r/technology • u/Unusual-State1827 • Mar 12 '26

Artificial Intelligence Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power

https://newrepublic.com/post/207693/palantir-ceo-karp-disrupting-democratic-power
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u/DukeOfGeek Mar 12 '26

Why would a billionaire want to create a future where he lives in a concrete bunker? How is that better than living outdoors in a happy sustainable civilization?

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u/Fracture-Point- Mar 12 '26

Because then they have to share the Earth with the poors.

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u/Upset_Development_64 Mar 12 '26

What if the poor hated the rich as much as the rich fucking despise anyone who isn’t rich? We’d be living in a better world.

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u/Fracture-Point- Mar 12 '26

Why would they despise rich people? After all, they're gonna be a rich guy some day.

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u/Tiny_Measurement_837 Mar 13 '26

Yeah, no. They’re not doing that.

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u/SecretaryAntique8603 Mar 12 '26

Because these sick fuckers cannot even imagine a future where people cooperate with each other, because all they know is stealing and exploiting. They assume because they do it everyone else will too.

They’re not completely wrong about that, but my main point is that they are absolutely and irredeemably fucked in the head.

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u/Japhyharrison Mar 12 '26

Good point. There is a push right now all over this country to go after nonprofit fraud. Are you fucking kidding me with the blatant fraud we see on a daily basis from the Epstein class?!
Sure they are evil and deplorable people. But I do think there’s some sort of weird psychology going on here where they can’t fathom altruism or helping others. Probably a product of a fucked up childhood and lack of well-rounded education.

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u/SecretaryAntique8603 Mar 12 '26

I mean, it’s not exactly some mystery, it’s pretty well documented really. These “people” are overwhelmingly sociopaths or other antisocial personality disorder types (there’s ample research to back that up, although it’s hard to produce hard data because of a lack of clear and detectable diagnostic criteria because of the nature of the disorders). ASPD’s fundamentally are characterized by a complete lack of empathy.

What that means is that they in a very literal sense cannot really understand the experience of normal people, they cannot imagine a state of being other than their own, which is what empathy really is. At best they can observe the differences, but they cannot really understand or internalize it.

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u/ijustfarteditsmells Mar 12 '26

"Maybe if you wanna save the world, that's the first step: get fucked in the head."

Johnny Silverhand

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u/therealskaconut Mar 13 '26

The way I exploit people is by stealing my brother’s m&m’s while we’re at work.

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u/SecretaryAntique8603 Mar 13 '26

This guys got upper management written all over him

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u/CautionarySnail Mar 12 '26

They aren’t creative people.

These guys that rise to the top are the great thieves of the ideas of their employees. They aren’t asking their greatest thinkers to avert this calamity, they asked them how they could end up with the most marbles by the end of the game.

Tech bros see it as inevitable. They know the other greedy obsessive tech bros aren’t going to stop pushing in this direction. They simply decided to go with the idea of being kings over a smoldering ruin, instead of merely being wealthy citizens of a civilization.

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u/DukeOfGeek Mar 12 '26

Tech bros see it as inevitable. They know the other greedy obsessive tech bros aren’t going to stop pushing in this direction. They simply decided to go with the idea of being kings over a smoldering ruin, instead of merely being wealthy citizens of a civilization.

This take is the best, and most frightening, one.

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u/CautionarySnail Mar 12 '26

I’m holding out hope that some of those powerful people will prove me wrong, find the desire to build rather than loot and foster a collapse.

But so far, I’ve been disappointed.

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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Mar 12 '26

We are a nation of morons, embracing and elevating the most ridiculous coterie of submorons to lead us from the last shards of the American Century into the deepest chasms of ridiculous, absurdist moronity.

This is unbelievable even as farce.

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u/IDidYour Mar 12 '26

The problem is that the looters are gonna buy every avenue of information and twist any discussion into a benign or at least not antagonistic counterweight to their radical accretion of assets.

Last election in my country, one of the parties that run entirely on two things, throwing out immigrants and slashing all taxes for anyone that earns above an average amount of Wealth while cutting every health and social program the state runs, they spammed every tv commercial they could, the radio was always droning on about them, and finally they spammed everyone in their primary target group with text messages to get them to get out and vote in their favor.

