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Now, now. A point of order.
The Palantiri are not evil, at least not originally. They were made by the elf Feanor in the Undying Lands, and for the vast majority of Middle Earth's history, they were a tool for good, allowing the free people (especially Arnor and Gondor) to communicate with each other over long distances and monitor their kingdoms. However, with the fall of Arnor and the decline of Gondor, at least one of the Palantiri fell into the hands of Sauron, who used it for evil purposes. And this made all of the others dangerous to use as well, since using them would put one in direct communication with Sauron himself, potentially making one vulnerable to mind reading, psychic influence, or at least only being able to see things that Sauron wanted one to see. Only someone more powerful than Sauron could use them safely at that point, and there was no one left in Middle Earth at that time who was powerful enough to do so. (Aragorn was able to somewhat do it ... but he was only able to use it to directly communicate with Sauron -- even he wasn't able to fully control it and make it show whatever he wanted.)
It would be interesting to find out if Sauron's influence over the Palantiri was permanent, or if it ended after his downfall. But, unfortunately, as far as I know, the story never mentions how they were affected in the aftermath. Could go either way. With the destruction of the One Ring, everything Sauron built with his power was undone, which could include the corruption of the Palantiri. However, the Palantiri do seem to be susceptible to getting fixated on certain things if they're used for that purpose too much -- for example, even long before Sauron, one of them was already fixated so it could only be used to look into the Undying Lands, and only someone extremely powerful could make it show anything else. So it's possible that Sauron's long use of the Palantiri in general and especially the Palantir in his possession could have made all of them still permanently fixated on Mordor or something. It would have been nice to get some closure on that in the story, to find out if the Palantiri became useful again after Sauron's fall.
Of course, none of this applies to the actual US surveillance company, which definitely is evil.
i heard he is obsessed with the fanfic version written bya russian, called the last ringbearer.
Ah, of course he would be. The fanfic version where Sauron is a misunderstood hero.
Excellent write-up. I learned a lot! Always something new to learn about Middle Earth. :)
I recently watched a video essay that tried to explain why all these billionaires basically do the "invent the Torment Nexus from the famous novel Do Not Invent the Torment Nexus" thing...
Essentially, in their minds they're the hero. They have money and power and think they'll do it differently. Skynet without Judgement Day, Blade Runner's neon and flying cars without the social erosion, and so on...
It's so weird how Thiel is such a "fan" of Tolkien's works and yet his first move here was to double down on Boromir's initial folly:
Imagine the hubris, thinking a global surveillance network with the power to designate its own targets would never be used by "the wrong hands." Pathetic.
I’m 100% sure that guys like Thiel and Musk have only, at most, watched the LotR movies but certainly have never read the books.
Technically correct, which is the best kind of correct. I have not read the books so I am just going by memory of the movie franchise which I haven't seen since it first came out (and I have Long Covid) so the finer points of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion(Thank you spellcheck for that one) are not at my fingertips.
Considering the Death and Destruction of the real world Palantir, not to mention the evil use of general control and aid in creating a police state on purpose to the point that its employees have at several points have opened up large discussions that basically say "Are we the baddies???" I think the evil version of the Palantir shown in the films is the best analogue.
Anyway updating my post now.