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Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

danwang.co

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Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#21

Post by rpedela »

dragonwriter wrote: post #14
rpedela wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been plenty of innovation. When mature, electric vehicles mean the cost of fuel is essentially zero. Whenever there has a been a massive drop in energy costs, there has also been an economic boom. Electric vehicles also mean no more air pollution from vehicles which means a healthier population and fewer medical bills. Then you have the whole AI thing which promises to drastically reduce, if not eliminate,…

> When mature, electric vehicles mean the cost of fuel is essentially zero. Whenever there has a been a massive drop in energy costs, there has also been an economic boom. But the first sentence is wrong -- it only means the cost of energy for a vehicle is equal to the cost of the same energy on the electric grid, plus the cost of wear on the onboard storage system (battery, etc.) Unless your definition of "mature" f…

> plus the cost of wear on the onboard storage system (battery, etc.)

That falls under vehicle maintenance and does not play into the cost of fuel.

> it only means the cost of energy for a vehicle is equal to the cost of the same energy on the electric grid

Yes, I was exaggerating but it is already pretty cheap. If memory serves, it is about $0.08/kWh in the US or $6.80 to charge Tesla's largest battery pack which is way cheaper than $40-60 per gasoline tank. And if you extrapolate a little, that cost is going to go down by the time electric vehicles are mature because the literal energy cost should be less and electric vehicles should be more efficient. But maybe I am wrong about that, only time will tell.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#22

Post by fidotron »

possibilistic wrote: post #18
api wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has always annoyed me that there's a loud contingent of people that object to human space travel on the basis it's not the most efficient way to conduct science... Sometimes I actually blame Skepticism. I'm not talking about skepticism mind you, but Skepticism-- the capital-S variety that became so popular in science starting in the 1970s as a reaction against things like the new age and the resurgence of religi…

Blaming skepticism is an interesting point and makes me wonder. What about the publishing culture? Does it map more closely to incrementalism, or is it just that the surface area of the problem space has grown too vast for the human mind to generally see the bigger picture? Should empiricism be changed to allow fuzziness and uncertainty within the process? Scientific truth seems like a problem space similar to those…

I certainly do think the publishing culture has become broken.

There is no doubt in my mind that if Einstein appeared in this environment he'd have been labelled a crackpot and it would have taken fifty years or more before anyone even began to take him seriously.

The fact we now have a global network of entities competing for funding from relatively narrow sources means that those that deviate rapidly get weeded out. There is at least the perception that prior to about 1990 different institutions could be quite divergent with their views on particular ideas, violently disagree, but both still pursue research in their unique directions. The world seems far more homogeneous today.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#23

Post by kjjw »

api wrote: post #3

"I sort-of date the end of rapid technological progress to the late-60s or early-70s. At that point something more or less broke in this country and in the western world more generally which has put us into a zone where there’s much slower technological progress." I've believed for years that we entered something like a minor dark age (dim age?) on or about 1970, and that computers have become synonymous with "techno…

Here's another idea I have no evidence for. Maybe it is a compounding problem, maybe it is the problem, maybe it's total nonsense.

Perhaps we are seeing the affect of an increase in difficulty of pushing the boundaries of basic science, and the difficulties of interpreting that new basic science, and thus of applying it to anything that will enhance our lives, our economies, so on.

How many people could really get to grips with Newtonian physics? I'd hazard a guess that a reasonable percentage of the world's population, given boundless resources for education, lots of time, etc, would be able to get their heads around it.

Now, how many people in the world, under the same circumstances, are capable of understanding QFT, to the point of doing something with it in the applied space? I think the percentage just dropped drastically.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#24

Post by baddox »

api wrote: post #4
dicroce wrote: post #2

Wow, that article is a total bummer. But it seems to me he's cherry picking all of the things that haven't worked out so well, or progressed as fast as we'd like and pronouncing us a failure.... What about all the things that we didn't predict, that we DO have? We are remarkably close to self driving cars... that is awesome... Some recent breakthroughs in AI I suspect will be rippling through our civilization for qui…

Everything you cite is in or closely related to the IT sector, which is the exception. Every other sector has gone cold or even backwards since ~1970.

Do you consider self-driving cars to be in or closely related to the IT sector?

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#25

Post by calibraxis »

api wrote: post #3

"I sort-of date the end of rapid technological progress to the late-60s or early-70s. At that point something more or less broke in this country and in the western world more generally which has put us into a zone where there’s much slower technological progress." I've believed for years that we entered something like a minor dark age (dim age?) on or about 1970, and that computers have become synonymous with "techno…

From the person Thiel's debating soon: http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-decl...

You can find a video of a talk online too.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#26

Post by jostmey »

Yeah, we went to the moon and then what happened? Genetic engineering has been around since the 70's but society has largely rejected its applications. And consider the Energy sector - when was the last nuclear power plant constructed in the United States?

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#28

Post by jacinda »

rpedela wrote: post #12
api wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you cite is in or closely related to the IT sector, which is the exception. Every other sector has gone cold or even backwards since ~1970.

There has been plenty of innovation. When mature, electric vehicles mean the cost of fuel is essentially zero. Whenever there has a been a massive drop in energy costs, there has also been an economic boom. Electric vehicles also mean no more air pollution from vehicles which means a healthier population and fewer medical bills. Then you have the whole AI thing which promises to drastically reduce, if not eliminate,…

I find it interesting that the three areas you highlight are all areas that Elon Musk has companies in.

Electric Vehicles = Tesla Motors

SpaceX you mentioned by name

Energy = SolarCity

It would be interesting to contrast Peter Thiel's views on modern innovation with Elon Musk's.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#30

Post by notahacker »

api wrote: post #4
dicroce wrote: post #2

Wow, that article is a total bummer. But it seems to me he's cherry picking all of the things that haven't worked out so well, or progressed as fast as we'd like and pronouncing us a failure.... What about all the things that we didn't predict, that we DO have? We are remarkably close to self driving cars... that is awesome... Some recent breakthroughs in AI I suspect will be rippling through our civilization for qui…

Everything you cite is in or closely related to the IT sector, which is the exception. Every other sector has gone cold or even backwards since ~1970.

>Everything you cite is in or closely related to the IT sector, which is the exception. Every other sector has gone cold or even backwards since ~1970

Sure, the IT sector has enabled pretty much everything since the 1970s, including most of the world having a telephone in their pocket, and developments like with massive transformative potential like encoding human genomes.

But that's like writing off the Industrial Revolution as being a time entirely unremarkable but for developments "in or closely related to the mechanical engineering sector"

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