| Some of these are valid arguments against Palantir and the weaponization of surveillance. But too many others are bullshit as the author was getting full of themselves. "6. We are ruled by a senile gerontocracy. Unlike the generations that fought in the world wars, most of our current rulers are degenerate pedophiles" This is just wrong. Donald Trump may be a senile pedophile, Howard Lutnik may be a pedophile but is not senile, Joe Biden was too old but wasn't senile or a pedophile, but we are largely not ruled by a cabal of senile pedophiles. The Trump Administration is protecting pedophiles, but most Americans, Europeans, and people throughout the world, are not ruled by pedophiles, either in their day or day or civic life. "Today, new regional powers directly challenge the United States as its empire dissolves in the face of internal economic stagnation, political corruption, and the inflation of the dollar." Regional powers don't directly challenge the United States. The United States has lost a war against Iran, but it was one we foolishly started. There isn't yet economic stagnation or inflation of the dollar. Even in the post-COVID period of significany inflation, from about 2022-2023, this was modest by historic measures and largely less severe than most other places in the world. Since Donald Trump has reintroduce inflation through his national sales tax (Tariff) policy and pointless foreign wars, inflation is up to ~4.x%, which is higher than it needs to be, but not remarkable historically. The national rate of inflation in 1980 was 13.5%. China certainly challenges the United States, but it is not a regional power, it is a world power, and the challenge is largely just economic and influence. "8. In a real war, fantasies of total technological dominance always backfire. When a faceless drone kills a child’s father, that child will one day take revenge regardless of the cost." This idea, itself, is the stuff of fantasy fiction. Most children whose parents are killed by a missile, drone, bomb, or whatever else, grow up as orphans, in extreme poverty, and rarely emerge from it in any sort of revenge narrative. "9. Oddly enough, proponents of fully automated warfare support a universal draft." I don't think that this is true and the author doesn't make the case. "14. The State will not help us. The state is a dying pre-Internet institution that increasingly resembles nothing but a Ponzi scheme fueled by taxes and debt." This is techno-libertarian bull shit and simply false. The state remains as our ("big our") best tool to regulate and control technology. There is no other lever. "17. Digital identity is the next step in their system of control." This may be true, but it is in conflict with the gerontocracy of senile pedophiles argument. There has been no greater gift to pedophiles than the anonymity of the internet combined with the (relative) untraceability of effective encryption. These two things, liberty and safety, are genuinely in conflict with one another and I don't see the internet or state regulators finding the right solution. "18. Only when one can be anonymous is one truly free." This is trite and false, and tritely false. "20. Culture wars are a psyop." This is not true, and similarly trite. There are culture wars in every civilization and community on earth, throughout history, and they're not exclusively well organized psyops. I'd encourage the author to read Richard White's The Republic For Which It Stands, which I think the author would find a lot of common ground with White, but one thing that is particularly clarifying is in our current 21st century gilded age, just how much was similar 130 years ago before there was a mass media or national intelligence cabal. I think that the author should workshop a lot of these arguments and focus on the ones that they're knowledgable about, particularly in terms of code, surveillance, and coding for good against evil. Also it would seem as though he calls himself "The Philosopher CEO," as he wrote this piece and is speaking for himself, and if you are calling yourself a philosopher CEO you are a blowhard. |
Yep. Wholly apart from the value or lack of it in his points, I'm not taking that personal brand seriously.