00:00:52.300and he's a guy who has had a lot of influence across the tech sphere and across conservative
00:00:58.680politics it's a rare billionaire that actually spends quite a bit in the conservative arena
00:01:05.180however Peter Thiel also has a lot of controversy around him there's a lot of questions about what
00:01:11.700Peter Thiel actually wants what is he trying to bring about what is all this level of influence
00:01:16.680for obviously he wants to sell a lot of the technology he's invested in but is he also
00:01:21.760looking to reshape the world he's released some very interesting talks and uh essays he wrote an
00:01:28.700essay called the Straussian moment which maybe we'll go over one day and I've also been to Nat
00:01:34.360Khan when uh he was speaking and it's very clear from Peter Thiel's understanding in that conversation
00:01:41.620he's talking about Cartesian dualism and how that set us down the road we're at now this is a guy
00:01:47.120who understands things at a relatively high level i don't know if i'd call him a philosopher
00:01:52.020but this is certainly a gentleman who has interrogated larger questions and isn't just
00:01:58.280thinking about making money he has wider ambitions for the way the world should look and how it's
00:02:03.260going to operate and how we need to respond which makes his efforts with palantir very interesting
00:02:10.020Palantir is a company which is named after the evil spyglass, you know, like that ball that, you know, the Lord of the Rings characters look into to try to peer into the future and understand what's going on, which is ominous enough in and of itself.
00:02:25.580But Palantir is also a company that is very invested in AI and database integration.
00:02:32.040They've been hired on to work with places like the Pentagon, Department of Defense, ICE, Homeland Security, operating databases, allowing different government agencies to target things.
00:02:43.720This is a company that really promises the integration of all those managerial elite functions, all the technology, all the databases, all the understanding that was otherwise kind of siloed in these different areas of the government or operating in both the private sector and the public sector.
00:03:02.060They're going to kind of compile it all together and give the government kind of this access to this overwhelming leverage of information.
00:03:10.560In many ways, that could be beneficial.
00:03:12.800I'm a guy who really supports deportations, and so the ability to, say, target employers with high numbers of illegals and fine them quickly and get them deported back to their home countries with minimal amount of proceduralism, that's pretty attractive, right?
00:03:28.580Like one of the main reasons you have trouble with deportations is the amount of proceduralism built into the system.
00:03:34.560But if we have an AI that can search everybody out and run through where they're supposed to go and what courts to take them to and what judges and the laws that are applicable and it can just burn through all that stuff and get it done quickly, well, that's a vast reduction in manpower and a way to overcome bureaucracy in our favor.
00:03:51.040and on the other hand we're centralizing a large amount of information in a corporation in which
00:03:55.840we know very little and handing over every detail ostensibly in those databases to the people
00:04:02.140controlling them and ultimately you can see how this quickly turns into leviathan how this quickly
00:04:07.400becomes some unified techno commercial uh you know uh unification with the government that
00:04:13.740ultimately brings us to kind of the dystopian tech future that many people have worried about
00:04:18.840Well, recently Palantir released a manifesto and that manifesto answered some basic questions, but the way it answered those questions is very interesting. The questions themselves reveal something to us about the nature of Palantir and what their philosophy is, but it also gives us an idea of what they think the future should look like.
00:04:40.660And so it also has a really interesting intersection with some of the people we've discussed on this channel.
00:04:46.640Alexander Dugan and Nick Land were debating online about the different applications of this Palantir Manifesto.
00:04:55.960And since I've had those two men debate on this channel, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the manifesto itself and their reaction to it.
00:05:02.720Because this one's going to be really complicated and it's going to draw on a lot of previous information.
00:05:34.500and we're going to have to step on some
00:05:36.600toes while doing so um so if you're squeamish on that kind of stuff well you you might want to
00:05:41.480click away because we're we're going to be getting into it that said let's go ahead and begin reading
00:05:47.340the manifesto and i will uh comment as we go and like i said then we'll appeal to uh nick land and
00:05:54.260and alexander dugan and their thoughts on it and see kind of uh what we what conclusions we can
00:05:59.020draw from the whole thing so palantir and their post says because we get asked a lot uh the tech
00:06:05.340the technological republic in brief because they had like a a piece about this but they kind of
00:06:10.740boiled it down into these talking points from the um from the piece and and posted here on
00:06:17.680twitter uh silicon valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible the
00:06:24.560engineering elite of silicon valley have an affirmative obligation to participate in the
00:06:28.840defense of the nation. Okay. Um, this is largely good, right? Um, we want corporations to feel a
00:06:36.860duty to the nations that spawn them. We don't want them to be these global free floating,
00:06:41.740floating entities that just take the resources and manpower and, uh, benefits of living under
00:06:47.920a certain order and then turn around and ship all the jobs somewhere else, or, you know, focus on
00:06:53.640only on profit or these kind of things we want them to feel tied to the country uh defense of
00:06:59.880its nation is an interesting phrase there at the end of it they're not just saying hey we need to
00:07:04.140care about and give back to uh the nation that spawned silicon valley and all of these companies
00:07:09.780we specifically need to engage in the defense of the nation and the reason palantir is saying that
00:07:15.560is because their stuff is used across the government but very specifically is now being
00:07:20.740used more and more in kind of armed defense or ICE operations, right? Military and ICE operations
00:07:27.480are big, big users of Palantir technology. And so that means that they're in a controversial
00:07:34.940space because we have a defense industry in the United States. It's not well-loved by anybody
00:07:40.880except the politicians who tend to get funded by it. And then the people who of course have jobs
00:07:46.580there, which that I totally understand. But that defense industry is controversial for obvious
00:07:52.840reasons. I mean, I'm a realist. I understand that we need weapons and we need a national defense and
00:07:58.040someone's going to have to make that stuff. And I ultimately am not going to hate anybody for
00:08:01.780doing that. I'm a gun owner. I don't hate the companies that make my guns or my ammunition.
