The Palantir Police State Meltdown in Cardiff
Johnny Vedmore Cuts A Lonely Figure Opposing Peter Thiel's Police State Panopticon in the Welsh Capital. I was in Cardiff city centre on a very busy Sunday in June, and I was surrounded by fully grown adult children who had all paid an extortionate amount of money to a corporation to hear senior citizens sing them adult lullabies. Yes, Metallica were in town to sing their extremely camp nursery rhymes to an audience that appeared intent on recreating 1984. You may think that I sound a little down about the event, and you’d be right. Not only were the gayest metal band in human history in the city of my birth, but Cardiff was also being targeted by an even more villainous bunch of guttersnipes; South Wales Police’s Facial Recognition Unit was deployed in an attempt to criminalise the concert attendants. There is always an extremely small amount of resistance to this burgeoning new technology, connected to Peter Thiel’s Palantir Foundry and Gotham Systems, which the authorities claimed to be relatively benign for anyone but wanted criminals. - J.V.