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Peter Thiel Is Wrong About the Future

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Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About the Future

#101

Post by danieltillett »

david927 wrote: post #95
tlear wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might as well say that we gona create a Warp drive by 2100. Jump necessary for AI advancement makes settlement on Mars an easy problem. We are so far from that we really have no idea how far it is. Human level AI when it happens and it probably will will most likely be at a stage where current tech would seem something out of Ancient Greeks time if not Stone age.

No one knows. It's a black swan. It's not predictable as a rule. I fully expect it within 30 years simply based on the rate of progression, overall (not in the field of AI specifically).

>No one knows. It's a black swan. It's not predictable as a rule.

As an Australian I always have found the term black swan amusing as all our swans are black - I would actually be shocked to see a white swan.

More seriously why do you think 30 years?

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About the Future

#102

Post by tsotha »

adrianN wrote: post #77
Animats wrote: post #67

Thiel has some good points about the lack of progress. Rocketry is only slightly better than it was 45 years ago. We've hit the limit of chemical fuels, and weight reduction can only go so far. In comparison, 45 years took us from the Wright Flyer to the first jet aircraft. Fission power isn't much further along than it was 45 years ago, either. Nor is fusion power. Nor is power transmission. At the high-power end of…

Fusion power is quite a bit further along than 45 years ago. We're in the process of building ITER, with ignition expected in 2020. The main problem for fusion power is the utter lack of funding it receives: http://i.imgur.com/sjH5r.jpg

We're still thirty years away. Just like we were back then.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About the Future

#103

Post by tsotha »

couchand wrote: post #74
Animats wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's from 2011. Amazon bought Kiva Systems to install robots in their warehouses. No more walking around in Amazon's newer warehouses; the pickers stand in one place as shelving units of products are brought to them by hundreds of mobile robots. Picking from bins is still manual, but Bezos has Rethink Robotics, which he owns personally, working on that.

Hey guys, no need to worry about those workers' health. They won't have a job soon, anyway.

It wasn't a coincidence you heard about the hamburger making machines when people were trying to organize fast food workers a few months back.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About the Future

#105

Post by JetSpiegel »

autokad wrote: post #40
canjobear wrote: post #34

I really appreciate many points in this article, especially showing that people in the 60s thought that they were in just as much of a decline as we do now. But there's also a weird anti-environmentalism threaded through the article. Toward the end, the author lists things that we now think are bad, as an example of how we've become pessimistic. Including: "New subdivisions represented a threat to the landscape rathe…

-Just because we are correctly critical of some aspects of technological process doesn't mean we have become a bunch of petty pessimists who are just trying to make everyone feel bad. maybe you stop at those things, i doubt thats the case but lets assume you do. you think these ideas are a tree with the wind of truth and reason blowing through your leaves. however its a tree in a forest of never ending complaining, n…

If Monsanto are a paragon of virtue and want better crops, what's up with the sterile seeds and lawsuits over people selling legitimately obtained seeds?

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About the Future

#106

Post by eli_gottlieb »

scottlocklin wrote: post #82
adventured wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the West was in decline, it wouldn't still be the engine of science and innovation, which is exactly what it still is. In fact, the West dominates both categories to an extreme, despite the rise of China, India and Japan since the moon landing. The West still possesses by far and away the best universities and school systems. The US in particular, so dominates the top college rankings, others have a hard time gett…

You know, Rome around 300AD was top notch in science, technology, military achievements, art, political power and philosophy. It was also very obviously in decline. Just as we are. It's as obvious as a wart on a bald head. For that matter, the Soviet Union was considered unstoppable by most people in the 1980; Samuelson predicted we'd soon be speaking Russian in that very year. Ever look at the ruins of the Soviet Un…

Ok. So what are you doing?

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About the Future

#107

Post by tempodox »

How can a society that places by far the biggest emphasis on getting as rich as possible as fast as possible, no matter how, achieve anything else than barbarism? In the 60s we were still bent on showing that we're better than that. Not any more, now it's just everyone for themselves. We grab what we can and call anyone who opposes our way of life a Terrorist®.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About the Future

#108

Post by wlievens »

couchand wrote: post #72
forthefuture wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that any company that is legitimately better than their competitors has no choice but to become a monopoly.

...though if the labor market is at all free that should self-correct pretty quickly. Unfortunately we tend to tie things like retirement and health care directly to employment, totally distorting that market.

You (Americans) do... we (Europeans) don't, generally.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About the Future

#109

Post by icebraining »

byEngineer wrote: post #94
sitkack wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea is frankly retarded. I am not saying you have had it. This is directed at You. To say that monopolies drive progress strikes me as an anthropomorphisation of the motivations of innovators. Did AT&T Microsoft and Ford drive progress? Hardly. They existed when progress occurred but to attribute it do them is generous. Most progress is driven by the artists and scientists on the edge, they rarely see the fruit…

Funny you say this. I hate monopolies as the next guy. Reading Thiel's book right now. What he says is that monopolies can have luxury of innovation while in the perfect market conditions it is all about as low margin as possible without cash flying around to spend on extravaganza like innovation. AT&T: telecommunications company that employed Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kerninghan to figure out software to play chess.…

AT&T: telecommunications company that employed Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kerninghan to figure out software to play chess. Dudes created C language and UNIX OS in the process.

Much more than that, actually. From Wikipedia:

Researchers working at Bell Labs are credited with the development of radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, the charge-coupled device (CCD), information theory, the UNIX operating system, the C programming language, S programming language and the C++ programming language. Eight Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work completed at Bell Laboratories.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About the Future

#110

Post by mrow84 »

byEngineer wrote: post #94
sitkack wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea is frankly retarded. I am not saying you have had it. This is directed at You. To say that monopolies drive progress strikes me as an anthropomorphisation of the motivations of innovators. Did AT&T Microsoft and Ford drive progress? Hardly. They existed when progress occurred but to attribute it do them is generous. Most progress is driven by the artists and scientists on the edge, they rarely see the fruit…

Funny you say this. I hate monopolies as the next guy. Reading Thiel's book right now. What he says is that monopolies can have luxury of innovation while in the perfect market conditions it is all about as low margin as possible without cash flying around to spend on extravaganza like innovation. AT&T: telecommunications company that employed Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kerninghan to figure out software to play chess.…

Can you see any good argument against such monopolies being forced to be non-profit making entities?

The only argument that comes to mind is that it would create a disincentive against the drive towards monopoly that Theil apparently claims is beneficial. However, that seems to be something like the kind of the world we are in now.

I'm not sure there are any clear solutions to this problem - balancing incentive and the avoidance of corruption is just hard.

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