A Technological Class Struggle: A Brief Analysis of Palantir's "The Technological Republic"
You do not need any introduction to Palantir. What I would like to give you context to before going through the brief 22 bullet points that summarize "The Technological Republic" (posted by Palantir's X account) is Alex Karp, the author of the book and Palantir's CEO, and his personal philosophies. Alex Karp grew up around social and political activism and later aligned himself with Marxist theories. He received a bachelor's degree in philosophy, a J.D. in law at Stanford (where he met Peter Thiel), and a Ph.D. in neoclassical social theory. Shortly after graduating and receiving an inheritance from his grandfather, he seemingly shed all social/political activism and Marxist ideals. With said inheritance, he started a wealth management firm. From there, he was essentially groomed and bankrolled by his dear friend Peter Thiel into making think tank-tech-surveillance-defense company Palantir, which brings us to today. I give this pretext because for Alex Karp and Peter Thiel, with all of their power, Palantir is not just a company but a vehicle for whatever philosophical and social change they deem correct and necessary. Since Palantir works directly with governments/courts on a federal and local level, the military and other tech companies, we should be mindful and engage with these philosophies. Also, they're fucking stupid and we are going to talk about why.
The bullet points seem to be a justification of sorts for the company's existence and their ethos for what they do and why they do it. I am not sure if military force was apart of the core vision of Palantir in its inception but that seems to be the main focus. "The Technological Republic"'s full title is actually "The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Beliefs and the Future of the West", so we probably can assume "national security" was apart of the original motive of it's adoption in 2003. As Thiel has a love for all things tech and Capitalism/Fascism and is a major player in our system; likewise Karp's love is philosophy/social change and is also a key player, this leads to a new techno-fascist system which uses Palantir and tech at large as a vehicle to create their "perfect" society. While what this text does address (albeit in the objectively wrong way) is the new found almost god-like power of the multi-generational and startup tech companies we deal with daily. We all know these kids are always on their damn phone, everything is online now, blah blah blah, but we do need to start addressing this from a larger political, social, and psychological view. These bullet points do address these new historical changes to humanity but from the view of a 16 year old who is not the most socially gifted, and instead finds solace in philosophical 4chan boards, detached from reality and it's complexities. Let's take a look.
The Bullet Points
The original points are copied directly from Palantir's original post which you can view here.
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.
It does not. This also dismisses the contributions by countless engineers and researchers to make the world we know of today. Linux, the most open source and publicly contributed OS, is used by NASA and countless institutions across the world. What we call the internet, and the "tech" space in general, is a culmination of millions of contributions by people who will never be known and were played like an orchestra to create a product. To point all these objectively phenomenal achievements to only "Silicon Valley's engineering elite" and to then automatically tie that success to "the country that made its rise possible" is nonsense. The US government has actively had its hand in trying to stop open source, publicly controlled, free software distribution since the coining of "silicon valley". One could argue the only reason the country, the state, or stakeholders "made its rise possible" is because of either private interests or using those innovations and developments for further power.
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.
This has been a debate since any technological achievement. A caveman was most likely arguing about the discovery of fire limiting their creative capabilities. I will not make an argument for one side or the other, I just want to point out this is a redundant argument that has most likely been brought up every minute of human history, somewhere in the world. What I do know is Peter Thiel has financed consumer, private, and public sector tech products, so this seems a little tone deaf. Also, if your argument is that our crowning achievement of civilization is technological devices that empower our lives so therefore we should use technology to make us dream of the possible, cool, but I don't think making the software version of The Panopticon with lethal drone access is exactly tickling the "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.
Now this is where things get serious, so let's unpack this by chunks. Free email is not enough, Karp is right, as tech companies do need to be held more accountable and should not be seen as innocent fun consumer projects anymore that also have more resources than God. I think the next part is the most striking, as it does not argue or even criticize the ruling class, which in today's society is most likely tech business magnates. Even if you had a hypothetically pure, morally just ruling class that guaranteed "economic growth and security for the public", are we not to question why there are people ruling over us in the first place, and why their ideas are treated as objective truth in which we should all adopt in good faith? Why should tech companies be the end all be all of the ruling class, as they develop more critical systems for our governance, safety, and general existence? We deserve free email, safety, no ruling class, all at the same time. To just assume there needs to be a central "objective truth" governing body, one that is so estranged from reality and the real people within it, that uses software as a vehicle for political and societal change at large is alarming to say the least.
