r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 17h ago

Meme needing explanation Petastein who is Palantir Parker

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u/Major-Hand7732 16h ago

Exactly. It was "too great an evil" for anyone to wield but the billionaire who could afford to build it; and who could also decide who was "honorable" enough, or who had "only the best intentions at heart" to be allowed to wield it.

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u/Icywind014 16h ago

It was too great an evil even for the billionaire, which is why it got destroyed. You'd have a point if they kept it, but they didn't precisely because it's not something anyone should have.

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u/Major-Hand7732 13h ago

They had the billionaire use it and then get rid of it after he was finished. Yeah, good point, we should let them use it only once

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u/RecipeNo101 6h ago

It's an allegory for the Patriot Act after 9/11. Thr responsible thing to do was to use it for the mitigating circumstances, an emergency, then once the emergency had passed, to deconstruct it.

You can take the position that that's still inherently immoral, but then you'd have to agree that under no circumstances, ever, would the state (or any authority) be able to weild additional powers in a time of emergency. Huge natural disaster? No national guard coming to restore order.