3 ms·

As an alternative to the subjective impressions of Peter Thiel or of people here, perhaps we could adopt a more objective approach, relying on empirical evidenc

As an alternative to the subjective impressions of Peter Thiel or of people here, perhaps we could adopt a more objective approach, relying on empirical evidence. I propose looking at productivity growth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity

david927 11y ago
First, I think he is talking about larger projects, with larger leaps of faith. Small, incremental gains in productivity and chip speed are fine, but we can do more; we have the potential do amazing things and we're not even trying. Second, productivity growth would normally be good if the gains from that growth were distributed. Instead, all of those gains have been placed directly with the wealthiest %1. So instead your graph, sadly, simply reflects how the quality of life has degenerated over the generations. That's not the kind of progress that 99% of the world was hoping for.
- dventimi 11y ago
  First, what Thiel is trying to do (which neither of us will know for sure) is irrelevant to the question of what other approaches we might adopt for answering variations on the question, "How has the pace of technological development changed, if at all, over time?" Second, how those those gains are distributed is likewise irrelevant to that particular question. Not that they're irrelevant to other questions, or that they're unimportant, or uninteresting, or that this is the only question we can ask. The careful reader will notice that neither Thiel nor I really commented on the otherwise important and interesting question of how gains are distributed. That's just something you threw in. Third, it's not "my graph." I linked to a Wikipedia article written by other people and which contains no fewer than four graphs at the time of this writing, and none of them were created by me.

3 ms·

As an alternative to the subjective impressions of Peter Thiel or of people here, perhaps we could adopt a more objective approach, relying on empirical evidenc

by dventimi 11y ago

david927 11y ago
First, I think he is talking about larger projects, with larger leaps of faith. Small, incremental gains in productivity and chip speed are fine, but we can do more; we have the potential do amazing things and we're not even trying. Second, productivity growth would normally be good if the gains from that growth were distributed. Instead, all of those gains have been placed directly with the wealthiest %1. So instead your graph, sadly, simply reflects how the quality of life has degenerated over the generations. That's not the kind of progress that 99% of the world was hoping for.
- dventimi 11y ago
  First, what Thiel is trying to do (which neither of us will know for sure) is irrelevant to the question of what other approaches we might adopt for answering variations on the question, "How has the pace of technological development changed, if at all, over time?" Second, how those those gains are distributed is likewise irrelevant to that particular question. Not that they're irrelevant to other questions, or that they're unimportant, or uninteresting, or that this is the only question we can ask. The careful reader will notice that neither Thiel nor I really commented on the otherwise important and interesting question of how gains are distributed. That's just something you threw in. Third, it's not "my graph." I linked to a Wikipedia article written by other people and which contains no fewer than four graphs at the time of this writing, and none of them were created by me.