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.
This is the professional way of telling you there is no more trying to reason with the working class to create a better world together as it is impossible, so we should just do it by force. Force is rebranded as "hard power" here, "soft power" being reasoning, public and working class involvement in society, community, etc. To force in this fascist utopia, they would use software. A new technological or scientific development ushers in the new forces to be used as tools every so often in history. We'll see in later points used here, an example being chemistry and physics coming together to create nuclear arms, which is then used as a deterrent and threat to be able to "maintain peace". Palantir's methodology of doing the same would be to intertwine software into all aspects of your life, to be able to orchestrate a perfect reality for you to live in.
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.
Correct, which is why we must engage even more critically and have these talks internationally about the use of AI weaponry and not just rush in headfirst with the "well if I don't, they will" attitude.
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.
I don't think this needs an explanation or rebuttal as everyone involved in this should euthanize themselves.
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 harmās way.
As the previous response to bullet point 6, this does not require a response, as combining technological god-like powers with military action should be seen as taboo.
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.
This is a deeper point, and one that seems objectively immoral to read, and against all common sense. Public servants are a broad term, but I am assuming they are referring to politicians and federal employees. Public servants need not be our priests no, but they should be held accountable to the amount of responsibility in which they hold, which is immense. Maybe our dear friends at Palantir are right, that no business could be successful if they were paid as much as the public servants that we rely on. Instead of just brushing off public servants all together and entrusting livelihood to the private sector, maybe we should take a step back and wonder why our public servants are compensated in the way they are. Politicians have a whole different racket and corrupt methods of making money, so they are compensated just fine I assure you. What I will add is yes, most federal employees are underpaid and have positions that you most likely will never know of. Not to get too controversial here, but I think that the technical writer for the CDC should be paid way more than the "culture and events manager" at a tech company if we were to base compensation off of critical importance, "usefulness" or it's utility. To entrust the public's interests to the private sector, which will of course only work for personal interests or for profit, would be a slow murder of the masses.
9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgivenessāa jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psycheāmay leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.
Very edgy and ominous. Essentially just saying you cannot do anything anymore because of cancel culture and wokeness and blah blah blah. The ominous bit is the last part, "cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret", is essentially saying to watch out holding those in power accountable because one day they might use those powers to exact revenge on you for doing so, and the whole world at large. This is essentially another reason for Palantir's adoption. Karp and Thiel realized they would not win any elections because you know, totalitarian fascism is an objective evil for humanity and all. They also knew, and justifiably so, that their ideals were the exact same as Nazi Germany's, which is inconvenient when trying to convince the masses. So unlike Hitler who convinced the masses through propaganda and nationalist rhetoric to essentially create the reality/world he wanted, Karp/Thiel chose the route of intertwining software, nationalism, private enterprise and the influence of globalization to create the reality/world they want. Thiel is quoted in an interview stating they knew they could never win an election, so was hoping to take the rise of software/AI as a vehicle for what he would've dreamed of. Palantir is this "revenge", he is the "character 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.
Lord forbid someone want to take part in their community and to have a hand/say in their own governance. I will give them the "rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet" is a good anecdote to shed anxieties, but should not be framed in a way that implies that politics having a direct hand in the world they live does not directly correlate to how one's environment can effect self worth.
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.
This could be looked at as objectively true, but would also brush past all of the contradictions at play. America since its adoption, has needed an adversary to fight. We have literal holidays celebrating the defeat of our past enemies. Do not think for one second Palantir would not throw an internal celebration for the success of a mission that was a critical blow to an enemy, let alone Americans at large.
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.
As I alluded to before, this is the sad truth. At this rate AI will become the new ultimate deterrence for any threat, physical, psychological, political, or social. On the obvious physical level, AI will be used in defense and military action. AI will also be used to surveil you, monitor and guide elections/media, respond to your deepest psychological issues, give advice, etc. You, and we, must act now.
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.
