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Peter Thiel Says Covid Marks 21st Century’s True Start

forbes.com

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Re: Peter Thiel Says Covid Marks 21st Century’s True Start

#41

Post by poulsbohemian »

birdsbirdsbirds wrote: post #13
entropicdrifter wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say your description is spot-on, at least culturally. It's also the end of the post-08 crash era and the start of the post-20 crash era

The world is going remote, thus finally becoming the global village that the early start-ups envisioned. Why should there be a crash if huge optimization improvements are made? The only things that will tank are the airline industries and the real estate market.

>and the real estate market.

I'm not sure this will even be the case, depending on your perspective. Yes, we appear to be seeing a correction in commercial class A office space in major metros - but I'd argue that was a long time coming regardless. We may see a correction in residential real estate in those same major metros, but out here in rural America we're seeing an influx of people looking for better value than they were getting in coastal cities and it's driving our markets upward.

Re: Peter Thiel Says Covid Marks 21st Century’s True Start

#42

Post by poulsbohemian »

hpkuarg wrote: post #14
aphextron wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also the end of the post-08 crash era and the start of the post-20 crash era What crash? SP500 hit an all time high on Friday.

A crash in the real economy, if you will. Equity prices may or may not follow. There's a good chance that one year from now, the S&P 500 will be substantially lower than it is today.

>the S&P 500 will be substantially lower than it is today.

I'm curious - are you speaking speculatively here or do you have reasons why you believe that will be the case?

Re: Peter Thiel Says Covid Marks 21st Century’s True Start

#43

Post by TrainedMonkey »

crispyambulance wrote: post #11

The 21st century's "true start" was on New Year's Eve, 2000. Of course, I realize he's talking about defining events that delimit major changes between the previous century and its successor. And more specifically, major changes in what Thiel cares about, like financial markets, start-ups, monopolies, and money in general. But, really, we're only 20% into the century. Something else could easily eclipse Covid-19 even…

I claim that something will definitely eclipse 2020 (including covid, POTUS, and all other shenanigans). This century we will almost certainly get self driving cars, AGI, unprecedented biology advances, VR, etc... Secondary and tertiary effects of those technologies will have far reaching implications on the human civilization.

The only alternative to getting most of those technologies is some kind of global crisis that significantly sets back humanity. So we either have crazy powerful technologies that upend status quo way of life or a catastrophe that destroys everything.

Re: Peter Thiel Says Covid Marks 21st Century’s True Start

#44

Post by rcoveson »

sheepdestroyer wrote: post #23
crispyambulance wrote: post #11

The 21st century's "true start" was on New Year's Eve, 2000. Of course, I realize he's talking about defining events that delimit major changes between the previous century and its successor. And more specifically, major changes in what Thiel cares about, like financial markets, start-ups, monopolies, and money in general. But, really, we're only 20% into the century. Something else could easily eclipse Covid-19 even…

Sorry but no. "It began on January 1, 2001, and ends on December 31, 2100" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_century

No. We define the centuries as the periods of 100 years beginning with the multiples of 100 in the year numbering system of the contextual calendar. The definition given by your reference is neither authoritative nor popular.

If you follow the definitions advocated by Wikipedia and its collection of sources, you end up in an absurd state where the decades[0] span multiple centuries. It's absurd and does not reflect popular usage.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s

Re: Peter Thiel Says Covid Marks 21st Century’s True Start

#45

Post by sheepdestroyer »

gumby wrote: post #36
sheepdestroyer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but no. "It began on January 1, 2001, and ends on December 31, 2100" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_century

Isn't that what crispyambulance said (or perhaps a few hours before)?

He said both "New Year's Eve, 2000" and "starting on Jan 1st, 2000".

I'm not sure why he contradicted himself, but the first one would be 24h early, and the second one a whole year.

Re: Peter Thiel Says Covid Marks 21st Century’s True Start

#46

Post by babypuncher »

crispyambulance wrote: post #11

The 21st century's "true start" was on New Year's Eve, 2000. Of course, I realize he's talking about defining events that delimit major changes between the previous century and its successor. And more specifically, major changes in what Thiel cares about, like financial markets, start-ups, monopolies, and money in general. But, really, we're only 20% into the century. Something else could easily eclipse Covid-19 even…

I think he's off the mark. The commoditization of computers and proliferation of the internet are way bigger societal and economic shifts and they happened much closer to the year 2000.

The pandemic is more immediately disruptive, but I think it's impact will be largely erased within a few years of it "ending", just like previous pandemics.

Re: Peter Thiel Says Covid Marks 21st Century’s True Start

#47

Post by justinzollars »

api wrote: post #2

I've called it the end of the post-9/11 era, but that's not quite the same thing.

I'd love for 9/11 era to end. It was so easy to bank before know-your-customer. We not only lost all personal freedom, we lost all of our financial freedom

Re: Peter Thiel Says Covid Marks 21st Century’s True Start

#48

Post by rhacker »

I don't know why one would think so, 100 years after the spanish flu, it's barely a footnote that, let's be honest, most people that frequent this board hadn't heard of before covid-19. I think one would mark the previous century as either the great depression or wwii. I don't think in 100 years covid will have any lasting effect on the 25-45 year olds of the 2120 crowd (and we'll all be close to death). Besides they will be more worried about the coming war with the Xanthiane'kkas and the Mars colony massacre.

Re: Peter Thiel Says Covid Marks 21st Century’s True Start

#49

Post by NineStarPoint »

1996 wrote: post #15
aphextron wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also the end of the post-08 crash era and the start of the post-20 crash era What crash? SP500 hit an all time high on Friday.

The Fed printed 40 cents for every dollar that existed in March: https://www.dailyhandle.com/the-government-has-printed-40-ce... Expect all-time-highs in many things as 40% inflation goes trickles down, now that the velocity of money has stopped crashing: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1V

Worth noting that the current long term trend is the velocity of money going down, no reason to expect it to turn back up necessarily.

Definitely is a strong reason stocks are so overvalued though, yeah.

Re: Peter Thiel Says Covid Marks 21st Century’s True Start

#50

Post by spoondan »

nostromo wrote: post #27
crispyambulance wrote: post #11

The 21st century's "true start" was on New Year's Eve, 2000. Of course, I realize he's talking about defining events that delimit major changes between the previous century and its successor. And more specifically, major changes in what Thiel cares about, like financial markets, start-ups, monopolies, and money in general. But, really, we're only 20% into the century. Something else could easily eclipse Covid-19 even…

> Something else could easily eclipse Covid-19 I doubt people will talk about Covid-19 much at all by the end of the century. The 1918 flu was much, much worse in total number of deaths, and even worse when you consider how many fewer people existed at that time, and it killed people in the prime of their lives. And by the year 2000 very few people knew about it at all.

Maybe. But a possible contributor for the 1918 flu pandemic's relative obscurity is that it overlapped with World War I and was followed within ~20 years by the Great Depression and World War II. It occurred during one of the most turbulent times in modern history.

In contrast, the 2020 pandemic is presently not sharing the spotlight. Maybe something of comparable impact will happen. Or maybe it'll be forgotten regardless. But I don't know that the 1918 pandemic's status is all that illustrative.

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