I think the virulent plague of narcissistic psychopathy spreading among the tech and financial elite might be an inevitable result of a system (the collective human psyche) being overwhelmed by conditions (unimaginable personal wealth and power) we simply aren't mentally, emotionally and spiritually evolved enough to bear without serious injury and catastrophic consequences. Our society is in the hands of mad men.
They are in the Cult of Ayn Rand, which is merging with the Cult of Opus Dei and the Cult of Christian Zionism and the Cult of Red/Black Pill grifters and the Cult of Wellness and … you get the picture. Cults are lucrative so let’s band together, steal everything, and then slash each other to pieces once our alliance falls apart.
Wow. That list is the most disingenuous list of vague, loosely coherent tripe I may have ever read. WTF? These aren’t even arguments or hypotheses or apologetics. It’s like the bully running home to Mom and whining that their victim stopped submitting to the abuse.
What's the most sad, to me, is that these empty, boringly vile lists resonate with so many people, precisely because they *can't* analyze the arguments that it's making, precisely because these people didn't study philosophy. The self-analysis tools that a background in philosophy provides are increasingly only available to those with liberal arts degrees. They need to be provided in high school, but our corporate education system is too interested in giving our teens the tools they need to be good employees - tools like showing up on time and following instructions - and those very critical thinking tools would undermine that interest.
This list is well-suited to people who believe they have "studied philosophy" because they asked Grok to summarize Stoicism and think that makes them an expert.
Yes. He is speaking their language and seeking to radicalize them. In that respect this is nothing new under the sun, just another wannabe leader trying to hook voters on his venal ideology.
All of what these rich motherfuckers say is just whitewashing to make white collar crime even more invisible. It's all some version of "what you should think about what I am doing." Fuck all of them and their tech fascist grievances and false front of "big ideas." These ideas are witheringly small and stupid, all of them.
This all amounts to "Let Tech Bros Cook!" when "cooking" is meant to invalidate your existence and purpose and replace democracy with a tech-based oligarchy. It's "Be kind to us while we build the Matrix", and man, can they not take the feedback at all. This guy should be ashamed of calling himself a real man.
We need to fight against companies like Palantir for maybe no reason bigger than this is just embarrassing.
He is apparently in the throes of rejecting his parents' secular liberalism, so there's no way he would be able to ingest this critique, which is too bad. He certainly won't encounter many ethical thinkers in the land of those empowered by the market to get revenge on their high school peers for not being attracted to their blossoming unattractiveness.
"… 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." -- Alex Karp looks within and sees the void so glaringly obvious to everyone else. Thanks for the cogent summary, Hamilton.
I grew up in a rightwing household in the 50s and 60s. Bloom's translation of Plato's Republic was required reading in my freshman year. Who knew his descent into the swamp of popular "conservatism" would attract support and praise for Closing by such luminaries as Robert Bork. I found Bloom's Closing of the American Mind as tedious as his public persona was nasty and condescending. (I attended a lecture Bork gave when visiting Boston University to promote his book.) I skimmed but could not finish it.
Bloom’s book was overblown culture war bullshit. And George Will is one of most pompous, out of touch “celebrity” columnists in America. He’s an apologist for bullshit.
Its also worth noting that points 18 and 19 are wholly inconsistent with Palantir's actual political actions. By siding with Trump and the Republicans in their purge of supposed wokeness from government they have done more to destroy state capacity, erode trust, and drive people away from government service than anyone else. If we are to take Karp at his word in these "beliefs" then we have to state that he is acting in ways that directly counter those beliefs.
Indeed this is a pervasive issue with "public philosophy" as practiced by the very rich. For all Musk's assertions about "longermism" or Sam Altman's talk of "effective altruism" they both are pursuing environmental and social policies that have distinct long-term costs are are ineffective at their stated goals (i.e. lifting people out of poverty). They are however effective at providing a gloss for what they do.
In the end I believe that the only real coherent way to read this "philosophy" is that it, like Andreissen's is wholly devoid of introspection or self-assessment, and wholly targeted to self gratification in the near and long-term.
I think the virulent plague of narcissistic psychopathy spreading among the tech and financial elite might be an inevitable result of a system (the collective human psyche) being overwhelmed by conditions (unimaginable personal wealth and power) we simply aren't mentally, emotionally and spiritually evolved enough to bear without serious injury and catastrophic consequences. Our society is in the hands of mad men.
The collective human psyche being overwhelmed by unimaginable personal wealth and power. Man. Well done. Excellent, succinct conclusion.
