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Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

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Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#131

Post by julie1 »

My parents could go on vacation, enjoy life and come back from work with a clear break.

I am to be a coder, whose dreams are constantly polluted by solving work problem, uncertain of my future, hardly going on vacations, and I should see a progress in the fact my parents could be important and it was normal they had a life and be "reasonably" reachable, and I am not important and have a sort of intrusive technology not leaving room for a life out of work.

I would gladly trade it for my parent's generation condition of life, all included.

Our societies priorities are really not well adjusted at my opinion. But I need to feed my loved one and myself, so I shut my mouth, and work in this mad system, like everyone...but it piss me off to be still young enough to love life with her, and can only tell her we can hope we will be able to do it later ... eventually.

I care not about iphone, because I am more likely than you to become poor. I want cheap food, cheap energy, and healthy time to enjoy life with the ones I care for.

My only wealth are my friends (and family) and my friends especially are being crushed by the exaggerated amount of work we push in industry like banking, advertisement, distraction industry and the media. What do we do to save the world? We code awesome softwares to have the feeling we help humanity.

Yeah. We improve humanity for the better good. Pushing a rock hard because you are scared, does not make it go in the right direction if you never put an eye on the road.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#132

Post by joeclark77 »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #46
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #19

We're close to getting cars that can drive themselves. We have cars that can detect when the brakes are locking and fix it, so that you never go into a skid. We have railroad locomotives that can tell when an axle is just starting to slip, and cut the power to that one axle, so that the wheels never slip even at full power on slick rails. We have jet aircraft engines that can report when a part is getting close to fa…

There's also electric cars, which are basically already here and can't be stopped at this point. Solar panels, which have crossed the $1 per watt barrier a while ago. I believe that relatively soon we'll have genetics-driven psychiatry and medicine. Depressed people won't automatically be prescribed SSRIs, but what is deemed most suitable based on their genetic profile. Nobody will need to ask you if you're allergic…

Generally when I'm shopping for a car, "it can't be stopped" is not a selling point that I'm looking for.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#133

Post by joeclark77 »

api wrote: post #80
narrator wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mildly paranoid rant follows: The 1970s was when the Club Of Rome, The Limits to Growth, The Population Bomb and all the Malthusian overpopulation scare mongering went absolutely bonkers and the elites bought into it completely. Rich people have been fascinated with reducing the world's population growth ever since. There is no "good" future anymore among "serious" prognosticators. It's wall-to-wall eco-doom. This ha…

I don't think this is particularly nutty, but I don't see it as a root cause. LTG pointed out some real problems. If we were in the 50s-60s can-do mindset we'd have reacted with "well let's roll up our sleeves and fix it then!" But that wasn't the reaction at all. The reaction was doom and gloom and futility with a hefty helping of thinly veiled racism and classism. Gotta stop those poor and brown people from overrun…

Wait, wait... eco-doom-mongering and population control abortion-mongering represent "conservatism"?

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#134

Post by e_modad »

oh_sigh wrote: post #110
gone35 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I know it might be hard to fathom, but funnily enough, every single one of the technologies you mention --without exception-- harken back in (arguably) significant and non-trivial ways to technology or fully functional prototypes already in place by the 1970s, if not earlier. I'm not making this up. Look them up and see for yourself! (Yes, even autonomous cars [1]. And ABS [2]. And X-ray computed tomography [3])…

You may like "Creating the 20th Century" by Vaclav Smil. In it, it argues that almost all big advances of the 20th century are actually based off of inventions and innovations that occurred in the 1860-1900 time period. It makes me wonder what all of our advances from 1960-2000 will create for 2040-2060?