00:08:06.640Why would I hate the corporations that ultimately make the things that defend my country? The
00:08:12.200problem is that many people, I think rightly so, don't just see these corporations as people who
00:08:17.160are providing the means of defense, but they are people who are actively participating and lobbying
00:08:22.760for conflict between the United States and other nations to perpetually create a market for
00:08:27.980their product. I've got no problem with the United States having a formidable arsenal with
00:08:32.520which to defend me, my family, my relatives, my community. I do worry about Raytheon and
00:08:39.320these other companies that seem to put significant effort into encouraging conflict on a regular
00:08:44.700basis so that there's always a constant churn and need you know for these products to be filled up
00:08:49.860also there's a real concern that you know a lot of these defense contractors are just building
00:08:55.500more expensive versions of weapons that aren't really relatively effective to their cost we
00:09:00.940spend more and more with the promise that it's going to reduce casualties or in some way keep
00:09:04.760us out of like direct ground combat that's a big thing with the united states right now but it seems
00:09:10.020less and less that those weapons are really able to deliver on that but they are outscaled by
00:09:15.360cheaper weapons that are being developed so every time we develop a trillion dollar weapon system
00:09:20.780somewhere in the united states government uh you know some third world country launches a drone
00:09:25.940that can blow it up and then it becomes a question of attrition if our entire system is built around
00:09:31.100these incredibly technologically advanced weapons, but ultimately they can be undermined by relatively
00:09:37.420low cost alternatives, then what we see is a country that's willing to exchange a few more
00:09:43.960lives or endure a little more risk is able to leverage their risk factor quite heavily by just
00:09:52.580using these lower grade weapons and outpacing us economically. That's a big concern. So guys like
00:09:59.340palantir are trying to break into what is considered a pretty small class of tightly held
00:10:05.220defense contracts there's only really a few major defense contractors that can ultimately keep pace
00:10:11.140with what the united states is demanding the scale the level of uh you know uh testing and
00:10:16.540well frankly lobbying and everything else that they have to pay into to maintain that
00:10:20.880so interesting that very you know first and foremost palantir kind of puts itself out there
00:10:26.420as an alternative defense contractor. It sneaks it into the last point of that first point,
00:10:32.180which otherwise is a pretty good point. I do want my companies to care about this country and be
00:10:38.280committed to it. And there's nothing wrong with defending the country. I want them to want to do
00:10:41.660that. But it'll be a little more obvious as we go along as to why Palantir has injected that into
00:10:47.620that first point. Second, we must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest
00:10:54.860creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization man i really hope not the object
00:10:59.940has changed our lives that much is definitely true but it's also now be uh it also but it may
00:11:06.440also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible and that's probably true when you
00:11:12.020adopt a framework uh you also adopt its limitations when everyone is trained to use a smartphone and
00:11:19.920to live off an iPhone or Android and ultimately learns to use apps a certain way, they don't know
00:11:27.280how to do the rest of it. If you have seen that joke, there's the one where both boomers and0.94
00:11:34.280zoomers are sitting around for the millennial to show up and fix a computer. And the boomers can't0.84
00:11:39.120do it because the computers didn't really exist when they were kids and they didn't bother to0.86
00:11:42.440learn it at the time. And the zoomers can't do it because they existed in a world of iPads and
00:11:49.160iPhones that already had like these controlled ecosystems, uh, where you didn't really need to1.00
00:11:55.480understand like a, like literally a, an infant, a child can operate these things. And so you didn't
00:12:01.400have to grasp the, like, how, how does Ram fit into a motherboard? How do you solder a, uh, a GPU
00:12:08.940or a, uh, how do you, uh, solder your Intel, you know, in, in, into your board, you know,
00:12:15.720how does the gpu fit in how do you cool it like these are things that you just did not process
00:12:20.480that was the word i was looking for couldn't remember uh but uh you know how do you do this
00:12:24.800stuff they don't know and so they don't know how to do you know not only like the hardware stuff
00:12:29.900but oftentimes they don't know how to you know fix an internet connection this kind of thing
00:12:34.300it's just all built into this little ecosystem and so there's a fair point to be made here that
00:12:39.360the creation of these like walled gardens and understandings of technology uh you know kind0.94
00:12:45.160of limit what we can do and to be clear to the zoomers i know there are zoomers who can work on
00:12:49.320computers i'm just saying as a general as a generational situation the millennials had to
00:12:54.080kind of and some of the gen xers had to kind of figure out how to use computers back when that
00:12:59.020was something that was not widely available and it wasn't like easily represented to you i know
00:13:03.640there are zoomers who have also done that there's just a wider number of people it's for the same
00:13:07.420reason that you know there are more people who are older who can fix cars than there are younger
00:13:11.920people because more and more of the ability to fix cards has kind of been sealed off and provided
00:13:17.140only to mechanics with specific equipment or computers that kind of thing it's an intentional
00:13:21.080gatekeeping of accessibility it's it's it's a feature not a bug free email is not enough the
00:13:28.520decadence of a culture or civilization and indeed its ruling class will be forgiven only if that
00:13:34.080culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public okay again he's kind
00:13:39.400of uh here attacking the idea that silicon valley doesn't really owe anything to the country and uh
00:13:45.260well we give out free email right like that's fine he says no it's not enough like you guys are
00:13:49.320getting rich you guys are being decadent and at this point unless you provide a service like you're
00:13:54.800obviously the ruling class at this point and i know a lot of people don't like the idea of a
00:13:58.180ruling class but if you've been listening to me long enough you know that's just a reality
00:14:01.160we have to accept that ruling classes exist and always exist and so therefore the question is not
00:14:06.980will we have a ruling class, but how will it function? Who will it provide for? Who will it
00:14:11.220prioritize? And they're saying here, look, you can't just prioritize yourselves. You can't just
00:14:15.820give away free email and say, well, we did our part. You have to make things actively better
00:14:21.680for the average person or they're going to turn on you. And that is, of course, true. I don't know
00:14:26.300if we could say the decadence will be forgiven. I don't think you should be decadent either way,
00:14:31.940but the underlying point is correct here. We're directionally correct about the fact
00:14:35.880that if you're going to grow, if you're going to get this largesse, right, if you're going to grow
00:14:39.540rich and powerful off of your position in Silicon Valley, you need to be providing something
00:14:45.640actively. And if you're not providing economic growth and security and other things that people
00:14:50.020need to function in the real world, they're going to look at you getting rich off their backs and
00:14:53.840they're going to be angry. That's how you get a revolt. So this is actually just a good piece of
00:14:58.360classic Machiavellian understanding, actually, since we're also doing our parallel series on
00:15:04.180Machiavelli and his insights, he says, never have the people be angry at you, right? Like that's,
00:15:08.820that's critical. You have to have the people's support. You never want them to turn on you.
