Comment by timoth3y
2 days ago
Palantir is clearly a mind-boggling on-the-nose, but terrible name to those familiar with the book.
The Palantiri consistently provided their users technically accurate intelligence that lead to disastrous strategic decisions.
Denethor committed suicide out of despair, after a palantir showed him the black fleet approaching, but he did not know that it was actually Aragorn who had captured the fleet and was coming with reinforcements.
We don't know specifically how the palantir deceived Saruman, but it's pretty clear it was one of the key factors in his corruption and downfall.
And even Sauron himself was misled in this way! The palantir showed him, correctly, that a hobbit and Aragorn were at Helm's Deep, and he concluded that Aragorn had the ring. So he prematurely moved his armies out of Mordor and left the plains and Mt Doom unguarded, which permitted the destruction of the ring.
I honestly can't think of a worse name for a company that provides intel for strategic decision making.
Saruman was already rotted by lust for the ring when he began to use the Palantir and then came into the presence of a dominating and corrupting will.
So yeah... plenty of real world versions of that.
Do you have a citation for that? I read the books a long time ago, but I was sure that he was corrupted through the palantir
I've pointed this out before, but there's an interview clip of Alex Karp saying that Trump won the election in a landslide[0].
If you look at the actual numbers, no one, with any idea of mathematics or statistics or even just basic analysis skills, would call Trump's election victory a landslide.
It calls into question the fundamental raisin d'etre of Palantir. It makes Palantir look like a pure propaganda tool.
Therefore, also entirely useless for strategic decision making.
Interesting analysis of Palantir and Alex Karp:
Part 1, Palantir: https://youtu.be/PpEg0XIeFtA
Part 2, Alex Karp: https://youtu.be/6YWFDhOps6I
[0]https://youtu.be/6YWFDhOps6I&t=1119s
It's _raison_, but "raisin d'être" would make an excellent name for a haute cuisine dessert.
Well you could just say ”purpose” rather than ”reason of existence” in French. Some expression of course only exist in French - about 70% of English language - but the purpose of this francoism I never quite understood.
And yes, I’m fully aware I am annoying.
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Thanks, damn.
I usually look up that phrase so I can copy and paste it with the proper accents (and, uh, spelling).
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... or a minor work by Sartre
I would argue that it just shows Karp understands that the US is transitioning to a hybrid regime.
Alex Karp's transformation from progressive to MAGA is fascinating; more so knowing that his father was jewish and his mother was black.
I can understand a zeal to "protect the country", but FFS, to be the brains of the secret police is a bit much.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/opinion/alex-karp-palanti...
It’s easy to explain once you realize the real ideology of these people is money. Even if they have other internal beliefs they’ll get buried under the desire to make more money.
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Some Jews in Germany thought that the EK medal from WW1 would safe them from the Nazis.
Might be a hint that a lot of tech/SV signalling was just "woke capitalism" the whole time, and they dropped the pretense the moment it became politically advantageous.
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I don’t know why we keep platforming these people. Go interview a normal person with normal thoughts. Karp is one of the most vile, insensitive, and immoral people in charge of anything tech. Just ignore him and his antics.
Well, Aragorn used the information he got from the Palantir of Orthanc to make a correct and very important strategic decision, to take the Paths of the Dead so that he could stop the Corsairs in time to save Minas Tirith.
So the lesson is that you have to use the intel you get wisely, or else very bad things will happen. I'm not sure if that makes the name any better for the tool it's applied to, though.
The actual lesson was that you need to be the trueborn king who can claim the palantiri by birthright if you want to use them for good. Even then, it requires great effort. Bad things will happen if anyone else tries to use the palantiri, no matter how great and powerful they are.
> The actual lesson was that you need to be the trueborn king who can claim the palantiri by birthright if you want to use them for good.
Not really. Denethor was the trueborn steward, whose ancestor had been officially appointed by the King, and though it isn't mentioned in the Lord of the Rings, the essay on the Palantiri in Unfinished Tales says that stewards were often deputized to use the Palantiri. So Denethor had the right to use the Palantir of Minas Tirith. But he didn't have the wisdom to realize that Sauron was manipulating what he saw.
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So .. who is the trueborn king today?
I believe there is no shortage of aspirants.
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Its cellphones ? They show the rulers accurate predictions of human behaviour after the the fall of the towers proofed that the left only had enbarassing cofabulations to explain behaviour at scale. Thats the most valuable thing you can gain out of social network sensor data.
> I honestly can't think of a worse name for a company that provides intel for strategic decision making.
Well their motto is basically "Be Evil and Get Rich" so I think the name fits.
Peter Thiel routinely defends Mordor - "they had technology! The rest of the world was just agricultural luddites."
>I honestly can't think of a worse name for a company that provides intel for strategic decision making.
Yet the choice is very effective at telling those with eyes to see that the one who chose the name possesses only a surface-level understanding of what appears to be his favorite piece of literature.
Or he's broadcasting his intention to destroy world governments and institute a new global order under technocratic control. He's banking on a US General not understanding the deeper lore behind of the name.
He literally considers Saruman the good guy, Mordor the good place, and Gandalf the bad guy (holding back technological progress)
Discussed previously e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45901389
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In folklore, supernatural monsters are often compelled to show their true selves in non-obvious ways.
The man seems to have severe difficulty interpreting fiction. See: his antichrist ramblings (sorry, "lectures").
As though the ego of Peter Thiel has any grounding in reality or ironic metaphor
someone will name their company Ashnazg, probably an AI company
Already happened. Ashnazg Enterprises LLC https://ashnazg.com
No AI though, just fully stacked...
I can think of a worse name: Peter Thiel. Oh wait I'm confused. That's a better name for this.