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"Maureen Dowd: California should secede. Peter Thiel: Confirm. I’d be fine with that. I think it would be good for California, good for the rest of the country

"Maureen Dowd: California should secede. Peter Thiel: Confirm. I’d be fine with that. I think it would be good for California, good for the rest of the country. It would help Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign." I don't see how the world's ~sixth largest economy succeeding from the world's 1st/2nd largest is good for the latter. "You like “Star Trek” more than “Star Wars.” Deny. I like “Star Wars” way better. I’m a capitalist. “Star Wars” is the capitalist show. “Star Trek” is the communist one. There is no money in “Star Trek” because you just have the transporter machine that can make anything you need. The whole plot of “Star Wars” starts with Han Solo having this debt that he owes and so the plot in “Star Wars” is driven by money." I hope he's just trolling here. Preferring a future of the same old debtors and creditors as today, to one where plentiful energy can be transformed into any kind of matter the human race needs, eliminating the need for money? Edit: actually he didn't say anything preferring one future or the other, so maybe he just likes Star Wars b/c it's more relatable to present day.

sfeng 10y ago
In general to be a business person or investor is to want some semblance of the modern order to stand. Without some predictability and consistency it's very hard to build any sort of business or generate wealth.
WalterSear 10y ago
> I hope he's just trolling here. No, he's just not a nice person.
diab0lic 10y ago
> I don't see how the world's ~sixth largest economy succeeding from the world's 1st/2nd largest is good for the latter. I'm not advocating for the separation of California, but... I think we can only claim this for certain if our optimization target is size of the economy, in which case no separating from a larger economy would be bad for California. Most entities would be very happy to be the 6th largest economy in the world, I'd guess there are only 5 countries that wouldn't be so keen on it. Quality of life is comparably very good in many countries with smaller economies than the United States. I'd speculate that this is due to the smaller geographic region occupied by the country, and the lower rate of dispersion across the political spectrum amongst citizens. California would achieve both of these in a succession. California has a lot of issues both social and political that diverge from the opinion of most other states. Political correctness, immigration, etc... Again I'm not saying California should divorce itself from the United States, only that I can see why someone might have such an opinion. > I hope he's just trolling here. Preferring a future of the same old debtors and creditors as today, to one where plentiful energy can be transformed into any kind of matter the human race needs, eliminating the need for money? Probably not, historically he's been pretty capitalist.
EdSharkey 10y ago
Competition and ownership is natural and keeps life interesting! Not sure Star Wars is a great example of capitalism though.
- maxander 10y ago
  You know, we might really prefer to keep life interesting through art and science and building a giant spaceship to go exploring the galaxy. :D To be fair to Thiel, though, there's not really the implication that he prefers Star Wars as a "possible kind of future", but just that he prefers it as media. It's also pretty clear that he hasn't seen either one in quite some time.
  - EdSharkey 10y ago
    > You know, we might really prefer to keep life interesting through art and science and building a giant spaceship to go exploring the galaxy. :D No, I don't know! I will add that perhaps the notion of a spacefaring earth with a functional, yet voluntary(?) participation economy, a peaceful one-world government, AND free/happy peoples seems like an impossible hippie-era fantasy to Thiel. Perhaps we can take clues from world history and judge whether his skepticism is reasonable.
  - civilian 10y ago
    Yeah. I interpreted the Star Trek / Star Wars preference more as what he enjoys. And I think that we prefer the media where the rules inside the world make sense. It's the reason why guys don't like romantic comedies-- the structure of that universe makes no sense to them.
rchaud 10y ago
>I don't see how the world's ~sixth largest economy succeeding from the world's 1st/2nd largest is good for the latter. Seems clear to me. California, like Texas, has the largest concentration of Electoral College votes within a single state. While TX is reliably Republican, CA is reliably Democrat. Since Trump lost the popular vote by a large margin, a CA-exit would be highly beneficial to his re-election efforts. CA is obviously an economically important state and a CA-exit would be enormously disruptive to the US economy. That said, the impacts might not be felt by the time the re-election campaign begins. And even if they are felt by that time, the current state of American civic literacy, combined with the disproportionate size of older voter blocs is still enough to win elections by ignoring the reality of automation on jobs and blaming weak job markets on globalization, immigration and trade deals.
- SkyMarshal 10y ago
  You only explained how CA's succession would benefit Trump, not America. Trump != America.
krapp 10y ago
> Preferring a future of the same old debtors and creditors as today, to one where plentiful energy can be transformed into any kind of matter the human race needs, eliminating the need for money? I'm not necessarily a Thiel fan, but to be fair, preference is irrelevant when only the former of those choices is actually possible in our universe. And he's right, at least as far as Gene Roddenberry was concerned, the utopian future was a Communist one, albeit one where the laws of physics were apparently sent to the camps during the Eugenics Wars. Although, also to be fair, Star Wars has space wizards instead of technobabble, and the more deeply it delved into its economic and political systems in the prequels, the more ridiculous it seemed. Neither franchise would seem able to serve as a credible platform for the exploration of any complex political or economic idea. But the original Star Trek was pretty capitalist as well, what with Harry Mudd running around the galaxy selling off-brand pharmacueticals and alien technology, the Federation exploiting dilithium miners, the Orion Syndicate, etc. And, of course, after TNG, we get the Ferengi, who are obvious parodies of American capitalism, but not the villains.

sfeng 10y ago

In general to be a business person or investor is to want some semblance of the modern order to stand. Without some predictability and consistency it's very hard to build any sort of business or generate wealth.

