Technological Republic (with Stewart Lee and Carole Cadwalladr)
From Strong Message Here by BBC Radio 4
May 7, 2026 · 34 min
About this episode
The episode discusses the Technological Republic and the language used in tech manifestos, featuring insights from Armando, Stewart, and Carole.
What is the Technological Republic? Armando, Stewart and founder of The Nerve, Carole Cadwalladr, discuss the language and posture of the manifesto released by Palantir's Alex Karp last year. We look at how Tech bros frame those who block their progress, their effusive language about their products, why they might reflect on linguistic parallels with George Orwell's works. Armando also describes William Shatner's prose, in which he finds, having read his book, Tech War, that his sentences seem to run on, perhaps one or two clauses longer than a sentence should, which interested him, but also made for a challenging read, which in turn made it worthy of discussion on this week's programme. Got a strong message for Armando? Email us at strongmessagehere@bbc.co.uk Sound editing: Chris Maclean Production Coordinator: Giulia Mazzu Executive Producer: Richard Morris Recorded at the Sound Company Produced by Gwyn Rhys Davies. A BBC Studios production for Radio 4.
People in this episode
Host: Armando Iannucci
Guests: Stewart Lee, Carole Cadwalladr
Topics covered
- technology
- language
- manifesto
- literature
- comedy
- media
Keywords
- Technological Republic
- manifesto
- Palantir
- language
- George Orwell
- Tech War
- William Shatner
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Palantir
Books & works: Tech War, George Orwell
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