‘Free Speech’ College in Austin Makes Freshmen Learn Palantir CEO’s Deep Ideas

In 2021, “intellectual dark web” OG and Israeli-government stan Bari Weiss announced the launch of her personal college. In case you don’t keep in mind, the “mental darkish internet” was a time period coined by considered one of its personal proponents (Eric Weinstein) and used to market a breed of latest pundits and influencers, like Joe Rogan, who sprang up through the first Trump administration. These pundits dared to share provocative views that, in keeping with them, nobody else had the braveness to voice—stuff like multiculturalism is bad sometimes. Weiss was considered one of them and, sure, to proceed telling the harmful truths that others wouldn’t, she launched her personal faculty. Since then, each different anti-woke doofus of distinction has launched a school, so, in that sense, she’s a trendsetter.

Weiss’s org, dubbed the College of Austin, is reported to be funded by “deep-pocketed” billionaire donors who’ve “grown disgusted” by the anti-Israel protests that roiled America’s prime universities over the previous 12 months. The varsity’s web site encourages guests to “DARE TO THINK,” and claims that it’s “devoted to the fearless pursuit of fact.”

What’s the faculty daring children to consider nowadays? It’s unclear whether or not it’s daring them to think about Israel and what it’s been doing to Gaza over the previous two years. However one factor’s for positive: it’s positively been encouraging them to consider the beliefs of a guy who loves Israel, and who additionally occurs to run a really highly effective protection contractor that likes to work for the Israeli government.

This week, we received just a little window into what the fortunate college students at Weiss’s bizarre faculty are studying. The varsity tweeted out a brief snippet about what its freshman class has been as much as:

After a 14-hour day that started with an early morning hike and ended with a 7-8:30 p.m. seminar, freshmen had been divided into debate groups and assigned 40 pages of studying to finish in a single day, earlier than their 7 a.m. breakfast. They learn Alexander Karp’s imaginative and prescient for a technological republic, alongside Plato’s warning concerning the decay of regimes. The debates had been so intense that college students requested to skip lunch to maintain going.

The publish added that the “profitable staff” would “earn front-row seats at UATX’s upcoming @PalantirTech panel,” as a result of apparently that’s a factor.

To be clear, the publish is referring to Alex Karp’s e book, The Technological Republic: Laborious Energy, Smooth Perception, and the Way forward for the West, a treatise arguing that Silicon Valley must get up and get in on growing higher battle machines for the U.S. authorities, as if that wasn’t already occurring at a speedy tempo. Karp, the billionaire CEO of Palantir, has stated quite a lot of bizarre stuff through the years (he recently bragged about his firm killing folks, as an example), and his firm has each aided the Trump administration’s deportation efforts and the Israeli authorities’s battle effort. The latter represents a “strategic partnership” with Israel, the phrases of that are, like most of Palantir’s work, not very nicely understood by the general public. Suffice it to say, having the chief of a protection contractor lauded as a premier mental just isn’t the form of educational expertise you’re going to get at most U.S. universities. Is Karp an mental? That’s within the eye of the beholder. From the surface, Karp’s tome that Weiss is having her college students learn actually simply appears like a rhetorical protection of the trade he works in, however you already know, I haven’t learn it.

In its evaluate, The Economist referred to as The Technological Republic “the best- or worst-timed e book in historical past,” whereas mentioning that Google has lately reversed its ban on AI for navy use, tech CEOs are lining as much as appease Donald Trump, and tech-defense shares are booming. The Economist, which nobody would confuse with a left-wing outlet, writes:

It’s exhausting to say whether or not Mr Karp’s timing is sensible or horrible. His e book has arrived simply as most of the issues he argues for have come true, however in surprising methods—like a fairy story wherein the granting of a want seems to have surprising drawbacks. The argument is crammed out with a potted historical past of America’s tech trade, quotes from luminaries, a good quantity of score-settling and quixotic excursions into what managers can study from honeybees and improvisational theatre. The e book’s mental eclecticism is clearly modelled on that of Yuval Noah Harari, Silicon Valley’s favorite historian. However “The Technological Republic” is far much less compelling. Mr Karp has received what he wished for, however he could not like the result.

So, sure, wow. Some fortunate youngsters are attending to debate the beliefs of one of many world’s creepiest company executives—what a option to get an schooling. There are such a lot of different billionaires, MAGA figures, and warlords that might function mental beacons for the subsequent technology of “daring” and open minds. The poetry of Jeff Bezos, maybe? Or perhaps the philosophical tractates of Erik Prince? Peter Thiel’s comparative literature suggestions? The Cinema of Steve Bannon? Christ, the chances are limitless.

Karp is a notable supporter of UATX. Joe Lonsdale, the co-founder of Palantir, is also a co-founder of the school.

For the file, the web appears to have registered how ridiculous this complete factor sounds and acted accordingly. “Indistinguishable from parody,” one X user posted. One other offered: “So that you abuse your college students, and that is one thing you suppose it’s best to publish about?”

Weiss, regardless of by no means having stated something all that attention-grabbing, appears to be on the street to the type of institutional success that almost all of her friends solely ever dream of. A recent report from Puck Information claimed that Paramount is contemplating shopping for Weiss’s weblog, The Free Press, for someplace between $100-$200 million. On the identical time, the report claimed that Weiss is likely to be put in in a outstanding place at CBS. I assume, nowadays, the street to success is paved with anti-woke punditry. Go determine.