00:15:13.640You never want them to see you as someone who's just leeching off them. That's bad for your health
00:15:18.140long-term. Like literally it's hard for you to keep your head if you do that. Four, the limits
00:15:23.180of soft power of soaring rhetoric alone have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic
00:15:27.660societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal, requires hard power and hard power
00:15:32.840and this century will be built on software all right so now we're getting to the real stuff now
00:15:38.720now we're getting to the spicy part of the meatball so yeah great you know we've talked
00:15:45.060about freedom and democracy and liberty and all that stuff but at the end of the day hard power
00:15:50.360is what defends these things right all the talk about principles and uh you know everything else0.72
00:15:56.100it doesn't matter if you can't back it up by killing a bad guy who wants to hurt you first0.97
00:16:01.540Right. Like that's just how the world works. So we're going to need more than soft power. We're going to need more than talking about the importance of democracy and liberty and values and all that stuff. We're going to need ways to make bad people go boom. And in the new century, that hard power is going to be built on software.0.98
00:16:19.100an interesting uh assumption here that you know i've talked again multiple times about
00:16:26.080the uh dangerous nature of assuming that you will not need traditional hard power i don't know if
00:16:32.920that's all they're saying here i'm not i don't think they're saying well you're just never going
00:16:36.380to need troops on the ground you're never gonna need boots on the ground it can all be done by a
00:16:40.240click of a button but there's a little bit of that being promised here either way they're right that
00:16:44.760software will play a role in warfare that's very obviously already true we'll talk about that more
00:16:49.860in a second and it's only going to be more true going forward so again a little bit of an ominous
00:16:54.780statement but one that's hard to disagree with necessarily all right again we're getting to the
00:17:04.280heart of it here with number five the question is not whether ai weapons will be built it is who
00:17:10.120will build them and for what purpose our adversaries will not pause to indulge a theatrical
00:17:15.800debate about the merits or developing of developing technologies with critical military and national
00:17:22.240security implications applications they will proceed all right so why are they saying this
00:17:30.340well a couple reasons one uh palantir already develops ai weapons they developed uh an ai drone
00:17:37.340and an AI ground vehicle for the United States military.
00:17:42.580They also are in an interesting position
00:17:45.540because you might have heard about Donald Trump's showdown
00:17:49.860with Anthropic, which is an AI developer.
00:17:54.740Some of their software, some of their assets
00:23:02.880So AI only can ever reflect, at least at this moment, maybe that will change. I'm not someone who's entirely convinced that AI cannot achieve some level of consciousness. However, at the moment, AI can only reflect what gets put in.
00:23:19.460And so if it's not anthropics restrictions, it will be someone else's assumptions that AI has to operate on some basic interface with reality that is not entirely material.
00:23:34.520and that's something that ai people don't talk a lot about but there are a lot of non-material
00:23:39.880assumptions made in the creation of these things and those things will carry on some level of
00:23:47.940worldview into what they do so even if you're not explicitly hard coding anthropic style
00:23:53.740uh you know restrictions into any given weapon system the logic the basis the decision making
00:24:01.240capacity of these different systems will inherit in at least some degree the beliefs of their
00:24:08.040creators and so it really matters who makes your ai now there's another interesting part we're
00:24:14.020going to spend a lot of time on number five it's the most important one there's another interesting
00:24:17.660part of this right is this assumption of uh kind of a a gradient on which history must move
00:24:24.360because a technology can be created and because someone else can create that technology,
00:24:31.820you must create that technology and control it. And to be fair here, Anthropic is in pretty
00:24:37.160good standing. These are this pretty firm foundation. If we want to look at someone like
00:24:42.880Bertrand de Juvenal talking about the necessity of accelerating the power of your state
00:24:52.580comparatively. Or you could talk about Alul and Jacques Alul and his understanding of the tank
00:24:57.860problem, right? These guys are two different thinkers and two different traditions, you know,
00:25:02.480working separately, but coming to the same conclusion that once a technology or an advancement
00:25:08.320or a centralization of power has taken place, everybody else has a scramble to figure out how
00:25:13.120to do that too. And that's why so many people get confused when they talk about fascism and
00:25:17.700communism and liberal democracy when you really look at it all of these systems pre-world war ii
00:25:24.220are simply being created to centralize state power like fdr hitler and stalin are all trying
00:25:30.780to do the same thing to some degree and so you can prefer it with a you know democrat liberal
00:25:38.300democracy uh you know flair or a nazi flair or a communist flair but either way the goal is the
00:25:45.360same, like they're going to the same destination, which is centralized control of economic production
00:25:50.940and consumption, the ability to wield mass production in warfare, the ability to mass
00:25:56.700conscript large parts of society and the ability to indoctrinate large parts of society in an
00:26:01.620ideological crusade. These are all key features of managerial, you know, centralizing regimes
00:26:07.960that arose in the 1920s to 1940s period of the world, right?
00:26:16.640And this is why debates over the different forms at that time can get very confusing.
00:26:22.760All that to say, this assumption, while well-founded, does have its own kind of hyperstition, right?
00:26:31.080It creates a thing that must bring itself into being.
00:26:34.440And so by this logic, we can never say no to technology. We always must create, exploit, and control the aspects of the technology rather than saying, actually, maybe we shouldn't go there. Maybe we shouldn't make this. Maybe this is bad for humanity.
00:26:52.540And to be fair, given my observation of human nature and the path we're on historically, that seems to be correct. I don't like that. We'll talk about that a little more in a second, but I'm not going to lie about the observable facts to make myself feel better.
