People on the far-left and far-right of the political spectrum rarely find any issue upon which they intersect and share common ground. However, both sides have an almost religious fear of data analytics company Palantir. Their reasons might be different but their reactions are similar.
On the political left, Palantir is seen as Donald Trump's data gestapo. They hate the company because it has created tools used by DHS and ICE to track down illegal immigrants using welfare and medical subsidies information. It has also been an active ally in producing strategic analysis for Israel for the war in Gaza and Lebanon. Leftists argue that Palantir is a "genocidal" corporation and a technological harbinger of "fascism".
On the other side, libertarians view Palantir as the All Seeing Eye of Sauron - A precursor to total AI surveillance of the population. They view former CEO Peter Thiel's presence in the Trump Administration as a negative influence. Other conservatives argue that the company's relationship to Israel and its ties to the Trump Administration are more proof that the Israelis run the world.
Palantir has recently posted a sort of manifesto, a list of values or principles linked to CEO Alex Karp's book "The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, And The Future Of The West". Many of the ideas presented run more in line with libertarian or conservative principles, but they also deviate into areas that will surely ruffle feathers and elicit distrust. At the very least, Palantir presents a platform for debate about the future and the growing influence of digital technology on politics and war.
Palantir @PalantirTech
Because we get asked a lot.
The Technological Republic, in brief.
1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.
2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.
3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.
4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.
5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.
6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.
7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.
8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.
9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.
10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.
11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.
12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.
13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.
14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.
15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.
16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.
17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.
18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.
19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.
20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.
21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.
22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?
Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska
The first thing to note is that Palantir seems to be openly advocating for American exceptionalism, which, in an era of far-left multiculturalism and open borders socialism, is a positive. One could question how far the company actually wants to take this exceptionalism? Are we talking about America first, strong national borders and a defined cultural identity? These things are mentioned positively by Karp in his book.
But, there are also tinges of a dream; a dream of American empire. Again, this is a vision that is antithetical to libertarians and leftists alike, for different reasons. Leftists want to see America (and western culture in general) destroyed and replaced with a new multicultural world order. Libertarians (and some conservatives) want to see the US cut itself off completely from international affairs and foreign entanglements.
Leftists are malicious in their goals and libertarians are unrealistic in their goals, but is an American empire really the answer to disrupting and defeating the liberal cabal which is causing so much decay in the west? Once we get past our initial distaste of the concept of hegemony, the idea deserves a fair debate. We have already seen the true intentions of the progressive elites; so what should we do to stop them?
By extension, Karp in his book also addresses the inherent rot of the progressive Utopian vision and rails against DEI, woke ideology and the moral relativism of the political left. He laments the erosion of a shared American/Western identity due to multiculturalism and "deconstructionist" influences since the 1960s.
He argues, though, that the solution to this weakening of moral and cultural structures requires technological ambition and global leadership. He calls for a purposeful, unapologetic national project centered on hard power. This is not going to make woke leftists with notions of a worldwide communist system happy. It's certainly not going to inspire any approval from small government activists or anarchists.
The Lord Of The Rings comparisons and "One Ring" memes will be rampant.
Another interesting takeaway is Palantir's call for "Universal Service" instead of a volunteer military. This simply sounds like a return to the draft, though Karp's rationale suggests that universal service would also require universal risk. In other words, if the elites (along with anyone from the general population) can be sent into combat, then maybe there would be far less war in the future and far more respect for the political process.
How this would be enforced, though, is the key question. As history shows us, the elitist class has a knack for excusing itself from the risks associated with the wars they often start.
When examining Palantir's social and political concepts, one is actually reminded of the government depicted in Robert Heinlein's book "Starship Troopers", which is portrayed as almost "fascist" in the 1997 movie but is actually written by Heinlein as a limited representative democracy based on merit. In other words, only the people who participate in military service and prove their merit are allowed to be citizens, to vote and to run for public office.
This, of course, would end the idea of inherent rights. That said, there is ample evidence that some subsections of the population simply do not deserve the right to vote, because of stupidity, suicidal empathy or sheer insanity. This sounds like a shocking concept today, but make no mistake, this will be a very serious debate in the near future as the liberal order continues to lead the west into self destruction.
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