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'Fear really drives him': is Alex Karp of Palantir the world's scariest CEO?
- JohnFen 11mo agoFear is the most dangerous of human emotions. Fear makes us stupid, compliant, and cruel.
- piva00 11mo agoFear paired with confidence has created the biggest monsters we ever had, Alex Karp seems to embody both, don't see how he can escape the fate of becoming a monster...
- helpfulfrond 11mo ago"Fear is the mind killer..." https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3634639-dune https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3634639-dune
- 0_____0 11mo agoThe US's power comes from its ability to project organized violence? What was Vietnam then? And what would have come of the Vietnam era if people could be individually and effortlessly targeted in their daily lives for going against it?
- boat-of-theseus 11mo ago[dead]
- terminalshort 11mo agoAll power flows from the barrel of a gun
- hat_monger 11mo agoFunny how people forget this when their guy gets shot [at]
- fatbird 11mo agowhat would have come of the Vietnam era if people could be individually and effortlessly targeted in their daily lives for going against it? Nothing. The U.S. lost Vietnam, not because it lost battles, but because it offered no governing alternative to Ho Chi Minh that the Vietnamese accepted. Millions of Vietnamese died and still they rejected every colonial gov't the French and then the U.S. tried to prop up. The U.S.'s power coming from its ability to project organized violence is really a statement about the limits of its power. It can blow up anyone it wants to. It still can't remake other countries as it wishes.
- 0_____0 11mo agoWhat you're saying makes sense, and I agreem. But I don't think Karp, as he is described in the article, agrees... -snip- Karp referenced the political scientist Samuel Huntington’s belief that “the rise of the west was not made possible ‘by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion … but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence’.” -snip- Karp seems to be using that idea to pat himself on the back for tapping into the stream of money that flows toward "the guns" so to speak. Does he think about whether the US' global hegemony will flourish under domestic fascism that he's paving the way for?
- hat_monger 11mo ago[dead]
- _yb2s 11mo ago[flagged]
- andsoitis 11mo ago> used by white nationalists to terrorize people with his skin color, and deprive them of human rights It could be that he doesn’t use this racist lens that you’re using.
- _yb2s 11mo agoThe racist lens is coming from the white supremacist groups he is developing tech for. Their entire worldview is guided by terror that they will lose some protected social status that comes from their skin color.
- andsoitis 11mo ago> white supremacist groups he is developing tech for. So your argument is that an intelligent, erudite black Jew is siding with white supremacists against people of color? I don’t know, but I think that explanation doesn’t compute. I would wager that the lens through which he looks at the world is different than your racist one and I think some curiosity would pay off.
- ausbah 11mo agohis company (eagerly) enables the work ICE is doing to disappear people off the street, the genocide perpetuated by the IDF against the Palestinian populace, among other atrocities and in general is pretty open about keeping “Wesrern supremacy” via state backed violence. white nationalist or not there’s a ton else he and his company needs to answer for
- andsoitis 11mo ago> (he is pretty) open about keeping “Wesrern supremacy” via state backed violence Tell us more?
- andsoitis 11mo ago> African American artist mother I had no idea Alex Karp was black. Anyhow: > On CNBC’s Squawk Box, he shook both fists simultaneously as he railed against short sellers betting against Palantir, whose share price has climbed nearly 600% in the past year: “It’s super triggering,” he complained. “Why do they have to go after us?” This and a few other sections make me wonder how much introspection the guy has and whether he ever concedes that he is wrong.
- _yb2s 11mo ago> This and a few other sections make me wonder how much introspection the guy has and whether he ever concedes that he is wrong. Our culture is currently at a moment where it confuses the faux confidence of narcissism with strength, and promotes those people to positions of leadership. However, it's pretty much the opposite of that, it is escaping into an imaginary persona with faux infinite confidence, because you are too afraid to be a real person that has faults like everyone else.
- graemep 11mo agoNot only one culture or moment in history. There have always been weird people in positions of power. Look at Alexander the Great, for example, or Mao or Idi Amin.. A few more examples here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCahA0MP_G0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCahA0MP_G0
- _yb2s 11mo agoI don't think it's appropriate to conflate having an antisocial personality disorder with just generally being "weird." Especially in the current context, where authoritarians are especially adverse to non-conformity. However, while it's absolutely not a new thing that people with these personality traits rise to positions of power, e.g. see "The Prince" by Machiavelli, it ignores the uniqueness of the current moment. We have a widespread far-right movement right now that has a particular ideal of strength and masculinity, which is exactly the symptoms of narcissism, and has formed a cult of personality around a particular malignant narcissist. This is something new that has formed over the past 10-15 years, starting out of certain internet communities including 4chan, 8chan, and "the manosphere" and is a marked cultural departure from how things were ~20 years ago.
