Palantir Posts Bond Villain Manifesto On X (engadget.com) 120
DeanonymizedCoward writes: Engadget reports that Palantir has posted to X a summary of CEO Alex Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska's 2025 book, The Technological Republic, which reads like a utopian idealist doodled on a Bond villain's whiteboard. While the post makes some decent points, it also highlights the Big-AI attitude that the AI surveillance state is in fact a good thing, and strongly implies that the Good Guys need to do war crimes before the Bad Guys get around to it. "The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal," one of the 22 points states. "It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software."
The book is billed as "a passionate call for the West to wake up to our new reality," and other excerpts in the social media post include assertions such as: "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"; "National service should be a universal duty"; "The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone"; and "Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive."
The statement criticizes the West's resistance to "defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity," as well as the treatment of billionaires and the "ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures."
The book is billed as "a passionate call for the West to wake up to our new reality," and other excerpts in the social media post include assertions such as: "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"; "National service should be a universal duty"; "The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone"; and "Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive."
The statement criticizes the West's resistance to "defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity," as well as the treatment of billionaires and the "ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures."
Bond Villan Manifesto? (Score:1, Insightful)
More Heinlein than Bond (Score:5, Insightful)
>> "National service should be a universal duty"
In other words: "Service guarantees citizenship"
Re: (Score:2)
No, it doesn't, not according to this manifesto. It is just a necessary condition, nothing implies it is also sufficient.
Re: (Score:2)
There's an air of, "being competent and successful is good, we shouldn't attack people for it". Very Heinleinian.
Re:More Heinlein than Bond (Score:4, Insightful)
National service can be a great idea. Countries that don't have it and think it's a good idea should phase it in starting with the oldest people first.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm doing my part!
Re: More Heinlein than Bond (Score:2)
Did Alex Karp serve in the military? Of course not. He wants to make the rules for the little people only.
Re: (Score:2)
>> "National service should be a universal duty"
In other words: "Service guarantees citizenship"
Unfortunately in this case it's less about earning rights and more "give the rich overlords a steady supply of cannon fodder". The kids of CEOs will be exempt from service one can expect.
Re:Bond Villan Manifesto? (Score:5, Insightful)
When the "manifesto" stops whining about poor treatment of billionaires (won't someone think of the poor billionaires?!) then we can worry about the "bias" of the article reporting on it.
Seriously now.
Re: (Score:2)
This.
You won capitalism and still aren't happy? Cry a river about it to your therapist. It's not like you can't afford one.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Also you: Hitler helped advance rocketry. Why are you only focused on his negative points?
Re: (Score:2)
At best, you're making the same mistake but in reverse.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
To paraphrase Mike Godwin: Yes, you should compare fascists to Nazis.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, compare and contrast since Fascism and National Socialism are in fact two separate political ideologies.
They both result in tyranny so why bother splitting hairs?
Re: (Score:2)
So does communism. It's all authoritarianism at the end of the day. How you get there isn't really all that important. Turns out, all the way left and all the way right end up in authoritarian government. It's almost like we need compromise at all levels of government. Someone really ought to let the Democrats and Republicans know about this stuff ;)
Re: (Score:2)
The guy describes himself as a socialist. How out of touch with reality can a person be?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
"Done more for": No
Done more to? Maybe
His entire empire is based of of exploitation of inequality of economic power in the most extreme ways.
U.S. median household income is about $84k. Typical personal savings rate is 4% of income. Modern capitalism regularly wipes out gains entirely every decade or two, so we'll ignore interest for the sake of simplicity. So, the typical American household would save about $3.3k a year. It would take roughly 66 million years to reach Jeff Bezos’s net worth.
So yeah,
two wrongs don't make it right (Score:5, Insightful)
murdering lots of innocents to kill a few bad guys is NOT justifiable, that makes you the bad guys too, that's how I see the current Iran war, it's not good guys vs bad guys, it is more like two gangs of criminals fighting over territory and resources
Re:two wrongs don't make it right (Score:4, Insightful)
one of those "criminal gangs" is the legal ruling authority of the territory
Re: (Score:2)
one of those "criminal gangs" is the legal ruling authority of the territory
i would expect he meant the us and israel, if there is any distinction by now. yes, that was meant ironically :-)
regardless, those are just labels. these people have no homeland, they see nothing but power, and democracy has always been a convenient facade for criminals to rule the world. it doesn't work anymore. you might see this retarded palantir tech-visionaire as a cartoon villain with delusions of world domination, but even these are just elite peons for the very same bankster gang who has been runnin
Re: (Score:2)
Rating the truth as "troll?" Wow. really classy.
