Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation? (2014)
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Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation? (2014)
#2Why? You really want to know the Truth?
He was a lawyer by training, and then went to a BIG Money house in NYC, but dropped out of that.
Then drifted to high-tech, some how got involved with paypal, next obvious thing, right transfer money by email.
He's a recovering Drug Addict. He's a homo-sexual, and no matter what they tell you, its not 'gay' to be queer in a straight world.
He's a classic adrift middle-age crisis man.
He always compares himself to his nemesis and partner, Elon Musk, Elon loved high-tech from the begin, played computers, wrote games, went to college, dropped out ala gates/jobs started a company, and then used the money to be make rockets and cars. Elon loves TECH, Thiel does not.
Thiels biggest project now is Parabiosys the idea that blood from children/infants can provide immortality to the old. It's a multi-billion dollar biz say's Thiel, the only problem is getting the blood of children from their parents.
Now ask again. Why is Peter pessimistic?
Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation? (2014)
#3Similar feelings st the beginning of the 20th sentury... everything invented, nothing more to discover... bottom line, no body can predict the future and something amazing can be right around the corner...
Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation? (2014)
#4Isn't there an inevitable aspect of diminishing returns here?
For example, you can't run Moore's Law forever since there are physical constraints to how close things on your chips can be.
It is obvious that any problem to which people have not turned their attention to probably has lots of low hanging fruits that will give you 'progress' very quickly and relatively easily.
Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation? (2014)
#5Although this may irritate Thiel given his libertarian philosophy, the reason is rather clearly the decline of focused public research initiatives.
Whereas previously we had universities and government research arms inventing cyclotrons, rockets, GPS and internet systems, we now have an outcome where long term research, which requires a long time with unpredictable returns and a high chance of failure is cast aside in favor of rapid, iterative improvements.
Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation? (2014)
#6>The Empire State Building was built in 15 months in 1932. It’s taken 12 years and counting to rebuild the World Trade Center. (Source: 36:00)
This is more a commentary on a broken and toxic local political and regulatory climate in New York City than a point about a lack of engineering innovation. Still, perhaps that's part of what he's talking about for some of his critiques.
Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation? (2014)
#7I'd recommend reading The Rise and Fall of American Growth for some useful numbers on this. Between 1870 and 1970 the standard of living increased so dramatically due to a few key inventions that the author calls "onetime" events. Technology since then has led to marginal improvements compared to, say, the widespread adoption of the filtered drinking water networks.
Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation? (2014)
#8Although this may irritate Thiel given his libertarian philosophy, the reason is rather clearly the decline of focused public research initiatives. Whereas previously we had universities and government research arms inventing cyclotrons, rockets, GPS and internet systems, we now have an outcome where long term research, which requires a long time with unpredictable returns and a high chance of failure is cast aside i…
I agree with all that but I still wouldn't call Thiel any sort of libertarian. He spoke at the RNC, backed Trump and is in fact a registered Republican. Like many he waved a libertarian flag of convenience when that was fashionable but the dude's a right wing conservative.
I wouldn't say these sort of conservatives are pessimistic about progress so much they are opposed to progress.
Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation? (2014)
#9>The Empire State Building was built in 15 months in 1932. It’s taken 12 years and counting to rebuild the World Trade Center. (Source: 36:00) This is more a commentary on a broken and toxic local political and regulatory climate in New York City than a point about a lack of engineering innovation. Still, perhaps that's part of what he's talking about for some of his critiques.
"Data from the National Safety Council from 1933 through 1997 indicate that deaths from unintentional work-related injuries declined 90%, from 37 per 100,000 workers to 4 per 100,000. The corresponding annual number of deaths decreased from 14,500 to 5100; during this same period, the workforce more than tripled, from 39 million to approximately 130 million."
Re: Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation? (2014)
#10Just think for moment, only 50 years ago people had no idea about internet, smart phone, cell phone cd Rom, MP3, app, social media, YouTube, web page, pvr, Netflix, amazon and so one and so forth... after another 50 years, the world could be a very different place...