The Palantiri consistently provided their users technically accurate intelligence that lead to disastrous strategic decisions.
Denethor committed suicide out of despair, after a palantir showed him the black fleet approaching, but he did not know that it was actually Aragorn who had captured the fleet and was coming with reinforcements.
We don't know specifically how the palantir deceived Saruman, but it's pretty clear it was one of the key factors in his corruption and downfall.
And even Sauron himself was misled in this way! The palantir showed him, correctly, that a hobbit and Aragorn were at Helm's Deep, and he concluded that Aragorn had the ring. So he prematurely moved his armies out of Mordor and left the plains and Mt Doom unguarded, which permitted the destruction of the ring.
I honestly can't think of a worse name for a company that provides intel for strategic decision making.
So yeah... plenty of real world versions of that.
So the lesson is that you have to use the intel you get wisely, or else very bad things will happen. I'm not sure if that makes the name any better for the tool it's applied to, though.
If you look at the actual numbers, no one, with any idea of mathematics or statistics or even just basic analysis skills, would call Trump's election victory a landslide.
It calls into question the fundamental raisin d'etre of Palantir. It makes Palantir look like a pure propaganda tool.
Therefore, also entirely useless for strategic decision making.
Interesting analysis of Palantir and Alex Karp:
Part 1, Palantir: https://youtu.be/PpEg0XIeFtA
Part 2, Alex Karp: https://youtu.be/6YWFDhOps6I
I can understand a zeal to "protect the country", but FFS, to be the brains of the secret police is a bit much.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/opinion/alex-karp-palanti...
Yet the choice is very effective at telling those with eyes to see that the one who chose the name possesses only a surface-level understanding of what appears to be his favorite piece of literature.
Discussed previously e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45901389
I'm pretty sure Tolkien would be furious at the mere idea. He could not have written more thoroughly black and white morality if he tried...
No AI though, just fully stacked...
Well that certainly is one way to spin having 22 of your 23 counterstatement requests dismissed by the court.
(Though he was obsessed with lineage and blood quotients and pale skin)
We don't know how much of it is real flaw or corruption and how much is just the zeitgeist they lived in.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if Musk's capital T today would end up becoming the beginning or turning point of a cautionary tale in the future. And, for better or worse, I know a lot of otherwise great and talented people who are still his fans.
Access the .is domain https://archive.is/lXw7j
internet archive cannot resolve either
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Archive.today_guidan...
This is the price of that dark pattern. These sites wouldn't exist if they acted like publishers instead of retailers.
I think it's great. Europe and other regions will be building out their own tech stacks, decreasing global dependence on big US players like AWS and Palantir, creating lots more jobs for programmers and much broader ecosystems for doing things.
oh that is clever writing