Everyone there should read this, even if I know it wouldn't change anything https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-work-for-an-evil-company-but-outside-work-im-actually-a-really-good-person
There’s a particular variety of snark around this I find to be especially tedious when it comes from writers/artists/influencery types. I get that this can be interpreted as being adjacent to Jack...
There’s a particular variety of snark around this I find to be especially tedious when it comes from writers/artists/influencery types. I get that this can be interpreted as being adjacent to Jack Nicholson’s Few Good Men speech, but on some level it’s like “Okay sorry Mr/Ms Satirical Eassayist that not all of us can work in the realm of pure imagination where we can worry about keeping our souls pristine and lily-white. Some of us have to work with crooked timber for a living.”
I don’t think most people understand what Palantir actually does aside from spooky phrasing about harvesting data. But that kind of mass data governance and interoperation is a huge problem in the government with a lot of pro-social uses. The company’s politics are noxious, and despite it being the surest route to hockey-stick career growth for me I’ve generally avoided the opportunities I’ve had to work there. But most people just slot the leadership of all corporate leaders as some variety of rapacious capitalism, I can’t expect everyone to be a politics sicko like me. Not every data governance specialist is a political scientist by training! Many of them just want to make sure the vaccination schedule database can talk to the GIS and census databases so we can keep track of herd immunity stats, things like that.
The snark I mentioned was that I find McSweeney’s funny in small doses, but if I read a few of their posts in a row it gets tiresome because it’s all the same format of saying some bullshit that...
The snark I mentioned was that I find McSweeney’s funny in small doses, but if I read a few of their posts in a row it gets tiresome because it’s all the same format of saying some bullshit that “certain people” would actually agree with, but dear reader you are enlightened so you know it’s bullshit and I’m winking at you. It’s kind of like the humor was on The Colbert Report.
You are clearly saying something much different, and if I’m understanding you, I think you are saying that this topic is too serious to just throw sarcastic humor at and hope people understand the problem plainly. And if you are saying that I probably agree with you, except to say that dark humor is pretty popular during war and under dictatorships, and we are moving pretty far down those roads.
I don’t think my point was that much different, it was sort of a derivative of what you’re saying. It’s framed in a way where there’s “them” and there’s “us” and by virtue of being in on this joke...
I don’t think my point was that much different, it was sort of a derivative of what you’re saying. It’s framed in a way where there’s “them” and there’s “us” and by virtue of being in on this joke with me, the smart satirist, you’re part of the “us” that is better than ”them” who are too stupid and incurious to understand the DEEPER MEANING behind everything. And since you’re one of “us,” we all get to be up here on our high horses and look down on “them” who we presume are too stupid to be in on this joke with us.
And since it’s all snark, it’s not actually a point you can argue because they’re not really arguing their point. They’re drawing a line and it’s about picking a side. The facts and narratives, such as they are, cannot be disputed they’ve been taken out of the realm of discussion entirely.
It wouldn't be the first time that some "Western culture" supremacists have tried to appropriate Tolkien's work. He didn't take kindly to it then either.
It wouldn't be the first time that some "Western culture" supremacists have tried to appropriate Tolkien's work. He didn't take kindly to it then either.
Not that it particularly makes the company more or less evil, but palantir aren’t evil in LoTR. That’s more of a movie impression because they had to compress and remove some scenes down. The...
Not that it particularly makes the company more or less evil, but palantir aren’t evil in LoTR. That’s more of a movie impression because they had to compress and remove some scenes down.
The palantir are essentially super telescopes + FaceTime. It’s just that all the scenes in the movie that were kept was the times people FaceTimed satan.
Well it's not just the movie, it's that by the third age the palantiri that are around begin in Sauron, Saruman, and Denethor's hands and were used to drive Denethor mad with despair. They're...
Well it's not just the movie, it's that by the third age the palantiri that are around begin in Sauron, Saruman, and Denethor's hands and were used to drive Denethor mad with despair. They're pretty much only showing misleading visions in the trilogy, a feint by Aragorn, Pippin being the Ringbearer, the Black Fleet approaching Gondor.
Their use is compared by scholars to WWII propaganda, the follies of fortune telling, the seeking of God-like (Eru Iluvatar-like) knowledge by man (or well, angel). They're not evil in origin but put almost entirely to evil use. Aragorn uses it to provoke Sauron but not to try to gain his own knowledge.
So yeah, not a movie myth. Even in the books, the idea that you could create a Palantir and only use it for good is like Boromir wanting to keep the ring. Hubris and naiveté, at best. Malicious, selfish, controlling, and domineering at worst.
ETA given that it's Peter Thiel and he's named/backed FIVE companies after Tolkien references, and is a big fan, I think he just thinks it's some white"Western" supremacist narrative. The others are Anduril, Mithril, Rivendell, and Elven Immortality.
2nd edit: autocorrect is getting worse, I think I caught all the weird typos
That's selling Denethor short. He was actually very successfully using his palantir as a scouting tool to defend Gondor, and it's likely that if he had not done that, the situation on the border...
That's selling Denethor short. He was actually very successfully using his palantir as a scouting tool to defend Gondor, and it's likely that if he had not done that, the situation on the border would have been far worse by the time of the book's events.
Not to mention that Sauron actually so feared Denethor's mental strength that he refused to let any of his subordinates use his palantir, because he feared they would get dominated by Denethor. Nor could he dominate Denethor. Denethor therefore also blocked Sauron's minions from using what is an invaluable recon tool in an age without satelites.
Even when he was "tricked" - he really wasn't. Sauron and Denethor were right; the west was doomed. Even with a victory at pelenor fields, there was zero chance for the west to win as is. It was the definition of pyrrhic victory. Of course, what changed the situation was that Frodo was about to destroy the ring imminently, but no one could have known that.
The palantir was also instrumental to Sauron's defeat; it was because of Merry accidentally facetiming Sauron, and Aragorn intentionally facetiming him, that Sauron believed that Aragorn had the one ring, which caused him to gather his forces at the end, giving Frodo the chance to get to Mt. Doom
And all that doesn't even consider the fact that the palantir were critical pieces of defensive technology for the elves of middle earth, and the golden ages of gondor and anor, during the first two ages.
All that is to say, Palantir's founders would probably say that the item in question is an apt description of what they aim to create: a powerful tool of intelligence and surveillance that can be used for great good, and great evil.
It’s a bit more subtle than that, it’s really a message about a kind of hubris that most people never really had to worry about until recently. Denethor was an extremely intelligent and clever...
It’s a bit more subtle than that, it’s really a message about a kind of hubris that most people never really had to worry about until recently. Denethor was an extremely intelligent and clever man, the Palantir gave him immense knowledge and understanding about the world. It made him very effective at his job, which was to govern Gondor and manage its defense militarily against Sauron.
But because he was so conditioned into solving all his problems with his ability to collect and process information and knowledge, he felt he had greater foresight and understanding of the world than he really did. His sense of having total knowledge of all the facts on the ground left him no room to experience hope, which meant there was no path he could take but that of despair. It’s not a machine that served him lies, it’s a machine that showed him every problem going on at once so he couldn’t help but doomscroll until he went mad. Once he got too deep into it he even stopped double-checking if his assumptions really held true, he saw a fleet of corsair ships and was confident it meant the corsairs were on their way. Looking into that and making sure it’s true is something you only do if you have some hope that the unexpected can happen and that unexpected thing can be good. It wasn’t “used for evil” it’s just something people can’t handle using for too long.
