this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
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Damn. The security (theater) obsessed Far-Right Labour government wouldn't be kicking the barn door open to a foreign government's mass surveillance company for any kind of insidious reason, you think?
Nah, i fully believe they just don’t have a clue. I mean, what’s the hypothesis here, that they’re deliberately trying to fight the Antichrist alongside Thiel?
A podcast i listen to had, a few months ago, a story where a minister who was waxing lyrical about the benefits of AI and was asked something basic like about hallucinations or something and they literally never heard of them. Had no clue what the questioner was talking about
I think that’s the level that basically all politicians understand technology at
"I don't know about this thing that runs counter to my policy. I've never heard of it. I'll have to look into it."
Pretty standard politician-speech for "Sit down and shut up, I don't want to talk about this".
Maybe the minister sincerely hadn't heard of AI hallucinations. Or maybe they were just being coy. Either way, the new information isn't going to shape their decision because they're not governing based on information provided by the general public. They've got a coterie of lobbyists and partisan insiders who have already made the choice on their behalf.
The point is that at every turn the UK government and politicians in general have demonstrated an absolute lack of understanding of technology
I wouldn’t be in the slightest bit surprised if they genuinely didn’t understand the threat that Thiel poses
That's the story that gets told. But in an economy in which technology is increasingly designed to be hostile to the public, this appears to be a case of them doing exactly what they intended.
I think there's a real possibility that Palantir's capacities are heavily overstated. Historically, the real hazard presented by these panopticons is False Positives. Hobbling your nation's ability to do any kind of productive enterprise because you've surrounded yourself with the illusion of threatening behavior.
But even in this scenario, you're still left with the evil/stupid conundrum. If your MPs are just getting paid off to make excuses, insisting that they lack understanding misses the point. They vote the same way even if they do.
I’m not insisting on anything, I’m just saying that Hanlon’s Razor is always worth bearing in mind