In Reply to: Palantir publishes manifesto to prove they're sh*t posted by blindness on April 20, 2026 at 11:28:14
Not that anyone should really care remotely. Just wanted to get it off my chest (my comments are in brackets):
Because we get asked a lot.The Technological Republic, in brief.
[What that means is, this is not something Alex Karp or his lawyers came up with. All this is taken from a book that speaks to Karp's soul and synopsized.]
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.
[Why defense (other than the obvious fact that Palantir is in the defense industry)? Is there any obligation Silicon Valley may have directly to the people of this country who made the circumstances in which you thrived possible in the first place through their votes and taxes? Is there any obligation to make their lives better or is this obligation only limited to killing massive numbers of innocent civilians halfway around the world who are just trying to live their lives.]
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.
[Yeah, baby! Open source forever. Ditch Apple. Ditch Microsoft. Go Linux. ... or wait ... are you saying this because you're ticked off abut the cut Apple gets from the software we download or something? Otherwise this looks dangerously like a statement against capitalist oligarchy.]
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.
[Translation: yeah, we're really objectionable as a company, but we are big business, so you need to look the other way wrt the sh*t we do.
Also, while you're at it, please define "decadence" and explain why economic growth and security makes it palatable. ]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.
[Necons are back. Freedom and democracy at the barrel of a (foreign) gun. Always works like a charm.]
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.
[The question is not who will build them. Everyone will (see "20th century", under "nuclear arm race"). It is also not for what purpose. The purpose is kinda obvious, isn't it? The question is, and I'm pretty sure you have absolutely nothing of substance to offer here, is what control mechanisms will be in place to determine how it's being used. Also see Gaza and your own software.]
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.
[Why does national service all and only mean military service? And how convenient is it that old and rich folks constantly bring this up in times of trouble when they know that only the young and not-so-rich will end up serving -- how conveeeeenieeeent!]
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.
[I'd like to think that in a free society companies have the choice as to whether they want to provide a better rifle to the marines. If that's the way you roll, go for it. Just don't act like this is everyone's obligation.]
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.
[You're private sector. Why do you care? Unless of course, you want to work with the government as a semi-government employee as well as remaining the CEO of a defense giant, but want your "compensation" to be at a comparable level because there's a billionaire ladder you need to climb (note that when you reach a certain level, you don't earn a salary, but a compensation, because your time is much more valuable than the schlub who works for a salary and earns a paycheck by virtue of the procetag you put on it).]
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.
[And how does this relate to Palantir?]
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.
[This one sounds innocuous enough, but ... is it a side shot at idealist progressives to lay off and not organize politically against things they are angry about? Apoliticism has historically been a reliable tool used by oppressive regimes.]
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.
[Ok. Not sure how ingenuous this is, but I'll give it a pass.]
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.
[Ok.]
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.
[Oooooh booy ... DOn't make historical claims unless you actually know history, bro. I kindly recommend staying in your lane. As for how much opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites ... that tells me you still live in the 20th century, That has not been the case for a while. There are metrics out there that show that the US lags quite a bit in this regard among other developed nations. Starting of course with the whole issue of how expensive education is and how hard it is not move up the econoimic ladder.]
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.
[Uuuuhhhmmm ... If we're honest, there was no concept of a world war becfore the 20th century. So I'm not sure where you're going with this. Also, you need to expand on how this claim fares agains your objection to the usefulness of soft power in #4.]
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.
[IOW, Palantir needs new markets.]
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.
[Elon Musk is a well-established pkiece of sh*t, who has shown in his ownership of Xitter, what a malignant influence he is on the world. Is that really where you want to go? Also, is it too much to ask these industry captains who have convinced themselves that they are geniuses and they know every damn thing there is to know about everything to read something other than Heinlein or Asimov and probably Curtis Yarvin before they start lecturing us about how we should live our lives?]
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.
[I don't know to what extent it is Silicon Valey's business to address violent crime, but if so, there's a whole lot of good you guys can do if you stop pumping unadulterated garbage into the cultural bloodstream to achieve higher engagement rates. Yourt contribution doesn't have to be creating more products to fan the flames of everyday paranoia.]
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.
[There are a whole bunch of bigger reasons that the republic has become an extremely ineffectual empty vessels other than whether the men holding these offices trurn out to be really sh*tty people.]
19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.
[Except, of course, the whole bunch of people who defend Palestinian rights or prestest against zionism, right?]
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.
[So, it's ok to be a muslim? A devout one at that? Are you sure?]
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.
[Boom! Here it is. I was wondering when white nationalism was going to creep into the conversation. I don't think this one needs any resonse. Except perhaps the part about being dysfunctional and regressive, all I'm gonna say is: have you been to America in the last decade or so? (Btw, love what you did with that subtle phrase "indeed, subcultures", just in case there are any brown people out there interested in sharing the glory that is the western civilization.]
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?
[The second boom! Just wow! Again, I don't think I need to say anything else. This line really speaks for itself.]
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
Ok, so I guess they read something other than Curtis Yarvin ... and that's a kind of improvement?