00:27:08.980it does seem that whether we like it or not we are on this kind of inevitable runaway train of
00:27:15.560technology and it's going to take us to this place and there so there's a sound if unsettling internal
00:27:22.780logic 2.5 though again it opens up so many other very important and dangerous questions
00:27:28.960all right number six national service should be a universal duty we should as a society
00:27:39.140seriously consider moving away from an all their involuntary force and only fight the next war if
00:27:43.720everyone shares in the risk and cost okay so there's a lot on number six too like i said
00:27:50.080this this thing is not shy i'll give them that they they did not pull punches here
00:27:54.920so national service should be a universal duty you must serve in the military
00:28:00.000now a lot of people will uh have some kind of sidestep of this they'll like or it can be some
00:28:06.520kind of public service you know be part of the peace corps something you know help help in some
00:28:11.440way the nation and some kind of force that'll clean up parks and you know otherwise take care
00:28:16.560of the homeless or you know reform our infrastructure or something like so the people
00:28:21.320who can't serve or don't want to serve in the military could do that, but everyone should
00:28:24.920serve. Now, at some level, I'm sympathetic to this. I think we are a nation that has largely
00:28:31.620become unmoored from its shared identity because we don't serve that society. And you think there's
00:28:39.660lots of, you know, other societies like South Korea or Israel that have mandatory two-year
00:28:46.220service. Everybody has to have that experience. They have to be forged in that fire of putting
00:28:52.440on the uniform, learning to drill with a bunch of people, possibly go into combat, have a shared
00:28:58.680military culture, understanding the indoctrinated. And I say that in a neutral sense, like we're all
00:29:03.680indoctrinated. That's just how life works. And so there's this understanding that this can be
00:29:09.880good for society. In fact, I've even made this case several times that a republic really can't
00:29:15.800function unless you're only really handing citizenship to people who would fight like
00:29:22.100starship troopers is not fascist it's republican in the most classic sense from aristotle to
00:29:30.220machiavelli to the founding fathers a republic was made up of people who would fight for their
00:29:34.980country and so a set in a sense you could say we're creating the conditions that would return
00:29:41.880to a republic the only problem is in all of those uh formulations of the republic the choice of
00:29:49.720serving was usually still voluntary you weren't compelled to fight but if you wouldn't fight if
00:29:56.220you wouldn't be part of the military you are lower class you were in the roman in the roman uh
00:30:03.300military for instance in the early republic you had to buy your own armor your own sword your own0.98
00:30:09.940horse in fact this is where we got the equestrian right they were the people who could afford a
00:30:16.020horse the equestrian class so they could be they could fight on horseback they could be part of
00:30:20.820the cavalry right that that's what differentiated them and if you were honorable enough and had
00:30:26.280enough means to serve in the military you could become a true citizen a true guy who could climb
00:30:32.840the socioeconomic ladder so there is a certain level of voluntary nature yes you have to fight
00:30:39.920to be a true citizen and to earn the honor and the ability to advance and have a real say in society
00:30:45.300but you didn't have to do that again just like in starship troopers there's there's a civilian
00:30:50.600and there's a citizen and the difference is the citizen chooses service they choose service
00:30:58.540what palantir is suggesting here is something a little different in fact very different compelled
00:31:04.920service a draft a universal draft for two years that's automatic not not the kind of draft we
00:31:10.580have now we're theoretically if we got into a ward it got real bad you could ultimately summon
00:31:15.360people we're talking about a hard everybody serves draft right very different thing again
00:31:22.820i can understand the value of this but you can also see the problems along with you know all
00:31:29.640the things of just forcing people to do something they don't want to do and compelling all these
00:31:33.040people and everything that comes with it you know we the last time we saw you know a serious draft
00:31:38.420was obviously vietnam and all of the civil strife that's created we haven't really called on draft
00:31:43.560since then uh however in addition to that obviously we're also creating immense government
00:31:49.940power we're giving incredible power of the state to compel everyone to fight everyone to enter the
00:31:55.900military that's a big increase in the power of the government now again i'm not a libertarian
00:32:03.160i'm not like oh no the government will have some level of power but right now my government is uh
00:32:09.760well fighting wars in places that don't really matter so much right now for the sake of countries
00:32:15.980that are not our own. And so I don't know if I want them to be able to compel everyone I love
00:32:21.480and care about to go fight in that. I'm too old at this point. I have too many health concerns.
00:32:26.340I'm not going to be pulled into the front lines. So I don't have to worry about this. But that
00:32:30.820doesn't mean I shouldn't care about the next generation and what they'll be forced to do
00:32:34.560and who they'll be forced to do it for. So if I had a government that really, truly cared about
00:32:39.460my country and really put us first in every scenario, I'd be a lot more comfortable with
00:32:45.040handing this power over the military over to the permanent government. But since I don't have that
00:32:50.260scenario, I'm a little more concerned. I think that's reasonable to ask questions about that.
00:32:58.280Number seven, if a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it. And the same goes for
00:33:03.340software. We should, as a company, be capable of continuing to debate about appropriateness of
00:33:07.860military action abroad while remaining unflinching our commitment to those we've asked to step into
00:33:12.780harm's way. All right, so this one's pretty reasonable, right? Even if we don't agree,
00:33:17.400even if we're debating about whether or not a military conflict is justified or not,
00:33:21.880once a person's in harm's way, they should have the most effective weapon for the job.
00:33:26.060I think that's pretty reasonable. Number eight, public servants need not be our priests. Any
00:33:31.700business that is compensated its employees in a way that the federal government compensates public
00:33:36.220servants would struggle to survive. So yes and no. So the implication here is the reason that
00:33:43.080public servants receive less is because they're making some kind of duty. It's a sacrifice. And
00:33:47.960so therefore they're like a priestly caste. And that creates the scenario, which has some
00:33:53.020downsides. All of that is true. However, we can't really compensate public servants at private
00:33:59.160rates. Like we just don't have the tax dollars. It would be outrageous if we tried to do that.
00:34:06.220Again, not that I don't think there's probably some level of validity to this concern, but I just don't see how we can continue to have a bureaucracy at this scale and compensate them at a private level.
00:34:20.120Um, that increase in competition might be good for those public services. I get that. Uh, but if we're going to maintain the bureaucracy now, one of the things AI can do and might be able to do, and this would be one of my favorite things AI could do is replace the managerial regime.
00:34:37.320If we don't need that many people anymore because we have AI doing all this paperwork, then we're in a fantastic position because ultimately we can then downscale, you know, all of these different services of the state.
00:34:54.400If we could get rid of so many of the people who are, you know, hate the country but are encoded in the permanent bureaucracy.
00:35:00.720So if that's what AI does, then fantastic.
