For the kind of work I do, verification that applies the same standards to allies and adversaries, that scrutinises power on whichever side it sits, this worldview is structurally hostile. Symmetric verification becomes part of the cultural pathology the document wants reined in.
It's also worth being clear about who's doing the arguing. Palantir sells operational software to defence, intelligence, immigration & police agencies. These 22 points aren't philosophy floating in space, they're the public ideology of a company whose revenue depends on the politics it's advocating.
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.
Point 21 is the giveaway, some cultures produce "wonders," others are "regressive and harmful." Once you accept that hierarchy, you've quietly been given permission to apply different standards of verification to different actors. The form of verification stays, but the democratic function doesn't.
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. 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.
Points 9, 18 and 19 go after accountability directly. Scrutiny of public figures gets reframed as a kind of cultural sickness driving talent away from public life. The problem becomes the people doing the scrutinising, not the people being scrutinised.
Opening text of a thread by Palantir from X 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.
Palantir put out a 22-point summary of their CEO's book The Technological Republic. It's pitched as a defence of the West, but if you read it through the VDA framework, verification, deliberation, accountability, what it's actually doing looks rather different.
twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398...
The list of guest contributors alone is enough to make your heart palpitate: @jeremymorrell.dev, @bidetofevil.wtf, @mattklein123.dev, @phillipcarter.dev, @petercorless.bsky.social and more. 😍
The O'Reilly book will be out in dead tree version in June, chapters available online much sooner.
Yesterday, I wrote the first half of a two-parter on the second edition of "Observability Engineering".
Yes, it's twice as long as the first one (oops) but I think it's a *much* better book.
charitydotwtf.substack.com/p/observabil... (by @gmiranda98.bsky.social, @lizthegrey.com, @aparker.io & me)
FirsthandVC, in conjunction with NYSE Wired & theCUBE put together a list of the top 120 Agentic AI companies shaping the future. 3 of those companies are in Agentic Infrastructure and Data Systems:
@hf.co (Hugging Face)
@vercel.com
@redpanda.com
That is some mighty awesome company to keep.
🔥 We're excited to announce a brand new product & a fresh new look to go with it. ✨
Redpanda's Agentic Data Plane is a suite for safely & scalably connecting #AI Agents across the growing digital workforce, ensuring full traceability, observability, & governance for enterprises.
👉 bit.ly/47uhFHM
Reminder: MAGA is *not* a protected class re: laws against discrimination. White supremacists are trying to reverse uno that shit.
Why I canceled my Disney+ account, no matter how much I love Star Wars or Marvel.
Turn any API into a data stream #learnprogramming #programming #coding #computerscience #developer
🔥 CUSTOMER STORY
Jump Trading, a leader in global financial markets that processes billions of messages a day, drives faster insights at scale with Redpanda
"With Redpanda, we have a fast and reliable platform that *just works*. Our developers can now build things that they just couldn't before."
Great session! There is so much people can do with live data with the right tools and technology behind them! Glad to partner with @timeplus.bsky.social to solve such critical problems.
🚨 Observability isn’t what it used to be—and that’s a good thing.
In our latest blog, we unpack why traditional approaches are falling short, what’s changing, and why that change is worth embracing.
“It’s the End of Observability As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”
👉 buff.ly/wfRShPJ
The Disney+ Star Wars series Andor.
Sujee and I kicked off our first SVGenAI Meetup at Beckhoff cc: John Varghese, sponsored by The AI Alliance. HT @petercorless.bsky.social for the pics! lnkd.in/gPjFqtnj lu.ma/lbgs81uy
Kleya deserves her own series now.
personally would like to see every store show what part of the price increase is due to tariffs bc if these tariffs ever come down, i need to see that price go right back down
Littel kitty heeded not the looming spectre of doom.
Rep Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Sen Cory Booker (D-NJ) are executing a marathon live stream on east steps of Capitol
Rep Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, says GOP House budget will gut health and nutritional assistance programs
Cat & Rabbit
Excited for all the new American banana and coffee factories.
"G.M. monitored and sold people’s precise geolocation data and driver behavior information, sometimes as often as every three seconds,” Lina M. Khan, chair of the F.T.C. “With this action, the F.T.C. is safeguarding Americans’ privacy and protecting people from unchecked surveillance.”
SpaceX: Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn.
Everyone else: It blew up.
This is what it looks like when you lose a massive spacecraft on its way to orbit right over the Caribbean. Lots of commercial flights turning/holding/diverting to avoid falling debris from SpaceX's Starship.
If the media can be so easily manipulated against women to smear them who make up half the population, think about how easily it's being done to trans people who are 1% of the population.
The New York Times has been doing it for years.
www.yahoo.com/news/blake-l...
I mean, I am kinda happy that Hakeem can make a good speech. But I would have preferred if he had a majority behind him. He's going to lose a lot of votes over the next two years.
Good speeches will not counteract bad outcomes ahead for us.
This should be more than a tad concerning. Even the human guardrails for AI need guardrails.
techcrunch.com/2024/12/18/e...
