Embrace the dialectic.
A table of contents to Volume 1, featuring letters to the editor.
Caravanserai aspires to build a community of open discussion. And what is a forum without the opportunity to provide feedback? Today, as we wind down the first volume of our experiment, we’re sharing some of the responses that writers have provided to each other’s pieces across Volume 1.
Gadfly takes on The Huguenot, arguing that the American government really doesn’t need the likes of Palantir to function effectively. Whalefall makes the case for a new clientelism in a reflection on our affordability issue. Samuel Hamilton rounds us out with a contemplative letter on the choices LLMs will force us to make.
I. Gadfly (responding to The Huguenot, 29 October, 2025)
The Huguenot’s praise for Palantir as a disruptive “new entrant” mistakes a change of cast for a change of plot. Swapping an old oligopoly of peddlers for a new one (see also: Anduril and SpaceX) merely creates a more shadowy dependence. A superpower capable of building nuclear submarines is surely capable of hiring its own data scientists and building open-data systems.1 If Washington is too sclerotic for intelligent procurement or talent retention, how can it be trusted to choose and oversee black-box platforms it cannot comprehend or staff? A crisis of state capacity is not solved by renting an ever-more-expensive external brain, particularly one that’s two-timing with the NHS, r/wallstreetbets, and European and Israeli governments.
Nor is Palantir’s private-sector revenue the comfort the author suggests. Corporate America buys the wrong technology, at scale, for years at a time. Banks purchased elaborate risk management systems before 2008 and still blew themselves up. That Airbus or AT&T are clients speaks volumes about the reach of Palantir’s sales force, and nothing about the quality of its tools.
Most grating is the libertarian fairy tale propping up the narrative: that Palantir is a singular, market-forged marvel of “civically minded capitalism.” It is yet another data-analytics platform now shrouded by national-security obfuscation. It is not the fruit of some freewheeling “Silicon Valley je ne sais quoi,” but of vast subsidies, DARPA, and NSF programs. Palantir is a commercial harvest of a taxpayer-sown field, sold back to the state at a premium. This is not the salvation of a sclerotic system, but the financialization and privatized capture of the state’s own advantages.
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II. Whalefall (responding to John Brown, 15 October, 2025)
Giving people money is much easier than lowering prices. It’s a little surprising that American policymakers on the left have not foregrounded cash transfers as a solution to affordability. While grand initiatives like universal basic income have become fodder for Silicon Valley executives bent on gutting public services and replacing them with meager cash payments in an AI-fueled dystopian nightmare, there are other ways of approaching the affordability question. Indeed, given the popularity of “Medicare for All”, it’s surprising that “Social Security for All” has not achieved the same level of prominence in a political moment where affordability is increasingly foregrounded as the number one issue on Americans’ minds.
While I agree with the authors from Issue 2 that truly addressing affordability requires a more holistic evaluation of the systems that are driving the crisis in the first place, that we must look “beyond small policy tweaks or tax credits” as John Brown writes, it’s also hard to deny the massive effect that tax credits, when designed correctly, can have on poverty. Stimulus payments and the expanded Child Tax Credit brought child poverty to a record low of 5.2 percent in 2021, cutting poverty rates by more than half by putting thousands of dollars back in families’ pockets. And while this stimulus might have contributed to the sharp rise in inflation during that period, it does highlight the fact that the government can actually be quite effective at massive, real-time wealth redistribution in moments of acute crisis. Framing affordability with wide-scale wealth redistribution at its core could be a strategic way to avoid the pitfalls of attempting to control prices while directly providing constituents with tangible resources. If progressives must compete with corporate interests buying elections, why not start with buying the votes of actual working people?
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III. Samuel Hamilton (responding to the candle of arras, 3 December, 2025)
The emotional crux of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden comes while three of the characters are debating the story of Abel and Cain. One line in particular, about the ability of mankind to prevail over sin, is interpreted differently across biblical editions.
One edition translates it as “thou shalt rule over [sin]”—as if it is preordained, already written. The second translates it as “do thou”—a directive, obligation. The third, found in the Hebrew word “timshel,” translates to what Steinbeck suggests is the core of what it means to be human: “thou mayest.” You have the choice. In the face of good or evil, meaning or nothingness, pursuit or resignation, you always have the choice.
The same day I read this, I was thinking about how the most important things in interpersonal relationships—love, respect, trust—could not ever be coerced. Come of your own will, or not at all. I’ve often wondered where this tenet comes from: If it’s just pride, or my socialization as a rugged American individual. But it also feels so intuitive, as if it’s a fact belonging to natural law. Wherever it’s borne from, it’s a principle society will need to negotiate as love and recognition—or the synthetic market substitutes—become easier and easier to acquire on demand. To just have, without having to contend against the complexities and asymmetrical desires of another person’s independent will.
Can the “manufactured coherence” that a candle of arras describes, the static quality of known values, ever be as fulfilling as the things won and lost in the agonizing depths of human subjectivity? Can it emulate that vast portal lying through and beyond our fundamental condition of ambiguity?
