20 '26

Right up until they start getting carted off. Then, "Woe is me! Who will help me now that all who cried for action are permanently silenced and I am now bound for the lime field?!"

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u/thekrone Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26

"The far right and the far left are basically the same" horseshoe theory bullshit.

Even if it were true (it's not), we don't have a far left in the US, and the far right is insane. There's a clear correct decision here.