Palantir's message

This post from Palantir is already widely discussed on social media and will become even better known when it reaches the larger media outlets. There is nothing new here as such; CEO Alex Karp wrote this in his book a while ago, but it is strong stuff for a company of this size to put the 22 points directly on its public channels.

My recommendation is to read the points directly here first, before you read all the reactions, which are overwhelmingly negative. Words like “comic book villain”, “fascist manifesto” and “dystopia” are used a lot.

What is worth noting is that Palantir knows this. Alex Karp is not stupid. He has a doctorate in social theory from Frankfurt. He knows Schmitt, he knows Hobbes, and he knows exactly what he is doing when he formulates these points. That makes it more interesting that he takes the debate in public, but it also makes it more necessary to take it seriously rather than simply dismiss it. He clearly thinks it is more important to put this out broadly than to avoid the consequences, and thereby signals that his company has a broad front on values in addition to pure business.

There is a Norwegian social-democratic version of these 22 points: a stronger defence, clearer grounding in values, technological sovereignty, but anchored in democratic institutions and community rather than in private capital alone. It is a debate we should probably be prepared for.