Strong Message Here, Strong Message Here, Technological Republic (with Stewart Lee and Carole Cadwalladr)

Strong Message Here

Strong Message Here

Technological Republic (with Stewart Lee and Carole Cadwalladr)

7 May 2026

34 minutes

Available for over a year

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.