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Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

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Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#91

Post by notahacker »

jbob2000 wrote: post #66
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.

Thiel's insistence that Harvard law professors ought to have put [in this instance highly unlikely] personal advancement opportunities ahead of their actual beliefs about the fitness of a presidential candidate for office when deciding whether to make an endorsement says much about Thiel and little about groupthink at Harvard.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#92

Post by noetic_techy »

dustingetz wrote: post #6

> Google also has $50 billion in cash. It has no idea how to invest that money in technology effectively ... if we're living in an accelerating technological world, and you have zero percent interest rates, you should be able to invest all of your money in things that will return it many times over. The fact is you're out of ideas. Idea possibly bad: Free market progress is a force in balance with consolidation of po…

I think Eric Weinstein would agree with you on this point. You should really listen to his podcast with Peter Thiel where they talk about similar interests disrupting advancement (The Portal - Episode 1).

I don't buy the argument that the whole system is therefore useless and corrupt, but that it very much needs intervention to keep this sort of regulatory capture from occurring.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#93

Post by marcosdumay »

joshuamorton wrote: post #68
bezmenov wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 v…

> You don't have to hold atypical views to think for yourself.

The causality goes the other way around. Most people really interested on not being different and will hold mainstream views without questioning. It's expected that not all those views are correct, and you won't make the same mistakes in an independent process.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#94

Post by mjlawson »

whb07 wrote: post #88
tehabe wrote: post #72

I disagree with Thiel on almost every page on this document. And I don't know which topic to really critise. Like his view on regulation, which he calls a burden. I don't want to live in a world w/o regulations, I want to know what is in my food, I want to know that the devices I use are safe. We could see what happens, when regulation fails, when two 737MAX crashed due to the fact that Boeing was able to hide MCAS f…

I’m saddened that you think it’s okay to make it a federal crime to create a jelly/marmalade with more than 4 fruits (seriously). What you’re doing now is imposing the current day to the past, like looking at the current Airbnb and pretending that’s how it was when it first started. What if perhaps today wouldn’t be achieved if there had been so many rules and regulations? So picture the same government from now and…

That's a really unfair comparison. Suggesting that all regulation is akin to your marmalade example is akin to suggesting that we shouldn't enforce any laws because adultery laws are still on the books.

There are good laws, and there are bad laws. There is good regulation, and there is bad regulation. The solution is to curate from the good set, and weed out from the bad set - not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#95

Post by toohotatopic »

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…

Why do we have to go? The big question is: What is awareness? That awareness is wherever you are. No need to go to outer space. However, once you can create awareness artificially, you can send it into space, without human time constraints. There is no problem in travelling for millions of years if your awareness doesn't end.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#96

Post by joshuamorton »

marcosdumay wrote: post #93
joshuamorton wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 v…

> You don't have to hold atypical views to think for yourself. The causality goes the other way around. Most people really interested on not being different and will hold mainstream views without questioning. It's expected that not all those views are correct, and you won't make the same mistakes in an independent process.

Thinking for your self does not imply a greater than average "holding" of atypical views. The people who came up with typical views thought for themselves, and people who synthesize their opinions based on similar information often reach similar conclusions.

> Most people really interested on not being different and will hold mainstream views without questioning.

Perhaps, but this doesn't imply the contrapositive, which was implied above (that holding mainstream views implies one does not think for themselves).

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#97

Post by yks »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #84
baddox wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He's not irrationally optimistic about the future.

A rather predictable position for a person owning a business that makes the future worse.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#98

Post by 1996 »

tatrajim wrote: post #74
biomcgary wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not GP, but science is becoming increasingly hierarchical in it's funding mechanisms, placing bigger bets on bigger projects that reflect the perspective of older scientists and the status quo. This pulls funding away from up and coming scientists with new ideas they'd like to try out. Classic increase of risk aversion.

And note, too, that the rule change made decades ago in the US, banning universities from imposing a mandatory retirement age on faculty members has had a devastating impact on the development of younger scholars and the funding of new ideas, including my own field. This is in stark contrast to places like South Korea, where mandatory retirement at 65 years for faculty at state universities has kept the pipeline of s…

> open and flowing

Open and flowing, but to the US. A high quality researcher, nobel price winner (etc.) does not have its intrinsic value turn to 0 once the clock reaches 65y.

As we innovate more than SK, I welcome their generous gift of talented researchers.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#99

Post by bezmenov »

joshuamorton wrote: post #68
bezmenov wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 v…

If all of your beliefs line up into neat little bundles, you should be suspicious because they’re prepackaged and put together.

The vast majority of society have prescribed views, that is their views are derived from their group identity.

Why is this an issue? Groups search for consensus, individuals search for truth.

The question isn’t to tease out a controversial answer, rather to assert an individual is not a mindless ideologue.

Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation

#100

Post by _Microft »

whb07 wrote: post #88
tehabe wrote: post #72

I disagree with Thiel on almost every page on this document. And I don't know which topic to really critise. Like his view on regulation, which he calls a burden. I don't want to live in a world w/o regulations, I want to know what is in my food, I want to know that the devices I use are safe. We could see what happens, when regulation fails, when two 737MAX crashed due to the fact that Boeing was able to hide MCAS f…

I’m saddened that you think it’s okay to make it a federal crime to create a jelly/marmalade with more than 4 fruits (seriously). What you’re doing now is imposing the current day to the past, like looking at the current Airbnb and pretending that’s how it was when it first started. What if perhaps today wouldn’t be achieved if there had been so many rules and regulations? So picture the same government from now and…

Why is it not permitted to create a jelly/marmalade with more than 4 fruits?
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