WalterSear 10y ago

> I hope he's just trolling here. No, he's just not a nice person.

diab0lic 10y ago

> I don't see how the world's ~sixth largest economy succeeding from the world's 1st/2nd largest is good for the latter. I'm not advocating for the separation of California, but... I think we can only claim this for certain if our optimization target is size of the economy, in which case no separating from a larger economy would be bad for California. Most entities would be very happy to be the 6th largest economy in the world, I'd guess there are only 5 countries that wouldn't be so keen on it. Quality of life is comparably very good in many countries with smaller economies than the United States. I'd speculate that this is due to the smaller geographic region occupied by the country, and the lower rate of dispersion across the political spectrum amongst citizens. California would achieve both of these in a succession. California has a lot of issues both social and political that diverge from the opinion of most other states. Political correctness, immigration, etc... Again I'm not saying California should divorce itself from the United States, only that I can see why someone might have such an opinion. > I hope he's just trolling here. Preferring a future of the same old debtors and creditors as today, to one where plentiful energy can be transformed into any kind of matter the human race needs, eliminating the need for money? Probably not, historically he's been pretty capitalist.

EdSharkey 10y ago

Competition and ownership is natural and keeps life interesting! Not sure Star Wars is a great example of capitalism though.

maxander 10y ago
You know, we might really prefer to keep life interesting through art and science and building a giant spaceship to go exploring the galaxy. :D To be fair to Thiel, though, there's not really the implication that he prefers Star Wars as a "possible kind of future", but just that he prefers it as media. It's also pretty clear that he hasn't seen either one in quite some time.
- EdSharkey 10y ago
  > You know, we might really prefer to keep life interesting through art and science and building a giant spaceship to go exploring the galaxy. :D No, I don't know! I will add that perhaps the notion of a spacefaring earth with a functional, yet voluntary(?) participation economy, a peaceful one-world government, AND free/happy peoples seems like an impossible hippie-era fantasy to Thiel. Perhaps we can take clues from world history and judge whether his skepticism is reasonable.
- civilian 10y ago
  Yeah. I interpreted the Star Trek / Star Wars preference more as what he enjoys. And I think that we prefer the media where the rules inside the world make sense. It's the reason why guys don't like romantic comedies-- the structure of that universe makes no sense to them.

rchaud 10y ago

>I don't see how the world's ~sixth largest economy succeeding from the world's 1st/2nd largest is good for the latter. Seems clear to me. California, like Texas, has the largest concentration of Electoral College votes within a single state. While TX is reliably Republican, CA is reliably Democrat. Since Trump lost the popular vote by a large margin, a CA-exit would be highly beneficial to his re-election efforts. CA is obviously an economically important state and a CA-exit would be enormously disruptive to the US economy. That said, the impacts might not be felt by the time the re-election campaign begins. And even if they are felt by that time, the current state of American civic literacy, combined with the disproportionate size of older voter blocs is still enough to win elections by ignoring the reality of automation on jobs and blaming weak job markets on globalization, immigration and trade deals.

SkyMarshal 10y ago
You only explained how CA's succession would benefit Trump, not America. Trump != America.

krapp 10y ago

> Preferring a future of the same old debtors and creditors as today, to one where plentiful energy can be transformed into any kind of matter the human race needs, eliminating the need for money? I'm not necessarily a Thiel fan, but to be fair, preference is irrelevant when only the former of those choices is actually possible in our universe. And he's right, at least as far as Gene Roddenberry was concerned, the utopian future was a Communist one, albeit one where the laws of physics were apparently sent to the camps during the Eugenics Wars. Although, also to be fair, Star Wars has space wizards instead of technobabble, and the more deeply it delved into its economic and political systems in the prequels, the more ridiculous it seemed. Neither franchise would seem able to serve as a credible platform for the exploration of any complex political or economic idea. But the original Star Trek was pretty capitalist as well, what with Harry Mudd running around the galaxy selling off-brand pharmacueticals and alien technology, the Federation exploiting dilithium miners, the Orion Syndicate, etc. And, of course, after TNG, we get the Ferengi, who are obvious parodies of American capitalism, but not the villains.