Outstanding expose and mortifying at the same moment!
I’ve been worried about Palantir since I read about Theil but Now it’s worse with this guy.
One of your excerpts (red flags mine):
“A person who fantasizes, in public,
🚩about drone-striking business rivals and sending protesters to North Korea is not a person who should be near the instruments of state violence.
A person who laughs on earnings calls about
🚩heads being cut off in a revolution is not a person whose picture of American civic life is one a republic should entrust with its surveillance infrastructure.
A person whose corporate worldview celebrates “scaring and 🚩killing enemies” as a product feature is not a person whose ethical constraints on targeting decisions can be assumed. “
Mike, this is a masterful exposé of an individual who is truly and presently a real danger to humanity.
I can sense what it cost you to write this. I hope my gratitude offers some small recompense.
I left academia in '97 because I was unable to bear the burden of fighting both misogyny and rampant pseudo-intellectualism (unbearable as I was attempting to pursue a PhD in philopophy and saw first-hand and repeatedly, how easily and confidently self-serving individuals with no moral compass could twist, obscure and invert rational discourse to serve their own vile racist, sexist, capitalist agendas).
I respect your integrity and the work you're doing immensely.
There are quite a few "murdery" boys obsessed with death and destruction on the reactionary right. They never matured past that dominate everything to the death, (even things they ostensibly love) stage of childhood. They are IMO a bunch of broken boys with waaaaay too much influence, money and power. Make America Great Again? I'd say make America wise, compassionate and mature. We're definitely not there folks.
When bullying becomes broadly seen as vulgar, we will begin the process of healing. Just like how driving drunk became vulgar - socially unacceptable, worthy of shunning and exile. That's what has to happen with bullies and bullying. THEN the broken boys will not be tolerated and will not have access to power.
Zero tolerance for bullies. Zero tolerance for bullying. It starts there. THAT, I believe, is our highest civic responsibility.
Once again, you have articulated sharply, poignantly, and with depth that is irrefutable. We are a sick culture that enables such sociopathy to thrive in our midst.
“The architecture that made this possible was not built by hard power alone. It was built by the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, NATO, the nuclear non-proliferation regime, the international humanitarian law framework, the European project, and a web of alliances and norms that Karp dismisses out of hand in favor of a vision of deterrence through better targeting software.” This is spot on, and the direct result of too many smart young men growing increasingly dangerous down in their parents’ basements learning to be cavalier about killing to the point of enjoying it via gaming. Everything you name - the UN, Bretton Woods, NATO, nuclear non-proliferation, international humanitarian law and the alliances and norms built from them - are based on values, humanitarian values like “all men [sic] are created equal”. This is, whether we like it or not, another moment that’s at least LIKE the Civil War, if not an actual Civil War. Yet. Lincoln’s “…new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that ‘all men are created equal’” is once again “…testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.” For me, this is about a culture that very well might be in the process of abandoning the very values - the underlying architecture, as you put it - that made it possible in the first place.
This sort of witness is very valuable. Thank you. P.S. Anyone who attacks your analysis on the basis of your not having clinical certification would be pretending the facts you described don't exist. Those facts are compelling.
"Progressive but not woke"?? Rejections that characterize others as "woke" leverage the history of that word, whose usage comes specifically from Black social progressives. So being too "woke" is implicitly being too Black. The "anti-woke" contingent are trading in racism, akin to calling those who they accuse of being "too woke" "N-lovers."
Only an asshole accuses others of being "woke," and identifies as "anti-woke." A racist asshole. White progressives have never labelled ourselves "woke." It's a Black thing. We've never appropriated it. Instead it was appropriated by racists to use against both Blacks and us.
Power, wealth and applause should not be melded together, and certainly cannot be conflated. Together they corrupt, because there is no way to learn from mistakes: when one’s experience continually tells one that one is all-knowing and all-powerful, one inevitably becomes blind. This is the flip side to the need for democracy, personally, politically and socially—speaking with others, negotiating decisions with others, tolerating disageement—all these teach us both empathy and humility. If we manage to defeat the fascist project—which absolutely will require direct participation at thr grassroots, as I know personally is occurring, from Minnesotans to Americans in Mexico—we become, individually and nationally, more tolerant, compassionate and humble.
MeToo and COVID showed these people they can be rendered powerless by law and governance no matter how much money they have unless they control everything. Then millions of Americans voted to give them that control.
There are too many Alex Karps in the world at this time in history. We are leaning further towards destruction than we ever have before. No point in space programs, earth's civilzation will not endure long enough to spread into the universe - hopefully. What a sad day that would be.
I also don’t believe any upstanding progressive would voluntarily be comfortable making Thiel and Lonsdale more powerful and wealthy.
