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Advancement in nuclear technologies was basically shut down since the 1970's. Thiel's thesis is that almost no technological progress has occurred since then. I

Advancement in nuclear technologies was basically shut down since the 1970's. Thiel's thesis is that almost no technological progress has occurred since then. I tend to agree. Computer technologies were only allowed to progress so quickly because people did not think computers were dangerous. Imagine any other new product where you could state that the product is "as is" and claim no responsibility for its functionality, purpose for use, or damage caused by malfunction. I would prefer this concept for most things but our "safety first" society definitely does not. The one avenue open to tech advancement became so powerful that it eventually began to bleed into the physical world and we are starting to see other tech slowly advancing again. Maybe if the tech wealthy of Gen X and later have sufficient power in society after the Boomers pass the baton (if they ever do), we will let the technology keep advancing and see this merging. There is also the fact that the US is no longer a hegemon. Good luck stopping people in China from doing things banned in the West.

GuiA 9y ago
The objective of international nuclear regulations is to avoid a small group of hotheads from wiping out humanity/most of the world’s ecosystems due to their botched experiment (and that’s giving them the benefit of the doubt, you could also imagine some crazy cult who believes that inducing a nuclear winter is the only way to heaven). What do you think ISIS would look like in the world you describe? So uh yeah, your argument is pretty insane?
- njarboe 9y ago
  This is exactly the confusion that I am talking about that stalled nuclear power technology. Nuclear weapons are bad to have floating around and getting the current stockpiles down to low levels would be great, but building a nuclear weapons is very hard to do. Separating out U235 from U238 to make and easy to build gun-like nuclear weapon takes a nation state level of power and dedication. Getting enough pure plutonium 239 is at the same order of difficulty and building a plutonium bomb is very difficult and dangerous. Fuel in nuclear reactors do not have to be a weapons grade levels and only a few research reactors are (or were, as they are being phased out). Also, one or two (or a dozen) of small nuclear bombs set off by some small group is not going to wipe out humanity and most of the worlds ecosystems. Horrible, massive death and destruction for sure, but not an existential threat to life on the planet.
throwawayjava 9y ago
> Advancement in nuclear technologies was basically shut down since the 1970's That's not true at all! Civilian nuclear power in the USA (and most of the west) has stalled out since the 70's, but nuclear technology has seen plenty of advances over the intervening time frame. See esp. modern nuclear propulsion systems. Super impressive. Also, this isn't a problem caused exclusively or even primarily by safety regulation in the nuclear sector. The evidence is in the failure of nuclear power throughout the world, despite significant variations in safety regulations. In fact, if you look at root cause analyses for the failure of nuclear energy, you'll find that lack of regulation is a major reason for the failure of the nuclear energy. If the FF industries had to pay for their externalities, nuclear would be extremely viable (at least in the 80s-00s; now it'd have to compete with solar and wind). > Computer technologies were only allowed to progress so quickly because people did not think computers were dangerous. Again, this is a pretty wild assertion... Moore's law >>>> regulatory environment. Seriously. If the output of nuclear power plants had grown exponentially for multiple decades, we'd be in nuclear-powered paradise.
- njarboe 9y ago
  I am not sure what you mean by "modern nuclear propulsion systems". Some links to details of those would be great. I'm hoping for applications outside military ship and submarines, which have been around since the 1960's. There were actual engines for nuclear rockets, nuclear airplanes, nuclear excavation techniques, etc in the 1960's. Definitely problems with those systems, but we stopped trying. Nuclear test ban treaty, etc. I'm not saying that was not the correct path for a better future (hard to say), but society definitely stopped working on that stuff. "Moore's law >>>> regulatory environment" I don't see how this is a disagreement with what I was saying. Imagine if society had the same amount regulation on building software systems as dealing with radioactive stuff. Moore's law would not exist. "If the output of nuclear power plants had grown exponentially for multiple decades, we'd be in nuclear-powered paradise." Why didn't that happen? Lots of reasons, but I think it could have and still could given a chance.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    > I'm hoping for applications outside military ship and submarines, which have been around since the 1960's. I'm referring to military ships and submarines. I'm not really sure where the financial incentive for nuclear comes from for anything commercial? TBH it seems like you have a culprit (regulation) in search of a victim (nuclear utopia), and as a result, you have a solution (nuclear power) in search of a problem. If that's the case, there are really many much better examples. > Nuclear test ban treaty, etc. The NTBT covers intentional detonation of nuclear weapons... I'll be the first to concede that regulation has perhaps hamstrung the private sector nuclear weapons market :-) > engines for nuclear rockets Radiation is a bitch and lead is heavy. Conventional rockets that we need for human space flight already can, with modification, get us to where we've wanted to go so far. So we've instead focused our resources on doing useful stuff once we get there. NASA doesn't have inf money. This is something that people continue to research. What's holding it up is a lack of priority in decisions about what science to fund and a complete lack of any private sector market large enough to justify the investment, not any sort of regulatory barrier. > nuclear excavation techniques ...I'm having an extremely difficult time thinking of a use case where this would make any sense. Nuclear bombs are more powerful than conventional explosives. That power has an enormous tactical advantage in wartime because you can take out a city with a single missile instead of weeks worth of bombing runs. But that's not really a particularly beneficial feature in e.g. a commercial mining operation. Plus radiation's a bitch. