Colin Sheridan: Where is the line between welcoming investment and surrendering identity?

Who are we hosting? Why are we hosting them? What do they represent? And what does their presence say about us, asks Colin Sheridan

Co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, Peter Thiel is planning a retreat this summer in Dublin with an elite network of over 220 tech, financial and political figures. Picture: Getty Images

Nothing says Irish begrudgery quite like a bunch of “leftie loons” taking issue with billionaire Bond villains hosting secret society gatherings on an old landlord’s estate in Wicklow. They’re never, ever happy, are they? If they’re not protesting the slaughter of children in the Holy Land, they’re standing up for minorities being targeted by neo-fascist agitators in Belfast.

They are never not at it. These are open-toe-sandal-wearing, placard-waving Arts graduates with nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon than shame anyone who sticks up for the 1%. Those commie bastards are just bitter they didn’t get in on the ground floor of Palantir, the anthropologically “not-for-profit” death star which serves as an on-ramp to almost everything anti-humanity. We are talking about weaponised AI, predictive targeting, deep surveillance, and the kind of high-tech tracking that feels less like innovation and more like a Philip K Dick novel brought to vivid, terrifying life.