Apparently concerned that no one read CEO Alex Karp’s 2025 book, Palantir Technologies recently posted on social media a 22-point manifesto based on that book in order to grab our wandering attention. The manifesto outlines how one of our new tech lords views the American future, and it inspired a new life lesson: “Allow a tech lord to monologue long enough, and the sociopathy will come shining through.” (I’m calling it “Hudson’s Law.”)
We already have plenty of grist for that rule, whether we speak of Peter Thiel’s ravings about those who oppose AI being the Antichrist, Elon Musk telling us how happy we will be when AI takes all our jobs, Dario Amodei waxing lyrical about the unruly adolescence of AI that he hopes we’ll all survive, or Sam Altman chirpily proclaiming, “AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there’ll be great companies.”
Karp’s contribution to this corpus of evidence is couched in overtly patriotic language, no doubt due to the fact that his main client is the Department of Defense. Patriotism, as the saying goes, is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
While you can read the manifesto for yourself, a few of Karp’s points are worth highlighting:
No. 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.”
Silicon Valley does indeed owe a huge debt to the country that made its rise possible, that only lightly regulated it despite known harms, and that was willing to see the country’s land, water and electricity put at these companies’ disposal.
The debt that is owed cannot be covered by profiting from huge, lucrative Department of Defense contracts; the debt must be paid by ceasing to harm us. Stop fighting regulation, stop making our children dumber, stop plundering our resources, stop stealing our creative works. Pay your debt, Silicon Valley.
No. 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.”
If we take off the mask here, this is a naked plea for allowing autonomous AI weapons systems of the kind Palantir is engaged in supporting. “Theatrical” debates, of course, are debates about the morality of allowing a completely autonomous AI agent to kill a human being. Those debates are sorely needed, but Karp is exhorting us to dispense with them and instead forge ahead “all gas, no brakes.”
No. 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.”
Karp is not talking about planting trees or teaching underprivileged kids: He himself says he is interested in mandatory national military service. We Americans, apparently, are not doing enough to ensure our nation can fight abroad. Karp should remember that the U.S. pivoted to an all-volunteer force because it ripped our society apart when our young people were forced to fight in wars they did not believe were just.
Should Americans be forced to deploy to blockade the Strait of Hormuz against their will? Only 37% of Americans believe the current U.S. action in Iran is justified. Congress has not even been consulted on this military action.
Karp should read the room about how democratic our military decision-making is at present. Perhaps his company’s fortunes are so tied to the Department of Defense that whatever would give it more power is in his business interest, but that does not mean compulsory national military service is in the interest of Americans. My sons aren’t going to fight in Palantir’s wars, thank you very much.
No. 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.”
I teach at the George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service, and our motto is “Public service is a noble calling.”
No, actually, we do not want to pay our public servants the type of salaries that the tech lords make, and we have laws that ensure that those hired must divest themselves of financial conflicts of interest in order to accept a public role. There is a very good reason for this: Corruption ensues. We have already seen how the explosion of betting markets may influence the course of government actions; this is not a road we want to go down.
No. 17: “Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime.”
That sounds anodyne, but it is common knowledge that Palantir Technologies is pioneering surveillance technology that would make the Chinese Communist Party blush. Beware of tech lords promising to solve your crime problem.
No. 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.”
Frankly, this sounds a lot less like forgiveness, and much more like offering impunity to “talented” men of the Epstein class. I don’t want people who have sexually assaulted women and girls, who have collections of child pornography or who have taken bribes to be anywhere near the levers of power. That does not mean we would be left with “ineffectual, empty vessels” — it means we would be left with persons who haven’t broken the law. That should be a low bar to meet.
While I realize that law enforcement is sometimes not up to the task, we must continue to expect a minimum standard of behavior from our leaders.
There’s more that can be said about the manifesto — for example, Karp asserts that “certain cultures and indeed subcultures … have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.”
That may be true, but “wonders” is not the right benchmark here. We’ve discovered to our dismay that many of our “wonders” have harmed our children, and that the culture that produced these “wonders” is also capable of affirming complete nonsense, such as the idea that a man can become a woman. A flourishing, sustaining culture is not built on “wonders,” but on far deeper matters.
Despite his inspiring rags-to-riches story, Karp’s manifesto chills the blood. I am glad our tech lords love to monologue; they are telling us what they have in mind for us peasants. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. And act on that knowledge.