Palantir isn't a good name. It's a disastrously bad one, if you ask me. It's a constant scandal as every five minutes somebody gets the bright idea that "ackshually the Palantir were a tool for evil made by a demon!!"
They're never able to live it down. It always comes up. And it makes them seem, in a way, careless.
Ackshually the Palantir were made by the Elves of Valinor, and weren't made as a tool for evil.
In fact, there's a very interesting theme there: The Palantir are only as useful as their users are wise. The power to see is disastrous if you don't know where to look and how to interpret what you see.
If they named it with that in mind, I'd say it's a very thoughtful name, and a prescient caution. But I doubt it.
Nah - that customer base would much rather a mean-nothing name like "Salesforce". The real evil people don't revel so much in their evilness they're much more in the "ends justify the means" camp where they can try and hide their evilness from their conscience. Nobody wants to wear a pin saying "I am, in fact, a terrible person that the world would be better without."
You're talking about it. Right now along with a solid dozen other people as the only comments on this thread.
People barely understand what the company does, but boy do they want to tell you all about the name.
It's marketing gold. Because rather then "who was that? Some firm named something corp" instead you're spending 5 minutes reinforcing how bad the name is..just building a ton of word association games for a name derived from a well known fiction work and really building up the message that the company is named Palantir and they sell products to the government.
There's a bit of writing in that direction if you're curious. I like Benjamin quite a but and have gotten a lot out of his thinking. Here's the wiki-level entry to it:
They like purity. Purity of the body (fitness and lifestyle) and purity of society (regimentation, conformity, single race, single ideology, single sexuality, standardized architecture).
It's neurological. They feel emotional disgust if the regimentation isn't there.
Palantir isn't a good name. It's a disastrously bad one, if you ask me. It's a constant scandal as every five minutes somebody gets the bright idea that "ackshually the Palantir were a tool for evil made by a demon!!"
They're never able to live it down. It always comes up. And it makes them seem, in a way, careless.
Ackshually the Palantir were made by the Elves of Valinor, and weren't made as a tool for evil.
In fact, there's a very interesting theme there: The Palantir are only as useful as their users are wise. The power to see is disastrous if you don't know where to look and how to interpret what you see.
If they named it with that in mind, I'd say it's a very thoughtful name, and a prescient caution. But I doubt it.
It's a great name if your target customer base is people who want to be evil by surveilling everything. Behold my next company, "Eye of Sauron LLC"
Nah - that customer base would much rather a mean-nothing name like "Salesforce". The real evil people don't revel so much in their evilness they're much more in the "ends justify the means" camp where they can try and hide their evilness from their conscience. Nobody wants to wear a pin saying "I am, in fact, a terrible person that the world would be better without."
You're talking about it. Right now along with a solid dozen other people as the only comments on this thread.
People barely understand what the company does, but boy do they want to tell you all about the name.
It's marketing gold. Because rather then "who was that? Some firm named something corp" instead you're spending 5 minutes reinforcing how bad the name is..just building a ton of word association games for a name derived from a well known fiction work and really building up the message that the company is named Palantir and they sell products to the government.
At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from the classic sci-fi novel Don't Invent The Torment Nexus.
Fascism puts a heavy emphasis on aesthetics
They're better at selling ideas than having fleshed out ideas. One could say they sell before they build.
Italian fascists did have fashion forward uniforms.
So did the German Nazis back then now I think about it.
Maybe there is something with cult-like thinking, fascist or not, where the aesthetics seduces more people into wanting to be a part of it all?
No doubt the smart uniforms, the rallies, the flags, the songs etc were a factor in many young men joining the SS.
There's a bit of writing in that direction if you're curious. I like Benjamin quite a but and have gotten a lot out of his thinking. Here's the wiki-level entry to it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestheticization_of_politics
They like purity. Purity of the body (fitness and lifestyle) and purity of society (regimentation, conformity, single race, single ideology, single sexuality, standardized architecture).
It's neurological. They feel emotional disgust if the regimentation isn't there.
Oh, it was 100% marketing.
It's not just fascists, either; totalitarian regimes _in general_ tend to be very keen on this sort of thing.