Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation • Hacker News Board

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#61

Post by read_if_gay_ » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #16

Why should I think this man has special insight into the state of the world? He is quite rich, that is true. But if anything, by definition that means he is deeply out of touch with the needs, desires, and problems of the vast majority of the people on this planet.

Because he’s self made. He got rich precisely by being in touch with the needs, desires, and problems of people. And also by being successful at investing, which also requires ability to read trends etc.

Would you also argue Warren Buffet (literally nicknamed oracle of Omaha) has no special insight because he’s rich?

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#62

Post by baddox » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #4

Thiel is interesting to me because he is so different than others in the SV bubble. Whether you agree with him or think he is the devil, at least he has independent views. I find a lot of people don’t think for themselves anymore.

What strikes you as different about him? I can’t really articulate why exactly, but to me he’s right up there on the list of archetypical SV personalities.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#63

Post by sharadov » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

vngzs wrote: post #59

> If meaningful scientific and technological progress occurs, then we reasonably would expect greater economic prosperity (though this may be offset by other factors). And also in reverse: If economic gains, as measured by certain key indicators, have been limited or nonexistent, then perhaps so has scientific and technological progress. My eye-opening realization of American stagnation came in history class during h…

I agree that the hard problems are not being worked on, that's what happens when VCs descend on the market and are looking to 100X their investments. It's incredibly hard to work hard on difficult problems when you have to grow for growth's sake and pump out numbers that satisfy the market/VCs every quarter.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#64

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#65

Post by turdnagel » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #53

Mangalor wrote: post #12

Some of the links are from 10 years ago, and it shows. His views on solar being too expensive for practical use seem anachronistic now, and I'm sure his opinion has changed with the market.

It _was_ too expensive 10 years ago. Technology improvements have brought efficiency up and cost down since then.

Sounds like progress to me. But since we can't travel at 2,000 MPH...

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#66

Post by jbob2000 » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

alangibson wrote: post #31

I think Thiel is worth listening to, but sometimes his contrarianism flips into derangement: > [Peter Robinson: In 2016, how many professors at the top five law schools endorsed Donald Trump?] [2] Zero. And the law school example's interesting because you would think it's one where if you took the, a lot of academic fields are more internal to academia, but law is one that cashes out in a governmental political conte…

I think his point is that, Trump provided the opportunity for these law professors to get their "dream job" (a seat on the supreme court, your name is in the history books for centuries). And yet, NONE of them took this up.

His point is that the groupthink at Harvard is so strong that people will actively demolish their dreams to stay within the group.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#67

Post by notJim » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #16

Why should I think this man has special insight into the state of the world? He is quite rich, that is true. But if anything, by definition that means he is deeply out of touch with the needs, desires, and problems of the vast majority of the people on this planet.

> Why should I think this man has special insight into the state of the world?

You shouldn't, you should read it for yourself and make up your own mind. If a lot of people say something is interesting or good, it's probably worth at least having a look.

My conclusion from skimming it is that it's fairly interesting, although I disagree with most of his conclusions.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#68

Post by joshuamorton » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

bezmenov wrote: post #58

joshuamorton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can achieve mainstream views through independent thought though.

If all your views line up with the mainstream you’re most definitely not thinking for yourself though. Thiel in fact suggests a question framed in way to force people to think for themselves: > What important truth do very few people agree with you on?

> If all your views line up with the mainstream you’re most definitely not thinking for yourself though.

This doesn't make sense. You don't have to hold atypical views to think for yourself. Someone who thinks critically and for themselves and arrives at mainstream views is not wrong.

In fact, you'd expect that the majority of people who did so would arrive at mainstream views, unless you presuppose that mainstream views are wrong because they are mainstream. But that's a circular argument.

> What important truth do very few people agree with you on?

This doesn't force someone tho think for themselves. It forces someone to make a statement that they believe to be controversial. Nothing more. Thinking for yourself does not imply making controversial statements. Making controversial statements does not imply thinking for yourself.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#69

Post by philipkglass » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

It's harder than ever to escape local optimums. Invent a better drug for high blood pressure? It needs to compete with several older, cheaper "OK" drugs for the same condition. Invent a better electricity source? It needs to compete with fully depreciated power plants that were built 25 years ago. Invent a better large scale search algorithm -- an innovation on the order of PageRank? Googlebot is welcome on billions of pages that will aggressively try to prevent you from crawling them. Google's "good enough" search plus stronger position in content acquisition will prevent people from escaping the local optimum.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#70

Post by jjoonathan » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

vondur wrote: post #13

Some interesting insights. I never thought of "stagnation" of non computer tech as something due to overregulation. However, I'm a bit hesitant to allow unregulated biotech/medical research.

The libertarian faith in deregulation offers an easy solution for all problems on only one condition: you must be too unimaginative to understand how it will go wrong. That's an easy condition for most people to meet. Deregulation also offers great opportunity in the form of resurrecting old hustles.

Regulatory capture is real, but so is the lobby that knows exactly why Chesterton's fence was put in place and can't wait to trick us into removing it.