Re:two wrongs don't make it right (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
[M]urdering lots of innocents to kill a few bad guys is NOT justifiable, that makes you the bad guys too
Soooo, then who were the Good Guys in WW2? All parties bombed the living shit out of "innocent" civilians.
The ratio of civilian to military deaths in Iran is very low. Orders of magnitude lower than WW2.
Your measure also makes IRGC and their international islamist proxies very, very, very Bad Guys, yes?
Re: (Score:2)
murdering lots of innocents to kill a few bad guys is NOT justifiable
That's why when Israel bombs an apartment building, everyone in it is automatically enrolled in Hamas/Hezbollah first.
The world has cartoon villains (Score:1)
Ain't you caught up yet? We have real cartoon villains running the world now. This is it. Life is officially a joke.
Haven't read the book, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the summaries I've read, it comes across like the billionaire class attempting to justify all atrocities so long as they benefit the billionaire class. There's also some truly classy quotes from it about how any country that's not supplying the billionaire class with additional profit potential is a lost cause and should be annihilated in favor of countries that do provide them with additional profit potential, or at least assimilated.
People spout of about techno-feudalism. This book, at least from the way it's being advertised, seems to be the techno-feudalist manifesto. I feel it may be worth reading from the perspective of understanding the enemy, but man the excerpts make it sound like pure, distilled evil with a touch of window dressing.
Re:Haven't read the book, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Are those summaries or criticisms? If the post this article is about was the author's own summary, I don't see any connection to what you're saying. Did you read the twenty points listed, or just what the reporter claimed they said? In reading both, I have no idea what the hell the reporter is talking about. What he says and what the post says are almost completely unrelated.
I've read through several summaries elsewhere. It's really difficult to see reviews as anything but criticism because every glowing review gives off the ew vibes. Poke around online a bit. As a tech-company product, it seems to be pretty transparent at the roadmap it's attempting to lay out.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Haven't read the book, but... (Score:2)
I did read it and whilst there some interesting points of view, some even important, the book largely drones on about the same subjects: nerds should not just work for advertising companies like Google, Meta et al but use their intellect to protect the western civilisation. Where it goes wrong imo is that there is then a chapter about why western civ is superior. Which it is, by western standards, which is an important point missed.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Cultural relativism is a tool to keep anthropologists objective. It is worthless, if not dangerous, beyond that. There are measurable outcomes. Western civilization ended slavery, China still enslaves people. Arab cultures still enslave people. There are still slaves in Africa. Are you unwilling to say that a civilization that recognized the evil of slavery and ended it is superior in
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Western civilization ended slavery
Uh-huh.
Even supposing you are right (which you are not), it's not much of a badge of honor to end something you started.
Re: (Score:2)
Western civilization ended slavery
Uh-huh.
Even supposing you are right (which you are not), it's not much of a badge of honor to end something you started.
What a painfully naieve take. Who "taught" you this?
Re: (Score:3)
I wasn't "taught" it by anybody, just like you were never "taught" how to spell. But slavery exists in modern-day Western society, just as human trafficking still exists.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Do elaborate?
Re: (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
It saddens me that you would even think that was worth saying.
Re: (Score:2)
There's one western nation that has slavery enshrined in its Constitution.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, some of them did.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In fairness, half of the deaths in the civil war were on the side of the status quo
Re: Haven't read the book, but... (Score:2)
Re: Haven't read the book, but... (Score:2)
Re: Haven't read the book, but... (Score:2)
And they are what? (Score:2)
"if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public"
And they expose their true selves. Culture should not, I propose, be charged with 'delivering economic growth and security'.
Make that 'economic opportunity', and I'm in.
Security being economic security, in this context, also should not be the role of culture, which is more often named the State. And the State delivers nothing it does not first take from the People.
Give the People the library to pursue their own self inter
Re:And they are what? (Score:5, Insightful)
And they expose their true selves. Culture should not, I propose, be charged with 'delivering economic growth and security'.
Make that 'economic opportunity', and I'm in.
And you expose your true self... as a selfish prick.
Re: (Score:2)
Vonnegut had a fun take on what going for "equality of outcome" vs "equality of opportunity" could end up looking like (though his was, of course, not simply "economic" in nature).
