987 words organized in 22 points. These are the numbers of the text published by Palantir in a long post written by X, which went viral and sparked quite a bit of controversy. Dubbed by the media as the “Palantir manifesto”, this post has attracted tens of millions of views and is a summary of the ideas of Palantir CEO, Alex Karp, expressed in a book – The Technological Republic – published in 2025 and co-written with Nicholas Zamiska.
In these theses we find a precise vision of the role of technology in contemporary geopolitics: according to Karp, the future of Western democracies would depend on their ability to integrate technological innovation and military power, i.e. what in the strategic field is called “hard power”, coercive power based on brute force, both from an economic and military point of view. The document also argues that not all cultures produce the same historical outcomes and that some are more “functional” than others, a claim that has fueled much criticism.
Alongside this, he proposes a return to forms of compulsory military service and imagines a new phase of global deterrence no longer based on nuclear weapons, but on artificial intelligence. These positions are controversial because they come from a company that is not marginal: Palantir is deeply integrated into the state, healthcare and military systems of several Western countries. For this reason, analyzing the manifesto, one has the impression of observing an ideology that could, at least potentially, concretely influence public policies, security and data management.
What Palantir is and what it does
To understand the scope of the debate we need to clarify what Palantir does. To put it simply, the company develops software platforms capable of integrating large quantities of heterogeneous data, that is, data coming from different and often incompatible sources. Employees themselves describe this work as a sort of data “plumbing”: systems that connect separate archives to enable rapid analysis and operational decisions. This type of technology is particularly useful in complex contexts such as healthcare, security and national defense.
It is precisely here that the first tensions emerge. In the UK, for example, Palantir has secured significant contracts with the public healthcare system, the Ministry of Defense and several police forces. One of the most relevant projects is the creation of a data platform for the national health service, the NHS (National Health Service), with the aim of improving diagnosis, resource management and intervention planning. Some experts say the company is uniquely suited to solving problems that have accumulated over decades of healthcare data fragmentation. However, medical organizations and activist groups fear that access to sensitive information could have significant ethical and political implications.
The issue becomes further complicated when we consider the military sector. Palantir is a key supplier to governments and alliances such as NATO and the United States, and its technologies are also used in conflict scenarios and in the sequence of operations leading from the identification of a target to its neutralization. Integrating data into this chain means making operational decisions faster and more precise. Karp’s manifesto fits precisely into this logic, arguing that democracies must accelerate the development of advanced military technologies in order not to lose strategic advantage.
The most controversial points: the attack on pluralism
Let’s now move on to some of the most controversial points of Palantir’s manifesto. One of the most discussed is point 12 and concerns the idea that nuclear deterrence – that is, the balance based on the mutual threat of atomic destruction – is giving way to a deterrence based on artificial intelligence. In practice, those who develop more advanced autonomous systems would have a decisive advantage. Karp says the issue is not whether these weapons will be created, but who will control them. This position reflects a realistic approach in international relations, where competition between states is seen as inevitable.
At the same time, the manifesto introduces more explicit ideological elements. Karp criticizes what he calls “empty pluralism”, that is, the idea that all cultures are equivalent without analyzing their concrete results. And then he argues that the West would have avoided defining its own cultural identity due to excessive inclusiveness. These statements, present in point 22, have been interpreted by many as a justification of cultural hierarchies, arousing strong reactions in the academic and political world.
No less relevant is the proposal (present in point 6) of a universal national service. In this context, it means that every citizen should contribute directly to the defense or functioning of the state. In the United States, where Palantir has billion-dollar military contracts, this idea has been criticized because it could strengthen the link between the technology sector and the military.
If you wish to read these and all the other points of the manifesto in full, we leave you post X which contains all 22 of them.