I actually don't want to address this point because I do not think I have any necessary knowledge to answer this critically. Obviously the US is far from perfect, shit, it's far from even decent. I just do not know the complexities yet of all the values of every country past or present to answer this meaningfully. What I will say, and will explore more of further in a later point, is the US and it's allies has never allowed a more progressive nation to exist anyway, so who is to know if there would've been a far greater, more progressive country.
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 ā billions of people and their children and now grandchildren ā have never known a world war.
Invasions by the United States
Again, this is an objective truth but one that we must look at how it was framed, since instinctively we know this seems almost wrong as we know America, and to the greater extent, the world has still had many critical military conflicts, they are just not fought on a dramatized world stage. Yes one could argue because of the United States the world has seen greater peace post-WW2. That could be true, but that would also gloss over the methods used to maintain this peace. There have been untold number of movements, revolutions, and different styles of governance that have went against the US's domestic and foreign policy and have been ultimately stomped out by the US and its allies. As we addressed the atomic age using the mere thought of ending humanity as a deterrence earlier, would that not just be another form of force and oppression but on a worldwide scale? What exactly dictates a "world war"? That is important to define here because if it is just means the majority of the Earth's nations having a hand in an international conflict, indirectly or directly, or are influenced by the complexities of geopolitical conflicts in the time of war, then modern civilization could very well be seen as one giant "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.
Honestly I was going to give a long historical analysis of this but really I want to just talk about this as what it really is underneath all the intellectual jargon - fascist fan fiction that the weird neo nazi kid in a trench coat at your high school would've said on 4chan's /pol/. So let's not try to disguise this as something else just because Alex Karp and Peter Thiel are wealthy and have Ph.D.s. and are trying to weaponize some sort of intellectualism and disguise it as philosophy.
16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Muskās 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.
You're right we should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act, but this is the biggest joke and irony of it all because we are all applauding those who build where you, Palantir and other tech companies acting in similar capacities, have failed to act in the "market". We need to stop abstracting the "market" from the reality in which real people live in. Also this might be a hot take but if the billionaire wanted to truly enrich themselves and add real value or have genuine interest in something, maybe they should have contributed real labor and contributions instead of exploitation justified for the end product. There are many things I admire about Steve Jobs, but he had a famous quote I hate when responding to a reporter bringing up the point of he had never wrote a single line of code or contributed any real, tangible labor to Apple - āa musician plays instruments, I play the orchestraā. This is how these billionaires justify their intentions. They are exploiting others but in their mind look at it as āleadingā and think they are an artist/worker of a greater cause or purpose. This is disgusting because as again, it takes no talent or study to exploit others and profit, and should be treated as such, anyone can use resources. Matter of fact, there was a huge display where Thiel received $250k on a PDA device to show the first PayPal (the company that launched him into success) payment. So with that logic, anyone who sends a Cash App payment are āenriching themselvesā and ācreating valueā with āgenuine interest or curiosityā.
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.
Again, this is an objective truth but weaponized for Palantir's fascist agenda. Politicians, locally and on a federal level, have essentially shrugged and became docile in nature towards violent crime. I have already spoke of earlier how leaving these gaps up to the private sector (in this case "Silicon Valley" or tech companies) would be a terrible idea. Instead of trying to apply software and make an Apple version of Big Brother, we should then go back and regroup and do something about these issues on a local and federal level, even on a community level. To just let the politicians slide and say it's in the public's interest to have private companies control their lives sounds a little contradictory towards a better future, no?
18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arenaāand the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselvesāhas 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.
