1/ Letters #29/30: @palantirtech
Essays from @joe_philleo and @jtlonsdale on the founding and motivations of Palantir + @peterthiel
aletteraday.substack.com/p/letters-2930…
Essays from @joe_philleo and @jtlonsdale on the founding and motivations of Palantir + @peterthiel
aletteraday.substack.com/p/letters-2930…
2/ Highlights from @joe_philleo’s answer to “Why did Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale found Palantir?”
3/ The Straussian Moment, calls for a reevaluation of the post-Enlightenment worldview on the grounds that mainstream Western philosophy fails to understand and provide a response to the increasingly powerful and dangerous individuals driven by non-economic concerns
4/ Under Schmitt’s framework, Thiel concludes that, despite its initial favorable power imbalance, the “apolitical” West will lose to the “political” terrorists unless it significantly departs from the status quo.
5/ Rejecting Schmitt’s drastic suggestion of re-politicizing the West on the basis that doing so requires giving up the values that distinguish the West as “good,” Thiel looks to Leo Strauss
5a/ Here, Thiel concludes that a Straussian government could potentially save the West from terrorism now and mitigate a larger, indiscriminate violence in the future
6/ after the 9/11 attacks Peter Thiel becomes concerned that terrorism poses an existential threat to libertarian society, either by destroying it or by necessitating the rise of a powerful central government.
6a/ However, during the summer of 2004, Thiel finds a solution requiring the covert operation of a powerful but limited and restrained central intelligence system.
7/ The purpose of Palantir is thus to create (and operate) that system, therefore saving the West from dying or having to abandon its values to survive.
8/ Interestingly, the company’s name, “Palantir,” — a Lord of the Rings reference to magical stones called Palantíri that show scenes from far away — provides insight into the properties and constraints that such a system should have.
9/ Highlights from @jtlonsdale’s answer to “Did Palantir’s founders consider the ethical implications of their work? Do they have thoughts about the consequences of what they built?”
10/ Palantir was created to protect the realm — with a warning built into its name.
11/ In the fantasy realm of Tolkien, the palantir seeing stones… could communicate to help see the past and understand the future, and were used to secure the world by overcoming forces of evil…
11a/ … in future ages, they eventually fall into the wrong hands and are used for corrupt purposes — their images distorted to pervert goals, and their power harnessed to further evil. What might their creators have done to prevent this — and was it still worth creating them?
12/ Information had become more important than anything else when it came to defense, yet the US had a defense-industrial complex that didn't understand how to build modern software systems.
13/ The cost-plus contracting and old-fashioned top-down cultures of the east coast were causing major software contracts to go hundreds of millions or billions over budget, and leading to frequent years-long delays.
14/ Audit trails would make sure that no matter how Palantir was used, there was clear evidence that could not be deleted so that senior policy makers and leaders could "watch the watchers" and see exactly what had been done.
15/ Creating Palantir was a patriotic work of the best and brightest, and it succeeded.
16/ But even more than audit trails and transparent policies and a civil liberties group, we went a step further and agreed to name the company with a warning from its fictional counterpart.
17/ The name signifies that even after we are gone, it will be up to our posterity to make sure Palantir is not used for evil.
18/ Palantir has an extraordinary history of confronting the ethical issues in its sector from its very founding, proactively doing extra work to inculcate appropriate moral values and build infrastructure that protects civil liberties and enforces policy
19/ These days, you know what: if you're not being demonized by somebody, you're probably not doing anything particularly useful.
End/ For the full essays and to keep up with what I’m reading, check out aletteraday.substack.com
PS1/ For a throwback to one of the greatest defense companies in history, check out this tweetstorm on Teledyne
PS2/ To checkout the defense company of the future, check out this thread on @PalmerLuckey of @anduriltech from when he was featured on @Lux_Capital’s Futura with @wolfejosh
