Peter Thiel's Palantir poses a grave threat to Americans
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I used to work at Palantir, and this article strikes me as reasonably balanced. The key question, as I see it, is "what other options do we have?" This applies both narrowly (alternatives to Palantir specifically) and broadly (alternatives to upgrading our government's technological capabilities).
On the broader point, I doubt Americans will tolerate a technologically backward government much longer. The extraordinary latitude given to DOGE reflects mounting frustration with fundamental governmental inefficiency (which various bad actors are certainly exploiting). Citizens won't stand for a government that stays technologically frozen while everything else rapidly advances.
Therefore, we must modernize government. While I don't think our current circumstances constituted the kind of crisis that might warrant DOGE's reckless approach, sufficient neglect would eventually create exactly that crisis.
This brings us to the narrower question: how do we actually accomplish this? The concerns being raised are undeniably legitimate. We (as Americans) shouldn't construct a surveillance state, not even under a benevolent administration and certainly not under this one.
From my perspective, Palantir represents the best path forward due to the relative imbalance between positive and negative potential outcomes. Nothing makes Palantir uniquely suited for malicious purposes in this scenario. The real barriers are cultural, legal, and institutional rather than technological. Anyone could combine large datasets and perform the same analytical work that Palantir facilitates using countless commercial or open-source alternatives.
However, if you want to harness modern technology's benefits while avoiding its dangers, Palantir offers unique advantages. Creating comprehensive unified datasets within Palantir would provide significantly more mechanisms and controls for managing their application than any other platform.
I simply don't believe that deliberately limiting our government's technological infrastructure is a workable approach to protecting Americans. Laws will be regrettably our only real protection over time, and Palantir's platform is uniquely suited to "encode" those laws into software to guarantee compliance but we need those laws and functioning institutions to enforce them.
I don't think that citizens care about how technologically frozen the government may or may not be. I think they care about whether or not the government is operating as it should. Those are two different things.
> Palantir represents the best path forward due to the relative imbalance between positive and negative potential outcomes.
I envy you your optimism. I think Palantir represents a very serious threat to this nation. Certainly not the only one, but a serious threat nonetheless.
In theory yes. In practice, maybe you care to explain how a government can operate "as it should" where "should" is a target that seems to move with "not apparently dysfunctional as compared to private services I use every day?"
> Palantir represents the best path forward...
This got too washed by the LLM. I meant to say Palantir software is by far the best option for this. Palantir the company has worrying affiliations via Thiel. I think it would mitigate a lot of downside risk for the country for Thiel to be divested.
My comment shouldn't be interpreted as optimism. It is a call for citizens to demand their rights be encoded into statute instead of de facto protected by dysfunction because the dysfunction is a liability of its own.
Key elements of Yarvin’s proposal include:
A “full power start” or “reboot” of the U.S. government: This would involve dissolving the existing constitutional order and giving total authority to a single organization or leader, similar to the powers held by Allied occupation authorities in postwar Japan and Germany.
The "RAGE" strategy: Yarvin calls for the mass firing (“Retire All Government Employees”) of the federal workforce, replacing them with loyalists to the new CEO or monarch.
Bypassing traditional democratic institutions: Courts, Congress, and the press would be sidelined or ignored, with the new executive ruling by decree and suppressing dissent from universities and media—institutions Yarvin derides as “The Cathedral”.
Mobilization of popular support: Yarvin envisions a scenario where a charismatic leader (such as Trump) could call supporters into the streets to pressure institutions into compliance with the new regime.
Sounds familiar?