Re: And they are what? (Score:2)
BTW, none are so selfish as those who expect others also to pay for their largesse.
Re: (Score:2)
BTW, your worship of prosperity theology is as unfounded as every other religion.
Re: And they are what? (Score:2)
You missed. My theology is in no way a prosperity theology. I believe in Christ crucified. You just hate Conservativism, the philosophy of limited government, individual liberty, and constitutional law, among other distinctives. Your other mistakes aren't important in this discussion, if at all.
Re: (Score:3)
You just hate Conservativism, the philosophy of limited government, individual liberty, and constitutional law, among other distinctives
The only one of the things listed I hate is the first one, because it's always a bullshit front for people who don't actually believe in any of those other things.
Re: (Score:2)
Shut up nerd.
You don't have the courage to say that to someone even on Slashdot, let alone face to face, coward.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: And they are what? (Score:2)
Always insightful.
Re: (Score:3)
In other words, I think you're agreeing with the points being made but mistook the references to culture for referring to government.
Re: And they are what? (Score:2)
Actually, I recognize government, to in the US, as recently becoming downstream of culture. This is a fundamental problem, but mostly due to the culture making a concerted effort (for at least 70 years) to reshape government. You're all pretty observant. You see it also.
Re: (Score:2)
I think I would have agreed with your statement if they had said government instead of culture, but they did say culture, so I agree with them while sharing your sentiment.
Re: (Score:2)
'delivering economic growth and security'
The USA has that, and those who don't contribute; the mentally ill, the crippled, the homeless, the autistic, and more recently, babies; are disposable.
While the summary I read makes the manifesto sound egalitarian, buzzwords like this expose the real plan: To model society on In Time (2011). Everyone gets a counter, and if yours ever hits zero, you're dumped into the food vats, same as Soylent Green (1973).
The manifesto describes a land of milk and honey plus a few responsibilities (Eg. military serv
Out of touch elites make out of touch comments (Score:2)
What you don't know you don't know (Score:5, Insightful)
Big Tech leaders think they know better about society and politics than those who studied in those fields.
They never studied politics, sociology, history. They have no background in humanities, and they think they know better than those who did.
This is and a weird cocktail of double ignorance, Dunning-Kruger effect, and the God syndrome that comes with affluence and being surrounded by sycophants.
It doesn't help that media pays attention to every shower thoughts they post on the Internet. They cannot be allowed to play gods. Thay talk about free democratic societies while undermining these exact ideals with each action they take. They just don't care, and we certainly need people in charge to care.
Re:What you don't know you don't know (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps they aren't the ones with a Dunning-Kruger issue?
Did you read the 20 points they listed?
Re: What you don't know you don't know (Score:2)
We are all experts. The great philosophers of yore had educations that most of the world now views as compulsory. Modern internet denizens are regularly exposed to the entire world and dozens of languages and opinions.
So fine let's call a spade a spade. For the first time in America someone is suggesting universal compulsory civil service. Okay. Let's talk numbers. Are these kids gonna be compensated? What about healthcare? Or are you just gonna steal the best years of these kid's lives and gift it to the s
Soylent gold is billionaires! (Score:2)
Pretty soon they'd stop inflicting their stupid selfish ideas on the general public.
Re: (Score:3)
Karp created a money management company, befriended Peter Thiel, and then created a company that makes some database query software used mostly by governments for surveillance.
Zamiska seems to have created this book and presumably the corporate affairs department at said database query company.
I bet some imagination was involved, but maybe not the kind that you'd like us to think you're talking about. I'm not sure either have much claim to "making the world better" either.
Re: Soylent gold is billionaires! (Score:2)
Holy shit bro you think we depend on any of these new dudes? For realsies? I mean these guys are all my age. The world was here before them. They all shit and cried for mommy like you and me. I certainly don't depend on them.
Re: Soylent gold is billionaires! (Score:2)
Except they're the same people who had the ideas that created all the things in the modern world that we both like and depend upon.
Can you be more specific? Which things? One might argue that they enshittified everything. I remember the internet in 1996 and while it had more technical limitations, I liked it a lot more than what we have now. It wasn't based on everyone trying to get our attention constantly and treating it as a commodity. Search engines worked. You only used the resources (bandwidth, RAM, CPU) which you needed for the things you requested.
