“The reality of a disjointed violent world forces Pareto optimal conditions on institutions”. So began Palantir’s CEO Alex Karp on a recent earnings call in which he proudly defended the use of his company’s military technology on battlefields around the world (Ukraine, Israel and others). Karp was also extremely bullish about the future of America, but warned that this raised the stakes for war: “the rational consequence of [America’s strength] is that companies will have to prove that their software works on the battlefield”. At least the prospect of WWIII is looking good for some people…