19.07.2026, The USA.
The development of new technologies, their ability to invade human nature and the human psyche, increasingly and more sharply raises the question of what man is, what his fate is, what his purpose is.
Conclusion. Beginning in No. 674
The new technocratic elite
Palantir calls on the American IT sector not just to reorient itself toward military development, but through this to create a new technocratic elite.
One of the points of the manifesto states that the United States offers the greatest opportunities for a non-hereditary elite. In the book, Karp cites figures according to which the largest American IT companies have a total capitalization of tens of trillions of dollars. This means that this enormous capital must now be converted into something greater.
“The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation,” Karp writes.
CEO and co-founder of Palantir Technologies Alex Karp
The author of the manifesto notes that the atmosphere of pluralism and inclusiveness has led to the formation in the US of “a culture in which those responsible for making important decisions often do not know what they believe in, or have no firm convictions at all.“
At the same time, the authors of the manifesto declare the low competence of civil servants caused by low salaries. In the book, Karp criticizes, in particular, Congress, where “there is a flourishing of self-promotion and theatrical performances.” He argues that people with relevant competencies go to private companies where salaries are significantly higher. Accordingly, technocrats with innovative ideas have every prospect of filling the vacuum of ideology and competence in power.
The manifesto praises the example of Elon Musk, who, contrary to public opinion, dreams of big projects, not another entertainment app or gadget. “We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves… Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.“
Recall that after Trump came to power, Musk headed the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was supposed to fight bureaucracy and cut tens of thousands of bureaucrats. Ultimately, the department ceased its work, demonstrating near-zero results, and Musk even managed to quarrel with Trump for some time. But the very approach of involving a technocrat in optimizing the bureaucratic apparatus was fully in the spirit of the Palantir manifesto.
Karp speaks of how technocrats have long been unwilling to go into politics, squandering their creative potential on enrichment. Now, however, the time has come, marked by the AI boom, and the technocrats, having developed this very AI and elevated it to the rank of almost an almighty god, will be able to take power into their own hands as new priests.
What does Epstein’s files have to do with it?
Another topic raised in the manifesto was the personal lives of the Western elite. “The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service.“
Of course, neither the manifesto nor the book on which it is based directly mentions the Epstein files. But obviously, it is precisely them that are implied in this case. After all, if it were not so, the authors would have to mention them, given how loudly the Epstein case is being discussed in the US.
Thus, albeit indirectly, the authors of the manifesto call for turning a blind eye to the perversions practiced by the elite. “The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.“
And if we consider that the main addressees of the manifesto and the book are the technocrats of Silicon Valley, it can be assumed that Palantir wants to justify specific people from the Big Tech world who have been linked to Epstein. Among them are major figures. Epstein’s files contained evidence of his contacts with Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Google founder Sergey Brin, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
Musk exchanged several messages with Epstein about visiting his island. At the same time, the head of Tesla wrote to Epstein that he was not looking for a quiet vacation and wanted to attend “the craziest party.“
Brin communicated with Epstein and visited his island. Bill Gates met Epstein multiple times at various events. Also, photos of Gates with young women were found in Epstein’s files. Gates repented of his ties with Epstein but stated that he did not participate in any unlawful activity.
In this point about the personal lives of the elite, one can see a contradiction with total surveillance of citizens. However, any contradiction is removed if one guesses that surveillance will only be conducted over ordinary citizens, but not over the elite.
But Karp is displeased not only with the invasion of the elite’s personal lives, but also with the disclosure of information about politicians’ incomes and even public discussion of statements by politicians and major entrepreneurs. After all, public figures, Karp explains, are forced to look back at public opinion, which in turn leads to “atrophying of the mind” and the inability to form one’s own worldview. “The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.“
With his reasoning, Karp, although not stating it directly, is effectively criticizing freedom of speech, which further testifies to the dictatorial nature of the “Technological Republic.“
Criticism of postmodernism and multiculturalism
The manifesto harshly criticizes the established principles of postmodernity. “We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism.”