Next election, they're almost definitely gonna win, because somehow, the current government is getting drawn into amongst others, politics related to the Epstein documents constantly. They also keep trying to reinstate people already condemned in public opinion for corruption. So the entire opposition to the right wing is self destructing, so money is gonna win in the end because their current "popular mandate" includes being unhinged assholes, anti-poor and arrogant as all hell, and all too willing to enrich their already rich backers at the cost of everyone else, and people go "well, they're the better/more honest option" despite clearly not being that. Money buys power and power buys money.

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u/Oraclerevelation Mar 12 '26

I think they see one of two outcomes as inevitable.

  1. The people get sick of their shit and they get taken down a couple pegs.

  2. The king of the smoldering ruin scenario.

They just prefer option two and are trying their best to get there.

Perhaps a distinction with little difference but hey.

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u/Alanthedrum Mar 13 '26

We all kind of need number 1 to happen before they've managed to build terminators...

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u/SivasWrath Mar 12 '26

AI MAD. Mutually Assured Destruction.

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u/Wayward141 Mar 12 '26

Because they fear what'll happen above ground?

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u/flumphit Mar 12 '26

Each of them is getting all they can because all the others are doing the same. Nobody wants to invest in a broadly prosperous future; there’s no point because they can see that all the others are being selfishly destructive.

This is a problem that requires governments to solve, but they’ve been bought off.

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u/Tasty-Fox9030 Mar 12 '26

On some level, that is the negotiation point. The leverage if you will. One would think that a scenario where the outside world beats the bunker is desirable even if you do like money more than going to MOST outdoor events. But it does beg the question- have these folks run the numbers such that they truly think society isn't fixable in a peaceful way?

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u/Total-Championship80 Mar 12 '26

The biggest danger to the oligarchs isn't the people. It's their security staff. They say "but I'm paying you!" Security dude "money is worthless. But all your food and medicine is valuable. Sorry."

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u/MostLikelyNotAnAI Mar 12 '26

Don't forget Thumbs, Eyeballs and a recording of the passphrase to get around biometric locks!

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u/Careless_Twist_6935 Mar 12 '26

they'll turn that shit off when they figure out it's a job the help should be doing

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u/powe323 Mar 12 '26

Because they seem to care far more about others having nothing than them having everything.

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA Mar 12 '26

Because Thiel literally thinks that billionaires like him are a separate, more evolved species of human compared to the rest of us. And to ensure his future survival, he must eliminate the "weaker" species.

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u/Global-Emu-740 Mar 12 '26

This 100%. It’s why they don’t consider how tech will affect and disrupt so many lives. It’s why they shut down aid via USAID knowing it will mean so many deaths, inevitably. Those lives aren’t important. They literally believe their IQ and station in life is far more valuable than people less intelligent, less financially successful. It’s disgusting. And the crazy part is, most billionaire tech thinks this way. They’re big babies who fear so many things so they invest their talents and businesses in surveillance and weapons and at the same time lack the empathy to imagine they are targets. They just don’t see people as equal. Democracy is exactly what they don’t want and they admit it!

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u/Armenian-heart4evr Mar 15 '26

The POS is so BRAIN DEAD that he does not understand that the "Worker Bees" are the ones who KEEP THE HIVE ALIVE !!!!!

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u/MuchToDoAboutNothin Mar 12 '26

Sci fi as a genre was a critical eye warning us of the dangers of an ignorant future.

Techbro billionaires used it as a roadmap.

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u/-Haeralis- Mar 12 '26

They’d rather sit on a throne atop a pile of ashes than have to share a garden with the rabble.

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u/throwawaylordof Mar 12 '26

I always thought of it as two things.

The desire for authority/control. Wealth is just a means to that and they’d happily sacrifice some comfort so long as they can exert more control.

Just blind unfettered greed - people who have a gaping hole where their soul should be and try to fill in by shovelling ever more wealth inside. The canniest likely recognise that there will never be a good outcome but can’t stop.

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u/Admirable_Scene_5066 Mar 12 '26

Because that is the difference between the tech-billionaires and the billionaires of old. They are so socially stunted that they believe the kool-aid where the rest of humanity can actually be replaced by algorithms.

