About a week ago, Palantir’s official X account published the company’s official manifesto, a 22 – point summary of the book The Technological Republic by CEO Alex Karp and Nicholas Zamiska.
I read the content of the post and it was exactly what I expected. A few years ago, something like this would have been considered trolling or you might have found it on the pages of The Onion. But now, Western oligarchs no longer worry about only saying certain things behind closed doors, and their sense of impunity is pushing them to drop even their last masks.
In short, this manifesto is not just a reactionary sales pitch directed at Trump and US ultraconservatives, but the pinnacle of what Timothy Noah calls the “monstrous metamorphosis” of Silicon Valley: the shift from the liberal, idealistic garages of the 1970s to an oligarchic messianism that sees AI as a “Second Coming” to be protected at all costs.
Behind the rhetoric of hard power and moral debt lies the reality of a 670 billion dollar private investment that tolerates neither democratic friction nor ethical limits, labeling every attempt at regulation as an act of “sabotage” against progress. Especially because the speed of investments is now crucial, otherwise the speculative house of cards collapses.
The core thesis somewhat recalls Fisher’s capitalist realism: they tell us that the world is brutal, alternatives to total surveillance are fantasies for the weak, and that handing over the keys to democracy to them is inevitable. But to make the situation clearer, I took the time to translate every point of Palantir’s long tweet for us common mortals.
“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”.
Translation for us: Selling apps to get your hamburger delivered or doing dances on TikTok no longer brings in billions like ten years ago. The real money is now in contracts with the Pentagon.
The reality of the facts: This is not a prediction, it’s the balance sheet of companies like Anduril (founded by Palmer Luckey, ex – Oculus) or Palantir itself. They are actively shifting the Valley’s center of gravity from consumer software to military contracts, developing autonomous turrets and algorithmic targeting systems. Palantir’s Maeven systems, which integrate Anthropic’s Claude AI, are actively used in Iran.
“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”.
Translation for us: The B2C market (the one aimed at ordinary citizens) is saturated. To make the real leap in revenue, we need to sell social and military control systems.
The reality of the facts: Venture capitalists in Peter Thiel’s circle are diverting immense capital towards B2G (Business to Government), as highlighted by the rhetoric in Karp’s book. They know that the smartphone market no longer has crazy growth margins, while state defense and urban surveillance budgets are virtually infinite. They are literally stopping selling products to us to sell us (and our control) to States.
“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”.
Translation for us: We are dismantling your welfare, we are stealing your data, we are destroying the job market with AI, but in exchange, we offer you security and free services. Full of ads, profiling, and surveillance, but FREE.
The reality of the facts: The “Smart City” rhetoric is the Trojan horse for this type of project. Companies like Clearview AI have scraped billions of our photos from social media to train facial recognition algorithms sold to police forces around the world, often operating in grey or illegal areas. The narrative is clear: give up privacy and the right not to be tracked in exchange for a perception of security.
“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”.
Translation for us: More wars, please. We make the real money from wars. See point one.
The reality of the facts: Think of NSO Group and its Pegasus spyware, used by authoritarian governments to spy on journalists, dissidents, and opposing politicians. Software as a geopolitical weapon is already here. Tech giants now operate as parallel sovereign entities: just look at how Elon Musk used Starlink to tactically influence military operations in Ukraine, turning satellites on or off at his discretion despite requests from Kyiv officials.
“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”.
Translation for us: Do you want to be beaten by China? Isn’t it enough that they are already popularizing socialism here too?
The reality of the facts: The Pentagon has already launched the “Replicator” project, which aims to deploy thousands of AI – governed autonomous drones in a very short time. LAWS (Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems) are bypassing all international moratoriums. The tech industry is using the China scare to force Western governments to completely deregulate the production of autonomous weapons.
“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”.
Translation for us: A widely militarized society is more controllable. Did you think Starship Troopers was satire? Obviously, our children will be exempted because, unfortunately, when you are born rich you always have some health problem incompatible with military life but not with pool parties in Hawaii.
The reality of the facts: There is an obvious class divide. While tech billionaires like Zuckerberg are building fortified underground complexes in Hawaii and preparing for social collapse, they are simultaneously funding think – tanks that call for greater militarization.
“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”.
Translation for us: Developers, shut up and code. Otherwise, you’ll have the consciences of the others’ children we sent to be shot at on your hands.
The reality of the facts: Google fired dozens of employees who protested against “Project Nimbus” (a mega cloud contract for the Israeli government and military). The same thing happened years ago with Project Maven. The Valley’s leaders are actively purging anyone within the companies who calls for ethical evaluations of technological development.
