Amidst all the other recent news about places where Lisbeth Salander‘s talents may be needed, one is potentially in her own back yard. Alex Carp, Palantir, has just bought forest land in Sweden that’s about the size of Liechtenstein. You can see the area on the map – it also borders Norway. Local hunters with generation-spanning leases were abruptly cast out from using the forest, giving us the first real information about this transaction.I have so many questions, ranging from how Lisbeth and allies will be using Sweden’s Freedom to Roam laws for monitoring to how Sweden’s strong but ethereal Data Protection rules, Karp’s AI-based wealth, and Palantir’s technology partnerships and contracts with the Swedish Defense Authorities for may interact with this very real land acquisition. Whether he’s setting up a “he’s-the-real-deal-Chouinard” type conservation area or whether he needs a place to build his very own little principality so his orcs can transform the forest into a data center, it may be too early to tell, but getting 37,000 acres (15,000 hectares) for about $22 million seems like a bargain that needs to have eyes kept on it.
Cover image: “Swedish Forest” by probaby.gaming is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.