This is a recurring theme in the Tolkien mythos. Sauron is a Maiar who oversees craft. He manifests his evil in the world is by exploiting people’s love of craft and skill and problem solving. He gets people excessively fixated on “fixing” their personal bugbears or protecting the things they love instead of able to let go. This is Denethor’s problem, this is Feanor’s problem, this is the problem the Dwarves in Erebor had by getting overly fixated on the wealth of the mountain, this is even Galadriel’s and the other Noldor’s problems as they adopted the rings of power to try and freeze Arda in amber and hold off the world’s natural decay.
Well sir, thank you for giving me the Tolkien itch again. I now will be opening back up my Copy of the Fellowship of the ring which I've slowly been reading on my phone. I was reading my youngest...
Well sir, thank you for giving me the Tolkien itch again. I now will be opening back up my Copy of the Fellowship of the ring which I've slowly been reading on my phone.
I was reading my youngest a bit of The Hobbit the other day to help him fall asleep which got me thinking I'd like to read some more Tolkien. Once I finish my current fantasy paperback book Dragons of Autumn Twlight, I think it'll be time to finally crack open The Silmarillion again for the first time since I was a tween/young teenager. I've been thinking about reading it for a while and I may give one of those podcasts that go through it a listen as well once I finish up since I know the lore is deep, and I'll probably miss things during this read though.
Do you have a specific podcast readthrough in mind? I started a read a couple of months ago but I've stalled out, I imagine a good podcast could help restart my efforts.
Do you have a specific podcast readthrough in mind? I started a read a couple of months ago but I've stalled out, I imagine a good podcast could help restart my efforts.
The Legendarium, The Prancing Pony, Overdue is doing it as a patreon with a slower public release. There are a ton specifically dedicated to Tolkien though
The Legendarium, The Prancing Pony, Overdue is doing it as a patreon with a slower public release. There are a ton specifically dedicated to Tolkien though
Thanks! I've looked up a lot before but honestly there are so many I've fallen prey to the paradox of choice in the past. Legendarium seems very up my alley, now that I have a human recommendation...
Thanks! I've looked up a lot before but honestly there are so many I've fallen prey to the paradox of choice in the past. Legendarium seems very up my alley, now that I have a human recommendation I'll check it out!
I know there are several out there. I'm thinking either the Tolkien Professor or The Prancing Pony Podcast. I've enjoyed a few of the Tolkien Professor's early podcasts on The Hobbit, and I've...
I know there are several out there. I'm thinking either the Tolkien Professor or The Prancing Pony Podcast.
I've enjoyed a few of the Tolkien Professor's early podcasts on The Hobbit, and I've listened to some episodes of his Exploring the Lord of the Rings podcast.
I've also seen good reviews for The Prancing Pony Podcast, so I may check them out as well.
I'm really talking about the trilogy, not the legendarium. Since that is what most people have read and where the outcomes of everything else play out. Denthor did do well, and then he failed out...
Exemplary
That's selling Denethor short. He was actually very successfully using his palantir as a scouting tool to defend Gondor, and it's likely that if he had not done that, the situation on the border would have been far worse by the time of the book's events.
I'm really talking about the trilogy, not the legendarium. Since that is what most people have read and where the outcomes of everything else play out.
Denthor did do well, and then he failed out of pride, grief and ultimately despair, fed by Sauron. Denethor considered Aragorn a rival, not his true king which given the rules of this world, is another failure of his pride.
Not to mention that Sauron actually so feared Denethor's mental strength that he refused to let any of his subordinates use his palantir, because he feared they would get dominated by Denethor. Nor could he dominate Denethor. Denethor therefore also blocked Sauron's minions from using what is an invaluable recon tool in an age without satelites.
Giving him credit for Sauron's actions feels a stretch to me. But regardless, overtime the Palantir was the means of wearing down his mental strength. Much like the One Ring, even if you could use it for good for a while or intend good... Even the strongest of men will fail.
Even when he was "tricked" - he really wasn't. Sauron and Denethor were right; the west was doomed. Even with a victory at pelenor fields, there was zero chance for the west to win as is. It was the definition of pyrrhic victory. Of course, what changed the situation was that Frodo was about to destroy the ring imminently, but no one could have known that.
The West wasn't doomed because it didn't die, it just sounded reasonable. They weren't right, they played into his fears and convinced him to be hopeless, the opposite of the themes of hope in the novels.
But as I said, the point is that they were sending misleading images even when true. The Black Fleet was coming. It was just coming in aid not destruction. If palantiri are phones with FaceTime their most recent update comes with a mandatory filter that lies to you.
The palantir was also instrumental to Sauron's defeat; it was because of Merry accidentally facetiming Sauron, and Aragorn intentionally facetiming him, that Sauron believed that Aragorn had the one ring, which caused him to gather his forces at the end, giving Frodo the chance to get to Mt. Doom
First of all, it was Peregrin "Pippin" (Fool of a) Took (soon to be Thane of the Shire) who facetimed Sauron. (◠‿◕)
Secondly in both those cases the palantir mislead Sauron in the same way - he saw a halfling but thought he was the Ringbearer, he saw Aragorn and thought he was the Ringbearer come to challenge him.
And all that doesn't even consider the fact that the palantir were critical pieces of defensive technology for the elves of middle earth, and the golden ages of gondor and anor, during the first two ages.
────────
I think you're leaning really heavily on this when it's definitely not the primary experience folks have with the palantiri, and when a major theme of the books is the corruption of "good" things and people. Yes they were nice once, but many things were and all ages end.
All that is to say, Palantir's founders would probably say that the item in question is an apt description of what they aim to create: a powerful tool of intelligence and surveillance that can be used for great good, and great evil.
I mean they might. Saruman also fell to pride after all. But given again the Peter Thiel of it all, and the recent manifesto, that feels like someone saying how nice the view the panopticon gives you is. The message that Tolkien seemed to be sending, IMO and the opinion of many scholars, are more along the lines of how people can be corrupted by their pride. Which also fits the company and the article.
So IMO they chose "well" but people should have maybe picked up the vibe before now.
That's like saying that a phone line is evil because a scammer gave a grandma falsehoods about the viruses on her computer. It's not like the palantir showed anyone anything of its own will - it...
That's like saying that a phone line is evil because a scammer gave a grandma falsehoods about the viruses on her computer. It's not like the palantir showed anyone anything of its own will - it doesn't have a will. It's ultimately a tool in the books - neither good, nor bad. It's a device that allows users to do specific things. If those users are good, then it's a force for good. If they're evil, then it's a force for evil.
Compare and contrast with the one ring, which is inherently evil. The ring will always twist things to favor sauron; on the other hand, the palantir as a conduit of information is just as capable of allowing Aragorn to trick Sauron as it is to allow Sauron to trick someone else.
If palantiri are phones with FaceTime their most recent update comes with a mandatory filter that lies to you.
