I’m so tired of these fucking assholes who think they’re so smart only because they’re too wealthy to encounter people willing to tell them how fucking stupid they are.
They are really wanting to be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
An awful lot of groups seem to be competing for this honour at the moment.
At this rate, we won’t be able to afford a wall.
The sooner we put theses assholes in the ground or prison, the better.
The “manifesto” is an excerpt from the CEO’s book, posted as a twitter thread, reposted below for anyone curious about the flavor palate of boots.
Because we get asked a lot.
The Technological Republic, in brief.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.
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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.
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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.
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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?
Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska
I only got to 8 so far and it’s already fucking bonkers. It’s all fear and power and control to these people. “If we don’t build the apocalypse first someone else will!” oh… good argument. I suppose they remember the last time there was a race to build a weapon, who won that and what happened and they don’t want a taste of their own medicine.
These people talk like they’re somewhere between JRPG villains and Hideo Kojima. My eyes glazed over a few times trying to parse this pseudophilosophical nonsense. If this had come from someone with far less power, I’d have dismissed it as the ramblings of a crazy person.
Incidentally, I happen to be watching Minority Report right now. I hope that’s not going to be the future I live in someday.
Edit: oh neat. This is my 500th comment.
I’m not reading all that because it’s clearly written by someone who has completely forgotten what grass looks like, but this bit:
National service should be a universal duty
Go to hell, you can throw me in jail before I do anything to help the military.
You know what, I 100% agree with that statement. It doesn’t have to be military, but many countries have mandatory service usually right after high school.
I think it would instill a sense of responsibility towards their community, a sense of hard work, pride, etc. I’m talking about like working in a park, wildlife clean-up, homeless shelter food stocking, and yes also military. I don’t think the military part should be mandatory, but if some people want to go that route as their “national service” then that should be an option.
Yes a civic service duty would be helpful, but I’m not sure making it mandatory would work out unless it were presented as one of several options.
We have already made it extremely hard to be a young adult in this country, why not add an extra helping of shit on their plates, to make older people feel better about their choices, eh?
I say let the wealthy and people with net worth over 1 million contribute this mandatory service. They’ve screwed this country up, lets see them do their share for the community for once in their charmed lives. Give the Jared kushners and effing pickelball players some tongs to pick up trash and string them together in a chain gang if we have to.
Sure, the wealthy need to pay for what they’ve done to society, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
Also in that same vein, any federal politician in the House, Senate, Executive, or SC should have to live for 2 months on minimum wage in a probationary period. Until they complete that “course”, they won’t be able to ascend to their elected position. So like, if they’re elected in November, then they live for December and January on minimum wage, which then gives them the certification needed to be sworn in.
It’s always these fucking losers who would never subject themselves or their families to conscription that champion it. I wish they’d just shut the fuck up and die already
I’m sure it’s not the way the manifest is meant but as I see it: You can either have no army, which would be nice but unfortunately that’s not how this world functions. Or you have a army. This army currently is made of people who either want to fight or they don’t see another way to pay their bills.So they find it good to follow orders or don’t have a choice. I find neither of them trustworthy to handle a weapon.
Now image that this army is mostly built on people between 20 and 30 years old, everyone does it’s service for about a year (except higher ranks where you need more experience, let’s not go to much into details). The major part of the soldiers are people with normal lives waiting for them after finishing their duty. Do you think those people would engage in a meaningless war? Or turn against their own if someone like Trump wants them to? They would fight to defend their owns but the majority wouldn’t follow unethical orders.
I’m sure it’s not the way the manifest is meant but as I see it: You can either have no army, which would be nice but unfortunately that’s not how this world functions.
Costa Rica says hello.
The major part of the soldiers are people with normal lives waiting for them after finishing their duty. Do you think those people would engage in a meaningless war? Or turn against their own if someone like Trump wants them to?
Are we memory holing that the National Guard was deployed against multiple US cities within the past year?
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My manifesto: We must punish these people swiftly and effectively. Failing to do so is why we are in this situation now.
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They’re the same alarms that have been ringing. But theyve muted them in the control room
This shit makes dystopian cyberpunk stories cute fairytales I can read to my toddlers. An alternative has to be worked towards. For all our interest.
It’s almost enough to make Chuck Schumer mumble “Careful now!”
I say this from the bottom of my heart…
Fuck Chuck.
Ya know the more and longer this shit goes for the more I start thinking those whackjobs back in the 70s to the 90s who thought technology was the devil may have been on to something. Still think they’re wrong but I do think the world would improve if you had to install your own OS on computers and laptops, perhaps that would collapse the underlying social infrastructure these shitstains require to exist.
Is it that technology is evil though, or is it the people who own the technology, or the economic system in which this all takes place?
It’s always just how humans are channeling their own shittiness through the medium.
Technology is morally inert, but I thinks it’s moreso that people on average can’t responsibly interact with technology both due to a lack of understanding and it’s secondary effects due to said lack of understanding. While our current issues are due to the is definitely being exasperated by the current economic system and those who largely own it I think a lot of it is inherently an issue with widespread technological integration.
For example the job market it entirely fucked in part due to online applications and companies who feed on that problem. But the core issue with online applications is that there’s basically no easy way to the flow of applications resulting in a practically unsortable mess in sheer quantity. Meanwhile for in person application submission the control is built in from needing the person to physically show up with a print out.
IDK this is just something that’s been bouncing around in my head for a bit. That over computerized infrastructure and interconnectivity is actively detrimental at least insofar as ease of use in concerned.
You should take a look at Benjamin, Horkheimer and Adorno and the other members of the School of Frankfurt. They did a lot of thinking in the 40s-50s around mass media, the advances of technology and the regressions of our societies because of it.
I don’t recall the exact book but one of them advanced a theory that basically said what you’re suggesting. That technology now advances faster than humans’ ability to spiritually receive, understand and integrate it. So instead of mastering it, we’re being enslaved by it.
Thanks for the suggestion I may look into it. Though I personally think one of the main problems is near instant and universal information transfer, bit it does probably have a good bit of overlap.
Welcome to the working week. Well I know it don’t thrill you. I hope it won’t kill you.
Don’t really need the ‘techno’ part
Seems a little late for that… but by all means do SOMETHING.
“Alarms” are sounding, what more do you want???
Exactly, came to post:
“Democrats should develop an actionable agenda of democratic reform in case they return to power,” Mudde wrote. “This cannot be limited to institutional reforms, but must include reining in the power and wealth of technofascist companies and individuals.”
University of Michigan political scientist Donald Moynihan published an analysis of the Palantir manifesto and concluded that “on the whole, the manifesto’s vision… is that of a US government and its tech allies as dominant players, unconstrained by accountability.”
😳