As AI companions proliferate, I think we’ll see the world bifurcate into two kinds of people. The ones who have an unyielding fidelity to what is true and natural, no matter how uncomfortable, and those who just want to feel good. And in that process, we’ll first have to confront what Steinbeck got at 70 years ago: Why does will, why does agency, mean anything at all?
Table of Contents
Below is a list of every piece in Volume 1, organized by issue.
I.1. You can choose to look up—at all that is above.
Is “all-of-the-above” energy policy a smokescreen for fossil fuel lock-in? If not, why not?
I. Janson Alexender: “All of the above amounts to a supremely condescending negative misdirection.”
II. bokchoyluvr99: “All of the above is not a strategy; it’s a placeholder. It does not articulate clear objectives, define trade-offs, or prioritize investments.”
III. Nuclear Jellyfish: “But, on today’s battlefield, the soldiers of the fossil fuel lobby wield language like a toddler with a gun. It’s time we pick up the gun and shoot the baby.”
I.2. But the worth of a human can also persuade.
What are the promises (or pitfalls) of “affordability” as a political goal?
I. John Brown: “While affordability clearly can be the successful centerpiece of a campaign, especially if grounded in tangible, meaningful policies―fast and free buses, municipal grocery stores―it should be the entry point to a broader project to ensure greater dignity in American life.”
II. thethirdcat: “As party leaders continue their soul-searching, they might consider letting someone with lived experience define their platform rather than someone who studied it. Until they do, promises to tackle affordability ring hollow.”
III. Fullmetal Communist: “Like a chicken and an egg, you cannot have a just society with affordability but without civil and human rights.”
I.3. Structured and righteous chaos.
We know what fascist aesthetics look like. What are progressive aesthetics—are they coherent? Are they persuasive?
I. momtattoo: “These are counter-hegemonic narratives that push back against the right as they try to erase our most vulnerable from the public and weaponize the rural-urban divide.”
II. Palindromium: “Maybe we can learn something from the Progressive Era’s success in defining a message for modern “progress(ive)” politics.”
III. accidentally aesthetic: “The answer to the latter invites uncertainty, yet effective progressive aesthetics can placate worries by evoking nostalgia, which is simply being used to answer a different question.”
I.4. No one knows what they do, but they are probably behind everything.
Does the government have a need for the services of an entity like Palantir?
I. The Huguenot: “The success of Palantir and its ilk is a story of civically-minded American capitalism—an encouraging sign that the USG can (sometimes) marshal the explosive innovation of the tech industry to strengthen national security and advance civil government.”
II. Emile89: “What this means is, put simply, that no work contracted to Palantir can be politically neutral.”
III. California Chrome: “The sublimated desires driving up Palantir’s valuation and the dearth of administrative and technical capacity in government, the fuel for public-sector demand for its services, go hand in hand.”
I.5. Essential district listening.
Capsule reviews of films, albums, and books that our writers have enjoyed lately.
I. the candle of arras: “The film suggests that a rigid adherence to objective fact cannot counter the psychological distortion of anti-black racism. Rather, these conflicts take place over the shared reality of a social community.”
II. Momtattoo: “And especially in times like these, Velocity Girl’s frivolity feels precious.”
III. the Lanterne Attorney: “These antinomies sparkle in Spufford’s often-dreamlike prose, which successfully defamiliarizes and makes absurd the discipline of economics itself.”
I.6. Decoupling sounds heroic until the bill arrives.
Are the risks of Chinese technology and investment greater for India, or the benefits?
I. Gadfly: “India cannot wish away dependence on Chinese inputs, nor pretend that hostility comes without economic pain.”
II. Humraaz: “The photoshoots of bilateral handshakes and a few wonderful images of Modi Ji third-wheeling a conversation between Putin and Xi do not change much.”
III. George Eliot: “But China’s ambivalence and the onset of AI call into question whether India’s focus on its manufacturing sector will yield the results it hopes for.”
I.7. This is a bad transit idea.
Which public transit ideas are actually good?
I. Warburg Pincus: “Zoning throws a wrench on the tracks―then it derails the whole train.”
II. GL Stearns: “We can do it here and we must imitate rather than innovate: these are two good transit ideas.”
III. Designer Transit: “In the context of designing public transit systems, HCD feels like a no-brainer.”
I.8. Humans are inadequate for humans.
How do large language models change how people make decisions?
I. the candle of arras: “The most significant existential implication of LLMs is not that they potentially represent a formidable other, but that they already diminish our ability to recognize ourselves.”
II. “Francis”: “However, when we attempt to divorce form from meaning, we are asking our brain to make an unprecedented linguistic distinction—one we seem to be pretty bad at.”
III. L.L. Bean: “Resolving it would require rules of the game—ways to order preferences between people, or freeze them for one person—that would bring back transaction costs and, worse, institutions.”
Enjoyed reading? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!
Volume 1 will conclude with the editorial board’s take on the season.
Several Asian governments, hardly known for technocratic perfection, have at least experimented with public digital infrastructure that is not wholly captured by a single vendor.
In response to Whalefall, I’d opine that “affordability” as a political concern may be more subject to heuristics and price signals than to real household incomes. Tax credits more effectively address the latter (still a crucial issue, but slightly askew of the current affordability debate).