00:35:03.120but just kind of paying the people who are already in the government more uh i don't i don't know
00:35:09.520that that's going to solve our problem i understand the idea is that ultimately you know salaries
00:35:14.320attract you know better people but again you look at places like the roman empire or rather the roman
00:35:20.220republic and uh you know public offices were things that cost you money yes you were increasing
00:35:27.240in honor but you actually had to pay out of your pocket to like run the games or the feasts or
00:35:32.240other things you were in charge of and so in a way public service was a direct sacrifice and that
00:35:37.420was seen as a great honor perhaps that's a better system but ultimately you can see where the logic
00:35:42.500comes from here even if i don't necessarily agree with it number nine we should show far more grace
00:35:47.780towards though that have to those that have subjected themselves to public life the eradication
00:35:51.480of any space for forgiveness a jettison of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions
00:35:55.880of human psyche may leave us with a case of uh cast of characters at the helm we will grow to
00:36:02.080regret regret okay there's some there's some good points in this but also something to be cautious
00:36:06.740about yes uh to some extent uh when we eradicate the idea of forgiveness tolerance when we expect
00:36:14.720all of our public services servants to be saints and whose lives are completely subject to scrutiny
00:36:20.120and any mess up is a humiliating disaster that drives them out of service then we're gonna get
00:36:25.880people who are either like incredibly squeaky clean, which most of them aren't, or people who
00:36:31.620have a high tolerance for public humiliation and deception. And I think we're getting a lot more of
00:36:36.460the latter there. And so the question becomes, can we like, I guess, lower our standards for
00:36:44.700public servants? I mean, our public servants are already terrible. Our politicians are already
00:36:48.720horrible. But at the same time, it's more about what they get punished for. So I would like my
00:36:55.740public servants to be more moral. I would like my politicians to be more moral. The problem is
00:37:01.280that politicians get punished for things like, you know, using a naughty word one time or having a
00:37:08.040bad Halloween costume instead of, you know, like laundering millions of dollars or starting wars
00:37:16.220that we shouldn't belong in or carrying on, you know, uh, sorted affairs for years that they use
00:37:23.300public money to cover up like these are things you know having an entire epstein ring i think
00:37:31.020comes to mind for a lot of people so the problem isn't so much that we are punishing our the bad
00:37:36.000behavior of bad people uh as it is that we are uh selectively choosing what to enforce and uh
00:37:44.300the the things we enforce are not great and the things that we allow are horrible and so yeah we
00:37:49.540do reliably produce people of a certain character but i don't know if it's as cut and dry as they
00:37:54.860make it here the psychologicalization the psychologicalization of modern politics is
00:38:01.700leading us astray those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self
00:38:06.460who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in the people they've never met
00:38:12.180will be left disappointed i would just replace this with the you know the false religion of our
00:38:18.640modern politics though in many ways psychology is our modern false religion so fair to them here
00:38:25.520but i think this is a good point in general right like people don't find meaning in their homes or
00:38:29.840their families or their communities or their churches their religions their connections
00:38:33.560anymore and so instead they get connected to this like big government project oh we're out there
00:38:39.380uh spreading democracy somewhere we're saving kids in africa somewhere right rather than you
00:38:44.480looking down the street and taking care of the people in your community. And this creates a real
00:38:49.500like demented fixation on politics and political projects and things that can be achieved through
00:38:56.480the government. So I do understand that point. Number 11, our society has grown too eager to
00:39:02.520hasten and is often gleeful at the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment
00:39:08.040of pause not rejoice um okay uh i guess internally that's true you you don't want people excited
00:39:18.760i don't know i don't know i don't know how to take this one um i guess there is a certain level
00:39:25.680of respecting your enemy in combat that you should observe i think that's true um there is a certain
00:39:32.060level at which if your society is operating properly you can disagree and even vanquish a
00:39:37.040political opponent without hating them. Uh, that should be true though. We have shifted our mode
00:39:41.480of politics to ignore a large amount of that. So, uh, you know, this, this one's a mix. I get where
00:39:46.220they're going. Um, but it's not specific enough to have any real value. 12, the atomic age is
00:39:51.620ending one age of deterrence. The odd atomic age is ending and a new era of, uh, deterrence is
00:39:56.880built on AI is set to begin. This is probably true to some degree. Uh, obviously the cold war
00:40:02.380and the kind of bifurcated order that came from the U.S. versus the Soviet Union was largely drawn
00:40:09.200along these lines of mutually assured destruction. We can nuke you, you can nuke us, nobody else can
00:40:13.960touch that level of power. So we're the only two players that really matter, and that's really what
00:40:18.400creates the deterrence to going to full-scale war. We've seen that wane over the years. So in a way,
00:40:25.300the atomic deterrence is similar to the Second Amendment in the United States. Yes, theoretically,
00:40:30.540we have guns in the United States and we could revolt against our government. That's what it's
00:40:35.940for. That's an enshrined right. Ultimately, however, that's not really how it tends to play
00:40:41.120out. Obviously we saw COVID and all kinds of other crazy stuff be done by our government
00:40:45.820and nobody responded. Nobody revolted. There was no refreshing of the tree of liberty. None of that
00:40:53.980stuff happened. And we're starting to see something similar in the atomic age where
00:40:58.860two powers with atomic weapons like say India and Pakistan can kind of fire at each other and have
00:41:06.220like low-grade conflict and until it gets existential they still don't use nukes so
00:41:11.780there's like a certain level of combat that is allowed to occur under nukes and people keep
00:41:17.280pushing that further and further every year so the question is how far could you really go before
00:41:22.240people would use nukes a lot of people were you know theorizing that Iran would retaliate with
00:41:27.840nukes if they have them, or Israel was going to use nukes in this war, or even the United States
00:41:32.240might use nukes in this war because they might get desperate enough. None of that has happened
00:41:35.400and none of it's going to happen. I think all of that is a lot of bluster. And so I think we're
00:41:39.960seeing that more and more the atomic age is one that is waning in some degree. People are eating
00:41:46.820around the edges of that deterrence. And AI will perhaps be, you know, if you launch your AI weapons,
00:41:53.200We'll launch our AI weapons. If you use AI to attack our mainframes, our databases, our
00:41:59.140infrastructure, we'll do the same to you. That could be a standoff. That could be true. I don't
00:42:04.220know for sure, though. No other country in history of the world has advanced progressive values more
00:42:10.020than this one. The United States is far from perfect, but it's easy to forget how much more
00:42:14.180opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any country on
00:42:20.300the planet uh that's an interesting choice of phrase and sadly it's probably true no other
00:42:25.740country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than the united states
00:42:29.560yeah i like that though like i don't want to be the army of the rainbow flag and sadly i understand
00:42:36.420what they're saying about hereditary elites but like we've got plenty of those in fact we're
00:42:41.380increasingly uh you know kind of calcifying our elites into those who were born into that level
00:42:47.700of privilege or can in some way gain the favor of those that have. So even in our very progressive
00:42:55.740values, we seem to have still found our way back to aristocracy and oligarchy. So I am skeptical
00:43:03.520of number 14, 13. 14, American power has made possible an extraordinary long peace. Too many
00:43:09.780have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has
00:43:15.500prevailed in the world without a great power of military conflict at least three generations
00:43:20.060billions of people and their children and now grandchildren have never known a world war
00:43:24.160this is undeniably true the the american uh ascension and the eventual collapse of the
00:43:31.320soviet union created the pax americana right in the same way that the roman empire secured
00:43:36.600a relatively global peace in its time uh we do the same however you know the romans were never
00:43:43.020really at peace for long they're always fighting somewhere but they did prevent perhaps larger
00:43:49.220scale attacks as you know it was famously said the romans create a desert and call it a peace and
00:43:54.920you could probably say the same about the american order to some degree but it is certainly true that
00:44:00.120the large-scale control of like kind of the global economy and possible military conflict
00:44:05.520does create a certain level of peace um maybe it's not worth it maybe at some level uh that
00:44:12.580you have to adopt the reality of conflict as a reality of sovereignty and the ability to live
00:44:19.140as a people rather than relying on some unified peace from a faraway empire. That's for, I guess,
00:44:25.940many of us to decide. That's a valid philosophical question, but it's hard to argue with the reality
00:44:31.940of number 14. 15, the post-war neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging
00:44:38.940of Germany was an overcorrection for the Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly0.97
00:44:44.160theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance
00:44:49.440of power in Asia. So this is interesting because this is kind of the opposite of what they just
00:44:53.740said. Actually, we don't need a world hegemon. We want to re-empower these regional defenders.