“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”.
Translation for us: Cut public spending and shift it to us, because that collection of vintage cars won’t complete itself. And besides, let’s face it, these dusty bureaucrats ask too many questions.
The reality of the facts: Elon Musk’s DOGE was the first more or less successful experiment in dismantling government infrastructure with the excuse of efficiency. It was harmful from multiple points of view but fits perfectly into the tech vision of privatizing services (less public equals more private) and reducing controls. Streamlining bureaucracy is just an excuse to make private procurement processes less regulated and faster.
“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”.
Translation for us: Stop criticizing online when billionaires or corrupt politicians do horrible things. Enough with this cancel culture. And stop talking about the Epstein Files too.
The reality of the facts: Billionaires like Peter Thiel have shown that they can simply destroy those who criticize them (he secretly funded lawsuits to bankrupt the Gawker publication). Today, they buy social networks (X/Twitter) or entire newspapers to control the narrative (like the case of Bezos’ Washington Post), file multimillion – dollar lawsuits against NGOs that denounce online hate and defuse any kind of accountability from below.
“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”.
Translation for us: Don’t you dare look for empathy or civic sense in those who govern. They are there to serve our interests, not yours, you don’t even know what you want unless we tell you.
The reality of the facts: This is the matrix of “neoreactionary” (NRx) thinking widespread among tech bros, inspired by ideologues like Curtis Yarvin. Their declared goal is to overcome democracy and move to a model where the State is literally managed like a startup, with a CEO instead of a president and citizens treated as users.
“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”.
Translation for us: Don’t rejoice when one of us “powerful” people is finally caught or goes bankrupt. You might be in their place one day… hahaha ok no, but it’s convenient for us if you continue to think so.
The reality of the facts: They demand institutional compassion while applying ruthless extractive capitalism. Amazon destroyed local retail, Meta devastated publishing and collective attention (what Cory Doctorow calls “enshittification”, the barbarization of platforms). They destroy competitors with monopolistic practices, but demand that no one applaud when they run into a federal investigation.
“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”.
Translation for us: We are planning the redesign of the Cold War. We need constant apocalyptic terror to justify the continuous extraction of billions of dollars from citizens’ taxes towards our companies.
The reality of the facts: Figures like Sam Altman of OpenAI spend their time giving apocalyptic interviews saying that “AI could destroy humanity”, not because they want to stop it, but because this rhetoric terrifies governments. The goal? To push States to sign multi – billion dollar contracts in a hurry to ensure “AI supremacy,” keeping market expectations and capitalizations high, which is the only thing keeping them afloat.
“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”.
Translation for us: Systemic racism and inequality are inventions of losers. Stop complaining, you’re already lucky enough to live in the same country as us and we’ll leave you some crumbs sooner or later.
The reality of the facts: “Socialism never took root in America because the poor don’t see themselves as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires” said John Steinbeck. Elites brandish equal opportunities to maintain the illusion of a society where hard work pays off while implementing algorithmic management. In Amazon logistics or gig – economy platforms like Uber, workers are managed, sanctioned, and fired by opaque software. This system does not create “opportunities for those without inheritance,” but restores 19th-century working conditions, denying vacation, sick leave, and union rights behind the facade of the app.
“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”.
Translation for us: We have razed, destabilized, corrupted, enslaved, and impoverished dozens of nations to maintain our privileges and spent billions on corporate propaganda to convince you that they are your privileges too. You’re welcome.
The reality of the facts: Silicon Valley deliberately ignores that the technological transition on which it thrives (from EV batteries to server hardware) is based on the intensive extraction of rare earths, cobalt, and lithium in the Global South, often through exploitation and child labor. Their “long peace” depends on the structural relocation of misery and environmental impact away from the Californian hills.
“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”.
Translation for us: Europe and Asia are buying too few weapons. We absolutely must break the pacifist constitutional constraints of Germany and Japan. The Pentagon is a nice slice of the pie but there are so many other pies in the world. Oh, and we need bases near China. You never know.
The reality of the facts: The lobbying pressure on European institutions is suffocating. Agencies like Frontex already use algorithms provided by private companies for border patrolling, pushing towards a real militarization of the Mediterranean with drones and sensors. The Valley is forcing European governments to dismantle armament restrictions to open a continental market for their defense software.
“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”.
