I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to comment on this “manifesto” put forward by Palantir CEO Alex Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska. Their book The Technological Republic came out last year. I haven’t read it, but if this is their strategy to remarket it to readers like me, then it’s not such a great plan. In this post, I’m going to walk through their “vision” for tech and AI point-by-point. I’ll resist the urge to elaborate, but please understand I’m really holding back here. Their text will be shown against a pink background; mine will have a white background.
Because we get asked a lot.
The Technological Republic, in brief.
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.
Moral debt is both a strong concept an an exceptionally vague one. That’s what makes it so dangerous and manipulative when used by someone like Karp. To whom in that moral debt owed? To the state? To the citizen? Those aren’t coterminous concepts? And what nation-state made Silicon Valley possible? It’s located in California, but these are global companies that inherently don’t care about national boundaries. It’s clear they mean the United States, but we need to ask what version and vision of the United States and why they single that nation out.
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.
Let’s dial back the drama, fellas. Tyranny? Really? Rebel? Certainly, you don’t mean rebellion by, say, going offline and actually communicating with real people in real time. So what do you mean? That you don’t like Apple because they produced a really good tool that people all over the world enjoy? What is possible that we aren’t seeing, and how is that the fault of an iPhone? Self-disclosure: I prefer IPhones, but because they are more difficult for the government to surveil, I, as a federal probationer, am not allowed to use one. I must use an Android so the state to which I owe a moral debt can spy on me constantly. Which way does tyranny flow? What would rebellion look like in my case?
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.
So, I’m going to take this to be a swipe at Google. I don’t really care. Free email isn’t really enough. I agree. In fact, people would probably pay money to have email that wasn’t constantly being shared, analyzed, and marketed by every platform with which one interacts online. But seriously. Free email represents the “decadence” of a culture of civilization? That’s more drama, but it’s drama with a tell. “AND INDEED ITS RULING CLASS.” Holy shit! You are going to admit that? Google, Apple, and Palantir are the ruling class of this nation? Moreover, it’s not that they have to cease being decadent. It’s that they have to be FORGIVEN for it because they are going to make us rich and safe. I thought you said this was a republic? I’m not sure the first French Republic forgave its decadent overlords. Be careful.
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.
Wait, force build on software? Talk about the tyranny of the app! And directed at whom, exactly? This is a question the ruling class should answer to convince me that they are on the right track to economic growth and security. And what is this manifesto but soaring (though I would say “plummeting”) rhetoric? Guys, did you use an AI to write this? This is exactly the kind of stupid shit an LLM would produce.
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.
I see. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. We need to develop an A-bomb before the Nazis do. It’s really a given that AIs need to be developed in a way that they are potential weapons of mass destruction. I’ll resist the long explanation here of why that’s a fallacy. The nerve of people who say they eschew “theatrical debates” after what they have already written to this point. And what exactly are our critical military and national security applications? Those are things that, in a republic, are subject to debate. Which adversaries? Defined by whom? How are they adversarial? Are you feeling confident about our ruling class yet? Should they be forgiven?
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.
Oh, you mean national MILITARY service, not service of any other kind. Who will defend the ruling class while the ruling class provides economic growth and security if we don’t have an unavoidable draft? There is certainly a sense of moral debt embedded in that, but we probably need to debate what kind of morality it is and who pays the debt. Does this — “everyone shares in the risk and the cost” — mean that the ruling class is going to put their lives on the line next to the farm kid from Onsted, MI? Am I immoral and ungrateful to be skeptical? When has this ever happened before? Why should it be different tomorrow? And, excuse me, but this is coming from a major defense contractor. In that context, it looks like a request for subjects on whom to test their software of hard power.
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 harm’s way.
