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Having watched and listened to Thiel for several years now, I came up with a pet hypothesis I call 'The Wolfian World' that I feel describes what's going on mor

Having watched and listened to Thiel for several years now, I came up with a pet hypothesis I call 'The Wolfian World' that I feel describes what's going on more accurately than the newspapers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413

chridal 10y ago
Your comment was a very interesting read. A shame that it didn't get any further discussion. I'll give The Book of the New Sun a go. Thanks for your insights.
- internaut 10y ago
  Thanks. You won't regret it. It is a most extraordinary masterwork. That book changed my thinking in ways I find difficult to describe. It was as if the world suddenly developed richer textures. I don't know if he would agree, but I felt it was a very 'Thielian' book. A lot of his ideas and statements came into focus for me when I read it. Together with the recordings I mention it became quite an experience.
  - ianai 10y ago
    It's also linear extrapolation beyond everyone's individual abilities to react to the immmediate past. That at least is one thing our system enforces: the political cycle forces people to think about the presidency at least once every four years and the senate every two. A long term dip below progress is still possible insofar as the majority of the worlds population live nothing like the lucky minority.
    - internaut 10y ago
      You're saying that our intrinsic chronocentric thinking prevents us from seeing the danger of the have-nots abruptly encountering a Western lifestyle? That futureshock in large numbers could wind up causing disruption on a scale that would pull us all down?
lonewolf_ninja 10y ago
Quite an interesting observation and detailed comment. Are the presentations/videos available on YouTube?
- internaut 10y ago
  If you mean Gene Wolfe's masterwork, then yes, there are interpretations/commentary available online. If you meant the 'Wolfian World', I came up with that 2 days ago, so no. I did clean up the essay, added some material, made it a bit more accessible to non-HN readers and put it here: https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the-wolfe-b8dee6228918 https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the-wolfe-b8de... In fact about 1/4 of my comments on HN relate to the 'Technological Stagnation Hypothesis'. The TSN is rather hard to appreciate (for most people in our society it seems unbelievable, they just can't shift their mental model of a world with progress because their benchmarks for that are mostly faith based) but Peter Thiel has made many videos available explaining what it means, I think this is one of the best ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw-rxtwhzcY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw-rxtwhzcY The 'Wolfian World' is merely a way to look at our world sideways through a (brilliant) work of fiction with very similar themes to Peter Thiel's Technological Stagnation Hypothesis.
vectorpush 10y ago
I am an immense fan of BOTNS, it is perhaps the most cherished novel in my collection, several years after reading it I still haven't read another novel that has impacted me in a similar fashion (recommendations are welcome), however, while I don't object to your analysis of some of the book's themes, I think your connecting it to current political events is a pretty huge stretch and really only accurate in a somewhat superficial sense. Still, I can't say enough good things about that book so have an upvote.
- internaut 10y ago
  My email is in my profile if you or anybody else wanted to talk about BOTNS and why there's a deep connection between Peter Thiel's ideas and those of Gene Wolfe. I don't think it is a coincidence that Wolfe was an engineer during the same period that Thiel has been scrutinizing. There are many intriguing connections. The energy crisis in oil, the rejection of nuclear energy (the New Sun). I fancy I see allegory. Maybe I'm mad but I am fascinated by both sets of ideas and cannot help seeing a wonderful marriage. ;-)
puranjay 10y ago
Dude, turn that comment into a blog post ASAP. It needs a place where it can "live" more permanently
- internaut 10y ago
  Here you go. https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the-wolfe-b8dee6228918 https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the-wolfe-b8de...
mindcrime 10y ago
Interesting. You sold me on picking up a copy of BOTNS just now. Looking forward to reading it. Sounds like a fascinating story, regardless of any connection to contemporary political events one way or the other.
- internaut 10y ago
  Do tell me how you got on. I found myself I couldn't finish it in one sitting. It was just too deep. I did it in a series of short sprints, accompanied by my weird music suggestion :) Keep a notepad and pen handy, I found that useful to jot down various hypotheses that came to mind while I was reading it. Was useful for figuring out what certain words meant. Stay away from Google at all costs, the risk of spoilers is too great, don't even read the blurbs. Sometimes I would think: is this thing I think I'm seeing really there, or is this the linguistic version of the Voynich manuscript? Then I'd read on and it was like being in a dark room and having a door open from a well lit hallway.
  - mindcrime 10y ago
    Will do. I'm still working on finishing the "Wheel of Time" series (halfway through book 13 now), so it'll just just a little while before I start BOTNS. On a related note, do you read / have you read, any other works that fall into the "Dying Earth" sub-genre? A friend of mine recommended the Jack Vance works, and I'm think I'm going to add those to my list as well.
    - internaut 10y ago
      Jack Vance is a good choice. This 'dying earth sub-genre', its fantastical or science fiction attributes are a thin veneer on something real. One major change to my thinking by Wolfe was that I used to assume history and progress were linear. I don't believe that anymore. There are too many glaring inconsistencies. More important than a chronological clock is the tick of the 'cultural clock'. There are works that give me a, let's call it a dying earth vibe, but they are works of non-fiction such as Joseph Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies, 1177 by Eric Cline (both are interesting but the first of which I strongly recommend to you), or texts originally written in dead languages like Aramaic or Latin of which I have a few in English. It is a very strange feeling to read a text thousands of years old and realize the author is more, not less comprehensible than a similar text from several centuries ago written in your mother tongue. It is stranger still when you find more examples of this happening. It is as if the newer authors had their thoughts clouded or confused, the way they form their thoughts on the page is less joined up. I have come to believe that society undergoes change in such as way that it is perfectly possible for one to have much more in common with the thoughts of an ancient group of people than a much newer one. To my eyes, it is clearly the case that different periods in history are recorded at different rates of lucidity or joined-up thinking. That is a hamfisted description but it'll have to do. My suspicion is that when we become altogether non-lucid the writing disappears also. At other times it appears to me that the thinking of some authors is more sophisticated than our own. I cannot account for this, only to suggest that culture controls people's range of reasoning powers and that there are deep cycles we are utterly oblivious to. On a related note I feel strongly that many books and film media created before the 1980s were more sophisticated than today's interpretations. I wrote something about this recently. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12941619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12941619 Peter Thiel thinks about this in a technological sense but it may also be true culturally with music, art etc. People will state this is subjective, but I don't think it is. Just because you can point to works of excellence in any age doesn't mean there is no moving average. Perhaps we're hamstrung by access to easy answers that slot into place in our heads in place of difficult, but more original thinking that is our own.

