Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 125 posts

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#91

Post by internaut »

restalis wrote: post #88
antisthenes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the hardest, but also the most pressing issues is regarding population growth. Should we artificially limit population growth? Can it be done in a way that isn't forceful, but perhaps with the right incentives? Should humanity, as a global society push for quality over quantity in reproduction? Is basic income still feasible in this scenario? It's an ethical and ideological mess and frankly, it'll require some…

"One of the hardest, but also the most pressing issues is regarding population growth." According to whom and on what grounds? The population is a resource. Having more people is having more human potential to throw at problems. There is enough information out there with plenty of arguments on population sustainability and our planet is nowhere close to its limit!

According to me. On the grounds I'd like other species to exist other than humans and their domesticated animals.

http://xkcd.com/1338/

This in some ways even understates the problem e.g. Fish stocks.

There are different kinds of limits other than say, the Soylent Green limit. One is whether our planet is cooler with wild animals or having a few percent more cows.

Cows are cool but not as much as that!

We can have billions more people on Earth but in order for that to happen we need radical, radical technology changes. The most obvious step forward is Vat Meat. No animals required.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#92

Post by Animats »

alphydan wrote: post #56
Animats wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Europe and Japan, population is in decline. US population would be in decline if it were not for immigration. China is expected to max out around 2026. (The one-child policy worked.) India, though, has real problems.[1] Two big problems we expected to have were overpopulation and running out of energy. Neither happened. [1] http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/04/05/indias-population-in...

For your information, population in Europe is not in decline [0]. It's still growing at a an annual 0.8%, and has been growing for the past decade (partly due to immigration) [0] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&l...

Immigration to Europe is being stopped. Fences and walls are going up fast.[1]

[1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/01/daily-c...

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#93

Post by internaut »

metaphorm wrote: post #50
hammock wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the point is we (HN readers) are mostly exposed to smarter than average folks in our daily lives. Our idea of an "average" person probably is smarter than the true average person. And we would do well to remember that, for example, 42% of Americans believe ghosts are real.

you may be tooting your own horn there. its a trap to believe you and/or your community is "above average" in intelligence. the community on hacker news is more enculturated than most for a few things. 1. working with computers 2. selling technology 3. thinking about business in the medium term 4. calling ourselves very smart with little backing evidence for that claim and besides that stuff I am not particularly imp…

Maybe intelligence is like the sausage factory. People like the product but nothing that happens to make it is elegant.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#94

Post by dragonwriter »

Animats wrote: post #12
antisthenes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the hardest, but also the most pressing issues is regarding population growth. Should we artificially limit population growth? Can it be done in a way that isn't forceful, but perhaps with the right incentives? Should humanity, as a global society push for quality over quantity in reproduction? Is basic income still feasible in this scenario? It's an ethical and ideological mess and frankly, it'll require some…

For Europe and Japan, population is in decline. US population would be in decline if it were not for immigration. China is expected to max out around 2026. (The one-child policy worked.) India, though, has real problems.[1] Two big problems we expected to have were overpopulation and running out of energy. Neither happened. [1] http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/04/05/indias-population-in...

> For Europe and Japan, population is in decline. US population would be in decline if it were not for immigration.

There are three claims made here, and only one is correct. Europe has a very small net positive population growth (its population, unlike Japan's, is not in decline), and the US has a small net positive rate of natural growth (and so, it would not be shrinking even without immigration.)

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#95

Post by patrickk »

return0 wrote: post #76
adrianN wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We build the LHC, we landed on a comet, we decoded the human genome...

Not really, the LHC was designed in the 80s. Genome project launched in 1990. It's true that current generations work on incremental problems. The blockchain and social media are something of note.

Don't forget we are close to an electric vehicle breakthrough to the mass market, and it looks like solar PV is on a cost curve that will potentially mean it will dominate electricity generation in the decades ahead (took it's time getting there, but better late than never.)

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#96

Post by Houshalter »

metaphorm wrote: post #50
hammock wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the point is we (HN readers) are mostly exposed to smarter than average folks in our daily lives. Our idea of an "average" person probably is smarter than the true average person. And we would do well to remember that, for example, 42% of Americans believe ghosts are real.

you may be tooting your own horn there. its a trap to believe you and/or your community is "above average" in intelligence. the community on hacker news is more enculturated than most for a few things. 1. working with computers 2. selling technology 3. thinking about business in the medium term 4. calling ourselves very smart with little backing evidence for that claim and besides that stuff I am not particularly imp…

It's not a trap, HN definitely has a higher IQ than the general population. FWIW I have some data on IQs from a similar online community, showing the cumulative distribution of IQ compared to the general population: http://www.leijuvakaupunki.fi/images/box/lw_ssc_iq_cdf.png

HN is highly correlated with technical professions and especially programmers. Those things happen to be highly correlated with and selective of IQ.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#97

Post by dang »

kruipen wrote: post #8
dang wrote: post #2

Url changed from http://conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/peter-thiel-ii... , which points to this.

I don't think this is a good URL change. It is not like http://conversationswithbillkristol.org is a blog spam for "Conversations with Bill Kristol". And the original site has video divided into chapters which is useful.

It was a borderline call, but I'm guessing a URL with Bill Kristol in it would have had an evil-catnip effect. So, risk mitigation.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#98

Post by internaut »

return0 wrote: post #37

He reiterates many of the things he 's been saying for a while and written in his book. It's worth reiterating them, probably because things have not changed. He makes a distinction of computers as the "one field that has progres", but, is it really true that IT is not stuck in a rut as well? What are the new paradigms developed recently? Computer vision, machine learning were established in the 80s , despite only be…

Progress can be a rather nebulous word. It can mean breaking new ground or on a lower level: a continuation in effort. Replace progress with 'vital energies'. New ground is what we all want (new nuclear systems) but when there isn't even a continuation of effort (no old style nuclear plants being built) it's even worse.

Computer science is in a rut. It's just that other things have even lost the energy to cycle through old accomplishments. I'd say the Art world is one of those areas that has lost all vitality.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#100

Post by dang »

return0 wrote: post #75
jimmysdown wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't judge people with "what if they did X". What I'm saying is that at some point, someone's behavior will become toxic to "your group" (not the whole US - here, the "tech community" however you want to define that) and then they get asked to leave. This is actually the mature thing to do, to part ways, as opposed to escalating conflict where the same thing happens in the end but the participants are left blo…

Not if the debate is conducted in civil terms. There is no indication that thiel will start shouting and calling names. However you're suggesting that people should be preemptively removed from debate. That's evil.

Ok, but let's not call names ("evil") ourselves.
Post reply on HN