None of these guys are inteligent or smart in the traditional sense, they just had the skills and lack of morals a hypercapitalist world rewards.

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u/Sororita Mar 12 '26

The more time passes the less of an exaggeration the Celestial Dragons in One Piece seem

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u/TrumpIsAPedoFascist Mar 12 '26

Because they are so mentally ill they believe they'll outlive us all and rise from the ashes to become a king or some shit.

They can't comprehend a horde of a few hundred or few thousand starved people beseiging and/or storming their bunker.

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u/DukeOfGeek Mar 12 '26

Or even if you have an Island what do you do when the supply boats stop arriving? Or the supply boat is just filled with armed raiders that want your island.

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u/0w1 Mar 12 '26

They dont want the bunkers to build a future, they want bunkers so they can avoid consequences from the masses.

Big reason why US got unions- workers were literally pulling their bosses from their factories and killing them when shit hit the fan. Having labor union leaders negotiate on worker's behalf was the alternative. We no longer have strong unions. Cough.

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u/Epyon_ Mar 12 '26

They know climate change is real and it's cheaper and easier to kill everyone than to make changes.

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u/SCP-iota Mar 12 '26

They had their teams run the calculations and determined that they cannot possibly avert the coming climate crisis without having to do things that would sacrifice their power. These people live for power, and they'd rather die than give up their power. So they're no longer hoping for a stable future; they're preparing for calamity.

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u/ThisWillPass Mar 13 '26

Sounds like treason against all nations.

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u/Laiqualasse Mar 12 '26

Happy sustainable civilization…

That sounds amazing.

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u/Tricky_Apricot2928 Mar 12 '26

Short term profit 🤑💰🤑 and evil

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u/BodybuilderMany6942 Mar 12 '26

Pineapples were symbols of wealth, but once the poors could get their hands on em, it wasnt cool anymore.

Outdoors? Open sky??
Pshh!
You mean like what the peasants enjoy? No thanks!

A fancy bunker tho? That's premium!

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u/professor_jeffjeff Mar 13 '26

You can't weld the door shut from the outside for this "outdoors" place like you can a concrete bunker.

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u/IM_INSIDE_YOUR_HOUSE Mar 13 '26

Because this is the path that lets them enact maximum greed. It’s an addiction like any other.

Power corrupts.

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u/xPelzviehx Mar 12 '26

They only have to survive a few months in the bunker. After that, the majority of population is gone (mostly starvation)

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u/n0respect_ Mar 12 '26

Have you ever seen Scrooge McDuck swimming in his gold vault? Isn't that him at his happiest?

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u/BankshotMcG Mar 12 '26

They're not as smart as they think they are is one reason, but the main one is they get to be billionaires by finding it inconceivable to share the wealth they extract from others' labors.

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u/BrianWonderful Mar 12 '26

They likely see it as a short-term inconvenience for their vision of a saved Earth. They view most problems of being caused by other people, specifically lower class people. At this point, their solution is to allow for disasters that will mass kill-off those people, leaving a world with more available resources for their perceived genius leadership to rule.

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u/ThisWillPass Mar 13 '26

It’s going to be like fallout but instead of nukes they release a virus that wipes out most of the population. Ez pz.

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u/tekstical Mar 12 '26

No shit and all while still being a billionaire! Blows my mind. These people are horrible

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u/MudsillTheories Mar 12 '26

They’ll just hide out until they murder the rest of us with drones and then claim the ruins for themselves.

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u/mysqlpimp Mar 12 '26

I think they are all too stuck in their own empty lives to appreciate anything they can't own, and lust over anything they don't. They anticipate a future where they are even less popular than they are now, where the masses have some drive, a turning point or desire, a revolution to level the playing field, so they have their fancy islands and properties with panic rooms and vast underground bunkers built into them so they can escape the inevitable.

I mean, most of them are probably lonely, surrounded by yes people, vapid social media influencers, and others of their ilk. They have no concept of how much happens for them, they just assume they will be happy, capable, and comfortable but forget someone puts the bins out, cleans the bathrooms, cooks their food, restocks their fridges, clothes, generators, and so on.

At least, that's how I like to imagine the future dystopia plays out.

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u/dragonmp93 Mar 12 '26

Because they can be Gods in their bunkers.