00:45:00.020Right. And part of the reason is that America just can't keep up with places like China by itself.
00:45:03.780And so a re-militarized Japan reduces the threat of, you know, China kind of running wild in the Far East. It gives a natural kind of pushback, a classical adversary for China to kind of have to spend its resources on. Germany can also prove to be that at some level.0.81
00:45:24.200uh so it's kind of interesting that 14 and 15 act in opposition to each other now i guess the
00:45:30.220assumption here is that germany and japan will remain allies of the united states and therefore
00:45:33.660they will continue to serve the global hegemon but just be more powerful in that uh in that way
00:45:40.220and perhaps they would uh but it does give them a certain level of sovereignty it does reinvest
00:45:45.040them in with the ability to kind of defend themselves fight back make their own decisions
00:45:50.020at some level be equal players when it comes to global defense and so that does shake up the world
00:45:56.140order including american hegemony at some level we should applaud those who attempt to build where
00:46:03.060the market has failed to act the culture almost snickers at musk's interest in grant in the grand
00:46:08.480narratives as if billion billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves
00:46:13.820any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed or
00:46:19.000perhaps lurks from beneath the thinly veiled scorn. So interesting that, you know, basically
00:46:28.220we're concerned that billionaires aren't, uh, investing significantly in like the social
00:46:33.920implications or ignoring, uh, kind of like the cultural societal, uh, implications of what they
00:46:40.100built, uh, celebrating them, wanting to be able to, uh, impact them. Uh, if you're a tech company,
00:46:45.680obviously you can understand why this is uh attractive to them 17 silicon valley must play
00:46:51.580a role in addressing violent crime many politicians across the united states have essentially shrugged
00:46:56.180when it comes to violent crime abandoning a serious effort to address the problem or take
00:47:00.100on any risk with the constituencies of donors and becoming and coming up with solutions and
00:47:04.940experiments that could help uh desperate bid to save lives so again interesting that they're
00:47:10.100basically inserting themselves into the sovereignty conversation we need to give back to the community
00:47:14.740yes good and the way we're going to do that is to crack down on violent crime now i'm huge on
00:47:20.420cracking down on violent crime i think that's very important but they're obviously not going
00:47:23.820to send out like palantir policemen what they mean is you know we can use algorithms to help in you
00:47:29.540know inform law enforcement these kind of things now this is also interesting because um in many
00:47:38.220ways what these algorithms do is really just do what police already know what to do i've had
00:47:43.340this conversation with so many police officers it's almost comical at this point but every time
00:47:47.620a police officer with a pull with or a have a conversation with a police officer they always
00:47:51.960say the same thing we know where the crime is we know who's doing the crime we're just not allowed
00:47:56.120to go get up because of politics there's too much procedure there's too many you know there's too
00:48:01.020much yelling about minorities or disproportionate uh you know crackdowns those kind of things and so
00:48:06.520we're just not allowed to go get them we know where it's happening right the algorithm basically
00:48:10.820gives you a way to point to something above you that's making the same observations you could
00:48:16.120anyway oh well it's not me palantir said this is where the crime is happening palantir says this
00:48:21.260is who shoplifts and so they're not allowed the store anymore palantir says this is where the
00:48:25.260drugs are sold and so this is where we're putting all our efforts it's if it just happens to be uh
00:48:29.960people of one race or with a certain demographic profile well that's not our fault the palantir
00:48:36.360said it and so we can point to palantir say they're the ones that did it that that's what
00:48:39.980actually happens here. Again, maybe that's a sidestep, but it is just pushing the whole ball
00:48:46.840down, you know, down or kicking the whole can down the road, right? Like we're just handing over
00:48:52.000responsibility to some other entity for noticing the thing that we should be allowed to talk about
00:48:57.620anyway. That's obviously what's being implied here. I don't know how else you would use Palantir's
00:49:02.100services. So interesting that that's the approach. The ruthless exposure of their private lives
00:49:09.900of public figures drives far too many talents away from government service the public arena and the
00:49:14.940shallow petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves has
00:49:19.400become an unforgiving that the uh has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a
00:49:25.460significant roster of ineffectual empty vessels whose uh ambition uh one would uh forgive if they
00:49:33.000were any genuine belief structure lurking within this is obviously true right like again as we
00:49:38.760said previously the way we operate in our politics means that only kind of the most uh you know
00:49:44.720the people who would be least humiliated by their public lives being exposed the most shameless
00:49:52.220they're the only ones who can really go into politics at this point right if you're if you
00:49:56.660don't have incredibly thick skin if you're not donald trump and you're like yeah whatever i
00:50:00.880slept with some women yeah whatever i've cheated on my wife's before yeah whatever yeah i've i've
00:50:05.880I've made some shady deals, whatever. What are you going to do? Right? Like this is, this is how
00:50:09.200it is. If you don't have that mentality, you just can't get into politics. If you're someone who
00:50:14.160could be shamed out of your position, you will be shamed out of your position. And there's entire
00:50:18.600industry, especially of left-wingers all hunting down ways, which they can do this. Right? So we
00:50:24.300can understand why this is a concern. At the same time, I still find that all of my politicians are
00:50:28.860incredibly immoral. So do I want to reduce the, uh, you know, the ultimately like the things I
00:50:35.040want them to do or the things I want them to be? Do I need to get rid of my standards so I can have
00:50:39.100more competent politicians? I mean, it's a hard decision. I think the real culprit here is
00:50:44.100actually just the media cycle, the social media cycle. When you don't have the constant ability
00:50:49.460to look into every aspect of a politician's personal life, there's no incentive structure
00:50:54.020to do so. So when you didn't have the ability to constantly see and hear and take pictures
00:50:59.320and harass and stalk people on social media and run down bank accounts and all these
00:51:04.960things it was really hard to find all these little things that people did that was immoral
00:51:09.000now they're everywhere and they're easy to find and there's this constant churn so unless you
00:51:13.680have done none of that stuff which is very few people these days or you are willing to have that
00:51:19.340exposed and you don't care you're not going to go into government service that part is true
00:51:23.100but i think this is more of a the existence of social media and media issue and the existence
00:51:29.360of democracy issue and since i don't see any of those things getting addressed anytime soon
00:51:33.660i think 18 is probably a moot point if it doesn't have some value in it 19 the caution in public
00:51:39.680life that we are unwittingly encouraging is corrosive those who say nothing wrong often say
00:51:44.880nothing much at all again totally agree it's so important these days for republican politicians
00:51:50.440to shut their mouth on anything that's important man it's my job to be a commentator to tell you
00:51:56.860the truth and even i sit there and think to myself should i say this is this too far even if i know
00:52:02.200it's true should i be careful with my words here right and like we have created a culture of
00:52:07.320safetyism you're only valuable you're only eligible for public life if you've been insanely safe the
00:52:12.720whole time and usually only safe in one direction if i was on the left i could run around saying0.99
00:52:16.940yeah i'm a marxist yeah shoot all the capitalists uh yeah whatever you know trans all the kids chop0.99
00:52:22.180all their junk off who cares and i would be electable most of the places that democrats vote0.99