Why? It's just the case in the books because the different wielders of the palantir are on opposite sides. Of course people are capable of lying to each other on FaceTime. It's like when scammers tell people to go to the windows registry and tell them those are all viruses - that's the black fleet (which, to be clear, I'm not even sure Sauron knew was taken over; it's not like his forces had a heads up)
I think you're leaning really heavily on this when it's definitely not the primary experience folks have with the palantiri
That's what I mean by "the movies give it a bad rap". I don't think the founders thought that way at all, regardless of what you may think about the resulting company. For further evidence, note that this isn't a pattern that continues; there's no way Anduril can be construed as an evil object, for instance.
I am not discussing the movies, just the original trilogy. This is not an issue of adaptation drift. This is where the analogy to the phone breaks down because we're talking about literary...
I am not discussing the movies, just the original trilogy. This is not an issue of adaptation drift.
This is where the analogy to the phone breaks down because we're talking about literary criticism and analysis. You're seeing the palantiri as a tool alone. I'm saying they're intentionally shown in such a way that suggests man (nor angel) should not reach for forbidden knowledge and that things and people can be corrupted which is an ongoing theme. Tolkien doesn't like divination. If Aragorn had used the palantir to scry and scout it would have mixed that metaphor, but instead he at its best uses it with the same deceit that Sauron and Saruman do. (Also didn't Osgiliath's stone have the ability to control the others... That suggests again, a nefarious purpose)
If every time a phone was used in a story, a person got bad news or a virus, or was scammed, I'd also say that the author is sending a message that phones are a negative influence and intrusion into our lives.
If you don't think that calling a company "The Flame of the West" can be interpreted negatively, especially in light of this current manifesto, or that even using Tolkien's names as part of weapon manufacturing given his beliefs and the messages in his books about war is disrespectful and evidence of someone who doesn't understand the books, I think you're focusing on the wrong thing here.
I personally think Peter Thiel is an evil man. Evil men corrupt even good things but they also pretend their evil things are good.
I don't actually think Thiel gives a damn if his companies are "good" vs if they accomplish his personal, financial and political goals. I suspect in general people didn't think too hard about the name and read it as surface level only as you're describing. It's "just" a tool, it's just a surveillance tower, it's just a drone, a gun, an investment in the right things, a job for the guy you're grooming for political office (Vance), a way to gain immortality like you're a super villain. The One Ring literally gives you immortality as part of its temptation and the elves left Middle Earth for a reason.
But as I said, anyone who thinks Tolkien would be down with some recycled white supremacist ideals barely washed as cultural superiority, really missed some memos both from his novels and his personal correspondence. The man hated Nazis, I sincerely doubt he'd appreciate the "honor" Thiel is doing.
That would be ignoring all the times the palantir were used in the simarillion and the rest of the legendarium. I don’t see any reason to ignore these. If we’re trying to analyze what message an...
That would be ignoring all the times the palantir were used in the simarillion and the rest of the legendarium. I don’t see any reason to ignore these. If we’re trying to analyze what message an author is giving, their notes and other works are perfectly valid.
Even in LotR, we have the example of Denethor using the palantir for pure reconnaissance. The Sauron calls were later.
If you don't think that calling a company "The Flame of the West"
Are we not talking about the the roles of these concepts in the story of lord of the rings?
That also segways into Tolkien himself. I wouldn’t give him that much credit - he was undoubtably against nazis, but no one was more against nazis than Churchill, and he was vigorously racist and perpetuated more than one genocidal event.
This is the same story where all the good guys are nobles of good blood lines, and are in the west, who fight against hordes of peoples from very obviously the Middle East and Africa. Where a race of colonizers are glorified, and their bloodlines exalted.
Standard 1900s British things, no doubt. But I think 1900s British men would have a lot in common with the alt-right today.
With Tolkien given how he changed his mind and never stopped editing, no his notes don't always clear things up. The Silmarillion he published, the rest is less clear and is sometimes...
That would be ignoring all the times the palantir were used in the simarillion and the rest of the legendarium. I don’t see any reason to ignore these. If we’re trying to analyze what message an author is giving, their notes and other works are perfectly valid.
With Tolkien given how he changed his mind and never stopped editing, no his notes don't always clear things up. The Silmarillion he published, the rest is less clear and is sometimes contradictory as it was a work in progress and ever edited.
My point is that we know how the palantir ended, regardless of their beginnings or intent. (And I don't think Thiel has read all the legendarium either. So as we get to his intent that matters even less)
Even in LotR, we have the example of Denethor using the palantir for pure reconnaissance. The Sauron calls were later.
He used the stone to spy on Sauron who used those connections to drive him to despair. They weren't separate "calls", they were intentional corruptions of the visions he saw in the same calls he was scrying in. Denethor had the authority as Steward to use the stone to scry but not the wisdom to refrain, Aragorn notably did not attempt to scry, just to trick Sauron into falling for a feint.
If you don't think that calling a company "The Flame of the West"
Are we not talking about the the roles of these concepts in the story of lord of the rings?
Not entirely no, we are talking about that with the palantiri, but this all rolls back into "why was the company named this and should that name have been a clue." The palantiri are widely regarded by notable Tolkien scholars to be warnings about divination, forbidden knowledge and the like. One doesn't have to agree, sure, but I'm not pulling my read on this out of nowhere either. I think anyone who names their company after them, either doesn't care about being evil or misreads the trilogy as an intentional western/white supremacist narrative.
While the shards of Narsil reforged to Anduril are not an "evil object" that doesn't erase that the company was named The Flame of the West by a man aligned with white nationalists Neo-Nazis, and the alt right. Thiel's intentions are suspect at best and even if they somehow weren't the outcome is at a minimum disrespectful of Tolkien's views on war. Suggesting again that Thiel doesn't get it. (Same with elven immortality and the other random references he makes beyond those five (a fund he calls his Precious for example))
After all...
" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend".
Tolkien was very well aware of the trauma of war, and hated the glorification of violence and combat.
That also segways into Tolkien himself. I wouldn’t give him that much credit - he was undoubtably against nazis, but no one was more against nazis than Churchill, and he was vigorously racist and perpetuated more than one genocidal event.
This is the same story where all the good guys are nobles of good blood lines, and are in the west, who fight against hordes of peoples from very obviously the Middle East and Africa. Where a race of colonizers are glorified, and their bloodlines exalted.
Standard 1900s British things, no doubt. But I think 1900s British men would have a lot in common with the alt-right today.
He's not perfect, no, he's of his time and there are certainly racist themes in his books as well as nearly no women for example. Here, however, I'm talking about the man. He staunchly opposed Nazi-ism and Aryanism, the dehumanization of Jewish and Polish people by Germany and the Germans via British war propaganda alike. And this is a man who fought Germans in The Great War saying that the British had no more right to declare the Germans subhuman than the Germans did.
He did love Europe, and was writing a very English and European mythos, but even then he didn't adhere to white supremacy as a belief system. He explicitly opposed it.
For example
Not Nordic, please! A word I personally dislike; it is associated, though of French origin, with racialist theories
And
But I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones; and most of all I detest the segregation and separation of Language and Literature. I do not care which of them you think White.
And even in the books, for example, he was often thoughtful about such things. Such as how it wasn't "mixing" of the Numenorean blood that diminished that people, it was existing in Middle Earth itself.
