Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation
81–90 of 185 posts
Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation
#82I think Thiel is worth listening to, but sometimes his contrarianism flips into derangement: > [Peter Robinson: In 2016, how many professors at the top five law schools endorsed Donald Trump?] [2] Zero. And the law school example's interesting because you would think it's one where if you took the, a lot of academic fields are more internal to academia, but law is one that cashes out in a governmental political conte…
>I think there would be like a 50% chance you would've gotten nominated to the Supreme Court or something like that.
Anyone who follows politics knows the only way you're getting nominated to the Supreme Court by a Republican president is if you've been doing the Heritage Foundation, Values Voters circuit. There's no way they're going to pick some Harvard professor over someone who's been hobnobbing donors for decades.
Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
'mildly oppressive', while literally millions of Uyghurs are being led into nazi style concentration camp trains and hong kong is not free anymore. Or a few decades ago, they captured mothers, 'tied them up like pigs' and physically forced abortions and sterilizations on them.
When you say "Nazi-style concentration camps" do you think millions are soon to be killed?
Yes
Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation
#84Thiel is interesting to me because he is so different than others in the SV bubble. Whether you agree with him or think he is the devil, at least he has independent views. I find a lot of people don’t think for themselves anymore.
What strikes you as different about him? I can’t really articulate why exactly, but to me he’s right up there on the list of archetypical SV personalities.
He's not irrationally optimistic about the future.
Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation
#85Why should I think this man has special insight into the state of the world? He is quite rich, that is true. But if anything, by definition that means he is deeply out of touch with the needs, desires, and problems of the vast majority of the people on this planet.
> Why should I think this man has special insight into the state of the world? You shouldn't, you should read it for yourself and make up your own mind. If a lot of people say something is interesting or good, it's probably worth at least having a look. My conclusion from skimming it is that it's fairly interesting, although I disagree with most of his conclusions.
Which conclusions do you disagree with?
Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation
#86Thiel is interesting to me because he is so different than others in the SV bubble. Whether you agree with him or think he is the devil, at least he has independent views. I find a lot of people don’t think for themselves anymore.
I don't think he's that different beyond partisanship. Especially in the YC ecosystem with peers like Balaji Srinivasan. A lot of SV people want to "disrupt" basic foundations of our government like the education system.
I wonder how many people realize that disrupt literally means to break something.
Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation
#87On Page 92, under Biotech, >The problem that I remain the most passionate about is for us to make some real and continued progress in the fight against aging and death. But how does one help? Really. I've been in academia for more than 10 years. I've had done some really promising stuff and know people with pretty cool projects that are 1,000% worth pursuing. Yet I have found virtually zero support as I don't play we…
> But how does one help?
People live for about 80 years. The first 20 are spent learning the ropes, the middle 40 are spent doing good work, and the final 20 are (ideally) spent in repose and reflection. Half of life is spent contributing to family/society, and half is spent in dependence on family/society; 1 year of contribution for every 1 year of dependence.
By adding even 20 years of quality life, we would make a tremendous leap forward in terms of human productivity, wealth generation and quality of life; instead of 1 year of contribution for every year of dependence, you'd have 1.5 years. That would do wonders in terms of building wealth and improving lives.
Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation
#88I disagree with Thiel on almost every page on this document. And I don't know which topic to really critise. Like his view on regulation, which he calls a burden. I don't want to live in a world w/o regulations, I want to know what is in my food, I want to know that the devices I use are safe. We could see what happens, when regulation fails, when two 737MAX crashed due to the fact that Boeing was able to hide MCAS f…
I’m saddened that you think it’s okay to make it a federal crime to create a jelly/marmalade with more than 4 fruits (seriously).
What you’re doing now is imposing the current day to the past, like looking at the current Airbnb and pretending that’s how it was when it first started.
What if perhaps today wouldn’t be achieved if there had been so many rules and regulations? So picture the same government from now and place it in say 1870. What would you say the odds are we DONT end up anywhere as advanced as we are today?
Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation
#89I disagree with Thiel on almost every page on this document. And I don't know which topic to really critise. Like his view on regulation, which he calls a burden. I don't want to live in a world w/o regulations, I want to know what is in my food, I want to know that the devices I use are safe. We could see what happens, when regulation fails, when two 737MAX crashed due to the fact that Boeing was able to hide MCAS f…
>> This is very visible when Thiel dismisses incremental progress with wind turbines and photovoltaic cells.
I think you've missed his point which he lays out in the opener. If you've listened to him speak on podcasts about this topic (I recommend episode 1 of The Portal with Eric Weinstein) you will realize that his ENTIRE point is that incremental progress is simply refinement of things we already have since the 60s and for him thats NOT good enough. He isn't looking for incremental refinement at all, he is looking for the equivalent of the emergence of the solar cell or the wind turbine from nothing. Basically the emergence of a totally new way of arranging atoms to bring about big leaps, not small refinements. He isnt looking for the next best rocket, he is looking for the emergence of the warp drive. He always pressed the point that if you take away bites, our tech progress has been largely stagnant since the 60s. I've never heard anyone put it that way and I largely have come to agree. Most of what we have today is just better refinement of tech we had in the 60s. TV's, Refrigerators, Microwaves, Cars, Rockets that land themselves. Even computers.
Also, like it or not, capital investment drives innovation, otherwise there is no real incentive. Now I will say one can argue for better models for more longterm investment moon shots that might take decades to achieve, such as say Fusion reactors. ITER is largely stagnant as a multi-government funded 40 billion dollar project and MIT has some incredible designs for fusion reactor prototypes that would put ITER to shame. Problem is they estimate needing 300 million and 10 years to achieve this. Ultimately you need investors to create a company to make this marketable. If Thiel has the money and wants to invest in these sorts of mega leaps ONLY then more power to him and to us all.
Re: Peter Thiel on Progress and Stagnation
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
If all your views line up with the mainstream you’re most definitely not thinking for yourself though. Thiel in fact suggests a question framed in way to force people to think for themselves: > What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
> If all your views line up with the mainstream you’re most definitely not thinking for yourself though. This doesn't make sense. You don't have to hold atypical views to think for yourself. Someone who thinks critically and for themselves and arrives at mainstream views is not wrong. In fact, you'd expect that the majority of people who did so would arrive at mainstream views, unless you presuppose that mainstream v…
You can almost surely assert that the set of mainstream opinions contains at least one "wrong" opinion given the precedence of history. That is, of course, dependent on you believing that there are "wrong" opinions, which for some now has not been mainstream in some circles.