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Why Peter Thiel Searches for Reality-Bending ‘Secrets’

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Re: Why Peter Thiel Searches for Reality-Bending ‘Secrets’

#61

Post by johnyzee »

Zigurd wrote: post #36
bambax wrote: post #4

> Sometimes, our sense-making machinery has a glitch too. Many years ago, a McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive. Based on that study, they held off on launching a smartphone for another three years. Around that time, an anthropologist who had recently returned from Chinese refugee camps saw how people would sacrifice half their disposable…

Many years ago I was traveling with an Ericsson executive who knew exactly the opposite: Mobile networks and phones were how the developing world would connect to the internet's resources. I'm certain Nokia's leadership knew exactly the same thing. I am familiar enough with Nokia's early smartphones to know they held nothing back, even though, at the time, Series 40 was the mass-market device, Series 60, was high-end…

Yeah, Ericsson had a pretty slick touchscreen phone before the iPhone. The iPhone simply blew everything out of the water on both hardware and software.

Re: Why Peter Thiel Searches for Reality-Bending ‘Secrets’

#62

Post by ppsreejith »

analog31 wrote: post #23

Discovering and acting against an erroneous consensus is easy to claim in hindsight, to boost your image as some kind of special "thinker." Maybe we need a version of pre-registration for thinkers, like what we now have for some branches of science: You have to document your ideas somewhere, before you test them, in order to get credit for the idea afterwards. And report both the right ideas and the wrong ideas.

I’d say profiting off those ideas would probably be a better test (which seems to be what Thiel focuses on i.e profitable secrets). Also, he has many failed investments too so it’s not like his status comes from predicting more wins

Re: Why Peter Thiel Searches for Reality-Bending ‘Secrets’

#63

Post by lariati »

bambax wrote: post #4

> Sometimes, our sense-making machinery has a glitch too. Many years ago, a McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive. Based on that study, they held off on launching a smartphone for another three years. Around that time, an anthropologist who had recently returned from Chinese refugee camps saw how people would sacrifice half their disposable…

Girard was a Stanford professor. His Uncommon Knowledge episode from the Hoover Institution is quite interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNkSBy5wWDk

I do agree though, the article is pretty lame.

Re: Why Peter Thiel Searches for Reality-Bending ‘Secrets’

#64

Post by analog31 »

ppsreejith wrote: post #62
analog31 wrote: post #23

Discovering and acting against an erroneous consensus is easy to claim in hindsight, to boost your image as some kind of special "thinker." Maybe we need a version of pre-registration for thinkers, like what we now have for some branches of science: You have to document your ideas somewhere, before you test them, in order to get credit for the idea afterwards. And report both the right ideas and the wrong ideas.

I’d say profiting off those ideas would probably be a better test (which seems to be what Thiel focuses on i.e profitable secrets). Also, he has many failed investments too so it’s not like his status comes from predicting more wins

Good point, but even that's dicey. It can be hard to objectively link a nebulous broad idea to a specific investment. It makes me think of the entire genre of self serving business hero biographies. Also, the business success can be used to give someone's social ideas credibility, which I'm always skeptical of.

It also creates a bias towards favoring the ideas of people who happen to be motivated by profit. Someone on HN mentioned the HIPPO effect: "Highest Paid Person's Opinion".

Re: Why Peter Thiel Searches for Reality-Bending ‘Secrets’

#65

Post by macintux »

coolso wrote: post #53
KerrAvon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He literally funded Trump. “Productive” sometimes isn’t desirable.

> He literally funded Trump. You stop here as if to assume this is enough info to prove his productivity was undesirable, and that everyone will understand and degree, but that’s an incorrect assumption. What specifically was undesirable? Most people remember spending $1.50/less per gallon, spending less on everything else thanks to low inflation, the lowest illegal border crossings in decades, lower taxes, finally f…

Ok, I’ll bite, but this is such a tired argument I won’t stick around for it.

