Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Our future is being stolen from us by a technocratic authoritarian machine lacking empathy or wisdom. So why aren't we in America more outraged?
While the U.S. military launches unpopular wars and the Trump regime ruins our economy and our environmental future, Palantir is building a database of every American citizen, including our financial transactions, health data, and social media preferences.
In this video, I look at the Palantir manifesto, the Karp–Thiel–Vance circle, and the new militarized masculinity now dominating the American right: a strange synthesis of Silicon Valley master-class fantasy, evangelical eschatology, and reactionary nostalgia for an industrial past. I then step back from the news cycle to ask a deeper question — how was this passive American public produced in the first place? Why do we seem unable to fight back effectively against this ruinous agenda?
Drawing on Eva Illouz's Cold Intimacies, Byung-Chul Han's The Burnout Society, Catherine Liu's Virtue Hoarders, and Antonio Negri on the "production" of subjectivity, I argue hat the reactionary right unleashed a counter-strike against a long, incomplete, "feminization" of culture. A therapeutic, communicative, victim-centered ethic took over the professional managerial class over the last several decades. While the right promotes contempt, nationalism, and violence, progressives cling to an identity based on victimization, administrative protocols, and virtue signaling. Neither side offers a way out. In this emergency, we must define a new way forward.
As AI leads to mass layoffs and the war leads to spikes in costs, we need to develop resilience, understanding ourselves as participatory agents grounded in embodied presence, building class solidarity. The future is high-stakes community engagement, as we saw in Minneapolis last year. We must reject both the victim-identity of weak progressivism and the techno-authoritarian "toxic masculine" project of the new right, as we come together to fight for our future.
Daniel Pinchbeck is a writer, researcher, and public intellectual whose work focuses on consciousness, culture, technology, ecology, and the polycrisis. He is the author of Breaking Open the Head, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, How Soon Is Now, and other books.
0:00 The Palantir Manifesto
1:30 The Draft, Iran, and Permanent War
2:28 Palantir Inside the U.S. Surveillance State
3:30 Thiel, the Antichrist, and the SAVE Act
6:28 The New Militarized Masculinity on the Right
9:03 Why Is Resistance So Muted?
10:58 Negri and the Production of Subjectivity
14:26 Eva Illouz and Emotional Capitalism
18:54 Byung-Chul Han and the Achievement-Subject
23:52 Catherine Liu and the Professional Managerial Class
26:57 The Counter-Strike Against "Feminization"
29:15 Toward a Participatory Subject
📚 Books and sources referenced:
- Alex Karp & Nicholas Zamiska, The Technological Republic (Crown, 2025)
- Eva Illouz, Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism (2007)
- Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society; The Agony of Eros; Psychopolitics
- Catherine Liu, Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class (2021)
- Antonio Negri on the production of subjectivity
- Timothy Snyder on "superpower suicide"
—
📩 Subscribe to Liminal News on Substack
substack.com/@danielpinchbeck
🔗 FOLLOW DANIEL PINCHBECK
📸 Instagram → / danielpinchbeck
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📘 Facebook → / danielpinchbeck.author
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💼 LinkedIn → / danielpinchbeck
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📚 Explore My Books
tinyurl.com/mrsmtpwv
🌐 Join Our Online Community, e-Courses, Seminars & more!
The Liminal Institute
https://www.liminal.news
🖥️ Official Website
pinchbeck.io
🎧 Also available on:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4dk2HIa...
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
#Palantir #AlexKarp #PeterThiel #TechnoFascism #ByungChulHan #DanielPinchbeck
Our future is being stolen from us by a technocratic authoritarian machine lacking empathy or wisdom. So why aren't we in America more outraged?
While the U.S. military launches unpopular wars and the Trump regime ruins our economy and our environmental future, Palantir is building a database of every American citizen, including our financial transactions, health data, and social media preferences.
In this video, I look at the Palantir manifesto, the Karp–Thiel–Vance circle, and the new militarized masculinity now dominating the American right: a strange synthesis of Silicon Valley master-class fantasy, evangelical eschatology, and reactionary nostalgia for an industrial past. I then step back from the news cycle to ask a deeper question — how was this passive American public produced in the first place? Why do we seem unable to fight back effectively against this ruinous agenda?
Drawing on Eva Illouz's Cold Intimacies, Byung-Chul Han's The Burnout Society, Catherine Liu's Virtue Hoarders, and Antonio Negri on the "production" of subjectivity, I argue hat the reactionary right unleashed a counter-strike against a long, incomplete, "feminization" of culture. A therapeutic, communicative, victim-centered ethic took over the professional managerial class over the last several decades. While the right promotes contempt, nationalism, and violence, progressives cling to an identity based on victimization, administrative protocols, and virtue signaling. Neither side offers a way out. In this emergency, we must define a new way forward.
As AI leads to mass layoffs and the war leads to spikes in costs, we need to develop resilience, understanding ourselves as participatory agents grounded in embodied presence, building class solidarity. The future is high-stakes community engagement, as we saw in Minneapolis last year. We must reject both the victim-identity of weak progressivism and the techno-authoritarian "toxic masculine" project of the new right, as we come together to fight for our future.
Daniel Pinchbeck is a writer, researcher, and public intellectual whose work focuses on consciousness, culture, technology, ecology, and the polycrisis. He is the author of Breaking Open the Head, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, How Soon Is Now, and other books.
0:00 The Palantir Manifesto
1:30 The Draft, Iran, and Permanent War
2:28 Palantir Inside the U.S. Surveillance State
3:30 Thiel, the Antichrist, and the SAVE Act
6:28 The New Militarized Masculinity on the Right
9:03 Why Is Resistance So Muted?
10:58 Negri and the Production of Subjectivity
14:26 Eva Illouz and Emotional Capitalism
18:54 Byung-Chul Han and the Achievement-Subject
23:52 Catherine Liu and the Professional Managerial Class
26:57 The Counter-Strike Against "Feminization"
29:15 Toward a Participatory Subject
📚 Books and sources referenced:
- Alex Karp & Nicholas Zamiska, The Technological Republic (Crown, 2025)
- Eva Illouz, Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism (2007)
- Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society; The Agony of Eros; Psychopolitics
- Catherine Liu, Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class (2021)
- Antonio Negri on the production of subjectivity
- Timothy Snyder on "superpower suicide"
—
📩 Subscribe to Liminal News on Substack
substack.com/@danielpinchbeck
🔗 FOLLOW DANIEL PINCHBECK
📸 Instagram → / danielpinchbeck
🧵 Threads → threads.net/@danielpinchbeck
📘 Facebook → / danielpinchbeck.author
🐦 Twitter / X → / pinchbeck
🔵 Bluesky → https://bsky.app/profile/danielpinchb...
💼 LinkedIn → / danielpinchbeck
📚 Goodreads → / 26172.daniel_pinchbeck
📚 Explore My Books
tinyurl.com/mrsmtpwv
🌐 Join Our Online Community, e-Courses, Seminars & more!
The Liminal Institute
https://www.liminal.news
🖥️ Official Website
pinchbeck.io
🎧 Also available on:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4dk2HIa...
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
#Palantir #AlexKarp #PeterThiel #TechnoFascism #ByungChulHan #DanielPinchbeck
