My Review of Alexander Karp's and Nicholas Zamiska's " The Technological Republic: Hard Power......"

Technology in Service of the Republic

Alexander Karp, the CEO of the artificial intelligence data analytics firm Palantir and his head of corporate affairs, Nicholas Zamiska have written a scathing attack on the consumerism of Silicon Valley and a plea to use American technology to defend our country. They view the current ethos of Silicon Valley as hostile to government and society, especially to using technology in national defense. This is the complete opposite of the World War II ethos of science adviser Vannevar Bush and Robert Oppenheimer of Manhattan Project fame. At that time and into the 1950’s and early 1960’s technology was harnessed in defense of the nation. In contrast the valley’s current avatars are more interested in shopping apps. They forget that Silicon Valley got jump started by the need for integrated circuits to support the ICBM programs.

Karp and his colleagues, on the other hand, are more interested in protecting our troops from IED’s and for detecting terror threats in advance. To them if a marine needs a better rifle, the Pentagon should order it. Similarly if the a marine needs better software, the Pentagon should order it. 

Karp blames the cultural relativism of the 1970’s on for the valley’s distaste for America. By that the authors mean the valley leadership believe that our culture is not inherently superior to other cultures. Hence, it is not worth fighting for, yet they live under a defense umbrella that enables them to create great wealth. As a result, you can read Karp and Zamiska as a call to arms for Silicon Valley to utilize its unique talents to defend our Republic.

At times the book gets very pedantic. It seems that Karp has read every German philosopher in the original German. That slows down the read, but it should not deter anyone from getting the fundamental message of this very important book.