Palantir's 22 points

Stories about the 22 point manifesto Palantir manifesto caught my eye yesterday morning. The stories I’m seeing are largely responding to this by focusing on how evil they believe Thiel and his allies are. I’d like to try responding to the text itself. I haven’t read the book it’s excerpts from so this is a straightforward response to what they said, informed to some degree about my pre-knowledge of Thiel’s politics and who he allies himself with. I’m trying to write more which means giving into the impulse when it arrives and trying not to be too precious about it. Let me know how I’m doing.

Update: I think I finally get the public servants being priests thing so updating my analysis.

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.

I have no fundamental issue with people feeling called to public service. I think people are (fairly) upset about how Palantir’s technology is being applied by US governments and it’s fair to criticize both the elected officials responsible and Palantir for building and for lobbying for these uses. But the core principle seems unobjectionable.

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.

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.

I found these two points among the hardest to parse. I think what they’re saying is that the concentration of wealth and ability in Silicon Valley needs to produce more value for the nation than the iPhone and GMail. And again, this seems on its face unobjectionable. Except…. for that second sentence in point 3. What exactly are they trying to say here? We were talking about Silicon Valley’s obligations now all of a sudden we’re talking about civilizations and ruling classes. Do the authors take themselves to be part of a ruling class? While it may be practically true that in our era SV billionaires have wildly more power and ability to impact my life than I do theirs, that is not the same thing as ruling me. In this nation we are governed by consent and don’t use the word rulers. The choice of language seems telling of their mindset.

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.

The generous way to read this is that it simply says that hard power is critical and that’s why Palantir works to give it to the nation. It kind of rankles me though how this also feels like a dig at soft power. That comes across in the strawmen employed in talking about soft power. Note that soft power is not “soaring rhetoric alone” or “moral appeal”. We’re talking about basically all forms of influence that aren’t taking what we want by force or through the threat of force. In defense of soft power consider that the past 80 years have repeatedly taught us the opposite lesson. There are sharp limits to what you can achieve with hard power alone. Sanctions and the threat of war didn’t stop Iran from enriching uranium, the diplomacy that led to the Obama era nuclear deal did (and then its abandonment by the US led to the resumption of enrichment).

Putting the unfair digs at soft power aside, I think the majority of Americans and I agree with the direct point. There are times when we have to achieve our aims through military force and we should be prepared to do so. The actual debate is about what aims we should have as a nation and when is military force necessary.

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 kind of agree but again rankle at the rejection of a balanced approach (via the eye roll about the theatricality of it all) in favor of this maximalism. Someone who is interested in avoiding arms race and war should also be looking at how international cooperation can blunt these dynamics. Nonj-proliferation treaties, arrived at via “theatrical debates”, take a lot of credit for lowering, but not eliminating, the risk of nuclear destruction. When leading AI technologists have called for international cooperation on the safe development and deployment of AI, Palantir have been squarely opposed.

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.

I don’t think I disagree on the positive dynamics created by sharing the risk though it’s really worth noting that the last time the draft was used it didn’t result in sharing the risk and cost, it resulted in the risk and cost being borne disproportionately by the poor and minority. Have the billionaires pushing for greater use of hard power served? Will their children or grandchildren? I think there’s really interesting and worthwhile debates to have on this topic but practically speaking I can’t imagine how you get from here to there.

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.

Agree

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 does this have to do with Palantir? It kind of sounds like this is letting government officials know that Palantir is good with their positions making them wealthy. That having been said, the federal government does itself no favors in attracting the best talent. Serving your community should be better rewarded. Not in the being allowed to indulge in corruption sense, just in the being able to earn a competitive wage sense.

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.

Yup agree. Though I’d say there’s no “may” about it. We’re there.

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.

Sure. Agree.

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.

Yes, I strongly agree. I celebrate anyone espousing such ideas and striving to live by them.

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.

¿Por qué no los dos?

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.

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.

We’ve moved on to the patriotic portion of the manifesto. For what it’s worth I’m happy to agree that American power has enabled a lot of good and that this country is worth fighting for.

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.

Maybe? These are weirdly specific prescriptions for the international community. Why do they belong in a Palantir manifesto? And again with their intellectual opponents being “theatrical”, not such serious sober intellectuals as themselves. I think there’s a decent thought here about needing our allies to exert more of their own power in their own regions rather than leaning on the US as much as they do. But I have my doubts as to whether it was an “overreaction” in 1945. Both regimes were cruel, genocidal, and had just cost the world mountains of blood and treasure to stop their imperial projects. I don’t think it’s crazy to have wanted them defanged for some period. I also agree that those regimes are long gone and that the imbalance they note is real.

