#Alex #Karp is a multi-billionaire who serves as the CEO of #Palantir,
a controversial software company that has been much more willing than some others in Silicon Valley to provide technology to Western governments for military and policing applications.

The company has been described as
“the West’s AI arms dealer”
and criticized for its work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Israel Defense Forces.

Unlike his more famous Palantir co-founder #Peter #Thiel,
a reactionary MAGA supporter,
Karp describes himself as a socialist

(he, like Elon Musk, seems to have some idiosyncratic personal definition in mind that has nothing in common with the socialist tradition).

Some comments that Karp recently made at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute about why Democrats lost were widely recirculated online.

#Elon #Musk described the clip of Karp speaking as “based”
and it racked up millions of views.

It’s framed as a critique of woke ideology,
but it is in fact mostly an argument about U.S. foreign policy and as such is a very useful way to examine some common American myths that are used to justify what I consider to be an incredibly dangerous set of policies.

Karp argues, essentially, for a philosophy that is often called (by its advocates) "peace through strength".

He says that America needs to frighten its enemies, and that while the “Berkeley faculty” do not understand this, the Real Americans do, and thus an agenda that wins popular support will focus on keeping people safe against external threats.

"Scare the enemy shitless" seems to be Point 1 of Karp’s thinking about foreign policy,

Point 2 (the only other point) being, We In The West Are Better Than Other People, Who Are Bad And Want To Destroy Us.

“We have a consistently pro-Western view that the West has a superior way of living and organizing itself, especially if we live up to our aspirations,” Karp said.

This is how he justifies his company’s firm support of Israel, a stance that has caused some Palantir employees to quit as Israel has wiped out more and more of Gaza over the last year:
“From my perspective, it’s not just about Israel… It’s like, ‘Do you believe in the West? Do you believe the West has created a superior way of living?’”

I haven’t found Karp saying anything more sophisticated about foreign policy than these two talking points,*
namely that the West is good and must be protected from the bad people,
and that the way to do that is through threatening violence against not just those who hurt us, but also everyone from their “friends” to their “mistress.”

Taken together, I think these add up to a highly irrational worldview that,
if it is held by powerful people who may shape the future of U.S. foreign policy,
endangers the entire future of human civilization. https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-fables-of-weapons-dealers