chridal 10y ago

Your comment was a very interesting read. A shame that it didn't get any further discussion. I'll give The Book of the New Sun a go. Thanks for your insights.

internaut 10y ago
Thanks. You won't regret it. It is a most extraordinary masterwork. That book changed my thinking in ways I find difficult to describe. It was as if the world suddenly developed richer textures. I don't know if he would agree, but I felt it was a very 'Thielian' book. A lot of his ideas and statements came into focus for me when I read it. Together with the recordings I mention it became quite an experience.
- ianai 10y ago
  It's also linear extrapolation beyond everyone's individual abilities to react to the immmediate past. That at least is one thing our system enforces: the political cycle forces people to think about the presidency at least once every four years and the senate every two. A long term dip below progress is still possible insofar as the majority of the worlds population live nothing like the lucky minority.
  - internaut 10y ago
    You're saying that our intrinsic chronocentric thinking prevents us from seeing the danger of the have-nots abruptly encountering a Western lifestyle? That futureshock in large numbers could wind up causing disruption on a scale that would pull us all down?

lonewolf_ninja 10y ago

Quite an interesting observation and detailed comment. Are the presentations/videos available on YouTube?

internaut 10y ago
If you mean Gene Wolfe's masterwork, then yes, there are interpretations/commentary available online. If you meant the 'Wolfian World', I came up with that 2 days ago, so no. I did clean up the essay, added some material, made it a bit more accessible to non-HN readers and put it here: https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the-wolfe-b8dee6228918 https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the-wolfe-b8de... In fact about 1/4 of my comments on HN relate to the 'Technological Stagnation Hypothesis'. The TSN is rather hard to appreciate (for most people in our society it seems unbelievable, they just can't shift their mental model of a world with progress because their benchmarks for that are mostly faith based) but Peter Thiel has made many videos available explaining what it means, I think this is one of the best ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw-rxtwhzcY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw-rxtwhzcY The 'Wolfian World' is merely a way to look at our world sideways through a (brilliant) work of fiction with very similar themes to Peter Thiel's Technological Stagnation Hypothesis.

