What has Peter Thiel built that is so earth-changing? (And don't say Paypal.) He sure likes to talk a lot, but I'm waiting for him to come up with the next game-changing, once-a-millennium innovation. It isn't hedge funds or other financial trickery.
If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble
11–20 of 76 posts
Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble
#12I think if you just discount all modern innovations then it's easy to say nothing has changed of note. My TV looks better than ever. Should I just discount that as progress because it's still a picture displayed in my living room? If you suggest the iPhone 5 which allows me to get anywhere without planning with turn by turn directions, communicate with family on the road, make dinner reservations, and answer a work r…
> "some of the things we have now are totally amazing and we just don't care to notice" This is very true: Kasparov is frankly wrong to say the last 'revolutionary' technology was the Apple II back in the 70s. The past thirty years since then have brought many huge technological developments with lasting impact on global society. The internet, mobile telephony, DNA sequencing and profiling... What Kasparov doesn't se…
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Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble
#13I think they're both right: because there is more than one problem facing us. The press like to focus on one issue at a time. Europe last week, US elections yesterday, fiscal cliff today and China tomorrow. The reality is that there are many major problems. Off the top of my head: -- * People these days have everything they need. There are very few must-have items to spur sales * The inventions so far cover a lot of…
off-topic: you should edit your comment to get rid of the three spaces before your bullet point.
The three spaces indicates pre-formatted text, so it won't line wrap.
It creates scrollbars on your comment, so less people will be able to read your points.
Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble
#14I think if you just discount all modern innovations then it's easy to say nothing has changed of note. My TV looks better than ever. Should I just discount that as progress because it's still a picture displayed in my living room? If you suggest the iPhone 5 which allows me to get anywhere without planning with turn by turn directions, communicate with family on the road, make dinner reservations, and answer a work r…
The reasons your iPhone 5 lets you get directions, communicate and make dinner reservations are the global information infrastructure and the tcp/ip protocol, both products of a national innovation policy. I know that most people under 30 directly credit Steve Jobs for everything that they do on their phones. But it took a massive national investment to set up the basics of the internet, which provided the iphone with enough relevant functionality to make it to a 5th version.
It sounds like you're equating the leap from "radio to tv" with the leap from "tv to 1080p". There's almost no doubt that the pace of innovation is slowing. Businesses will be more than happy to make billions of dollars by taking us to iphone9 and 2160p, because that's much easier than introducing an entirely new way to interact with the world.
I'm not sure if the free markets are the best solution to this particular problem. Thiel and Kasparov kind of have a point. The internet emerged from government funded DARPA research. Our communication infrastructure was built by a government granted monopoly. The moon landing, one of our species greatest achievements, was the result of a national innovation policy pissing contest with the soviets. Maybe everything would really be amazing today if we'd focused more on innovation over the last several decades.
Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble
#15From the article: "There are certainly those who believe that the wellsprings of science are running dry..."
What a load of horse shit! We're just getting started here, the "Internet Revolution" just discovered non-computer devices! And biology is just getting tapped...
And those thinking along the lines "most people already have everything they need": well, duh, it's always that way. It's the unreasonable, the uncomfortable, and the restless who create and self actualize. The majority of human nature looks around themselves, takes care of their "necessities" and lives and dies with what is given to them. We, as those hard ass freaks that can't be satisfied, will always push against our limitations, our "gifts", to self actualize, to grow beyond our capabilities, and create something unheard of, unexpected, wonderful and disruptive.
Now, sure Mr. Thiel is a wealthy entrepreneur, but his wealth and fame derives from creating PayPal - a translation of existing credit card transactions to an online environment. I have no doubet it took great effort, but PayPal is hardly innovative, and hence his dark view of real innovation. Plus he's now a VC, so he sees all kinds of half baked startups failing...
As far as Mr Kasparov, I don't consider him an authority on anything. May as well be a super model, considering Kasparov's involvement in invention, new technology and start ups. He's merely famous for chess and writing essays. Not exactly developing science or new ideas at all...
Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble
#16I have one word for Thiel and Kasparov: Biology. There are many known-unknowns in the sphere of biology, and by extension, medicine right now. We may be approaching the top of the s-curve for computational and industrial technology, but we are at the bottom left of the biology curve, and now we have the tools to start exploring that space systematically.
The entire time I'm reading the article and the comments, I'm just mentally jaw-dropped by these comments. We are no where near the top of the 's-curve' for computational or industrial technology.
The entire argument is a straw man by Kasparov. Name a single science which has not been dramatically changed in the last 20 years by the application of computation. Its just boggling to me how Kasparov's argument holds any sway.
Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble
#17The main problem of the 21st century is and will continue to be energy.
We have the science to do amazing things, but we can't afford the power requirements. We wont be able to advance as a civilization without something radically different in the way of generating power.
Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble
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Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble
#19I am always amazed by these sorts of articles, in part because it is always nominally 'successful' people who have these sorts of doubts and in part because Toffler's "Future Shock" can express itself in ways that look like the medical condition.
The changes they aren't ready for are the biological ones. You see the whole '10 years of trials from monkeys to humans' thing which limits the application of biological agents is going to change once we understand how the machine, we call a human, really works. We are getting closer. Once we're there you won't have to 'test to see the effect' you will 'design for this particular effect.' That will make things very different.
We're starting to see the leading edge of the carbon age. I pointed out once that if you name the human "ages" by the primary material of their tools, we had stone, bronze, iron, steel, and now silicon. Next up, carbon.
We're about to expand into space. Unlike Apollo which was like a program written to do one thing, SpaceX and others are building space flight capabilities that will mix and match to create space access as a function of money, not expertise.
I've always enjoyed stories where authors imagined the transition from 'now' to 'star trek' like universes. We are in a transition, of that there is no doubt. the next level will be interesting, of that I have no doubt.
Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble
#20I think they're both right: because there is more than one problem facing us. The press like to focus on one issue at a time. Europe last week, US elections yesterday, fiscal cliff today and China tomorrow. The reality is that there are many major problems. Off the top of my head: -- * People these days have everything they need. There are very few must-have items to spur sales * The inventions so far cover a lot of…
off-topic: you should edit your comment to get rid of the three spaces before your bullet point. The three spaces indicates pre-formatted text, so it won't line wrap. It creates scrollbars on your comment, so less people will be able to read your points.
I do it deliberately, as I have very poor vision and find it impossible to read block text these days.
Please excuse my preference for commenting this way.