Pretty much every major media organization missed a golden opportunity when preparing their stories about Kash Patel's ridiculous lawsuit against The Atlantic. A much more direct headline/photo combo would have been:
They and we all are so lucky!!
Oh yes indeed! Love it!!
With the help of the Sandy Hook families, The Onion has reached a long-awaited deal to take over InfoWars.
We've enlisted the help of @timheidecker.bsky.social, who will be InfoWars' Creative Director.
Please stand by for more.
This award and this magnificent teacher, scholar, and friend @amandafrost.bsky.social has me in the feels. To a glorious teacher, Prof Amanda Frost!!! See www.law.virginia.edu/news/202604/...
Similarly, Palantir calls for national military service. This is a common and unfortunate affliction of middle-aged and older men, akin to an interest in the Roman Empire or World War II. Its simply not something you see many men in their 20s promote for obvious I-would-prefer-not-to-die reasons. Charitably, it reflects a sense of a desire for creating shared meaning among the young that the elderly perceive is lacking, or to coerce the elite into sharing the cost of military conflict. Uncharitably, it is the old telling the young how to live and risk their lives.
We all have personal views, but the manifesto completely merges Palantir and Karp's vision. Why should a tech company have a manifesto that includes rearming Germany or Japan, or calls for national military service?
Turning opinions into political manifestos demands allegiance or opposition.
Another way to look at this is that billionaires have joined a war on professional administrative class of public servants precisely because of their proximity to formal mechanisms of accountability. Civil servants are sworn to uphold the constitution, report wrongdoing to officials, follow the rules. They are in most respects more accountable than our politicians to ethical and legal requirements, and more difficult to buy off. This makes government slower and more irritating for sure, and puts those officials at odds with the Musks, Andreessens, and Karps of the world, whose vision and interests benefits from reduced oversight and accountability.
I think the Palantir attacks on bureaucrats here is ideological - like the similarly despised professors, they are a potential source of criticism.
But it is also practical. The administrative class is tasked with imposing accountability, which Palantir - like the Trump administration - dislikes.
Few groups in American public life have suffered more material or reputational damage in the past year than federal civil servants. More than 400,000 employees have left the federal government. For many, they left a dream job, pushed out by people who knew less than they did. They worked under a government where the President declared them to be the deep state, government leaders promised to put them “in trauma” and the President’s supporters often exposed them to harassment campaigns. They were demeaned by bosses who opposed the mission of their organization.
Because I study government I am sort of stuck on Karp's characterization of bureaucrats as overpaid priests - the echo of “will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” may not be intended, but its there - at a time when they were purged from govt and he made several billion dollars.
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. 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.
The manifesto is incoherent about public service until you realize that Karp is presenting you with two types of public servants: civil servants fired under Trump, and the tech elites who venture into government.
The former deserve your scorn.
The latter merit your understanding and praise.
image of Palantir stock price increasing after Trump elected
Karp once studied and opposed fascism. How did he become someone a Trump defender? Palantir's value is fused to MAGA.
In the Times, @michellegoldberg.bsky.social says: "the best explanation for Karp’s journey — as for most of his right-wing billionaire compatriots — is the vulgar materialist one.”
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. 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?
The manifesto makes a straightforward case that government and Silicon Valley power must be fused in order to defend Western values - which are superior to others - with hard rather than soft power. For many, this sounds like techno-fascism.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/palantir-w...
New, from me: Take the Palantir manifesto seriously, if not literally.
It reveals that our tech philosopher kings want public money, but without public accountability. This creates a dilemma for governments unaligned with its techno-fascist vision. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/palantir-w...
One has gone bankrupt twice. Another was sued for allegedly framing an innocent woman. A third lasted only three weeks in a police officer job.
All were hired during ICE's unprecedented hiring spree, an AP investigation finds.
Doorman and building staff may go on strike against building owners in NYC for the first time in 30 years+ next week, and I can say that among apartment building residents, there is a 50/50 divide between "Give them anything they want" and "Give them anything they want, you assholes."
NEW: Porsha Ngumezi and Nevaeh Crain died during miscarriages in Texas after doctors delayed treatment.
The state’s medical board has ruled that substandard care led to the deaths, but the doctors were given minimal punishment.
By Kavitha Surana and Lizzie Presser
This is remarkable - only a 10 day extension on the Section 702 surveillance program. Maybe, finally, some change is in sight. One need not undo all of 702; there is consensus on its value. It needs to eliminate warrantless spying on U.S. persons.
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/u...
Is this serious? My word.
Fans of blues music will not want to miss the sound from the recently-discovered 1940 shellac master test pressing of Robert Johnson performing "Cross Road Blues"—a famous track, now available with vastly better sound. (via Ted Gioia)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmnN...
I'm sorry I'm just catching up to the news that the bad spooky AI people are freaking out about is literally named "Mythos" like a comic book villain
Please read this urgent paper. I am then going to repost a bunch of comments I made last night (sorry).
Khanna: They’re saying this technology is going to be bigger than nuclear, bigger than electricity, bigger than aviation.
Last I checked, we have an FAA for aviation, nuclear energy is regulated, and electricity is regulated.
New: Thomson Reuters, which runs the CLEAR database ICE uses, fired a longstanding employee for speaking out against ICE, a new lawsuit says. Billie Little led an internal effort raising concerns; was fired. We've shown CLEAR is linked to ICE's Palantir tool
www.404media.co/thomson-reut...
This also happened in the legal academic hiring market, which we all, coincidentally or not, called the "Meat Market." I mention it in Gossip, as it normalizes meeting folks in hotel rooms for chats and private discussions that might take a turn for the worst. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
This week alone is proof of concept for your work
After spending $80 billion they'll produce this
The misunderstandings go both ways, too. I’ve written about the implications of formal abstraction a couple times: 1) dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/... (coders need to stop trying to formalize social concepts); 2) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... (judges need to understand the normativity built into tech)
Thinking of you.
I didn't know anything about the Artemis II astronauts a week ago and now I would fight my way into Hell for any of them.
Means a lot. Hugs.
Thank you as ever for your interventions.