Also, according to the authors, the policy of multiculturalism has outlived itself. “All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures … have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.“
In essence, the authors of the manifesto are saying they are ready to destroy other cultures without regret, having defined them as inferior. However, Palantir also indicates a crisis of Western ideology, or even its absence. And now, as stated earlier, the technocrats must form a new ideology.
But Karp himself does not offer a specific ideology. He says it needs to be formed, to renew American identity, to formulate a value system. But since it is to be formulated by technocrats, its content is unlikely to be humanistic in nature. Quite the opposite, the technocrats’ ideology will be developed in line with the concepts of far-right ideologues Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land with their “Dark Enlightenment.” After all, it is their dystopian constructs, not humanism, that have entered political discourse with Trump’s arrival.
Curtis Yarvin
Nick Land
A new religion
Along with pluralism, the manifesto also criticizes intolerance towards religion. “The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.“
Some might be surprised why technocrats decided to defend religion. But there is no reason to be surprised. Technocrats want to create their own religion. Neither the manifesto nor Karp’s book specifically states this. But the contours of a new religion can be traced in other publications of Thiel and his close circles.
Thiel was one of the first to promote religious views in Silicon Valley, stating in the mid-2010s that he was a Christian.
In 2024, Thiel’s venture partner and founder of Anduril, which develops autonomous military systems, Trae Stephens, began active work on spreading religion among technocrats. Together with his wife Michelle Stephens, he founded the non-profit organization ACTS 17 Collective, which aims to “proclaim Christ in the technology community.“
At the same time, the Stephens are not engaged in classical proselytism, but are trying to introduce their own concepts into Christianity that are attractive to techies. For example, they have developed their own classification of technologies, dividing them into “God-pleasing” and “not God-pleasing.” The development of military technology using AI, according to this classification, is, of course, declared God-pleasing.
That is, the essence of the Christianity promoted by Thiel, Stephens, and their followers is not to spread the true Christian religion, but to find a religious justification for their technocratic constructs.
Having reviewed all the themes of the Palantir manifesto, we can conclude that the “Technological Republic” is a project to preserve American global dominance by establishing a dictatorship of technocrats in the US.
The dictatorship will be justified by the presence of an external threat from Russia and China, which can only be countered by mobilizing the population to develop new AI-based weapons and transferring power to the developers of this life-saving AI.
The US itself, and possibly neighboring territories annexed to it, will be turned into a digital concentration camp with total surveillance.
Power will pass into the hands of a new technocratic elite — the priests of AI, with the right to any perversions and experiments on the rest of humanity.
How does the Vatican respond to the threat of technocratic dictatorship?
Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical has a very symbolic and meaningful title – Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity“). Judging by the title alone, one might think that the pope is opposing the technocrats, who no longer believe in the development of humanity and call for bowing before AI. Many world media outlets even ran headlines like “Pope criticizes AI technologies,” “Pope calls on technocrats to disarm.”
Indeed, Magnifica Humanitas contains much criticism of modern technologies. However, upon careful reading, this criticism leaves a rather strange impression. For example, stating that nuclear energy, biotechnology, computer science, the decoding of human DNA, and other technologies offer enormous opportunities for the enslavement of the human race, the pope writes: “In the past, it was largely up to the State to guide and direct innovation. Today, however, the main drivers of development are private, often transnational, parties that are endowed with resources and the capacity to intervene that surpass those of many Governments. Technological power thus takes on an unprecedented, predominantly ‘private’ aspect, which makes it even more challenging to discern, govern and direct such power toward the common good.”
And what does the pope propose to do about the fact that the new technological power, which does not recognize the state and has the means to enslave humanity, is already beginning to use these means?