I think one of the big reasons we haven't seen the kind of progress our predecessors had hoped for is because most people don't have the physical or mental energy. For big technological and social advancements, you need everyone (or at least most) engaged, enthusiastic and focused. Most of the world, including most citizens of the United States, are still moving up Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So yeah, you get Angry Birds instead of a Hyperloop because most people are so stressed and tired that they're just hoping for a tasty bite to eat and 5 minutes of peace. The corollary is that if we want a Hyperloop (and we do) we should be actively engaged in trying to bring everyone up that hierarchy. When every day isn't an emotional or financial crisis for so many people, we'll have the kind of progress Peter is hoping for.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#135

Post by joeclark77 »

barney54 wrote: post #128
seanflyon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"essentially zero" is an exaggeration, but electric cars are dramatically cheaper to fuel. They use much less energy and the energy they use is in a much cheaper form (electricity vs gasoline).

But electrics are much more expensive and are less flexible than gasoline powered cars. That's why sales of electrics have stalled at less than 4% of the market.

Well, that, and the fact that they spontaneously burst into flame from time to time.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#136

Post by adamjs »

ethbro wrote: post #117
adamjs wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree some progress has occurred since 1970, but the pace of totally new ideas has slowed considerably. We're in the Age of Moderate Improvement. I have often wondered what made the West so great during its golden age of innovation (and to answer what we're missing today) and think it can be attributed to a single-mindedness in our culture and leadership towards a common goal. The Industrial Revolution (and America…

If you're going to look at it that way, could you not say that one of the principles of the Age of Enlightenment was that every man (and as Cosmos nicely noted, every woman, albeit more discretely) had a responsibility to explore? Rose colored glasses of history, but I would hazard to say that the average knowledge + ambition + creativity of a person today is far lower than in the various retrospective golden ages. .…

Yes indeed, I believe every man, woman, and child born on this planet has a responsibility to participate in its exploration and advancement.

I actually see plenty of ambition in the valley and elsewhere— ambition to be the next billion-dollar success story.

What I don't see is a lot of purpose-consciousness + ambition. It's been offered that the purpose of all for-profit companies is to make money; any venture intending to create value for anything but its shareholders is therefore a non-profit.

I think this is wrong. For-profit companies can work toward a clear, common goal without sacrificing profit. I think the modern web (which was built by contributions from hundreds of companies) is a great example of this. SpaceX and Boeing (funded jointly by NASA) working in tandem to enable private space travel is another.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#137

Post by adamjs »

deciplex wrote: post #111
adamjs wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree some progress has occurred since 1970, but the pace of totally new ideas has slowed considerably. We're in the Age of Moderate Improvement. I have often wondered what made the West so great during its golden age of innovation (and to answer what we're missing today) and think it can be attributed to a single-mindedness in our culture and leadership towards a common goal. The Industrial Revolution (and America…

To my mind, this is a side effect of the 'Capitalism, right or wrong' zeitgeist we have today. Capital markets are fantastic for allocating resources, but if you leave them to their own devices, that's all they do. They allocate resources to the entities that want them and have the means to acquire them. They coordinate action, to be sure, but they don't coordinate action in the broader sense that you're describing h…

Yes exactly.

Though I call into question whether or not that responsibility (to coordinate action towards the advancement of human civilization) should be left solely with our heroes. I believe this narrative will never truly change until every individual takes some share in that responsibility.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#138

Post by baddox »

scottlocklin wrote: post #36
baddox wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I consider "self driving cars" as not existing the corporeal world.

But that's the only thing cited in dicroce's comment, and api said "Everything you cite is in or closely related to the IT sector, which is the exception."

Also, self driving cars certainly exist in the corporeal world.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#139

Post by deciplex »

adamjs wrote: post #137
deciplex wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my mind, this is a side effect of the 'Capitalism, right or wrong' zeitgeist we have today. Capital markets are fantastic for allocating resources, but if you leave them to their own devices, that's all they do. They allocate resources to the entities that want them and have the means to acquire them. They coordinate action, to be sure, but they don't coordinate action in the broader sense that you're describing h…

Yes exactly. Though I call into question whether or not that responsibility (to coordinate action towards the advancement of human civilization) should be left solely with our heroes. I believe this narrative will never truly change until every individual takes some share in that responsibility.