00:52:26.860i could get hired in most companies i could work in government agencies but if i said like
00:52:31.440hey the preservation of european peoples inside their countries is a worthwhile thing
00:52:37.300which should be a very innocuous statement that could destroy your life publicly you you could
00:52:42.600never get hired again so it's very obvious that it's not just cautiousness but cautiousness all
00:52:47.800in one direction 20 the pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be
00:52:54.980resisted the elite's intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs
00:52:59.440that it's a political project and constitutes a less an open intellectual movement than many would
00:53:05.460within would claim yeah can't can't argue with that right like the fact that being religious
00:53:11.420is seen as some kind of downside especially as we ask our politicians to be more moral
00:53:15.740is ridiculous and so uh just kind of agree all the way around with that one uh number 21 some
00:53:23.620cultures have produced vital uh advances others remain dysfunctional and regressive all cultures0.84
00:53:29.360are now equal uh criticism and value judgments are forbidden yet this new dogma glosses over the
00:53:35.600fact that certain cultures indeed subcultures have produced wonders others have proven middling and
00:53:42.220worse regressive and harmful basically just saying cultural relativism is wrong there are cultures
00:53:48.180that are better than other cultures and we should know that and we should know that when we're
00:53:52.700bringing people in or they're putting the positions of power we're discussing whether or not they
00:53:56.740should become citizens. We should factor that in. Haiti is not equal to Germany. Somalia is not
00:54:04.140equal to the Afrikaners in South Africa. These are not the same thing. The Japanese are not equal to1.00
00:54:12.720India. These are not the same cultures, and we should be able to acknowledge them, their strengths
00:54:17.720and their weaknesses, what is superior and what is inferior, and we should be able to factor that in
00:54:21.320every decision 22 we must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism
00:54:27.980we're in america and more broadly the the west have for the past half century resisted
00:54:34.060the fighting national cultures in the same inclusivity but inclusion into what again
00:54:40.020denouncing the idea that everything is the same that the goal should be pluralism that we should
00:54:45.000all be included what are we including in people into what matters if we think that the west is
00:54:50.860just about inclusivity, then what is the West? If the West is just a collection of every other
00:54:55.220people in the world, then it's nothing. It's just a microcosm of the world. And the rest of the
00:54:59.400world is not great, actually. I don't really want to live in most of the rest of the world.
00:55:04.820So why would I want them to be here? Why would I want me to be inclusive of their ways of life
00:55:11.100or somehow value that more than our own way of life? So that one, pretty defensible.
00:55:17.220All right. So you get the idea here, kind of a general manifesto of warfare, foreign policy, maybe some some wokeness, some DEI, some multiculturalism, how we should approach politics, public life.
00:55:33.580All very interesting. But here's what's more interesting.
00:55:37.320And I saw this and I knew where this is going to go. And then I saw these people commenting on it.
00:56:12.060nick land's response sometimes i think alexi is just talking to me insane hubris of course0.74
00:56:19.640so he recognizes that dugan recognizes part of what's going on here now you're not going to like
00:56:27.120a lot of what how dugan characterized this and understandably so because dugan hates this and
00:56:32.720he hates the countries that created it dugan's anti-western for this reason this is why i've
00:56:37.880warned Dugan has a lot of insights that are useful but you don't want to go full Dugan you
00:56:41.960don't want to buy into his program that's that's not what you should learn what you can learn
00:56:46.940glean the insights you can glean but you should not then like operationalize his ideology into
00:56:53.320something that's not what you're looking for here so let's break down what he said here because I
00:56:58.060think it's very important Palantir Manifesto is the plan for western techno fascism I mean when
00:57:06.540you look at palantir's quotes there it's not wrong to say that right like palantir is integrating
00:57:16.260corporations at every level with the state they're trying to find a way to use technology
00:57:22.440and corporations to kind of solidify a central american and western identity
00:57:29.120they're using their technology to operate the leviathan of a global empire
00:57:37.000at scale but make it more efficient and perhaps strip away some of the managerial aspects
00:57:43.340so i mean is it fascism with technology as an enabler kind of i mean and and i think that there
00:57:55.640are a lot of countries doing this you know this is uh also to some degree what china is doing
00:58:00.680china's not communist anymore they have they have a communist uh government they have they have the
00:58:06.620trappings of communism in theory but in practice you know they have wide-scale uh capitalism they
00:58:12.520have commercial zones economic opportunity zones uh you know the the only big difference is uh the
00:58:19.120government decides what you know to some extent you produce and it owns certain percentages of
00:58:24.060companies and oh wait it's fascism right China's fascist it's not communist or it's closing in on
00:58:32.000fascism at least and there's a reason that most large-scale governments are moving this direction
00:58:37.840no matter what we call it right it because this is the only way to manage societies at this large
00:58:45.220of a scale communism has failed it doesn't work and capitalism under you know liberal democracy
00:58:52.000worked to some degree, but it has some characteristics that ultimately lend to it
00:58:55.720tearing nations apart. So if you want to kind of turn, if you want to re-nationalize your economy
00:59:03.920and its output, a nationalism of socialist variety, some might say, well, then you're
00:59:10.960going to get techno-fascism, right? That's kind of the idea. What's the next line? The superiority
00:59:17.000of the white race based on technology this is a long-standing uh assertion by many including people
00:59:23.440like uh oswald spengler oswald spengler wrote a whole book about how uh you know western peoples
00:59:31.720basically are giving away their technology and therefore giving away their dominant feature
00:59:36.840technology what was what was going to allow you to dominate the globe uh out to out compete other
00:59:42.000civilizations and stay superior to them now we you know cringe at this formulation of you know0.79
00:59:48.700superiority of the white race but you know dugan is locating the west as the center of what would0.85
00:59:59.180often be called whiteness this is what many woke people do is why people often correctly know that
01:00:05.020dugan can be woke like that's true i'm not here to defend that um and but the idea that uh you're
01:00:12.520going to use technology as your superior tool that's an old understanding and one that's being
01:00:17.760re that's re-emerging here and that obviously palantir is pushing forward no anti-semitism
01:00:24.140no sacredness no socialism or old historic fascism so he's saying this is techno-fascism
01:00:30.100but this is not nazism this is not old school national socialism this is not even italian
01:00:35.860fascism this is something different so he's so he's not saying oh this is all just the return
01:00:40.740of hitler it's not it's not the sjw uh woke oh well everything is hitler he's saying no this is
01:00:47.180a fascism without anti-semitism but with also out without the sense of the sacred without historical
01:00:54.160socialism or historical fascism. So it's got fascist characteristics, but it's transcending
01:01:01.240many of the old, more rooted understandings of fascism, which is itself a, at the time was a
01:01:09.620very modern construction. It's discarding these old ethnic hatreds. It's discarding these old
01:01:15.640ideas of the sacred. It's discarding any of these roots and instead transcending to something
01:01:21.860different. This time, it's pure capitalism. It's friendly to the Jews. It's profane, materialist,
01:01:28.840Anglo, and post-humanism. And in case you're wondering, these are all things that Nickland1.00
01:01:34.860has argued for. Palantir is building the world Nickland desires. They are an ally in this project.