A man who hates "racialist theories" is anti race science and anti-eugenics. He absolutely had Victorian ideals taught to him and shoved in his head, and I'm sure today half the things he'd say on the subject would feel horribly backwards. And yet he still managed to make clear, intentional anti-racist stances.
I can't speak for all British men, I can't even speak for Tolkien, but I think his words speak for themselves. There's no way he would be flattered by a man who clearly misunderstands and misappropriates his work. The implication that Tolkien would be aligned with the alt-right is pretty ridiculous as they chant "Blood and Soil."
But let's leave that aside, my original point in response to you about just the palantiri themselves is that the narrative of the trilogy is how they are primarily in this age used to lie and deceive; to the point that the pride of using them leads to the fall of even great men. Aragorn describes using it as
A struggle somewhat grimmer for my part than the battle of the Hornburg
and that if he'd known how fast Sauron would respond he might not have. Even then it was a gamble. At its absolute best use.
It's not a movie read to see them this way. Even including the whole legendarium does not change how they're corrupted and lessened and are, like the elves, past their time. One, maybe, survives after and it likely would be so colored by the images it saved, I personally doubt it would be something ever used again. I doubt the Tolkien scholars I've read quoted on the matter based their opinions on the movies either.
We don't have to agree, literary analysis/criticism is full of many opinions, I just object to the idea that you can only get this perspective from outside the text and I enjoy discussing things.
He didn't even actually publish the Silmarillion 😉 and you could very easily argue it wasn't even his latest version when he died, so there really isn't any "canon" or official version of the...
The Silmarillion he published, the rest is less clear and is sometimes contradictory as it was a work in progress and ever edited.
He didn't even actually publish the Silmarillion 😉 and you could very easily argue it wasn't even his latest version when he died, so there really isn't any "canon" or official version of the story, unless you want to say LotR and the Hobbit were canon, an idea he probably never even thought about (and a word he definitely didn't use).
Oh shit I thought he'd published it. I know it wasn't "final" hence all the tinkering, but his whole deal was wanting to publish that book, I forgot it wasn't him. See it has been too long!
Oh shit I thought he'd published it. I know it wasn't "final" hence all the tinkering, but his whole deal was wanting to publish that book, I forgot it wasn't him. See it has been too long!
Thanks for more context! I really did not read past the Silmarillion with regularity, just bits here and there and it's been a long time on that. There's only so much timeline I can drag up from...
Thanks for more context! I really did not read past the Silmarillion with regularity, just bits here and there and it's been a long time on that. There's only so much timeline I can drag up from the depths and Google only gets me so far. Might be time to dip my toes back in or hit up a podcast or two.
Missing out on Shippey's class at my undergrad was quite a bummer (he only taught it every four years)
I mostly just have so many other things to read it's hard to devote the time. But I do appreciate the depth of the wikis out there, though there's always only so much research I'm going to put...
I mostly just have so many other things to read it's hard to devote the time. But I do appreciate the depth of the wikis out there, though there's always only so much research I'm going to put into a discussion that keeps pulling away to different points. It's probably more than I should but still only so much.
I'm surprised the Tolkien estate hasn't made enough of a stink about it that I'd have heard. They're usually pretty protective of J.R.R.'s IP. Like, I'm sure if some brothel in Nevada had named...
I'm surprised the Tolkien estate hasn't made enough of a stink about it that I'd have heard. They're usually pretty protective of J.R.R.'s IP. Like, I'm sure if some brothel in Nevada had named themselves "Bilbo Baggins's Love Hole," the lawyers would've come swarming out like Uruk-Hai, but a transparently evil surveillance company gets a pass for some reason.
Names aren’t copyrightable - that would be in the realm of trademark. And unlike copyright, trademark is much more flexible. That’s how Apple the technology company can have the trademark to...
Names aren’t copyrightable - that would be in the realm of trademark. And unlike copyright, trademark is much more flexible. That’s how Apple the technology company can have the trademark to Apple, while Apple Records (of Beatles fame) also has the trademark to Apple.
There’s nothing that the Tolkien estate can do about it, unless they already own a technology company called Palantir with a trademark registry.
The Tolkien estate is sufficiently litigious that one can safely assume they would have sued if it were advisable, and thus that there isn't a case there. As someone else mentioned, you can't...
The Tolkien estate is sufficiently litigious that one can safely assume they would have sued if it were advisable, and thus that there isn't a case there.
As someone else mentioned, you can't copyright a name, and even if the Tolkien estate has trademarked those terms, it isn't using them in the same domain as Thiel's companies.
I mean “But maybe it's gotten to a place where encouraging independent thought and questioning leads to some bad conclusions.” kinda sums it up right? Tech workers have for a long time considered...
I mean “But maybe it's gotten to a place where encouraging independent thought and questioning leads to some bad conclusions.” kinda sums it up right?
Tech workers have for a long time considered themselves above any type of broader thought. (Personally, I think there was a naive libertarian posturing masquerading as ethical sophistication.) Now that the shiny has worn of off the tech industry and workers are being treated like the plebs, more people are starting to consider their role in making the current dysfunctional hellscape that is the modern world. It sucks no one wanted to listen to critiques from the disenfranchized as long as there was a DEI page on the intranet, but I'll take late over never.
Tech workers are extremely left wing by any measure though. While the libertarian tech bros get a lot of media attention, they're not even close to a majority.
Tech workers are extremely left wing by any measure though. While the libertarian tech bros get a lot of media attention, they're not even close to a majority.
Libertarian tech bros are what they are because they’re business owners and have the politics of every other business owner. It just had a veneer of counterculture to it because of the industry...
Libertarian tech bros are what they are because they’re business owners and have the politics of every other business owner. It just had a veneer of counterculture to it because of the industry they happened to be in.
Yeah that's a weird one. I'm not sure which way it goes though. Generally folks seem left, but thinking back the most vocal people are left, but most people don't talk about politics. I'd be...
Yeah that's a weird one. I'm not sure which way it goes though. Generally folks seem left, but thinking back the most vocal people are left, but most people don't talk about politics. I'd be willing to bet that there are more conservatives than you'd expect. It also depends on the firm.
To @NaraVara's point, from the folks I know in sales almost all management are conservative.
I heard someone say recently that rich people are the only ones in America with class consciousnesses. Feels pretty true.
All the old class markers around breeding and having storied families are gone. It is, today, just a matter of whether you have money or not. So it makes sense that the people with money have a...
All the old class markers around breeding and having storied families are gone. It is, today, just a matter of whether you have money or not. So it makes sense that the people with money have a great deal more consciousness about the money than the people without it. The people without it are forced to invest their consciousness in other markers of identity since the “I have a lot of money” ones aren’t available to them.
Takes me back to conversations I had in college with people figuring out the most ethical way to work in unethical companies. If someone shows up to their job and does the bare minimum, is that...
Takes me back to conversations I had in college with people figuring out the most ethical way to work in unethical companies. If someone shows up to their job and does the bare minimum, is that theoretically better than letting someone else take the job? Or is it better to not take the job, forcing that company to pay a premium in the labor market to fill that position?
I actually was just having this conversation with my sister's boyfriend (we both work at companies where they're not particularly evil or anything, but definitely unsavory with some of the...
