Barbara Kruger once slammed some as “a ridiculous clusterfuck of uncool jokers”. I think of that phrase often, and I thought to apply it again when I read about Palantir’s manifesto on a recent thread on X. It’s easy to dismiss it as “the ramblings of a supervillian”, but I think there is something more to it. Reading it, I thought I saw references to ideas like those espoused by Nazi thinker Carl Schmitt, among others. I mean, Palantir wouldn’t be the first on the American right to do that.
As an experiment, I asked ChatGPT what German writings from the first half of the 20th century this resembles. It came back with this:
That was a good summary of the manifesto. Reading more on Spengler, Jünger and of course Schmitt confirmed that. The Palantir manifesto might not be a Nazi document, but it is aligned with writings of pre-1933 radical conservative thought, much of that which went on to influence Nazi Germany. To me the manifesto shows how dangerous Palantir is at its core.
Now I get it: for some of you, it’s hard to take these jokers at Palantir seriously. I mean:
Not to mention things like the fact that they are taking the time to design their own…chore coat, or that Palantir associate Peter Thiel is saying such crazy things that the Catholic church is mulling burning him at the stake.
So yeah, while they may be a bunch of uncool jokers, as far as jokers go, they are far from harmless. Being a joker and being dangerous aren’t mutually exclusive.
Smart People I Know 