The military industrial complex as the servant to the soldier. I guess some people might fall for that. What’s noteworthy about asking for a better rifle is that there is historical precedent for this. If one were to consult an AI on that question, you might find a response like this: “Introduction to Vietnam (1964-1967): Originally lauded for its rapid fire, the early M16 failed frequently due to improper gunpowder, lack of maintenance, and lack of chrome lining, leading to the improved M16A1 in 1967.” This isn’t some sort of hidden history; it’s a thing that even people like me, who know virtually nothing of military history, have heard about. Soldiers in the midst of the escalation of Vietnam were literally asking for better rifles. It took 3 years for the industry to deliver them. The better rifle didn’t end the war. In fact, 1968 was the peak year for US fatalities in Vietnam: 16,899. But I suppose if everybody is being asked to step into harm’s way, as they say in this and the previous point, we can certainly count on better software.
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.
What the fuck are you talking about? Is anybody else reading this as a non-sequitur? Are they suggesting that the Catholic Church would have better priests if they had a starting salary of $125K a year? I’m not just making that figure up. I picked it because I asked an AI what the average salary for a Palatir worker is. The AI told me, “Average Salary (General): An estimated average total salary is around $139K–153K
annually, including bonuses.” What about all the people we are drafting into national service? Should they get that too? Or are they just maying off their moral debt as test subjects for Palantir software? Maybe I’m just not grasping the baseline greed of the ruling class. I’m not sure that they know that some people — from nuns to childcare workers to police officers — essentially take a “vow of poverty” to perform moral work. Let’s also stop the bullshit that runs in the other direction –> businesses compensate their workers richly and fairly. Ever tried to get by on contract data annotation for a tech company? Corporations never exploit their workers in any way! I’ll end this reaction where I started it. What the fuck are you talking about?
9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.
What do you mean by “we,” kemosabe? I think this has to be the royal we of the ruling class. On this side of the revolution, “we” are not amused. “Subjected themselves” is one of the most condescending and demeaning phrasings one could possibly devise. Whom am I supposed to be forgiving? What sins did they commit? And what cast of characters do we currently have at the helm? Trump. Musk. Zuckerberg. Bezos. Karp. I regret all of them already. I certainly wouldn’t begin to claim that they have “subjected” themselves to public life. Profited off it, yes. I’m all about forgiveness and understanding the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche. I know a great place we can start putting that into practice: the prison-industrial complex.
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.
Well, if there aren’t some unspoken and unexamined assumptions about political philosophy in this apothegm, you will never find that kind of thing anywhere else. Seriously. This is another version of “What the fuck are you talking about?” You never got past John Hobbes? Oh, wait, you don’t even know who that is! I can forgive you for that, but I need you to take a political philosophy course while you make amends. Let me suggest some additional reading based on this assertion, too: “their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet.” I know you guys have no idea about this, but this is basically the definition of a nation as set forth by the historian Benedict Anderson in his must-read book Imagined Communities. Please get yourselves a copy. At least an AI summary. I can help you with the summary; here you go: “Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson is a foundational book on nationalism, arguing that nations are “imagined communities” socially constructed by people who perceive themselves as part of a shared group despite never meeting most members.” Let’s also think about the structure of this argument itself. I’m not supposed to nourish my sense of self or soul, but you’re worried that I’ll be disappointed. Dude, disappointment” is an emotion that has to do with a sense of self and soul? Oh, wait, you didn’t know that? OK, I forgive you pending successful completion of a course on gaining emotional intelligence. Finally, this is petty, but the English professor in me can’t resist: “psychologization.” No. Bad. I’ll quote, of all people, Orwell: “Bad writers, and especially scientific, political and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones…[T]he normal way of coining a new word is to use a Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the -ize formation. It is often easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentatory and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one’s meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness.”
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.
So the “hard power” that vanquishes our enemies is OK. It obliterates them; we can do a ritual acknowledgement; then we can move on. Isn’t hard power exactly about hastening the demise of the enemy? Am I missing something here? Have I misunderstood triumphal arches? Or so you mean that I shouldn’t be gleeful about YOUR failures? That I shouldn’t satirize demise? Perhaps we should look up the term “self-serving.” It might be next to “psychologization” in the dictionary of the ruling class.
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.