I actually was just having this conversation with my sister's boyfriend (we both work at companies where they're not particularly evil or anything, but definitely unsavory with some of the politics/ways money are being made). We had our own way of justifying it and at the end we pretty much just said "at least we're not working at palantir"
I worked for a corrections company that owned ankle monitors and reentry centers and I didn't love that but that was their focus, probation and parole monitoring and rehabilitation. At least in...
I worked for a corrections company that owned ankle monitors and reentry centers and I didn't love that but that was their focus, probation and parole monitoring and rehabilitation. At least in theory.
It was bought out by one of the top two Private Prison companies in the world (they wanted that sweet sweet ankle monitor technology). And I now worked for a company that was actively at cross-purposes with my beliefs (which definitely informed said beliefs and continued their leftward march.) I knew my part of the work - the reentry stuff - was mostly good - we didn't follow our policies on only working with high risk of recidivism people, and my coworkers were often racist and homophobic and sexist assholes. I was pressured to rate people higher on the risk inventory we used so we could show how much better they were after but when I said I was following the tool as I was trained they mostly backed off. So I went from "our work is good" to "my work is good" to "I'm responsible for deciding to send people back to prison..." And maybe in a few cases I could justify it. But mostly I couldn't.
I got out. Sometimes the pot boils slowly (even if that isn't how frogs actually work) and you think things are better than they are, until you learn. At least I didn't stay? At least I didn't work for Palantir....idk.
Ooh yeah dang that's definitely a difficult thing. I'm grateful my current company doesn't directly affect people in that way, only part of my company lets people financially ruin their lives (if...
Ooh yeah dang that's definitely a difficult thing. I'm grateful my current company doesn't directly affect people in that way, only part of my company lets people financially ruin their lives (if you can read between the lines about that) and I'm not directly working on that product thankfully.
Overall though it's definitely hard in the world of capitalism. I'm glad you got out though and from what I've seen from your comments you seem to be doing more cool things for students so I think that's a net positive! I'm constantly looking out for jobs but it seems my skillset always ends up in companies with unsavory ideals for some reason.
The public and not for profit sectors aren't always good but I am very happy for the work I get to do now with the people I work with. And while there are definitely ethical quandries or...
The public and not for profit sectors aren't always good but I am very happy for the work I get to do now with the people I work with. And while there are definitely ethical quandries or disagreements with policy from time to time it's not the soul destroying drain that my previous job was.
I hope you find your thing that lets you fill your cup
My first job out of school was for an MLM company. They gave me business rules and I turned it into an algorithm the machine understands, to print cheques every week, with most of them going to a...
My first job out of school was for an MLM company. They gave me business rules and I turned it into an algorithm the machine understands, to print cheques every week, with most of them going to a fixed few individuals, using money mostly gathered from seniors who got cold called by "the nice young man/ young lady" about this magical health product.
I did finally leave when they were finally abusive to me. But had I been invited into their inner circle or even just kept me reasonably employed, at the time I didn't think too badly about staying. I justified it in my mind that either the people really would use the product as indicated and see genuine health results from all the stone soup it requires1, or they would lose enough money they would stop. I was not yet familiar with chronic poverty, addiction, and mental deterioration with age. But I should have known.
My current company has a lot to do with explosives and direct impact on our planet's ecosystems. I'm choosing to believe their marketing materials because I am paid reasonably well. They did refuse clients based on certain obviously horrible things, so....I got that going
From what I recalled:
Don't eat after 8pm, go to sleep after 10pm
Drink X amount of water, no other liquids other than water and the product (eg, no pop or alcohol)
Go for a 20 minute after consuming the product, eg walk thrice a day
Time the meals to drink the product 10 min after one begins eating, give it another 5 minute pause before eating some more to see if the product "suppresses their appetite already"
Everyone there should read this, even if I
thinkknow it wouldn't change anythinghttps://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-work-for-an-evil-company-but-outside-work-im-actually-a-really-good-person
Sometimes I read a few McSweeney's articles when I want to feel like I jumped into a big vat of snarky sarcasm.
There’s a particular variety of snark around this I find to be especially tedious when it comes from writers/artists/influencery types. I get that this can be interpreted as being adjacent to Jack Nicholson’s Few Good Men speech, but on some level it’s like “Okay sorry Mr/Ms Satirical Eassayist that not all of us can work in the realm of pure imagination where we can worry about keeping our souls pristine and lily-white. Some of us have to work with crooked timber for a living.”
I don’t think most people understand what Palantir actually does aside from spooky phrasing about harvesting data. But that kind of mass data governance and interoperation is a huge problem in the government with a lot of pro-social uses. The company’s politics are noxious, and despite it being the surest route to hockey-stick career growth for me I’ve generally avoided the opportunities I’ve had to work there. But most people just slot the leadership of all corporate leaders as some variety of rapacious capitalism, I can’t expect everyone to be a politics sicko like me. Not every data governance specialist is a political scientist by training! Many of them just want to make sure the vaccination schedule database can talk to the GIS and census databases so we can keep track of herd immunity stats, things like that.
The snark I mentioned was that I find McSweeney’s funny in small doses, but if I read a few of their posts in a row it gets tiresome because it’s all the same format of saying some bullshit that “certain people” would actually agree with, but dear reader you are enlightened so you know it’s bullshit and I’m winking at you. It’s kind of like the humor was on The Colbert Report.
You are clearly saying something much different, and if I’m understanding you, I think you are saying that this topic is too serious to just throw sarcastic humor at and hope people understand the problem plainly. And if you are saying that I probably agree with you, except to say that dark humor is pretty popular during war and under dictatorships, and we are moving pretty far down those roads.
I don’t think my point was that much different, it was sort of a derivative of what you’re saying. It’s framed in a way where there’s “them” and there’s “us” and by virtue of being in on this joke with me, the smart satirist, you’re part of the “us” that is better than ”them” who are too stupid and incurious to understand the DEEPER MEANING behind everything. And since you’re one of “us,” we all get to be up here on our high horses and look down on “them” who we presume are too stupid to be in on this joke with us.
And since it’s all snark, it’s not actually a point you can argue because they’re not really arguing their point. They’re drawing a line and it’s about picking a side. The facts and narratives, such as they are, cannot be disputed they’ve been taken out of the realm of discussion entirely.
The answer is yes.
Sometimes you're in the uniform with the skulls on it before you realize I suppose.
It's baffling to me that they even went with the name Palantir. It's specific enough that someone had to know what the name represents.
It wouldn't be the first time that some "Western culture" supremacists have tried to appropriate Tolkien's work. He didn't take kindly to it then either.
Not that it particularly makes the company more or less evil, but palantir aren’t evil in LoTR. That’s more of a movie impression because they had to compress and remove some scenes down.
The palantir are essentially super telescopes + FaceTime. It’s just that all the scenes in the movie that were kept was the times people FaceTimed satan.
Well it's not just the movie, it's that by the third age the palantiri that are around begin in Sauron, Saruman, and Denethor's hands and were used to drive Denethor mad with despair. They're pretty much only showing misleading visions in the trilogy, a feint by Aragorn, Pippin being the Ringbearer, the Black Fleet approaching Gondor.