What I was getting at though, is that most individuals can't take a share in that responsibility, even if they have the ability and the desire. This is an enormous waste. Not to make light of Elon Musk's accomplishments, but it is not his intelligence and leadership ability that make him exceptional (though he is a phenomenon in both respects), but rather those traits coupled with a solid bit of seed money in the form of the Paypal sale, and getting into two industries that were poised to explode, and, frankly, some luck. You can argue the extent to which he made those industries explode, but IIRC commercial space flight was, in 2003, considered a very dumb idea to start a business around, and electric cars were something we knew were coming sooner or later, but that would remain a money loser for a long time. It took someone with a substantial fortune, and the willingness to risk losing it, to prove both of those propositions false. (And even then, in SpaceX's case, a lot of their success is due to landing NASA contracts, which I've got no problem with - but it's not capitalism.)

So, where is the Elon Musk of high-energy physics? Where is the Elon Musk of terraforming, both off-planet and on Earth to reverse climate change? What of cancer, antibiotics, longevity treatment, machine intelligence? Et cetera. These are equally important problems we face, and if we rely on 'heroes' to take them on, we might be waiting for a long time. And again, by 'heroes' I don't mean people with the ability and the intelligence and the desire to solve these problems - we have plenty of those - rather people with those qualities and the resources to truly take them on. Those are rare, indeed. Contrast Elon Musk with Notch, who are of comparable means now, yet Notch has quite clearly stated that if anything he does starts to have an impact again, he will shitcan it immediately. What a profoundly awful attitude to have. Sadly, I think you'll find more like him in that caste than Elon.

As I say, it seems like an enormous waste. Capital markets alone are not up to the task. For what it's worth, I'm not trying to subtly advocate for socialism or something either. I don't know what the solution to the problem is, but it is a problem.

Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?

#140

Post by adamjs »

deciplex wrote: post #139
adamjs wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly. Though I call into question whether or not that responsibility (to coordinate action towards the advancement of human civilization) should be left solely with our heroes. I believe this narrative will never truly change until every individual takes some share in that responsibility.

What I was getting at though, is that most individuals can't take a share in that responsibility, even if they have the ability and the desire. This is an enormous waste. Not to make light of Elon Musk's accomplishments, but it is not his intelligence and leadership ability that make him exceptional (though he is a phenomenon in both respects), but rather those traits coupled with a solid bit of seed money in the for…

You're reading my mind here. (4 AM here so please excuse any ill-formed logic)

Excellent points regarding the exceptional breadth of requirements necessary to effect change.

I don't think this precludes my earlier belief concerning individual responsibility for our collective progress. This is a conversation that everyone needs to participate in precisely because there is such a rare chance any one individual will have the necessary pre-requisites to take action.

Even the most plebian among us may one day find themselves flush with cash, and when they do, they could wield those resources responsibly. The concept of "noblesse oblige" (or, the more modern Spider-Man variant: "with great power comes great responsibility") comes into mind here. Interestingly, Elon made a veiled reference to this shared outlook in his "sinking ship" metaphor recently on Colbert.

I too was deeply troubled by Notch's attitude toward unwanted success (and more importantly, the worrying precedent it sets for others). It's disappointing that he has no apparent desire to utilize his position in a useful manner but I wonder how much of that mindset is a product of our current environment.

So, where is the Elon Musk of high-energy physics? Where is the Elon Musk of terraforming, both off-planet and on Earth to reverse climate change? What of cancer, antibiotics, longevity treatment, machine intelligence? Et cetera

At the risk of sounding rather trite: the next Elon Musk might be reading this page right now.

Elon is not an island. He had to have gotten his attitudes from somewhere. Teaching kids about our shared responsibility and to dream big about real problems is an act that every adult can (and should) participate in. Those who are in a position to mentor or inspire another (even if it's a boss to an employee, VC to a founder, or friend to friend) should also take part.

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