Re:What you don't know you don't know (Score:4, Insightful)
They shouldn't be allowed to play gods, but right now they're not only allowed, they're being encouraged. They've sold themselves to the government movers and shakers as indispensable, and in some cases as the most important, most vital parts of all of society. And this particular manifesto seems to be yet another summation of how technologists must be allowed full reign over every aspect of society, or the society is ultimately a failure. Or at least it appears to be advertising itself as just that, and being that it is a product of Palantir's, I wouldn't doubt that this may actually be truth in advertising, something I didn't know marketing was capable of anymore. Small miracles wrapped in evil dressing I suppose.
AI = Now they think they know (Score:2)
Now they have AI making they feel like they think they can solve everything.
And there are other people ready to buy it thinking they will be able to solve everything with it too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
People using the word "Dunning-Kruger effect" are in most cases ignorant about the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Dunning-Kruger effect does not mean that people not studied in a field think themselves to be better in the very same field than the expert. It's just that they tend to overestimate their own abilities. An amateur might consider himself a pretty good chess player. But by no means he would consider himself a better player than a grand master. What he underestimates is the actual advantages a professional chess player has over him. And that's the Dunning-Kruger effect (Dunning and Kruger, 1999).
The Dunning-Kruger meme is a load of BS.
"However, our study refuted two tenets of the second hypothesis by showing that (a) no strong propensity exists toward overconfidence in self-assessment ratings and (b) few people (about 5%) merit their being characterized as "unskilled and unaware of it.""
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu... [usf.edu]
Re: (Score:2)
ick (Score:1)
Get a grip (Score:1)
They are absolutely correct that the West (specifically the US) has abandoned the responsibilities that came with being the only player capable of effecting global peace and stability by significantly outclassing all other players in military capability. (Instability in this system is actually being caused by China's attempt to catch up to the US in this regard. So long as they are outclassed, they will not be tempted to instigate war. It is when they believe they have a good chance at winning a war with
What is desperately needed (Score:2)
Is a new functional economic system that rewards useful work without the runaway conditions that lead to billionaires.
Unfortunately, they're well entrenched and will actively resist changes to the current system.
Fuck the ruling class! (Score:1)
So, that's a lie. (Score:2)
And that's the headline sprayed across the internet in a clear attempt to prevent anyone from actually reading the points being made.
Re:So, that's a lie. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's check those points out.
1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible.
Strangely, that is interpreted as "make more money from government orders for means to kill other people" instead of, you know "pay your taxes".
2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. - whatever, that's meaningless and stupid.
3. Free email is not enough. - see 2.
4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. - so have the dangers of stupid use of hard power, cf. the First and Second Republican Oil Wars.
5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. - but of course, if one side declares the intent in (4) to develop and use "hard power", everyone else will follow suit.
6. National service should be a universal duty. - LOL do they want an "AI draft", something like the Soviet "StroyBat", or "construction battalions", soldiers who did slave work for the army elites?
7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. - let's not pretend that the issue here is "the marine asking for a better rifle". The issue here is the corrupt head of state asking for a way to skirt the rules of engagement and the decision-making power to not wield that weapon by the US Marine. As in "don't do war crimes" being interpreted as "traitorous statement".
8. Public servants need not be our priests. - is the complaint here that the government provides a living wage, reasonable insurance and a pension? Sounds like bullshit, as there are many people who work in the private sector because they get better compensation there.
9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life - lol wut?
10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. - no, the commercialization of modern politics and the sharp departure from the principle of 1 person - 1 vote is leading you stray.
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. - LOL, what about hard power, isn't it about eagerness to hasten the demise of its enemies?
12. The atomic age is ending. - sure, the US, russia and China are about to give up on their arsenals. Any day now.
13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. - it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites. - so let's squash these opportunities, because they've gone too far.
14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. - nope, the American power has lead a number of proxy and local wars of choice. What has made possible the "long peace" was the aversion for war in Europe and the balance of powers that expired with the fall of the Soviet Union.
15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. - As the Dumbroe doctrine that admits the US cannot project global power anymore and is withdrawing to the Western hemisphere is established, everyone else will take up arms and defend their own security. But then why does trumpistan whine loudly when EU countries politely declines to participate in the stupid wars of the former?
16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. - yes, let's applaud musk the grifter, who stayed in California while they were funding his little car company and then ran to Texas so he doesn't have to pay taxes back. What happened to the moral debt to the country?
17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. - why, yes, the pervasive spying and Judge LLM are so much better than that Tom Cruise movie and Judge Dredd.
