by
Adrian Daub
42
Dominance
0
terms
2
notes
44
This doesn't mean it's wrong to warn people about Palantir. But our warning shouldn't focus on what the company's tech can do. Our warning should co-cern the fact that that tech is deployed at all. It simply doesn't matter whether Palantir's newtangled systems are more scarily omniscient than the old ones.
If the people to whom this technology is applied include undocumented immigrants in the US or Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories, then it is almost immaterial whether the algorithm picks out the "right" people. Those in power have already decided that there are essentially no "wrong" targets in these groups. Palantir is necropolitics, pure and simple. The data sets are merely window dressing. It's not the fact that the data miner might miscategorize someone that makes an individual a victim of Palantir, but rather the fact that Palantir is categorizing them at all.
This doesn't mean it's wrong to warn people about Palantir. But our warning shouldn't focus on what the company's tech can do. Our warning should co-cern the fact that that tech is deployed at all. It simply doesn't matter whether Palantir's newtangled systems are more scarily omniscient than the old ones.
If the people to whom this technology is applied include undocumented immigrants in the US or Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories, then it is almost immaterial whether the algorithm picks out the "right" people. Those in power have already decided that there are essentially no "wrong" targets in these groups. Palantir is necropolitics, pure and simple. The data sets are merely window dressing. It's not the fact that the data miner might miscategorize someone that makes an individual a victim of Palantir, but rather the fact that Palantir is categorizing them at all.
51
Certainly, this ready identification with villains, often totalitarian villains, is already plenty creepy by itself-and also explains the large personal and ideological overlap with an administration dominated by online Nazis, who often like to draw inspiration from cinematic heavies. But there is also a fundamental poverty at the heart of an ideology that gets excited about fictional dystopias, villains, and totalitarianism. Not because those are evil, but because they're usually so thinly drawn. The fact that we always see these cinematic villains dominating, but rarely governing, likely strengthens their suitability as a source of inspiration rather than weaken it. We are fairly well informed about Galactic Empire's supply of fully operational battle stations in Star Wars. We know less about how the Empire handles wage negotiations or pensions.
But identification with dystopia is only one aspect of this now well-established language game among tech companies. The other is disidentification with power. One is a witness to one's own power rather than wielding it. One experiences power as an aesthetic effect in two senses—it doesn't feel entirely real, even when it is deadly real to those upon whom it is exercised. And it is, like sensation in Kant's transcendental aesthetic, something that is given rather than made in its precise parameters. Power is something that happens to the powerful.
Certainly, this ready identification with villains, often totalitarian villains, is already plenty creepy by itself-and also explains the large personal and ideological overlap with an administration dominated by online Nazis, who often like to draw inspiration from cinematic heavies. But there is also a fundamental poverty at the heart of an ideology that gets excited about fictional dystopias, villains, and totalitarianism. Not because those are evil, but because they're usually so thinly drawn. The fact that we always see these cinematic villains dominating, but rarely governing, likely strengthens their suitability as a source of inspiration rather than weaken it. We are fairly well informed about Galactic Empire's supply of fully operational battle stations in Star Wars. We know less about how the Empire handles wage negotiations or pensions.
But identification with dystopia is only one aspect of this now well-established language game among tech companies. The other is disidentification with power. One is a witness to one's own power rather than wielding it. One experiences power as an aesthetic effect in two senses—it doesn't feel entirely real, even when it is deadly real to those upon whom it is exercised. And it is, like sensation in Kant's transcendental aesthetic, something that is given rather than made in its precise parameters. Power is something that happens to the powerful.