Translation for us: Leave these poor billionaires alone who sacrifice themselves to imagine things that you poor people cannot and accumulate more wealth than they, their children, and their great – grandchildren could physically spend while you have panic attacks if the washing machine gasket burns out. Haters.
The reality of the facts: Silicon Valley’s fortune is mostly based on speculative bubbles. The announcements and promises of people like Elon Musk, which are always broken, serve to keep the markets hyped and to fuel capitalizations and investments. The same thing is happening with AI and they cannot afford for civil society to ask too many questions or for legislators to put in too many rules, because if the machine slows down the markets might perceive that it is not worth what they said it was.
“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”.
Translation for us: Why privatize only war when we can also do it with law enforcement? We want to use poor neighborhoods and minorities as a beta – testing environment for our facial recognition and predictive policing. Did you (again) think RoboCop was satire or Minority Report a cautionary tale? Are you new to this?
The reality of the facts: Predictive policing systems like PredPol (now Geolitica) or ShotSpotter have already been widely implemented in American cities. The result? They have created racist feedback loops: the algorithms send more patrols to Black or Latinx neighborhoods, they find more micro – crime there because they only look there, and the biases confirm the algorithm. The technology has not reduced crime, it has only automated prejudice.
“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”.
Translation for us: Journalists ask too many questions. We can’t put our puppets in power because the press digs into their conflicts of interest and scandals. They just want to serve the country, and if we then fund their foundations and incidentally our interests also become the country’s interests, it’s only because we are incurable philanthropists who love their land.
The reality of the facts: The intolerance towards public scrutiny is translating into projects of physical and legal “secession.” We are talking about the Network States proposed by Balaji Srinivasan or projects like “California Forever”: the secret purchase of thousands of acres of farmland to build private cities from scratch. Places not subject to local governments, detached from the democratic press, where CEOs write their own laws.
“The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all”.
Translation for us: We want the inalienable right to say outrageous things, spread misinformation, and propagate two-century-old ideas without repercussions. But here’s a video of cats doing kung fu.
The reality of the facts: They hide behind freedom of speech to keep ideologues organic to their power system active and to make money. Platforms rehabilitate extremist and white supremacist accounts not out of idealism, but because anger generates engagement and ad clicks. Parallelly, the same platforms do not hesitate to comply with censorship requests from authoritarian governments (like in India or Turkey) when access to those markets is at stake.
“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”.
Translation for us: We know very well that conservative fundamentalists and religious fanatics are our perfect user base for dismantling civil rights and class solidarity. Always praised.
The reality of the facts: The unholy alliance between the techno – libertarians of the Valley and the reactionary conservatives (or Christian nationalists) is rock solid. They are collaborating in drafting legislation for health surveillance; there are companies ready to sell geolocation and online search data to the authorities of those States that want to criminally prosecute women seeking abortions. Faith is just a shield for digital authoritarianism.
“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”.
Translation for us: Diversity harms us because women and minorities in positions of authority physiologically compromise the exercise of traditionally white, male, overbearing, and violent power on which we built our culture. Go back to the kitchen or the fields. Don’t waste our time with your woke.
The reality of the facts: Under the acronyms E/acc (Effective Accelerationism) and TESCREAL, a Eugenics 2.0 is being reborn in Silicon Valley. These are pseudo – philosophical movements embraced by billionaire investors who push for “pronatalism” among the wealthy elites (making children in test tubes to create a superior lineage) while calmly considering the poor segments of the global population to be expendable, viewed as dead weight or at best low-skilled labor.
“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?”
Translation for us: A nationalist and ethnic state assimilates more social control and wages more wars. Diversity creates too much debate and this slows us down. We don’t need social growth, we need ROI growth.
The reality of the facts: The active attack on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies in the tech sector is now systemic. The mass layoffs of the last two years have scientifically targeted ethical departments, diversity departments, and AI safety teams. They don’t want friction, they don’t want “different” perspectives that could slow down the release of their products. For them, inclusion is an annoying obstacle to maximizing profit and surveillance.
It is now quite reasonable to think that for these new feudal lords – now firmly seated at the tables that matter and ready to dismantle the State through experiments like DOGE – democracy has become little more than a bug to be corrected, an obstacle to a “Software God” that allows no retort.
Palantir and its allies – despite the rhetoric about growth and well – being – are not designing the future for humanity; they are rather fencing off the present to transform us from citizens into users from whom to extract value. They are actively working to put people in power who can protect their project and, of course, dismantle and weaken anyone or anything they see as a threat, starting with the European Union.
Fonte:
www.valigiablu.it