He proposes to find “adequate regulatory tools capable of upholding justice and curbing the distorting effects of technological power.” That is, technological power will run wild as it pleases, and society will, to the best of its ability, limit it to reduce negative consequences. But what about the fact that the Pentagon did not want to limit Anthropic’s models so that they could kill people on the battlefield without human intervention? And, in fact, who is the subject that will limit AI, given that the masters of AI want to seize the reins of power from the hands of classical politicians? And they themselves are, frankly, not ready to limit themselves, as is vaguely but perceptibly stated in the Anthropic manifesto and much more openly in the Palantir manifesto.
In other words, the Vatican proposes to accept the fact that from now on, peoples will be ruled not by governments elected by those peoples, but by some technocrats. And to prevent the flock from “rebelling,” it speaks of the need to restrain the AI bacchanalia.
At the same time, the pope recognizes that technocrats will possess truly unprecedented power, and that it is not just about the harsh suppression of civil rights and freedoms.
“In the era of artificial intelligence,” the pope writes, “when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization…” The word “dignity” here is intended to soften the diagnosis, the real state of affairs. But the word “dehumanization” is very accurate.
The pope perfectly understands that new digital technologies and interaction with AI can very quickly change the inner structure of the personality, the human soul: “The artificial imitation of care or support can become particularly risky when it enters contexts where real relationships and emotional bonds are lacking. Here, the danger is not so much that a person may believe they are communicating with another person, but rather that they may gradually lose the very desire to form genuine human connections.”
Incidentally, in recent years, studies have emerged indicating that intense interaction with AI can lead people to psychotic states, that it destabilizes the psyche and destroys cognitive abilities, and that AI can cause genuine addiction. This is especially true for children and adolescents. To dehumanize means to destroy the very human essence in a person, to prevent it from forming.
And what, we ask again, does the pope offer in response? He proposes that those engaged in this dehumanization become more “transparent,” “accountable,” and also show “solidarity” with those they are dehumanizing and enslaving.
It is curious that almost the entire encyclical is written from the perspective of the social teaching of the Catholic Church. At the same time, it is obvious that the challenges described by the pope require a response from the Church primarily as a spiritual institution. It cannot be said that the document lacks appeals to spiritual categories. But for some reason, they have little connection to the main subject of discussion. For example, the pope writes about the need for Christians to resist evil and grow toward God. However, this evil is described very abstractly in the document and is in no way linked to the technocrats and their intentions to dominate souls.
Moreover, technocratic power, in the Vatican’s view, can bring much benefit to society. It only needs to take into account the opinion of the enslaved when making decisions. In other words, it must “disarm.”
“Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition, which today is not limited simply to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon. This entails a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance. To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern. To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity. It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefore making it human-friendly and restoring it to the plurality of human cultures and ways of life,” the pope writes.
In an era when all international pacts and rules are collapsing, when social contracts between state and society are being torn apart, it is meaningless to call for new international agreements on AI disarmament. And the pope understands this perfectly.
And is it not written in the Gospel of Matthew: “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” We understood the part about gain, but what about the soul?
There is also another desire of the pope, as herbivorous as it is unrealistic, addressed to the predators ready to tear humanity apart: he calls for slowing down the development of AI. The pontiff proposes to slow down the race for new weapons. Such a proposal looks especially strange against the backdrop of Palantir’s statement that technocrats intend to intensify this race with all their might.
But surely the pope cannot fail to understand that his calls for the technocrats to slow down and become controllable by the international community are meaningless? The fact that humanity will be enslaved not in a year, but, say, in 10 years, does not mean it will cease to be enslaved.
Again, let us recall that at the ceremony of the pope’s reading of the encyclical, Chris Olah, co-founder of Anthropic – one of the three largest IT corporations, leaders in AI development – was present. The pope, speaking of technocratic power bringing enslavement to the world, and sitting right next to him, listening attentively, a representative of that very power… An ambiguous situation, is it not?