I could understand a purer version of this, addressing how there is no such thing as a truly private life anymore with the current surveillance state, and even private life seeming like a momentary break of performance. The issue with this approach and only applying it to public figures is the misconstruing of exposure with accountability/investigation. If a public figure has power over many lives and has much responsibility, the public also has just as much power and responsibility of accountability and investigation. This also seems ironic, since this reminds me of when women are harassed online for the way they dress/express themselves or what have you in public life but when the women speak up about this issue, they are usually told they are a woman subjecting themselves to a public life/persona and probably should have considered and in some cases, blamed for even considering and knowingly working against, the almost objective truth that they are essentially "asking for it". So in turn, that is how I look at those in public life. If you want to be the CEO of a Fortune 10 company or Secretary of Defense I believe when it comes to accountability and scrutiny, you are "asking for it", as this is your responsibility. A pedophile VP of Operations at a company should not be allowed to wallow in pity saying that his personal life should be separated from his professional career, would you trust a pedophile making decisions that effect your life? Matter of fact, why are you even pondering that after reading the words pedophile and VP next to each other instead of blind anger? There are hierarchies to this "public life" though. An artist who has to take part in press, media, and exhibitions/presentations of their work should not be subjected to the same techniques since their power/labor is self contained (in general, there's definitely other cases though). Spying on an artist or someone that just so happens to be famous versus holding a let's say, politician, accountable is vastly different. This bullet point tries to blend all of these forms of this newfound public access as a sympathetic, heart string pulling, method that is utilized against the ruling class or something. These people Alex Karp and most likely Thiel are trying to protect here are not your local weatherman on the news, but the ruling class. This is the philosophical version of those "for 10 cents a day you can save a life..." commercials, but trying to replace the animals with a billionaire.
19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.
This is more of an extension of the last bullet point. Yes, public figures hold a responsibility to not be complacent and should have a greater hand into using their resources and success to create a better life for others, in whatever way that may be. There is undeniably a "risk" in speaking out, I even spoke about that vulnerability in my "Why The Epstein Files Inspired Me" essay. There are again different types of "wrong" here. You might have a "wrong" opinion on something that develops and changes over time and when entering the public arena or developing with community, but again there are different aspects of "wrong", one that is ultimately contextual and requires nuance and cannot just be put into a simple definition for us. What I am trying to get at is if an actor says they think furries are weird and gets ridiculed for it, but then later embraces the furry community and has an open dialogue with them/their community, they will most likely be forgiven and embraced. Though not forgotten, the ridiculing of the furry community from the actor will be apart of their story, but so also will now be the education and embracing of that same community after changing. Alternatively, if there is a Senator who has charges of sex trafficking, there's no saving that. There's no amount of talking to trafficking victims that will help them. There's no amount of donations or community service to give, as the lives they have ruined and influenced with their power and position is unsalvageable. This is the different degrees of wrongness, and most importantly, the different methodologies then used after being "wrong" to correct those actions.
20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The eliteās 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.
Odd thing to say. There's a lot of obvious wrongs here that I don't think anyone needs to point out to you. What I would like to point out is the bigger picture contradiction of this opinion. Karp and Thiel want us to be thankful and revel in American power and nationalism, but America's central founding was on free enterprise, less overhead (at that time with only British lords staying at the colonies, not any British governance themselves) and more importantly, religious freedom. After the American Revolution, one of the pillars of what invigorated American society was the right to religious freedom and ultimately, personal human rights and freedoms that were guaranteed from birth and were "inalienable", inseparable from you as a person and having no involvement with the federal government. In fact, when the property owning white men of the American colonies joined together to created the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, it was designed to uphold those rights/freedoms and even create a framework in which we can build off of those freedoms, not restrict them (it is important to point out here this is the ultimate theme of America that Palantir unconsciously embodies : that essentially it takes the objectively good leap forward in human/social/political rights, it also glosses over that there were no mention of slaves being freed, women, non property owning working class, immigrants, etc interacting with this new "perfect" system). To then only look at America and all of it's people through the lens of Americhristianity-Nationalism mixed with Thiel and Karp's love of Fascism, it creates the new landscape in which were the exact reasoning for Nazi Germany's inception, and was it's justification for existence.
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.
Ahhhhh white supremacy and conservative nationalism ahhhhhhh waaaaahhhhhh only my opinion and people I agree with are right and every one else has been "proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful" waaaahhhhh like shut the fuck up this isn't even philosophical. This is why I hate professionalism, classism, intellectualism, all these invisible walls that we, and them, construct around ourselves. These people have used intellectual jargon and passive language to essentially tell you that "there are leaders, and followers : whoever I deem correct and of course myself are the leaders because I think they have made 'vital advances', and everyone else? They are just followers to us, the 'elite' that have made these advances that you, the working class and anyone who I disagree with, need to listen and follow with unassuming faith". Cultures just being "groups of people" here, is basically trying to justify why there should be a ruling class, and why they should even be thanked for their decisions, versus everyone else who are just subtracting away from that (in Palantir's eyes that is).