Oh, dear Lord. The Atomic Age didn’t begin with deterrence. It began with the use of nuclear weapons against unsuspecting civilian populations. Deterrence only started to come about when the Soviets developed their own weapons. The age of deterrence then became the age of the defense contractor, the age of the military-industrial complex. You know, exactly the think the Eisenhower warned against. But have we looked up “self-serving” yet?
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.
Prove it. And define your terms precisely. What we have in #13 is the thesis statement of a miserable first-year college essay. You might want to head to the library just to get a sense of how many volumes of serious work there are that dispute these claims.
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 — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.
Oh, stop. And have you also forgotten that in the entirety of human history up to 1914, billions of people and their descendants had never known a world war? How many generations is that? Three or less than three? And what the fuck are you talking about part 3: What is “some version of peace”? I suppose that all the proxy wars and client wars that great powers have fought, subjecting citizens of other nations to their imperial whims, are a version of that, at least as far as the ruling classes are concerned.
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.
Just based on the metaphor, I’d like to know how you “de-neuter” something. Seriously, I’m trying to visualize how that works. As for the content, the totalitarian powers that caused the second world war that ushered in the atomic age need to be forgiven because…hard power? I think the reconstruction of those countries was a kind of forgiveness. I know the Germans would say so because I have heard them say it to my face. But maybe we should go back to how it was before those world wars? Is that what I hear you saying?
16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s 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.
I don’t disagree with the words, just with how you are using them. We need a lot more non-market incentivized actors in the world. How is Musk outside the market? How are billionaires not a function of the market in all the worst possible ways? I have some GREAT ideas about how to make AIs much, much better. I can’t get listened to. Then there’s always the question of how I would get FUNDED if I wanted to make them happen. Plus, I thought you said that I shouldn’t be a priest. I thought you said I should get paid a good company wage.
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.
Not sure if you have noticed, but this country is obsessed with this idea. In fact, it desginates some many things as violent crimes that we have about 5% of the world’s population and 15-20% of the world’s prisoners. We incarcerate our citizens at a rate similar to our fellow paradises of Cuba and El Salvador. I can’t get a job anywhere because I can’t pass a criminal background check. So much for forgiveness that doesn’t accrue to the ruling class. And since when does Silicon Valley have no role in addressing crime? What’s frightening is what your ideas might be for what ELSE it should be doing.
18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has 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.
Privacy for the ruling class, but fuck everyone else, for instance, someone who MIGHT be SUSPECTED of POSSIBLY wanted to commit a violent crime at some point in the future. Sure, you can take the data of the proles and monetize that to the nth degree, but a gossip column or a news story about “public figure” deters the best people. Where’s the smell test? The stories you seem to be worried about are the ones about people who DO enrich themselves via public “service.” Show me the story about the Department of Agriculture station worker that dissuaded someone from doing that work. Can’t find that story? Maybe it’s because Musk and DOGE fired them all in order to, I don’t know, enrich themselves by accessing all kind of government data.
19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.
Have you met Donald Trump or yourself? The two of you seem incapable of shutting the fuck up, no matter how wrong you are. Let’s also look at how many of your points imply that people should be quiet because they are runing things. We can start with the previous point, but there are many more.
20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s 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.
Not religious belief in general. Religious belief of the ruling class, or the weaponization of others’ religious beliefs by the ruling class. And what do you mean by intolerance? Most people are tolerant of religious beliefs. What they don’t tolerate is the imposition of those religious beliefs onto them. I’m sure you think abortion bans are great, but Sharia law that might be imposed by a city is a disaster. Hint: they are both disasters.
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.
Yes, those Barbarians are out there, and they are at the Gate. Let’s justify our racism and imperial domination. The Ruling class can be forgiven for that, can’t they?
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?
Because the ruling class knows what is worthy and what isn’t. If #21 is imperialist racism, then #22 is the domesticated version. Plurialism is very much a project of defining a national culture. The problem is that you don’t like the definition.
The summing outrage here is that they call the book that contains these ideas The Technological Republic. There’s nothing about it that’s a republic. It’s stone authoritarian empire.