Mark Jeftovic argues that the public backlash against Palantir’s 22-point “manifesto” (over 35 million views) was misplaced because the surveillance-state technocracy it describes was always inevitable, and that companies invoking visceral public hatred like Palantir, Coinbase, and MicroStrategy tend to outperform the market. He contends society is heading not toward a “panopticon” (surveillance of the many by the few) but a “synopticon” (everyone surveilling everyone), and that the pandemic proved the public will comply with whatever the “parasite class” demands. His central thesis is that institutions like unions and churches that once protected individuals have become oppositional, that liberty can only be attained one person at a time rather than through mass movements, and that the future will involve tribal “informal affiliations” plus self-sovereign digital identity, with privacy becoming a premium product where “it’s going to be a lot more expensive to be free.”
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Hated companies outperform: Jeftovic observes companies that provoke visceral public hatred tend to beat the market, citing Coinbase and MicroStrategy as “next level operators” and Palantir as “the one that got away” after he passed on it under $20 a share when it traded at 100 times earnings, before it “more than 10x’d.” He’s now noticing the same backlash pattern around Flock Safety.
Synopticon vs panopticon: He distinguishes the feared “panopticon” (surveillance of all by the few) from the “synopticon” (everyone aware of everyone), referencing a 1980s sci-fi story “I See You” about devices that let anyone view any place and time, which extinguished crime but eliminated privacy. He cites a Toronto developer vibe-coding open-data dashboards and tools like the Nancy Pelosi stock tracker as crude early versions.
Pandemic as compliance proof: Jeftovic says his biggest wrong prediction was expecting a public backlash against the expert and technocratic class after the pandemic’s “catastrophically wrong” management; instead, especially among Canadian boomers, people “memory-holed it and doubled down,” proving to elites that the public will accept contradiction, surveillance, and censorship.
Self-sovereign digital identity: He advocates decentralized ID using blockchain-style private keys, giving the example of a bouncer scanning a QR code that only confirms someone is over 19 without revealing name or address, and notes the real reason businesses demand ID for returns is preventing “double spend,” a problem crypto solved 15 years ago.
Tribes replacing institutions: Invoking fourth turning theory, Jeftovic argues old institutions like unions and churches have become oppositional and that future institutions will emerge from informal tribal affiliations (comparing this to the Sicilian Mafia filling a vacuum), promoting his Canadian “ready network” at ready.ca for “high agency net producer Canadians” and predicting gamified social credit systems where people compete on compliance leaderboards.
