The Technological Republic: A Review

I decided to read The Technological Republic by Palantir CEO Alex Karp for a few reasons:

1) I was a Palantir shareholder until about about a month ago

2) Karp's promotion of the book on CNBC made me think it might be filled with spicy takes

3) With the tech right's political prominence taking center stage as of late, this book seemed like a very relevant read that would perhaps MAYBE shed some light on the whirlwind we're experiencing in this administration.

The Technological Republic also happens to be the second book that Ive read originating from the Thielosphere, after Zero to One which was written by Thiel himself. Unlike The Technological Republic, Zero to One hardly advances any agenda and primarily focuses on identifying the shared characteristics of the most game-changing Silicon Valley startups that likely contributed to their success.

As far as the spiciness of the book goes, Id say its about a medium. I would expect someone fervently left of center to be at least slightly uncomfortable with it, but a neocon or older conservative democrat would probably not find the book super controversial. To me, it wasn't quite as biting of a polemic as the fervor in which Karp promoted his book in interviews made it sound like.

The Technological Republic reads about equal parts a manifesto and a sales pitch for Palantir in long-form for military and conservative-leaning government officials. The main points of the book in a nutshell are the following:

• Americans and the West as a whole have over time taken their postwar peace for granted, and alongside the influence of postwar intellectual movements of the 60s and onward this has lead to a lack of devotion of Westerners to a greater, national project. Our collective meaning we strive for has been reduced to a pursuit of a hollow egalitarianism and inclusion.

• America needs to develop killer AI to defend itself because it's inevitable that other nations will too.

• Big Tech should be married more closely to the government and pursue more projects in line with the collective good of the nation rather than solely the whims of the market. Silicon Valley is disproportionately focused on creating products that fulfill alleviating inconveniences and entertainment instead of technologies that serve the state and a general collective good, but may entail higher risk.

• The American government needs to adopt more of a consequentialist and pragmatic mindset. We've elevated bureaucratic piety, often selectively enforced, at the expense of being results-minded.

• A non-blood and soil based civic nationalism of sorts in which humans are tethered through a national purpose and shared culture is the best way to maintain large scale human community, otherwise it relies purely on the market to bind it together.

One can say that The Technological Republic is the wrong book at the wrong time, given the reckless hacking away at our government by the Trump Admin and DOGE, a Western identity under threat by Trump's behavior towards our allies in Europe and the remainder of North America, and a further increasing divisiveness at odds with creating the unifying national ideals that Karp advocates. And yet, Karp and Palantir are fully standing behind DOGE's actions and hedging their bets on the Trump Admin. Only time will tell, amidst all the confusion and upheaval, the ultimate fate of the technological republic that Karp envisions.

On the other-hand, perhaps the impending return of a multipolar world irrespective of Trump makes the need for a national identity and vision ultimately unavoidable and the dreams of libertarian globalism may have to be once again stashed for some time.

I do wish the book had a bit more depth and substance to a number of its arguments put forth, many of which rely on a small few cherry-picked examples for justification that I feel like Ive already heard repeatedly thrown around by the online tech right. For example, Karp makes use of Singapore as the model for civic nationalism, which alongside Dubai is parroted as an idealized society by libertarians and the broader tech right. I'm skeptical that such a model would work in the case of the US, which had streaks of nationalism without the need for an authoritarian dictator. I also find the degree to which Karp claims Silicon Valley is divorced from national interests a bit exaggerated and anyone who knows the workings of the valley knows that the biggest driver of profits usually don't come in via B2C, which doesnt line up well with Karp's assertion that Silicon valley has been reduced to addressing consumer inconveniences and entertainment.

One thing I haven't yet had a chance to do a deeper dive on is how Karp's intellectual origins tie into his vision. Karp was once a doctoral student under Jurgen Habermas, one of the most premier left-liberal thinkers in Europe, but later switched advisors over a disagreement. I personally don't know much about Habermas except for seeing his name dropped here and there by leftists. However, the book only mentions him once, alluding to his view that when governments fail to fulfill their promises, it can invoke a "crisis of legitimacy".

The bottom line: While it may not be among the most enlightening of books I've read, The Technological Republic is worth reading when it comes to examining the aims of the biggest players of the tech right.