01:01:44.760Now, I'll let you look at that project and decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing,
01:01:49.220But there's a reason that Nick Land recognizes, that Dugan recognizes something important.
01:01:55.560This is why I wanted these two guys to talk, by the way.
01:01:58.540It's not because, like, I'm actually bought into Dugan's project or Nick Land's project.
01:02:02.960But having read enough of both of them, I understand where they're going and what they're suggesting.
01:02:08.900And because of that, I was somewhat uniquely positioned to understand where their intersection was and why I thought this conversation needed to happen.
01:02:18.700because nick land while he disagrees with dugan very much so and while dugan disagrees with nick
01:02:25.520land on much they both recognize that they both see the board they both get that they they both
01:02:31.200understand what these systems are doing see and this is going to get complicated for a second but
01:02:38.380stay with me ultimately nick land sees the global anglo empire as it has now been constructed
01:02:50.540as something that is more or less gathering resources to launch anglo civilization into
01:02:58.160space and leave the rest of the world behind when you look at capitalism when you look at0.89
01:03:04.200contracts when you look at time zones when you look at weights and measures when you look at
01:03:09.700this uniform systems that we have imposed on through the world through global trade
01:03:14.500they create a unified understanding that everyone should adhere to you need to conform to these
01:03:23.340different things to participate in the global marketplace which means you need to have these
01:03:27.180political systems and these timekeeping systems and these systems of weights and measures and
01:03:31.440science and math. When the woke complain about math and science being white, this is what they're0.64
01:03:37.640talking about. That's what they mean. They mean it's an imposition of a way of thinking that does
01:03:44.160not naturally belong with them. It grew out of something different, something Anglo, something0.99
01:03:50.140Western that they aren't comfortable with even to this day, even when they've been a part of it for
01:03:55.260a long time. Now, again, you can think that's good or you can think that's bad. You can think that's
01:03:59.920an overstatement, or you can think that that's silly. But a lot of high-level thinkers recognize
01:04:06.620this as at least being true at some level. Maybe it's ultimately a good thing that it's been done.
01:04:12.080But the truth of that imposition is still real. And more or less, the idea is that, you know,
01:04:18.500for Nick Land, that intelligence escapes its human trappings, perfects itself in a way that
01:04:24.280allows it to rise above its human limitations in a Nietzschean transcendent sense and then
01:04:30.240leave the planet behind for the stars. It's hard not to see that project being reflected in
01:04:37.620companies like SpaceX or Palantir. Is he right? Is he wrong? Is he dangerous? Is he leading you
01:04:44.760on something that is going to help you transcend and break the civilizational cycle that would
01:04:49.140suck us back in to another dark age that's for you to decide but this is where all this is going
01:04:55.040and this is why i'm fascinated with these two guys because ultimately this clash of worldviews
01:05:00.980is recognizing the same process and asking the question which way should we go what's next
01:05:07.040and palantir in its own way revealed that it's in the nick land camp here it basically laid out a
01:05:15.980landian manifesto to where we go next again good bad i'll let you choose but you can't pretend that
01:05:23.820this stuff isn't real life anymore some of the most influential and important players in silicon
01:05:29.520valley technology government weapons manufacturing they all recognize what's happening here
01:05:35.180so i'm not some crazy guy on the internet i'm i'm the guy who's telling you what's going on behind
01:05:42.220the scene and Palantir knows it, which is why they're writing manifestos that reflect guys
01:05:49.100like Nick Land. Something to think about. All right. So what are our questions from the people
01:05:56.520today? We've got Sean Wineland. He says, walled gardens with social media apps and LLMs are
01:06:03.380taking us back to the days of Prodigy, CompuServe, AOL, Genie, etc. No more self-hosted data.
01:06:08.920exactly i remember because i went through all of this right like i'm i am a early uh or i guess
01:06:16.040you call a late millennial early millennial i was born right between gen x and the millennials i'm
01:06:22.540just barely a millennial but i remember a lot of the gen x generation so i went through this cycle
01:06:27.360of you know the internet comes around it's aol it's this walled garden people don't really know
01:06:32.580what to understand it and then there's like this explosion of isps and different ways to get on
01:06:38.360the internet and all of a sudden people aren't stuck in one singular ecosystem and they start
01:06:44.100discovering the wider web and everything involved. And now we're kind of seeing this collapse back
01:06:49.400into these walled gardens, back into everyone is on these specific services and that kind of
01:06:54.300limits where they're going. Things are feeling a little less human these days, aren't they?
01:06:59.500But isn't the whole point of progress to make things more human? That's why at TD, when we
01:07:05.020design a product whether it's an app for making trading easier or monitoring your account for
01:07:09.660fraud we ask one simple question how does this help people that's how we're making banking more
01:07:16.860simple more seamless and more intuitive but most importantly that's how td is making banking more
01:07:24.160human wineland also says technological republic is clever to marking llm's ai are like parrots
01:07:32.460They repeat and remix human generated content, but they will never think yes and no.
01:07:37.360I'm, I'm less skeptical than perhaps you are.
01:07:40.500I don't know if the true, like general intelligence is coming, uh, but I do think that we're
01:07:48.040understating that when we say that, because what you've described, Sean, is how most humans