It\u2019s taken me years to find a chore coat with a cut that flatters my big tits but, now that I finally own one, I want to incinerate it.<\/p>\n
Such is the power of brand contamination; infamous data surveillance megacorp Palantir, has decided to bang a logo on a chore coat to sell as corporate merch<\/a>.<\/p>\n Chore coats are the traditional short denim or twill jacket of the 19th-century French working class. Palantir, however, is a company whose public words and commercial-in-confidence activities are inspiring local calls to have its contracts cancelled and its business banned<\/a>.<\/p>\n The gentle French garment is now as cursed as whatever \u201cMarie Amazonette\u201d will ever wear to the Met Gala<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to the New York Times, Palantir\u2019s head of strategic engagement wanted to create a merch offering \u201cthat wasn\u2019t a bland corporate polo or vest\u201d. Thus the veste de travail<\/a>, with its convenient pockets and famous styling on the likes of Paul Newman and Jeremy Allen White became the latest cultural victim of a company with a $325bn+ market capitalisation and whose chief executive\u2019s favourite motto is \u201cDominate\u201d.<\/p>\n The NYT reports in-house strategic engagers used to deferentially emblazon this word on hoodies and T-shirts before they decided to ruin my coat. This seems to be effective labelling for one reason, and that is knowing immediately who to avoid in a bar.<\/p>\n Let me assure Palantir\u2019s reputational management team that \u201cbland corporate\u201d is not the sticky brand of a company whose very name comes from the seeing-stones manipulated by the dark lord Sauron in The Lord of the Rings as he attempts to take totalitarian control and, uh, dominate the lands of Middle-earth.<\/p>\n With its reputation as the \u201cscariest company in the world\u201d<\/a>, I\u2019m disappointed the merch-makers didn\u2019t double down on a range of horned war-helms, branded black capes and wearable fog machines for that molten-fire-pits-of-Angband workplace-casual look.<\/p>\n Maybe next season?<\/p>\n \u201cSinister\u201d<\/a> is arguably more the vibe for a global, corporate, Trump-aligned outfit supplying AI-powered surveillance technology to America\u2019s \u201cICE\u201d paramilitary, delivering \u201cincreased efficiency in deportation logistics\u201d \u2013 although Palantir pushed back<\/a> on Amnesty International\u2019s claims operations may have been at \u201chigh risk\u201d of contributing to human rights violations.<\/p>\n But data-driven deportation is not Palantir\u2019s only business! The Guardian has previously reported<\/a> on its role in the Pentagon\u2019s lethal unmanned drone program, the company\u2019s assistance in police departments\u2019 allegedly racist<\/a> criminal profiling and the use of its software by the IDF in Gaza. Militaries and police forces all over the world use its services, so do corporations.<\/p>\n So does the British government, and so do Australian governments<\/a> \u2013 the latter to the tune of $80m in contracts and $160m in investment.<\/p>\n Should we discount as hyperbole, then, MPs from both the UK\u2019s governing and opposition parties describing Palantir\u2019s recently issued manifesto as like something from \u201cRobocop\u201d or \u201cthe ramblings of a supervillain\u201d<\/a>?<\/p>\n Is it supervillainy for the Palantir co-founder and board chair, Peter Thiel, to be building a bunker in New Zealand<\/a>, funding far-right political influence operations<\/a> across the world, investing in for-profit private libertarian charter cities<\/a> and giving speeches about \u201cthe antichrist\u201d that quote a Nazi jurist<\/a> \u201cwhose work he said helped create the core of his own beliefs\u201d?<\/p>\n Thiel didn\u2019t write the manifesto! The document that claims \u201csome cultures have produced vital advances; other remain dysfunctional and regressive\u201d, described disarming Germany and Japan after the second world war as an \u201covercorrection\u201d, backs AI weapons and has many angry words for those who\u2019d scrutinise (for shame!) the rich and powerful was authored by Thiel\u2019s co-founder, now CEO, Alex Karp. The \u201cDominate\u201d guy.<\/p>\n