Palantir @PalantirTech Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. 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. 2. 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. 3. 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. 4. 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. 5. 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.

6. 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. 7. 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. 8. 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. 9. 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. 10. 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.

11. 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. 12. 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. 13. 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. 14. 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. 15. 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.

16. 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. 17. 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. 18. 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. 19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all. 20. 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. 21. 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. 22. We must resist the shallow temptation…

This is a prescription for fascism espoused by one of the country's leading defense contractors.

Tech workers: Remember “psychological safety”?

Tech CEOs:

Reminder: Broad, sweeping assertions without supporting evidence should be viewed with skepticism.

This reads like someone spent the weekend in their bedroom procrastinating on r/politics instead of writing their A.P. Government final.

In the south, there's www.krystal.com

They're the Jekyll and Hyde of southern fast food: Absolutely incredible when drunk and the worst thing that you've ever tasted when sober.

Also: Pear Salad? Come on.

LEMON PEPPER WINGS ALLOW YOU TO TOUCH ENLIGHTENMENT.

Geoduck is less weird and more hilarious in a "I have a teenager's sense of humor" way.

As a food it's fine.

As a test of a person's ability to keep themself composed when it is presented to them on a plate, it is absolutely perfect.

huh, makes the whole 25 year period when the Shah was our top ally kind of awkward

Wouldn't even have to leave town

TAPPER: You know that if you vote against an additional $50 billion of funding for operations in Iran, that vote will be cast as you voting against the troops.

CHRIS MURPHY: Come on. The American people do not want this war. If you support the troops, you should be voting against this war.

I'm reminded of 2017 to 2021, every week someone would say "Tonight he became presidential!"

It was a running gag among my friends that when Trump did anything we'd go "After years of being president, he's finally become president!"

It was the most demeaning insult that I could imagine.

American not only becoming a cult of personality but becoming the dumbest cult of personality in the history of the human species is a lot to process

look at my country man, we’re getting out-No Kings’d by the fuckin’ british

5’th Amendment: “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process.” It doesn’t say anything about citizenship status, party affiliation, religion or race. Just “person.”

Somewhere out there someone has posted 10,000 words explaining how Cyberpunk 2077 is apolitical.

That person is an uneducated troglodyte.

Early 2000s gaming had no politics?

My darlings, Deus Ex was released in 2000.

The epstein files might take down two monarchies yet congress, the DOJ and the elites continue to cover up and protect the abusers in the US.

How come a sitting president can sue an individual, but an individual cannot sue a sitting president?

Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.

Me, buying a $5 pre-cooked chicken because I got off work at 9pm and have to be back at work at 5am so I don't have time to cook: "I live like royalty."

It isn't an empty gesture, it may not do anything now, but it's a signal to history, and to the world and to ourselves, that this is not ok.

Pam Bondi would apparently sacrifice her child for the markets to go up 1%.

Brawndo’s got what plants crave.