Non-translucent and indestructible, perfectly shaped spheres, PALANTÍRI, created by the elves of Valinor. Thanks to them, one may communicate over long distances and gain insight into the future and the past. Tolkien’s most famous palantír was owned by the white wizard Saruman.
Palantir Technologies is the name of a technological corporation dealing in data analysis and founded by Peter Thiel; its headquarters sits in Denver, Colorado. Anduril Industries, a start-up whose name alludes to the sword inherited by Aragorn from his ancestors, referred to in Tolkien’s novel as the Flame of the West, devises and sells defensive technologies, including border protection technologies purchased by the American government during Donald Trump’s term and used, for instance, on the Mexican border. What connects Tolkien’s fantasy world with start-up companies idealising technological progress and with ultraconservative, nationalist politics?
After the World Trade Center terrorist attacks, the American government started to develop digital data gathering systems. Their running required advanced informatic systems capable of analysing vast amounts of data, retrieved initially from telecom companies and subsequently also the Internet providers. The endeavour of connecting Silicon Valley with the army and security services was not particularly difficult. The American state needed data analyses; analysts desired access to unlimited financing from the defence budget. Thus, a quasi-authoritarian sphere emerged, governed by large capital and state, at the crossroads of security politics and military technologies. Simultaneously, a new paradigm of Silicon Valley came into being, containing militarisation of technology, belief in the Western exceptionalism, libertarianism, Ayn Rand philosophy, and elements of Tolkien’s fantastic mythology.