Outstanding expose and mortifying at the same moment!
I’ve been worried about Palantir since I read about Theil but Now it’s worse with this guy.
One of your excerpts (red flags mine):
“A person who fantasizes, in public,
🚩about drone-striking business rivals and sending protesters to North Korea is not a person who should be near the instruments of state violence.
A person who laughs on earnings calls about
🚩heads being cut off in a revolution is not a person whose picture of American civic life is one a republic should entrust with its surveillance infrastructure.
A person whose corporate worldview celebrates “scaring and 🚩killing enemies” as a product feature is not a person whose ethical constraints on targeting decisions can be assumed. “
Mike, this is a masterful exposé of an individual who is truly and presently a real danger to humanity.
I can sense what it cost you to write this. I hope my gratitude offers some small recompense.
I left academia in '97 because I was unable to bear the burden of fighting both misogyny and rampant pseudo-intellectualism (unbearable as I was attempting to pursue a PhD in philopophy and saw first-hand and repeatedly, how easily and confidently self-serving individuals with no moral compass could twist, obscure and invert rational discourse to serve their own vile racist, sexist, capitalist agendas).
I respect your integrity and the work you're doing immensely.
There are quite a few "murdery" boys obsessed with death and destruction on the reactionary right. They never matured past that dominate everything to the death, (even things they ostensibly love) stage of childhood. They are IMO a bunch of broken boys with waaaaay too much influence, money and power. Make America Great Again? I'd say make America wise, compassionate and mature. We're definitely not there folks.
When bullying becomes broadly seen as vulgar, we will begin the process of healing. Just like how driving drunk became vulgar - socially unacceptable, worthy of shunning and exile. That's what has to happen with bullies and bullying. THEN the broken boys will not be tolerated and will not have access to power.
Zero tolerance for bullies. Zero tolerance for bullying. It starts there. THAT, I believe, is our highest civic responsibility.
I’d settle for make America decent again. Or, as Langston Hughes said, Let America Be America Again.
Once again, you have articulated sharply, poignantly, and with depth that is irrefutable. We are a sick culture that enables such sociopathy to thrive in our midst.
“The architecture that made this possible was not built by hard power alone. It was built by the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, NATO, the nuclear non-proliferation regime, the international humanitarian law framework, the European project, and a web of alliances and norms that Karp dismisses out of hand in favor of a vision of deterrence through better targeting software.” This is spot on, and the direct result of too many smart young men growing increasingly dangerous down in their parents’ basements learning to be cavalier about killing to the point of enjoying it via gaming. Everything you name - the UN, Bretton Woods, NATO, nuclear non-proliferation, international humanitarian law and the alliances and norms built from them - are based on values, humanitarian values like “all men [sic] are created equal”. This is, whether we like it or not, another moment that’s at least LIKE the Civil War, if not an actual Civil War. Yet. Lincoln’s “…new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that ‘all men are created equal’” is once again “…testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.” For me, this is about a culture that very well might be in the process of abandoning the very values - the underlying architecture, as you put it - that made it possible in the first place.
This sort of witness is very valuable. Thank you. P.S. Anyone who attacks your analysis on the basis of your not having clinical certification would be pretending the facts you described don't exist. Those facts are compelling.
"Progressive but not woke"?? Rejections that characterize others as "woke" leverage the history of that word, whose usage comes specifically from Black social progressives. So being too "woke" is implicitly being too Black. The "anti-woke" contingent are trading in racism, akin to calling those who they accuse of being "too woke" "N-lovers."
Only an asshole accuses others of being "woke," and identifies as "anti-woke." A racist asshole. White progressives have never labelled ourselves "woke." It's a Black thing. We've never appropriated it. Instead it was appropriated by racists to use against both Blacks and us.
Power, wealth and applause should not be melded together, and certainly cannot be conflated. Together they corrupt, because there is no way to learn from mistakes: when one’s experience continually tells one that one is all-knowing and all-powerful, one inevitably becomes blind. This is the flip side to the need for democracy, personally, politically and socially—speaking with others, negotiating decisions with others, tolerating disageement—all these teach us both empathy and humility. If we manage to defeat the fascist project—which absolutely will require direct participation at thr grassroots, as I know personally is occurring, from Minnesotans to Americans in Mexico—we become, individually and nationally, more tolerant, compassionate and humble.
point taken
MeToo and COVID showed these people they can be rendered powerless by law and governance no matter how much money they have unless they control everything. Then millions of Americans voted to give them that control.
I knew this would be here!
There are too many Alex Karps in the world at this time in history. We are leaning further towards destruction than we ever have before. No point in space programs, earth's civilzation will not endure long enough to spread into the universe - hopefully. What a sad day that would be.