18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. - that's the cutest defense of the Epstein club I
Re: (Score:2)
2. I read that as, "put your phone down, it isn't life". I may be wrong.
3. You don't think Google should do more for society than provide free email? To me, that one sounds like, "if they want to live their decadent lifestyles, they need to do more than give away email addresses (that they snoop on)".
4. Both of those things can be true, and I suspect they are.
5. Which has happened already and the cat isn't going back in the bag. Are you arguing that the
Re: So, that's a lie. (Score:2)
1. Not really no. This country is the frontier where individuals take care of themselves. Stop looking for a handout. If someone attacks the country that's one thing but I'm not looking for a fight. It's always the biggest pussy in the room looking for a fight.
Re: So, that's a lie. (Score:2)
It's always the biggest pussy with the largest bodyguard in the room looking for a fight.
ftfy a bit.
Re: So, that's a lie. (Score:2)
you've imagined an argument
right back at you :)
i am literally translating for the dumber lot what's actually in there.
Re: (Score:2)
I think maybe you need to address the plank in your eye, before you talk about the motes in others.
We don't treat women that much better in the US. Australia has nearly eliminated cervical cancer, because of the HPV vaccine (https://www.hpvworld.com/articles/australia-on-track-to-be-the-first-country-to-achieve-cervical-cancer-elimination/ [hpvworld.com]), but we can't require it here, because it might encourage
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for posting. Already read that on Engadget, but it's good to have a reference here.
The list starts only somewhat questionable, then degrades into, as you say, "Mr. Adolf broadcasting". I liked that summary.
Title of the book (Score:5, Insightful)
The working title of the book was "My Struggle", but I guess that was changed before it was published.
Re: (Score:2)
Conspiratorial, but... (Score:2)
Perhaps a bit conspiratorial, but given all of Trump's other betrayals in the past couple months, this can't help but seem like it was initially planned this way: do something that makes life hard, which will make life harder in a couple months when all the other cards start to drop.
Palantir is SaaS Middleware that is obsolete... (Score:2)
It's likely Palantir is behind Anthropic getting labelled as a security threat... and if they are it is backfiring hilariously.
The fact they can say this out loud (Score:3)
Edge lords (Score:2)
This isn't complicated (Score:4, Insightful)
Think about the incentives involved in the new AI race.
We've inventing a new type of machine. The machines are big and huge and complicated and consume enormous resources, so they're necessarily centralized. These machines are wondrous marvels. You can ask them a question and 9 times out of 10 they give you a relevant and useful answer.
People are naturally trustworthy of machines because we view computers as infallible. If I store contact information in my contacts list and go back and retrieve it later, the information is still there 100% intact. It augments our brains with perfect memory and recall. After all, that's what computers do.
So almost everyone trusts these new machines intrinsically. Few people question the answers that are given, and even if you were a little skeptical, it's much less work to convince yourself that it's probably right than to track down the supporting material.
The organizations that control these new machines have a perverse incentive. They can make far more money by manipulating the answers that the machine produces in subtle ways for their benefit, or for the benefit of their paying clients. "What is the best dishwasher?" "Are there any pharmacies in my area open until midnight?" "Summarize the political platform of candidates X, Y, and Z." "What medication can treat such-and-such disease?" These are all prompts that can be monetized by the AI provider.
We know they will because companies have been inserting paid advertising and results into our search queries and emails for years.
Imagine the power that you wield if you own a machine that everybody trusts implicitly with their most important questions and most sensitive information.
That's clearly what we're building. We can't say we didn't know and weren't warned.
Review of Technological Republic on Amazon (Score:3)
BTW you can find Killing Hope on the CIA website of all places! ... click if you dare: https://www.cia.gov/library/ab... [cia.gov]
Somebody read The Prince cliffs notes (Score:2)
Machiavelli would be very proud of the tech bros. He also thought you have to be armed to the teeth, and that committing immoral acts is the responsibility of the ruler. But he didn't live in a world with intricately linked global economies. America's true power is not its military, but the *appearance* of a strong military. Its true strength is the finance sector, which all countries bow down to.
AI companies are the new arms dealers. Of course they want strong militarized nations. Who else will spend hundr
Sparta and Athens (Score:2)
The synthesis of Sparta and Athens was tried successfully: Prussia.
It is the ideal that lurks in his mind, he was trained in Frankfurt school, the interprussian left wing academic opposition, However, for a state like that to exist you may tolerate a dofus in power but not embrace him. US culture is not able to embrace that.