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 strongly disagree about the degree to which snickering at Musk is to do with the genuine innovations that he has driven vs the causes he has chosen to champion, his own actions in the public sphere, and the manner in which he chooses to carry himself. Before about 2018 most people I know could find a lot to admire in what he’s achieved with Space X and for the cause of environmentalism through Tesla. What has changed since then is his calling a heroic rescue diver a pedophile because he was bummed his mini-sub wasn’t the key to saving trapped miners, his project of turning the former Twitter into a safe space for the far right, his hamfisted destruction of executive branch institutions through DOGE, etc etc.

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.

Sure… but to the degree that it addresses violent crime via imposition on the rights of Americans it can’t do so without the agreement of elected officials and ultimately the people. But basically I agree up to the point that SV uses their power to push for policy that violates the rights that all humans are born with.

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.

I mean I agreed with point 9 but as far as the exposure itself? It comes with the territory. And who are these people who have chosen to do something other than enrich themselves? Who are we talking about here? I’m guessing not Greta Thunberg or Mother Teresa.

The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.

I think this is a matter of degree. Say something highly objectionable and you should expect strong pushback. However I agree that the relentless policing of lesser thought crime is harmful.

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.

Which circles? Which elites? Are we living in a nation where the elites are intolerant of religious belief? Who are we defining as elites here? Power in this country is currently held by elites who only seem intolerant of non-christian religions which I highly doubt is what this is referring to. I am just completely unaware of any powerful group of elites that are intolerant of individuals practicing their religions (insofar as they are not violating anyone else’s rights in doing so). This either requires examples or to be more specific about what is being complained about.

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.

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?

Point 21 I don’t disagree with on its face. The real question whenever someone says something like this is where are they going with it. Too often it’s a prelude to denying someone the same rights that someone from a “superior” culture gets to enjoy. There are lots of thoughts in this vein that might even contain truth but in a liberal society we don’t act on such a conclusion and there’s not much good in voicing them as they mainly lead to harm.

Point 22 is where this gets interesting. I strongly disagree with this notion. We haven’t defined a national culture in the name of inclusivity? The inclusivity IS the culture. The core principles are defined in the Declaration of Independence, reaffirmed at Gettysburg. The slow but steady steps into that cultural destiny are to be found in the eradication of slavery, the fight against Jim Crow, the huge waves of 19th and 20th century immigration, etc, etc.

But the authors don’t recognize that kind of culture, they want something else. Perhaps it’s an unfair leap but given context clues one can assume we’re talking about what JD Vance was when he described America as heritage and homeland rather than a creed and ideals. In other words, taken together these two points are “inclusion is bullshit, if our culture [defined by a specific heritage that we happen to share] is better we should say it’s better and we should be in charge”. This is contrary to the core of liberal belief. If you believe that all men are created equally with inalienable rights then it leads you to conclude that all should be accorded equal protections under the law and equal opportunity. You don’t get to pick who is superior and who is inferior, who belongs and who does not. That leads you to the question of who gets to choose and it’s always just going to be whoever has the most power and willingness to use it. This is the dynamic that liberalism has fought since the enlightenment. If that’s not what the authors mean then I think they should quit waffling and say what they mean.

All of this could be boiled down to many fewer points.

Hard power is of vital importance to our national interests, more than soft power.
That is why we need the best possible weapons and why we build them.
We are your rulers, stop digging into our business, criticizing, and being so mean online.
BTW cultures are made of heritage and homelands, not abstract creeds, our culture is superior to others, and we shouldn’t be afraid to make it part of the definition of our nation.

I find the first half broadly unobjectionable. We can have some raging arguments around the details, who gets to decide what the needs of the military are, who decides what’s legal and appropriate, etc. I also think that soft power is being undervalued. But basically I think a strong military is a good thing and a key component of our leadership role in the world. Then there’s this second half; the culture war half. Interpreting it depends on what we think this document actually is. I’m seeing some describe it as a corporate manifesto, others as recruiting material. The latter is the better case. If this is for recruiting employees who agree that tech billionaires catch too much flak online and that we’re all too afraid to say that America has a distinct heritage then fine. People like to work with people who are of similar minds. People are allowed to believe what they want, regardless of how wrong, just as I’m allowed to call their ideas wrong headed and dangerous. But what a wild thing to attach to your corporation. I’ve spent my time in corporate America and I can’t imagine working at a place that had a published opinion on national culture or online behavior. This is a corporation of true believers seeking to recruit others who share their political identity. The corporate manifesto reading is far more chilling to the degree it tells us these are actual problems that the corporation intends to solve. A giant tech corporation taking on the mission to have American culture defined along lines of heritage is the stuff of comic book villains.