vectorpush 10y ago

I am an immense fan of BOTNS, it is perhaps the most cherished novel in my collection, several years after reading it I still haven't read another novel that has impacted me in a similar fashion (recommendations are welcome), however, while I don't object to your analysis of some of the book's themes, I think your connecting it to current political events is a pretty huge stretch and really only accurate in a somewhat superficial sense. Still, I can't say enough good things about that book so have an upvote.

internaut 10y ago
My email is in my profile if you or anybody else wanted to talk about BOTNS and why there's a deep connection between Peter Thiel's ideas and those of Gene Wolfe. I don't think it is a coincidence that Wolfe was an engineer during the same period that Thiel has been scrutinizing. There are many intriguing connections. The energy crisis in oil, the rejection of nuclear energy (the New Sun). I fancy I see allegory. Maybe I'm mad but I am fascinated by both sets of ideas and cannot help seeing a wonderful marriage. ;-)

puranjay 10y ago

Dude, turn that comment into a blog post ASAP. It needs a place where it can "live" more permanently

internaut 10y ago
Here you go. https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the-wolfe-b8dee6228918 https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the-wolfe-b8de...

mindcrime 10y ago

Interesting. You sold me on picking up a copy of BOTNS just now. Looking forward to reading it. Sounds like a fascinating story, regardless of any connection to contemporary political events one way or the other.

internaut 10y ago
Do tell me how you got on. I found myself I couldn't finish it in one sitting. It was just too deep. I did it in a series of short sprints, accompanied by my weird music suggestion :) Keep a notepad and pen handy, I found that useful to jot down various hypotheses that came to mind while I was reading it. Was useful for figuring out what certain words meant. Stay away from Google at all costs, the risk of spoilers is too great, don't even read the blurbs. Sometimes I would think: is this thing I think I'm seeing really there, or is this the linguistic version of the Voynich manuscript? Then I'd read on and it was like being in a dark room and having a door open from a well lit hallway.
- mindcrime 10y ago
  Will do. I'm still working on finishing the "Wheel of Time" series (halfway through book 13 now), so it'll just just a little while before I start BOTNS. On a related note, do you read / have you read, any other works that fall into the "Dying Earth" sub-genre? A friend of mine recommended the Jack Vance works, and I'm think I'm going to add those to my list as well.
  - internaut 10y ago
    Jack Vance is a good choice. This 'dying earth sub-genre', its fantastical or science fiction attributes are a thin veneer on something real. One major change to my thinking by Wolfe was that I used to assume history and progress were linear. I don't believe that anymore. There are too many glaring inconsistencies. More important than a chronological clock is the tick of the 'cultural clock'. There are works that give me a, let's call it a dying earth vibe, but they are works of non-fiction such as Joseph Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies, 1177 by Eric Cline (both are interesting but the first of which I strongly recommend to you), or texts originally written in dead languages like Aramaic or Latin of which I have a few in English. It is a very strange feeling to read a text thousands of years old and realize the author is more, not less comprehensible than a similar text from several centuries ago written in your mother tongue. It is stranger still when you find more examples of this happening. It is as if the newer authors had their thoughts clouded or confused, the way they form their thoughts on the page is less joined up. I have come to believe that society undergoes change in such as way that it is perfectly possible for one to have much more in common with the thoughts of an ancient group of people than a much newer one. To my eyes, it is clearly the case that different periods in history are recorded at different rates of lucidity or joined-up thinking. That is a hamfisted description but it'll have to do. My suspicion is that when we become altogether non-lucid the writing disappears also. At other times it appears to me that the thinking of some authors is more sophisticated than our own. I cannot account for this, only to suggest that culture controls people's range of reasoning powers and that there are deep cycles we are utterly oblivious to. On a related note I feel strongly that many books and film media created before the 1980s were more sophisticated than today's interpretations. I wrote something about this recently. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12941619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12941619 Peter Thiel thinks about this in a technological sense but it may also be true culturally with music, art etc. People will state this is subjective, but I don't think it is. Just because you can point to works of excellence in any age doesn't mean there is no moving average. Perhaps we're hamstrung by access to easy answers that slot into place in our heads in place of difficult, but more original thinking that is our own.