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Notes -
Opening up the discussion on Palantir's CEO 22 points manifesto (original twitter link) which is an excerpt for his new book The Technological Republic.
First impulses when reading through the list, I see that it's melding nationalism and civic responsibility with some kind of tech-elite-ism (?) and culture war critiques.
Anyways, here is what I got from it after thinking about it more and talking with various AI (ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen):
I think I am influenced because I am currently reading through Seeing Like a State, but I get the feeling that Alex Karp believes he is a leader in a vanguard of tech elites that knows what's best (even if many are distracted from the real issues right now) and everyone should listen and just follow this vanguard. Oh and throw in some "woe is me, only I can save the republic, they just don't understand me, so read my book because then you will".
I think this is an interesting view into the CEO of one of the most important companies. My impression of the man has decreased, and increasing my concern for the kind of leaders and elites that is brewing up within American society.
Some notes on the manifesto:
No affirmative obligation is necessary. There are enough engineering elites who are either US nationalists or who will work on weapons simply for money without thinking too hard about moral questions to suffice for the needs of national defense. As for the needs of national offense, that is a different matter.
Strange take. It was mainly nuclear weapons, not American power, although American power certainly played a role. Let me give an example: in the early stages of WW2, US, UK, and Soviet power did not deter the Germans or the Japanese. Being weaker than the enemy does not deter leaders from starting wars often enough to bring about an era of peace. Facing nuclear war, on the other hand, so far has kept peace between the great powers. I wonder if Karp actually believes his thesis or if he is just sucking up to the establishment, which indeed seems to love to believe this kind of theory about America's role in the history of the last few decades.
Europe is not being forced to pay any heavy price for Germany's weakness. Europe's support of Ukraine is a matter of choice, not something forced on it. There is no existential risk to Europe from Russia (outside of the risk of mutually assured destruction in a nuclear war, which Russia wants to avoid every bit as much as the EU does) for the simple reason that the EU has 3 times Russia's population, 7 times its GDP, two nuclear-armed members, and can easily produce more nuclear weapons at any time it wishes. Even if Russia somehow managed to conquer all of Ukraine, which seems extremely unlikely, it would pose no genuine threat to Europe. It's simply not strong enough.
This, and point 18, seem blatantly self-serving to me. Of course Karp would think this. I mean, it's possible that he actually is saying this abstractly rather than from his own bias, but it seems more likely that he is saying it from bias.
This one surprises me, since I have no idea what is motivating it. It also does not necessarily make sense. Being an open intellectual movement does not necessarily mean being tolerant of people who claim that the Earth is flat or that they are being mind-controlled by lizard people. It does mean that you should give such people a say instead of censoring them, but it does not mean that you should pretend to take them seriously or give them much attention. And as for the kinds of religion that are compatible with rationality (they do exist, for example pure spirituality without belief in gods or woo), I don't really see the elites being intolerant to them. Indeed, since such kinds of religion are relatively obscure, I'm not even sure that the elites are aware of their existence.
Of course Karp himself would not serve, nor would any children that he has be likely to serve in any dangerous capacity either. Maybe as a society we should be hesitant about launching wars and only fight the next war even if not everyone shares in the risk and cost?
From a purely pragmatic standpoint of an American elite (and I don't have a good read on Karp so this might not be his perspective) intolerance towards religious belief is basically pure self-ownage. (Keep in mind that in the US, religious behavior is correlated with higher education levels.) There are a lot of smart, motivated religious people who will happily serve in the military and then work in your munitions plant afterwards and if you are intolerant of them you're running the risk of losing their talent or, worse, making yourself their enemy.
Good point.
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