Trump was beneficiary of long-term positive trends, his tax cuts helped set the stage for short-term economic growth and long-term financial ruin, and most of all his pathological narcissism has led him to do his best to destroy the rule of law.

Under his administration he tried to make the DoJ and DoD his political tools, he flagrantly flouted the law on a regular basis, he lied incessantly about anything that he felt made him look bad, and he surrounded himself with sycophants who would not rein in his destructive tendencies.

He spent the last year of his presidency sowing distrust in the upcoming election, so inevitably when the pandemic cost him his job, he then spent months trying to overturn it, leading to the January 6th insurrection, and has spent the time since then beating that drum and corrupting the GOP further into treating loyalty to him as the litmus test.

He took an oath to the Constitution but has no understanding of or loyalty to its fundamental precepts. He’s willing to destroy the country to vindicate himself.

Re: Why Peter Thiel Searches for Reality-Bending ‘Secrets’

#66

Post by csdvrx »

autophagian wrote: post #29
analog31 wrote: post #23

Discovering and acting against an erroneous consensus is easy to claim in hindsight, to boost your image as some kind of special "thinker." Maybe we need a version of pre-registration for thinkers, like what we now have for some branches of science: You have to document your ideas somewhere, before you test them, in order to get credit for the idea afterwards. And report both the right ideas and the wrong ideas.

I remember the Long Now Foundation did something like this, where people staked money on long term predictions (with the proceeds from said wagers going to charities): https://longbets.org/

> with the proceeds from said wagers going to charities

That alone means it can't work as well as it would, if people not just had skin in the game, but also got to keep the proceeds: a betting market with a selection bias and no profit incentive is a poor imitation of an information market

Re: Why Peter Thiel Searches for Reality-Bending ‘Secrets’

#67

Post by wand3r »

bitcharmer wrote: post #19
bambax wrote: post #4

> Sometimes, our sense-making machinery has a glitch too. Many years ago, a McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive. Based on that study, they held off on launching a smartphone for another three years. Around that time, an anthropologist who had recently returned from Chinese refugee camps saw how people would sacrifice half their disposable…

> McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive Just goes to show what all those fancy consultancies are worth. Same applies to Gartner and their "predictions". When are people finally going to stop for the scam of the big five brands?

Consultancies provide a valuable service of blame laundering. Obviously, this isn’t the exclusive use of consultancies, but it does allow management to save face all the time.

Re: Why Peter Thiel Searches for Reality-Bending ‘Secrets’

#69

Post by bambax »

coldtea wrote: post #55
bambax wrote: post #4

> Sometimes, our sense-making machinery has a glitch too. Many years ago, a McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive. Based on that study, they held off on launching a smartphone for another three years. Around that time, an anthropologist who had recently returned from Chinese refugee camps saw how people would sacrifice half their disposable…

> It doesn't discuss anything else and offers nothing except banalities about the Bible, Jesus (speaking in Parables) and Rene (sic) Girard, a French author who was ridiculed in France for his obsessions and circular thinking, but enjoyed some kind of cult following in the US, apparently. Girard was never ridiculed in France (at least, not any more than any other who became a target at this or that point). He remains…

There are books about Girard that are pretty funny; one of them is this (published in 2010, while he was still alive):

https://www.editionskime.fr/publications/rene-girard-un-allu...

His fixation is that all of human history can be explained by the fact that people like to copy one another. One of the (many) problems with that theory is that it's turtles all the way down. I don't think Girard can be said to be deep.

Re: Why Peter Thiel Searches for Reality-Bending ‘Secrets’

#70

Post by someperson »

ectopod wrote: post #50
someperson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely referring to the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake that killed a reported 87,000 people (but likely far higher given what we know about the government of China).

"Around that time" is referring to 2004.

> Around that time, an anthropologist who had recently returned from Chinese refugee camps saw how people would sacrifice half their disposable income just to own an iPhone.

The original iPhone was released in June 2007. The 2008 Sichuan Earthquake matches up.

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