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?
No no, do not rush past the "resisted defining national cultures" part. This is again trying to basically tell you the same fascist /pol/ rhetoric from online far right groups. They think, that because humanity and historically disenfranchised groups of people have made great strides into making a more inclusive and accessible world and culture for all, that we have became culturally docile. They want you to think that because of all the strides we have made, we have no love and have forgot what it is like to be "white" or "American", "western" or whatever word you would like to use to encapsulate what we have been avidly trying to work against across all of human history. This speaks to a greater, almost hysterical, irony. White people have never had a culture, only looted ones modified to their liking, much as we have done with the discoveries and innovations of other cultures. To be American is to mean you are essentially a melting pot of cultures, spanning across every little piece of land across the whole entire Earth. There is no American nationalism, as America's foundation was based upon the federated nearly decentralized colonies, which were then built upon further by people who were based in cultures that were so alien to what we call "America", it makes you wonder if there's even a such thing as "America" or if we are retroactively trying to give a name to an empire that is essentially an umbrella of conflicting groups and cultures. They want the ideals that your parents most likely have - that if you are born in America, you are an American, and should do/live how whatever it means to be American and should celebrate/enforce that by any means necessary. You should not celebrate your Jamaican roots, for example, and they should not teach the history of Jamaica and it's relation to geopolitics throughout the world, and they brutal reality of what other colonies have done to it's land and culture. You should not celebrate publicly that you are Jamaican, or listen to Jamaican music, or have Jamaican friends, because you were born in America, you are an American, anything else is a threat to your identity. This is the danger of nationalism, and unchecked authority derived from it. To be so hellbent on being American, patriotism, whiteness, etc that you view any other culture or view as a threat, physically, socially, politically, economically, socially, all the -ally words, is a dangerous and depressing philosophy to have, a hollow and demented, selfish life. They are trying to disguise their hatred as "empowerment". Within these groups, there is no love for humanity and our various cultures, our differences, etc. The broader scope of this is American Individualism as a political identity, with using these nationalist and Americhristian philosophies as their only view of community and the rest of the world, and ultimately after true internalization of this, humanity and reality itself.
Closing
The points listed by Karp in "Technological Republic" and Thiel's philosophies being the two driving forces behind the existence and actions of Palantir, and even more broadly, the complex tangle of influences those two with their power/wealth hold, we must examine and hold these people accountable, and engage with what is being done to us on a general public level. In a way, Palantir has already "won". We are complacent, we don't care that children are being bombed worldwide, we know we are being surveilled constantly, we know the people who control our existence our objective, immoral evils, yet we live in a reality that is okay enough to not need to resist. Palantir, the tech space, the intelligence industry, government operations domestically and internationally, all have intertwined into just being more than "the state", but just "it" or "they" entirely. You cannot even point out one example of this bigger entity that has been slowly morphed over the past half century because it is everywhere all at once, but nowhere to be seen at the same time. Fascism was the umbrella term for this during the twentieth century, but now has become a larger combination than just the previous notion of corporation and the state, or private and public interests fully. Now, after globalization and the synthesis of the tech industry with these fascist and nationalist ideals culminating for decades, we have reached Palantir. Palantir is not surprising, but the public culmination of all that has came before it, of all classism, authority, totalitarianism, and supremacy. This goes hand in hand (almost like fascism before combining nationalism, corporatism, and religion) with the modern Ameri-Christianity nationalism we see that has been a staple of our society, innovating and developing in underground networks, elite circles and online spaces since the dawn of the Confederacy. These powers combining in western cultures and politics, unchecked and unresisted, turns into something objectively dystopian that would defy all notions of what any single human on the face of this earth would consider humane. It really makes you step back and question the religious and "christian" part of these powers, as making an all-powerful god-like force worse than whatever Orwell could have ever conceived of does not sound very Christian, or aligns with any religion I have ever heard, personally. It does not align with any human, child, parent, elderly, disabled, enslaved, illiterate, addicted, unemployed, literally any person with common sense. Do not let these classist techniques make you ponder long enough to think that there's a way these ideals are human.