Their use is compared by scholars to WWII propaganda, the follies of fortune telling, the seeking of God-like (Eru Iluvatar-like) knowledge by man (or well, angel). They're not evil in origin but put almost entirely to evil use. Aragorn uses it to provoke Sauron but not to try to gain his own knowledge.
So yeah, not a movie myth. Even in the books, the idea that you could create a Palantir and only use it for good is like Boromir wanting to keep the ring. Hubris and naiveté, at best. Malicious, selfish, controlling, and domineering at worst.
ETA given that it's Peter Thiel and he's named/backed FIVE companies after Tolkien references, and is a big fan, I think he just thinks it's some
white"Western" supremacist narrative. The others are Anduril, Mithril, Rivendell, and Elven Immortality.2nd edit: autocorrect is getting worse, I think I caught all the weird typos
That's selling Denethor short. He was actually very successfully using his palantir as a scouting tool to defend Gondor, and it's likely that if he had not done that, the situation on the border would have been far worse by the time of the book's events.
Not to mention that Sauron actually so feared Denethor's mental strength that he refused to let any of his subordinates use his palantir, because he feared they would get dominated by Denethor. Nor could he dominate Denethor. Denethor therefore also blocked Sauron's minions from using what is an invaluable recon tool in an age without satelites.
Even when he was "tricked" - he really wasn't. Sauron and Denethor were right; the west was doomed. Even with a victory at pelenor fields, there was zero chance for the west to win as is. It was the definition of pyrrhic victory. Of course, what changed the situation was that Frodo was about to destroy the ring imminently, but no one could have known that.
The palantir was also instrumental to Sauron's defeat; it was because of Merry accidentally facetiming Sauron, and Aragorn intentionally facetiming him, that Sauron believed that Aragorn had the one ring, which caused him to gather his forces at the end, giving Frodo the chance to get to Mt. Doom
And all that doesn't even consider the fact that the palantir were critical pieces of defensive technology for the elves of middle earth, and the golden ages of gondor and anor, during the first two ages.
All that is to say, Palantir's founders would probably say that the item in question is an apt description of what they aim to create: a powerful tool of intelligence and surveillance that can be used for great good, and great evil.
And much like the palantir in the books, even if made with noble intentions the end result is a device used for evil.
It’s a bit more subtle than that, it’s really a message about a kind of hubris that most people never really had to worry about until recently. Denethor was an extremely intelligent and clever man, the Palantir gave him immense knowledge and understanding about the world. It made him very effective at his job, which was to govern Gondor and manage its defense militarily against Sauron.
But because he was so conditioned into solving all his problems with his ability to collect and process information and knowledge, he felt he had greater foresight and understanding of the world than he really did. His sense of having total knowledge of all the facts on the ground left him no room to experience hope, which meant there was no path he could take but that of despair. It’s not a machine that served him lies, it’s a machine that showed him every problem going on at once so he couldn’t help but doomscroll until he went mad. Once he got too deep into it he even stopped double-checking if his assumptions really held true, he saw a fleet of corsair ships and was confident it meant the corsairs were on their way. Looking into that and making sure it’s true is something you only do if you have some hope that the unexpected can happen and that unexpected thing can be good. It wasn’t “used for evil” it’s just something people can’t handle using for too long.
This is a recurring theme in the Tolkien mythos. Sauron is a Maiar who oversees craft. He manifests his evil in the world is by exploiting people’s love of craft and skill and problem solving. He gets people excessively fixated on “fixing” their personal bugbears or protecting the things they love instead of able to let go. This is Denethor’s problem, this is Feanor’s problem, this is the problem the Dwarves in Erebor had by getting overly fixated on the wealth of the mountain, this is even Galadriel’s and the other Noldor’s problems as they adopted the rings of power to try and freeze Arda in amber and hold off the world’s natural decay.
Well sir, thank you for giving me the Tolkien itch again. I now will be opening back up my Copy of the Fellowship of the ring which I've slowly been reading on my phone.
I was reading my youngest a bit of The Hobbit the other day to help him fall asleep which got me thinking I'd like to read some more Tolkien. Once I finish my current fantasy paperback book Dragons of Autumn Twlight, I think it'll be time to finally crack open The Silmarillion again for the first time since I was a tween/young teenager. I've been thinking about reading it for a while and I may give one of those podcasts that go through it a listen as well once I finish up since I know the lore is deep, and I'll probably miss things during this read though.
Do you have a specific podcast readthrough in mind? I started a read a couple of months ago but I've stalled out, I imagine a good podcast could help restart my efforts.
The Legendarium, The Prancing Pony, Overdue is doing it as a patreon with a slower public release. There are a ton specifically dedicated to Tolkien though
Thanks! I've looked up a lot before but honestly there are so many I've fallen prey to the paradox of choice in the past. Legendarium seems very up my alley, now that I have a human recommendation I'll check it out!
Yes, a very human recommendation (◕ᴗ◕✿^)
FEED ME A STRAY CATI'm not a computer, certainly not an ATM.
I know there are several out there. I'm thinking either the Tolkien Professor or The Prancing Pony Podcast.
I've enjoyed a few of the Tolkien Professor's early podcasts on The Hobbit, and I've listened to some episodes of his Exploring the Lord of the Rings podcast.
I've also seen good reviews for The Prancing Pony Podcast, so I may check them out as well.
Ok sure say what took me much longer to say much more succinctly ಠ_ʖಠ
⊹₊⟡⋆
The last thing the Palantir did was save the world, though.
I'm really talking about the trilogy, not the legendarium. Since that is what most people have read and where the outcomes of everything else play out.
Denthor did do well, and then he failed out of pride, grief and ultimately despair, fed by Sauron. Denethor considered Aragorn a rival, not his true king which given the rules of this world, is another failure of his pride.
Giving him credit for Sauron's actions feels a stretch to me. But regardless, overtime the Palantir was the means of wearing down his mental strength. Much like the One Ring, even if you could use it for good for a while or intend good... Even the strongest of men will fail.
The West wasn't doomed because it didn't die, it just sounded reasonable. They weren't right, they played into his fears and convinced him to be hopeless, the opposite of the themes of hope in the novels.
But as I said, the point is that they were sending misleading images even when true. The Black Fleet was coming. It was just coming in aid not destruction. If palantiri are phones with FaceTime their most recent update comes with a mandatory filter that lies to you.
First of all, it was Peregrin "Pippin" (Fool of a) Took (soon to be Thane of the Shire) who facetimed Sauron. (◠‿◕)
Secondly in both those cases the palantir mislead Sauron in the same way - he saw a halfling but thought he was the Ringbearer, he saw Aragorn and thought he was the Ringbearer come to challenge him.
I think you're leaning really heavily on this when it's definitely not the primary experience folks have with the palantiri, and when a major theme of the books is the corruption of "good" things and people. Yes they were nice once, but many things were and all ages end.
I mean they might. Saruman also fell to pride after all. But given again the Peter Thiel of it all, and the recent manifesto, that feels like someone saying how nice the view the panopticon gives you is. The message that Tolkien seemed to be sending, IMO and the opinion of many scholars, are more along the lines of how people can be corrupted by their pride. Which also fits the company and the article.
So IMO they chose "well" but people should have maybe picked up the vibe before now.
