Posted by vrganj 7 hours ago
[1] https://www.republik.ch/2026/02/18/how-tenaciously-palantir-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_s...
Thiel has made no secret of his intent to use technology to dispense with that pesky democracy problem that billionaires have, and Palantir is pretty obviously his attempt to do just that. It's a reductio-ad-absurdum argument against listening to your citizens:
You put it in the hands of a populist demagogue, the power to apply hyper-targeted pain to their enemies amplifies their darker tendencies, and when evil happens you say: "look, the people can't be trusted." Meanwhile, you use it to direct the pointy end of the state's stick towards people you don't like (because the demagogue is too lazy to actually use those hyper-targeting features themself) so you can interfere with democratic attempts to limit your power without bothering to pay for the pepper spray.
Nobody in their right mind would want their government anywhere near it.
Then it will start to make sense.
1) It holds deeply sensitive data and does so in the US. In times of increased mistrust of the US, many (including myself) see that as a risky choice.
2) Speaking of mistrust in America and American corporations, have you heard their execs talk? It's absolute cuckoo-town:
> If they are not scared, they don’t wake up scared, they don’t go to bed scared, they don’t fear that the wrath of America will come down on them, they will attack us. They will attack us everywhere.
Well, you've convinced me. I'm scared of America, I'm scared of American companies and I'm scared of your company in particular.
Good job, I guess?
Of course I agree that quote is insane and you can dislike them for political reasons, but I want to understand the technological fears and see if any are unfounded.
https://www.palantir.com/palantir-is-still-not-a-data-compan...
They also have “forward deployed engineers” to help organizations actually use the platform. It looked complicated enough to probably be completely useless without these specialists, even in a “self hosted” setup.
The managed hosting also seems like a major selling point so many deployments that probably should be self hosted probably aren’t because muh managed services added value.
And the backdoors of course. There is no way it isn’t full of plausibly deniable “metrics endpoints” that helpfully spew out all the internal data if the right key comes knocking. There’s no way it’s auditable at the level of detail you would need compared to the value of the data and the sophistication of the potential attacker (NSA).
It’s just the latest implementation of a winning formula.
That is the reality that the world is having to adapt to. Even when Trump is gone, it will take a long time to rebuild that trust.
In the post WW2 era most western countries grew lazy about sovereignty due to America's open-handed approach - this has been a wake up call and has severely lowered America's soft-power globally.
He has a paper thin understanding of classics, which he then uses a device to sprinkles everywhere to make him appear more clever.
https://fortune.com/2026/02/04/peter-thiel-antichrist-greta-...
I can't find the speech anymore, but his basic thrust is that Tunberg and anyone who thinks that unleashing raw AI on the internet is an antichrist.
They are the antichrist because they are holding back progress.
Despite the US scientific budget being ripped apart by Trump.
I've seen his 'antichrist' talk as part of headlines out of context and to be honest assumed that this is a rhetorical/hyperbolic device, rather than a literal thing. Is your claim that he actually literally thinks someone is the antichrist? So far he just seems to be someone with a bent against degrowthers?
Is there a specific quote or position that makes him _evil_? Rather than just ill-informed or with an unpopular political opinion? Like he might just believe in tech growth at all costs because he really does think it will benefit everyone, or he might pretend to think that because he thinks it will benefit him at the expense of everyone else. It's hard to tell from what you've provided so far.
(Play on words of Palantir of Orthanc)
They're never able to live it down. It always comes up. And it makes them seem, in a way, careless.
In fact, there's a very interesting theme there: The Palantir are only as useful as their users are wise. The power to see is disastrous if you don't know where to look and how to interpret what you see.
If they named it with that in mind, I'd say it's a very thoughtful name, and a prescient caution. But I doubt it.
So did the German Nazis back then now I think about it.
Maybe there is something with cult-like thinking, fascist or not, where the aesthetics seduces more people into wanting to be a part of it all?
It's not just fascists, either; totalitarian regimes _in general_ tend to be very keen on this sort of thing.
It's neurological. They feel emotional disgust if the regimentation isn't there.