- devJdeed 11mo agothis guy allows other people to invest money into killing others, mostly it'a arabs so far but yet again he looks like a chosen one. I hope his shit crashes
- s5300 11mo ago[dead]
- ashanoko 11mo ago[dead]
- ecshafer 11mo agoPalantir is along with SpaceX, Anduril, and a few others some of the most important companies in America. They are the ones that are pushing America forward. Not selling ads. But upsetting the incumbents that are undermining the DoD and national security, and making real technical progress. These are the companies that if it comes to war are going to be pushing us forward.
- hobs 11mo agoPalantir is currently ramping up their spying on American Citizens at the behest of the government, which war are we talking about?
- lm28469 11mo ago> These are the companies that if it comes to war Well, if you keep preparing for one you'll be the one starting it...
- graemep 11mo ago"If you want peace, prepare for war."
- lm28469 11mo agoThat's a nice quote, the problem is that once you gave birth to a giant you need to keep feeding it. We can see how it's going for Russia right now. It also doesn't mean you should build private surveillance companies tightly coupled to a single political party, with all the conflicts of interest it brings
- wiz21c 11mo agoI can assure you its tai chi stance on the picture is absolutely wrong. arms way too open, body weight on both legs, right arm should not be bended, distance between two feet is way to long, left hand should be pointing up, etc.
- leoh 11mo agoIf you’re flowing between postures I’d imagine that this happens.
- wiz21c 11mo agoFor the body weight over the two legs, I can agree. But for the rest, no no and no :-) And indded it's a single whip :-)
- LargeWu 11mo agoDefinitely single whip. Looks like he stopped to pose in the middle of it. He's also facing the wrong way; that body position should be on the diagonal if anything.
- jebarker 11mo ago> Fear really drives him This is very common in the defense and national security industries
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- apt-get 11mo ago> Palantir is firmly cemented into military-industrial infrastructure, and business is booming, but Karp is not letting up. He has said he wants Palantir to be as dominant and indispensable as IBM was in the 1960s, when it was the world’s largest computing company and shaped the way government and private companies did business. I was thinking even before this line that he gives off the impression of really admiring IBM, especially their German stint from 1933 to 1945.
- constantcrying 11mo agoThe headline seems a bit weird, the article later on goes to acknowledge what Karp is actually fearing, namely fascism, which he sees as an existential threat to him personally. It also seems to be a bit weird to exclude his intellectual heritage, he got his PhD under Jürgen Habermas who is one of the best known anti fascist and pro liberal democracy scholars in Germany.
- throwaway-11-1 11mo agoyeah man he's so scared of fascism that he's leading the world in racist ai for drone striking civilians and imprisoning normal working people into concentration camps without a trial
- constantcrying 11mo agoCould you at least try to formulate that into an argument? Preferably you could address the justifications alluded to in the article and maybe try to frame that discussion in the context of Karps intellectual history.
- freejazz 11mo agoBe generous. It's obviously an argument that Karp is a hypocrite. Would appreciate your actual response.
- constantcrying 11mo agoDemocratic regimes, in the name of anti fascism, have performed extremely gruesome acts and far more thoroughly violated the privacy of individuals. Karp obviously believes that the actions by palantir are necessary to safeguard liberal democracy as it has existed. Karp has obviously studied German democracy, which has a specific concept for this "wehrhafte Demokratie", meaning that democracies must defend themselves, with force if necessary.
- 11mo ago
- causal 11mo agoA recurring theme in reading about Thiel, Karp and their supporters is a sort of "kill or be killed" mentality - implied if not stated outright. Likewise I've seen people say things like "well the other side was doing X anyway, so we should do it to them". It's disturbing to watch how easily fear and anger can be wielded to justify anything. Future generations, if they are lucky enough to learn from us, may well identify our addiction to anger as the great sin of our time.
- _yb2s 11mo agoThe "other side was doing X anyway, so we should do it to them" claim is always paired by first falsely accusing others of doing what they eventually intend to do. It's a deliberate strategy of manipulation that preemptively normalizes something that otherwise would look bad. I don't know if there is a name for this tactic, but it appears to be fairly novel, and I suspect it was invented by Roy Cohn, who was a mentor to Donald Trump. It's an incredibly effective manipulation strategy, and I am not sure how to counter it.
- causal 11mo agoIt's manipulation that closed communities recognize and call out and will ultimately expel people for doing. But if you happen to be born into extreme wealth you have something people need and normal social consequences no longer have the same potence.
- nis0s 11mo agoWhat’s baby afraid of? We don’t need “defense” technologies that don’t soften the brutality of life, or of human nature. There’s no path to security without dealing with humans nature, and people invariably respond better to honey than poison.