That's like saying that a phone line is evil because a scammer gave a grandma falsehoods about the viruses on her computer. It's not like the palantir showed anyone anything of its own will - it doesn't have a will. It's ultimately a tool in the books - neither good, nor bad. It's a device that allows users to do specific things. If those users are good, then it's a force for good. If they're evil, then it's a force for evil.
Compare and contrast with the one ring, which is inherently evil. The ring will always twist things to favor sauron; on the other hand, the palantir as a conduit of information is just as capable of allowing Aragorn to trick Sauron as it is to allow Sauron to trick someone else.
Why? It's just the case in the books because the different wielders of the palantir are on opposite sides. Of course people are capable of lying to each other on FaceTime. It's like when scammers tell people to go to the windows registry and tell them those are all viruses - that's the black fleet (which, to be clear, I'm not even sure Sauron knew was taken over; it's not like his forces had a heads up)
That's what I mean by "the movies give it a bad rap". I don't think the founders thought that way at all, regardless of what you may think about the resulting company. For further evidence, note that this isn't a pattern that continues; there's no way Anduril can be construed as an evil object, for instance.
I am not discussing the movies, just the original trilogy. This is not an issue of adaptation drift.
This is where the analogy to the phone breaks down because we're talking about literary criticism and analysis. You're seeing the palantiri as a tool alone. I'm saying they're intentionally shown in such a way that suggests man (nor angel) should not reach for forbidden knowledge and that things and people can be corrupted which is an ongoing theme. Tolkien doesn't like divination. If Aragorn had used the palantir to scry and scout it would have mixed that metaphor, but instead he at its best uses it with the same deceit that Sauron and Saruman do. (Also didn't Osgiliath's stone have the ability to control the others... That suggests again, a nefarious purpose)
If every time a phone was used in a story, a person got bad news or a virus, or was scammed, I'd also say that the author is sending a message that phones are a negative influence and intrusion into our lives.
If you don't think that calling a company "The Flame of the West" can be interpreted negatively, especially in light of this current manifesto, or that even using Tolkien's names as part of weapon manufacturing given his beliefs and the messages in his books about war is disrespectful and evidence of someone who doesn't understand the books, I think you're focusing on the wrong thing here.
I personally think Peter Thiel is an evil man. Evil men corrupt even good things but they also pretend their evil things are good.
I don't actually think Thiel gives a damn if his companies are "good" vs if they accomplish his personal, financial and political goals. I suspect in general people didn't think too hard about the name and read it as surface level only as you're describing. It's "just" a tool, it's just a surveillance tower, it's just a drone, a gun, an investment in the right things, a job for the guy you're grooming for political office (Vance), a way to gain immortality like you're a super villain. The One Ring literally gives you immortality as part of its temptation and the elves left Middle Earth for a reason.
But as I said, anyone who thinks Tolkien would be down with some recycled white supremacist ideals barely washed as cultural superiority, really missed some memos both from his novels and his personal correspondence. The man hated Nazis, I sincerely doubt he'd appreciate the "honor" Thiel is doing.
That would be ignoring all the times the palantir were used in the simarillion and the rest of the legendarium. I don’t see any reason to ignore these. If we’re trying to analyze what message an author is giving, their notes and other works are perfectly valid.
Even in LotR, we have the example of Denethor using the palantir for pure reconnaissance. The Sauron calls were later.
Are we not talking about the the roles of these concepts in the story of lord of the rings?
That also segways into Tolkien himself. I wouldn’t give him that much credit - he was undoubtably against nazis, but no one was more against nazis than Churchill, and he was vigorously racist and perpetuated more than one genocidal event.
This is the same story where all the good guys are nobles of good blood lines, and are in the west, who fight against hordes of peoples from very obviously the Middle East and Africa. Where a race of colonizers are glorified, and their bloodlines exalted.
Standard 1900s British things, no doubt. But I think 1900s British men would have a lot in common with the alt-right today.
With Tolkien given how he changed his mind and never stopped editing, no his notes don't always clear things up. The Silmarillion he published, the rest is less clear and is sometimes contradictory as it was a work in progress and ever edited.
My point is that we know how the palantir ended, regardless of their beginnings or intent. (And I don't think Thiel has read all the legendarium either. So as we get to his intent that matters even less)
He used the stone to spy on Sauron who used those connections to drive him to despair. They weren't separate "calls", they were intentional corruptions of the visions he saw in the same calls he was scrying in. Denethor had the authority as Steward to use the stone to scry but not the wisdom to refrain, Aragorn notably did not attempt to scry, just to trick Sauron into falling for a feint.
Not entirely no, we are talking about that with the palantiri, but this all rolls back into "why was the company named this and should that name have been a clue." The palantiri are widely regarded by notable Tolkien scholars to be warnings about divination, forbidden knowledge and the like. One doesn't have to agree, sure, but I'm not pulling my read on this out of nowhere either. I think anyone who names their company after them, either doesn't care about being evil or misreads the trilogy as an intentional western/white supremacist narrative.
While the shards of Narsil reforged to Anduril are not an "evil object" that doesn't erase that the company was named The Flame of the West by a man aligned with white nationalists Neo-Nazis, and the alt right. Thiel's intentions are suspect at best and even if they somehow weren't the outcome is at a minimum disrespectful of Tolkien's views on war. Suggesting again that Thiel doesn't get it. (Same with elven immortality and the other random references he makes beyond those five (a fund he calls his Precious for example))
After all...
Tolkien was very well aware of the trauma of war, and hated the glorification of violence and combat.
He's not perfect, no, he's of his time and there are certainly racist themes in his books as well as nearly no women for example. Here, however, I'm talking about the man. He staunchly opposed Nazi-ism and Aryanism, the dehumanization of Jewish and Polish people by Germany and the Germans via British war propaganda alike. And this is a man who fought Germans in The Great War saying that the British had no more right to declare the Germans subhuman than the Germans did.
He did love Europe, and was writing a very English and European mythos, but even then he didn't adhere to white supremacy as a belief system. He explicitly opposed it.
For example
And
And even in the books, for example, he was often thoughtful about such things. Such as how it wasn't "mixing" of the Numenorean blood that diminished that people, it was existing in Middle Earth itself.
A man who hates "racialist theories" is anti race science and anti-eugenics. He absolutely had Victorian ideals taught to him and shoved in his head, and I'm sure today half the things he'd say on the subject would feel horribly backwards. And yet he still managed to make clear, intentional anti-racist stances.
I can't speak for all British men, I can't even speak for Tolkien, but I think his words speak for themselves. There's no way he would be flattered by a man who clearly misunderstands and misappropriates his work. The implication that Tolkien would be aligned with the alt-right is pretty ridiculous as they chant "Blood and Soil."
But let's leave that aside, my original point in response to you about just the palantiri themselves is that the narrative of the trilogy is how they are primarily in this age used to lie and deceive; to the point that the pride of using them leads to the fall of even great men. Aragorn describes using it as
and that if he'd known how fast Sauron would respond he might not have. Even then it was a gamble. At its absolute best use.
