GoKawiilPalantir CEO Alex Karp is a man in charge of one of the most important and frightening companies in the world. Karp’s new book, co-written with Nicholas Zamiska, is called “The Technological Republic.” After claiming “because we get asked a lot”, Palantir posted a 22-point summary of the book that reads like a corporate manifesto. It evokes both weird reactionary shit and also trilby-wearing Reddit comments from the early 2010s
Palantir’s summary of the book is ominous. But even the company’s name is unironically ominous. The palantiri are crystal balls in Lord of the Rings that let Middle Earth’s worst tyrants spy on the heroes of the story. It’s a fun reference if you have no shame about your company’s mission.
We’ve attempted to translate these 22 points from Alex Karp’s alien words into something more reasonable, like human words from someone who might play him in the biopic. (Hello, Taika Waititi). In so doing, we’ve become much more sympathetic to why Jurgen Habermas refused to supervise Karp’s research.
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.
Translation: Silicon Valley has an enormous opportunity to extract as much money from federal government defense contracts as possible. To do this, we will bring back a draft for engineers. We’re really into bringing back the draft. Deepfaked teenagers, low-paid gig workers, and victims of the Rohingya Genocide need not apply.
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.
Translation: We can’t say “we wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters” anymore because Elon Musk lets you write essays on Twitter now. Though if you thought the apps were tyrannical, wait until you get a load of us.
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: People are mad at tech billionaires for their obscene wealth and arrogance. Instead of winning them over by providing free access to a useful everyday service, we’re gonna sell a lot of software that will let the government spy on them while demanding tax cuts.
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.
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