Christine Maxwell and Alan Wade found Chiliad, a database surveillance application that was used in the FBI. Then Alan Wade became CIO at the CIA. Then In-Q-Tel (CIA) co-founded Palantir with Thiel.
Karp, who was at Haverford college with Epstein's neighbor Lutnick, became the philosophical ideologue for Palantir.
With these overt and easily verifiable connections it is beyond belief that any European state would even consider using Palantir. The governments do not even work any better with all that surveillance software, they work worse than 20 years ago. So even the "we need it" argument is a fallacy.
Germany's PM was formerly at BlackRock. What exactly do you find so hard to believe?
He talks about his company's business in inhumane terms - Karp seems to me to enjoy piercing what is a longstanding euphemism of "for national security purposes" used by nation-states and security contractors, by employing what has become his signature (paraphrasing) rhetoric of, ".. and through using our products this can have the outcome of killing of certain specific people". That seems like a deliberate rhetorical choice rather than anything to do with, "the spectrum."
SO, I disagree about "the spectrum".
EDIT: And to be clear about MY opinion ... "villain" => "evil" => "dividing humanity" => "inhumane" => "post-human hellscape" / "humans for anti-human behavior" / "philosophy of capitalizing upon destruction"
I do this often. I think because I am autistic.
Neurotypical's use language in very indirect and subtle ways that I do not like. Some words mean the same things but are perceived as more offensive or more acceptable.
If I must ever eat meat I make sure I will say things like "pass me a slice of cow" instead of "beef" or "pork". I refer to the act of imprisoning people as "caging". I refer to "culling" as "mass extermination", etc.
I think we have a duty to be as brutal as possible when we are talking about harming animals and humans. If you are off put by what you are doing, then perhaps you shouldn't be doing it.
The key question is “can you trust this guy?” and he is so clearly not trustable it’s amazing.
Makes them look like the FTX of data processing.
Whether or not Karp can be trusted, I don't know, but I thin it's something governments should at least question, and believe most (all?) already do.
What relevance does someone not liking his opinions and politics have on whether or not he should obtain security clearance? I assume your position here is more nuanced that what your comment suggests?
And when it comes to security clearance, yes your ideology plays the role, always did. And should play the role. A simple example is that if your general ideology is "I dont care about law and I prefer to be an agent of a foreign country" then you should have no clearance.
I agree.
> And when it comes to security clearance, yes your ideology plays the role, always did. And should play the role. A simple example is that if your general ideology is "I dont care about law and I prefer to be an agent of a foreign country" then you should have no clearance.
Of course. What's important here though is what ideologies it's reasonable discriminate against. Someone's opinion of someones politics isn't really relevant, unless their political views are a clear risk to national security.
I'd agree that someone being communist sympathising or fascist sympathising could be reason to reason to revoke someone's security clearance. Whether it's reasonable to suggest Karp holds fascist opinions though, I won't comment on beyond suggesting that might not be the most charitable take.
I can't speak for Karp but I just experience and express them differently.
He may be on the psychopathy spectrum. I don't know. But it wouldn't surprise me if people are misunderstanding him.
Given you're making assumptions that he is on the psychopathy spectrum here, I will assume statistically that's unlikely and it's much more likely that people are simply misunderstanding him in ways people often misunderstand neurodivergent individuals.
Also, Palantir only works with democratic countries for a reason... They might provide "anti-democratic capabilities", but by that definition any defence company or AI company wouldn't be liable for security clearance because they also provide capabilities which could be used in anti-democratic ways.
Absolutely! It shouldn't be based on Democrat or Republican politics, but promoting politics that undermine the Constitution absolutely should disqualify you from getting a security clearance
Because democracy is the target they are aimed against, as Peter Thiel has openly said that he views “freedom”, the ideal he seeks (and which he clearly defines in an unusual way), as fundamentally incompatible with democracy.
It’s the fascist version of the old communist adage about capitalist democracies selling you the rope with which you will hang them, only in the fascist version the democracy buys the rope from you and hangs themself with it.
Irrelevant when the administrations of these countries have zero regard for constitutional rights.
> no security clearance for people who have the wrong politics?
Yup, seems to be Karp's and the government's own opinion re Anthropic.