What would J.R.R. Tolkien think of Palantir?

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Peter Thiel and Alex Karp’s Palantir Technologies is one of the most powerful and mysterious tech companies in Silicon Valley. Its namesake is also one of the most powerful and mysterious magical objects in the lore of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy series The Lord of the Rings. The palantiri of The Lord of the Rings are sort of like crystal balls or “seeing stones” that allow their users to communicate across vast distances, see events from afar, and sometimes even peer into the future. But just about everybody who tries to use a palantir in The Lord of the Rings is deceived by it, acting on the visions they’re receiving without the greater context or wisdom of what’s behind them. So why would the people behind Palantir want to name the company and build its culture around these powerful yet easily corruptible magical objects? J.R.R. Tolkien was famously anti-tech and anti-government, expressing his fears of what would happen when those two forces combined through his fantasy works and his letters to friends, family, and colleagues. If he were alive in the age of Palantir, he might not be thrilled that a tech company with lucrative government contracts is name-checking his creations. Vox producer Benjamin Stephen went on a quest to find out the story behind Palantir’s name, what the link to The Lord of the Rings reveals about the company, and what Tolkien might think about how his words are being used. Read more about Palantir and The Lord of the Rings: Vox senior correspondent Constance Grady’s piece on the conservative reading of The Lord of the Rings: https://www.vox.com/culture/466858/lord-of-the-rings-conservatives-right-republicans-elon-musk-jd-vance-peter-thiel The Scouring of the Shire letter written by Palantir alumni: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25930212/the-scouring-of-the-shire.pdf Caroline Haskins’s WIRED piece on what Palantir actually does: https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-what-the-company-does/ "Tolkien's Deplorable Cultus," an essay by literature professor Robert Tally: https://spectrejournal.com/tolkiens-deplorable-cultus/ Today, Explained covers what the right gets wrong about Tolkien: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6p2Jxa9KRttPTF15vwPmjR If you enjoy our reporting and want to hear more from Vox journalists, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/vox. Each month, our members get access to exclusive videos, livestreams, and chats with our newsroom. Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com. Watch our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE Follow Vox on Facebook: http://goo.gl/U2g06o Or Twitter: http://goo.gl/XFrZ5H