They are in the Cult of Ayn Rand, which is merging with the Cult of Opus Dei and the Cult of Christian Zionism and the Cult of Red/Black Pill grifters and the Cult of Wellness and … you get the picture. Cults are lucrative so let’s band together, steal everything, and then slash each other to pieces once our alliance falls apart.
Wow. That list is the most disingenuous list of vague, loosely coherent tripe I may have ever read. WTF? These aren’t even arguments or hypotheses or apologetics. It’s like the bully running home to Mom and whining that their victim stopped submitting to the abuse.
He makes Gladwell seem insightful.
I was going to say Ray Dalio.
Well said.
What's the most sad, to me, is that these empty, boringly vile lists resonate with so many people, precisely because they *can't* analyze the arguments that it's making, precisely because these people didn't study philosophy. The self-analysis tools that a background in philosophy provides are increasingly only available to those with liberal arts degrees. They need to be provided in high school, but our corporate education system is too interested in giving our teens the tools they need to be good employees - tools like showing up on time and following instructions - and those very critical thinking tools would undermine that interest.
This list is well-suited to people who believe they have "studied philosophy" because they asked Grok to summarize Stoicism and think that makes them an expert.
By design no doubt
Yes. He is speaking their language and seeking to radicalize them. In that respect this is nothing new under the sun, just another wannabe leader trying to hook voters on his venal ideology.
Kids aren’t even assigned books anymore, only “passages” to learn how to pass standardized tests!
Development and honing of a superb bullshit detector is a prerequisite for survival.
💯💯💯
Neil Postman’s “Bullshit and the Art of Crap Detection”!
All of what these rich motherfuckers say is just whitewashing to make white collar crime even more invisible. It's all some version of "what you should think about what I am doing." Fuck all of them and their tech fascist grievances and false front of "big ideas." These ideas are witheringly small and stupid, all of them.
This all amounts to "Let Tech Bros Cook!" when "cooking" is meant to invalidate your existence and purpose and replace democracy with a tech-based oligarchy. It's "Be kind to us while we build the Matrix", and man, can they not take the feedback at all. This guy should be ashamed of calling himself a real man.
We need to fight against companies like Palantir for maybe no reason bigger than this is just embarrassing.
He is apparently in the throes of rejecting his parents' secular liberalism, so there's no way he would be able to ingest this critique, which is too bad. He certainly won't encounter many ethical thinkers in the land of those empowered by the market to get revenge on their high school peers for not being attracted to their blossoming unattractiveness.
Love this article! You have a great way of seeing through the flack that's thrown out to the peasants. Keep up the great work!
"The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone"
THE FUCK
I hope I live long enough to see Karp’s Praetorian Guard realize they could take it all from him.
"… 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." -- Alex Karp looks within and sees the void so glaringly obvious to everyone else. Thanks for the cogent summary, Hamilton.
This mirrors https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-real-honest-conversation
I grew up in a rightwing household in the 50s and 60s. Bloom's translation of Plato's Republic was required reading in my freshman year. Who knew his descent into the swamp of popular "conservatism" would attract support and praise for Closing by such luminaries as Robert Bork. I found Bloom's Closing of the American Mind as tedious as his public persona was nasty and condescending. (I attended a lecture Bork gave when visiting Boston University to promote his book.) I skimmed but could not finish it.
Bloom’s book was overblown culture war bullshit. And George Will is one of most pompous, out of touch “celebrity” columnists in America. He’s an apologist for bullshit.
Talk about confessions dressed up as accusations (I’m talking about the list not this article lol)
Its also worth noting that points 18 and 19 are wholly inconsistent with Palantir's actual political actions. By siding with Trump and the Republicans in their purge of supposed wokeness from government they have done more to destroy state capacity, erode trust, and drive people away from government service than anyone else. If we are to take Karp at his word in these "beliefs" then we have to state that he is acting in ways that directly counter those beliefs.
Indeed this is a pervasive issue with "public philosophy" as practiced by the very rich. For all Musk's assertions about "longermism" or Sam Altman's talk of "effective altruism" they both are pursuing environmental and social policies that have distinct long-term costs are are ineffective at their stated goals (i.e. lifting people out of poverty). They are however effective at providing a gloss for what they do.
In the end I believe that the only real coherent way to read this "philosophy" is that it, like Andreissen's is wholly devoid of introspection or self-assessment, and wholly targeted to self gratification in the near and long-term.
"We all know you’re awful. Don’t work so hard to be awful in new and more tedious ways."
Why work so hard?
Maybe once your net worth gets over one billion, this is the only way to distinguish yourself among your peers.
Erik Prince has been tediously droning on for years ;)