The Shocking Palantir Manifesto: A Guide to Post-Democracy Technofascism
Frank Figliuzzi
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel, Lord of the Rings, a Palantir is an indestructible crystal stone that can see into the future or the past. The user of these stones must possess great strength of mind and intent over less powerful forces and can selectively decide what to show and what to reveal.
Last weekend, Palantir, the AI-driven company that’s been described by the American Friends Service Committee as providing “mass surveillance in the service of State violence,” revealed what it thinks prevailing power should be in our tech-centered age. Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel – a dual German and U.S. citizen who lived in South Africa before moving to the U.S. It’s micro manifesto was posted on the company’s X site and quickly went viral with over 30 million views.
The startling glimpse of the not-so-distant dystopian future that Palantir dictates should serve as both a warning and a call to action for those who oppose the post-democracy technofascism within which we may already be immersed.
“Every alarm bell for democracy must ring,” Professor Shannon Vallor, chair of ethics of data and AI at Edinburgh University, told the BBC, after Palantir’s corporate confession was published. In this vision, government institutions are simply roadblocks to an inevitable takeover by billionaire technocrats convinced that democracy is merely an adorably cure remnant of the past. Palantir’s disturbing design summarizes a book by its chief executive, Alex Karp, titled, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West.
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