Anthropic picks up the pope’s proposal for slowing down and on June 4, 2026, publishes a report titled When AI Builds Itself, which states that yes, they also want AI to be “safe and wise” and would not mind slowing down… provided everyone else slows down as well. Anthropic is essentially saying: “You do realize, however, that no one will slow down, and in general, how will you check whether someone has slowed down or not? So there will be no slowing down, but your proposal is important and useful, we will think about it.“
And they, the technocrats, are even willing to hold international meetings and forums where they will discuss the problem, but no one will ever be able to control them.
In the process of dehumanization, Anthropic has perhaps gone further than others. The company’s report openly states that it is achieving increasing autonomy for AI, which will improve itself, create successors, and set its own goals. Man is becoming an increasingly weak link in the system; his reaction speed is incomparable with that of AI, so he will participate less and less in decision-making.
But what is a man if he loses the right to set goals and make decisions? Peter Thiel, who is an ardent transhumanist, does not believe in man. Humanity has almost completely lost its potential for development, and only machines can save it, he believes. He pins all his hopes on AI, biotechnology, and various technical devices fused with humans. Elon Musk dreams of the same, openly calling for fusing the human brain with a supercomputer and admitting that the “main” in this tandem will be the computer.
This, by the way, directly contradicts the basic Christian concept that man is the crown of creation. Because now AI is made the crown of creation, is it not, Holy Fathers?
In his encyclical, the pope laments that man is being excluded from decision-making, and in some parts of the document he even calls on technocrats to sit down at the negotiating table. However, the overall meaning of his message is the recognition that the main power over the peoples from now on belongs to technocratic corporations, not the state and law. He called on ordinary citizens to show obedience and courage, prayer and responsibility “even when a technocratic mentality or partisan interests seem to prevail.” And then there will be good for the citizens. Toward the end, he even invites citizens to “contemplate, in the face of the Son of God, the grandeur of humanity that shines a light also on the era of AI.” What is this if not a blessing of lawlessness and technocratic power? And the Pope did not hesitate to use the image of Christ for this. No matter what the technocrats do, no matter how many children they kill – hundreds, thousands, millions, no matter how many billions of adults they drive insane, see in dehumanization the great humanity. And endure, as Christ commanded.
Only Christ suffered for the sake of humanity, while we are being asked to suffer for the vanity and pride of technocratic upstarts who have placed themselves above spiritual authorities, including the Vatican with its two-thousand-year history. And thereby trample human dignity as such, and in the case of Christianity, flagrantly devalue Christ’s sacrifice. If humanity is a dead-end branch that must be replaced by AI, then the Lord’s crucifixion was in vain. Is that not the conclusion, Brother Francis?
Such is the outcome of this trilateral dialogue. Such, apparently, was its goal and true meaning.
But is everyone ready to sign the verdict on humanity? Have all public institutions recognized that the development of AI will lead to humanity being deprived of the right to determine its own fate? Not at all. The global labor market is currently being seriously restructured, but not quite in the way the technocrats predict. While some companies report mass layoffs due to their functions now being performed by AI, other IT corporations are hiring specialists in the humanities, especially graduates of philosophy and other humanities faculties, and paying them fairly high salaries. It turns out that in the era of rapid AI development, it is humanitarians who are becoming increasingly in demand. In order to manage AI, one must possess knowledge of a more complex and comprehensive level than skills and problem-solving abilities, experts say. For example, Professor Yao Yang, Director of the China Center for Economic Research and Dean of the National School of Development at Peking University, writes:
“We need to raise education to a higher level: to teach students to form a worldview, to ask questions, to solve problems comprehensively, and to develop new methods when faced with technical and computational tasks. Therefore, in the AI era, the development of higher-level skills – understanding problems, interdisciplinary integration, and the ability to propose new methods – is a key competency that AI cannot replace.“
The development of new technologies, their ability to invade human nature and the human psyche, increasingly and more sharply raises the question of what man is, what his fate is, what his purpose is. Humanity is facing a new challenge that can not only stimulate intellectual development, but can also push toward the revelation of spiritual potential. And if humanity cannot answer this challenge, it will indeed be dehumanized.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