It's not a movie read to see them this way. Even including the whole legendarium does not change how they're corrupted and lessened and are, like the elves, past their time. One, maybe, survives after and it likely would be so colored by the images it saved, I personally doubt it would be something ever used again. I doubt the Tolkien scholars I've read quoted on the matter based their opinions on the movies either.
We don't have to agree, literary analysis/criticism is full of many opinions, I just object to the idea that you can only get this perspective from outside the text and I enjoy discussing things.
He didn't even actually publish the Silmarillion 😉 and you could very easily argue it wasn't even his latest version when he died, so there really isn't any "canon" or official version of the story, unless you want to say LotR and the Hobbit were canon, an idea he probably never even thought about (and a word he definitely didn't use).
Oh shit I thought he'd published it. I know it wasn't "final" hence all the tinkering, but his whole deal was wanting to publish that book, I forgot it wasn't him. See it has been too long!
Thanks for more context! I really did not read past the Silmarillion with regularity, just bits here and there and it's been a long time on that. There's only so much timeline I can drag up from the depths and Google only gets me so far. Might be time to dip my toes back in or hit up a podcast or two.
Missing out on Shippey's class at my undergrad was quite a bummer (he only taught it every four years)
I mostly just have so many other things to read it's hard to devote the time. But I do appreciate the depth of the wikis out there, though there's always only so much research I'm going to put into a discussion that keeps pulling away to different points. It's probably more than I should but still only so much.
I am adding a reread to my tbr though
I'm surprised the Tolkien estate hasn't made enough of a stink about it that I'd have heard. They're usually pretty protective of J.R.R.'s IP. Like, I'm sure if some brothel in Nevada had named themselves "Bilbo Baggins's Love Hole," the lawyers would've come swarming out like Uruk-Hai, but a transparently evil surveillance company gets a pass for some reason.
Names aren’t copyrightable - that would be in the realm of trademark. And unlike copyright, trademark is much more flexible. That’s how Apple the technology company can have the trademark to Apple, while Apple Records (of Beatles fame) also has the trademark to Apple.
There’s nothing that the Tolkien estate can do about it, unless they already own a technology company called Palantir with a trademark registry.
The Tolkien estate is sufficiently litigious that one can safely assume they would have sued if it were advisable, and thus that there isn't a case there.
As someone else mentioned, you can't copyright a name, and even if the Tolkien estate has trademarked those terms, it isn't using them in the same domain as Thiel's companies.
I mean “But maybe it's gotten to a place where encouraging independent thought and questioning leads to some bad conclusions.” kinda sums it up right?
Tech workers have for a long time considered themselves above any type of broader thought. (Personally, I think there was a naive libertarian posturing masquerading as ethical sophistication.) Now that the shiny has worn of off the tech industry and workers are being treated like the plebs, more people are starting to consider their role in making the current dysfunctional hellscape that is the modern world. It sucks no one wanted to listen to critiques from the disenfranchized as long as there was a DEI page on the intranet, but I'll take late over never.
It's hard to give up privileges for your beliefs.
Tech workers are extremely left wing by any measure though. While the libertarian tech bros get a lot of media attention, they're not even close to a majority.
Libertarian tech bros are what they are because they’re business owners and have the politics of every other business owner. It just had a veneer of counterculture to it because of the industry they happened to be in.
Yeah that's a weird one. I'm not sure which way it goes though. Generally folks seem left, but thinking back the most vocal people are left, but most people don't talk about politics. I'd be willing to bet that there are more conservatives than you'd expect. It also depends on the firm.
To @NaraVara's point, from the folks I know in sales almost all management are conservative.
I heard someone say recently that rich people are the only ones in America with class consciousnesses. Feels pretty true.
All the old class markers around breeding and having storied families are gone. It is, today, just a matter of whether you have money or not. So it makes sense that the people with money have a great deal more consciousness about the money than the people without it. The people without it are forced to invest their consciousness in other markers of identity since the “I have a lot of money” ones aren’t available to them.
Takes me back to conversations I had in college with people figuring out the most ethical way to work in unethical companies. If someone shows up to their job and does the bare minimum, is that theoretically better than letting someone else take the job? Or is it better to not take the job, forcing that company to pay a premium in the labor market to fill that position?
I actually was just having this conversation with my sister's boyfriend (we both work at companies where they're not particularly evil or anything, but definitely unsavory with some of the politics/ways money are being made). We had our own way of justifying it and at the end we pretty much just said "at least we're not working at palantir"
I worked for a corrections company that owned ankle monitors and reentry centers and I didn't love that but that was their focus, probation and parole monitoring and rehabilitation. At least in theory.
It was bought out by one of the top two Private Prison companies in the world (they wanted that sweet sweet ankle monitor technology). And I now worked for a company that was actively at cross-purposes with my beliefs (which definitely informed said beliefs and continued their leftward march.) I knew my part of the work - the reentry stuff - was mostly good - we didn't follow our policies on only working with high risk of recidivism people, and my coworkers were often racist and homophobic and sexist assholes. I was pressured to rate people higher on the risk inventory we used so we could show how much better they were after but when I said I was following the tool as I was trained they mostly backed off. So I went from "our work is good" to "my work is good" to "I'm responsible for deciding to send people back to prison..." And maybe in a few cases I could justify it. But mostly I couldn't.
I got out. Sometimes the pot boils slowly (even if that isn't how frogs actually work) and you think things are better than they are, until you learn. At least I didn't stay? At least I didn't work for Palantir....idk.
Ooh yeah dang that's definitely a difficult thing. I'm grateful my current company doesn't directly affect people in that way, only part of my company lets people financially ruin their lives (if you can read between the lines about that) and I'm not directly working on that product thankfully.
Overall though it's definitely hard in the world of capitalism. I'm glad you got out though and from what I've seen from your comments you seem to be doing more cool things for students so I think that's a net positive! I'm constantly looking out for jobs but it seems my skillset always ends up in companies with unsavory ideals for some reason.
The public and not for profit sectors aren't always good but I am very happy for the work I get to do now with the people I work with. And while there are definitely ethical quandries or disagreements with policy from time to time it's not the soul destroying drain that my previous job was.
I hope you find your thing that lets you fill your cup
My first job out of school was for an MLM company. They gave me business rules and I turned it into an algorithm the machine understands, to print cheques every week, with most of them going to a fixed few individuals, using money mostly gathered from seniors who got cold called by "the nice young man/ young lady" about this magical health product.
I did finally leave when they were finally abusive to me. But had I been invited into their inner circle or even just kept me reasonably employed, at the time I didn't think too badly about staying. I justified it in my mind that either the people really would use the product as indicated and see genuine health results from all the stone soup it requires1, or they would lose enough money they would stop. I was not yet familiar with chronic poverty, addiction, and mental deterioration with age. But I should have known.
My current company has a lot to do with explosives and direct impact on our planet's ecosystems. I'm choosing to believe their marketing materials because I am paid reasonably well. They did refuse clients based on certain obviously horrible things, so....I got that going
From what I recalled:
Don't eat after 8pm, go to sleep after 10pm
Drink X amount of water, no other liquids other than water and the product (eg, no pop or alcohol)
Go for a 20 minute after consuming the product, eg walk thrice a day
Time the meals to drink the product 10 min after one begins eating, give it another 5 minute pause before eating some more to see if the product "suppresses their appetite already"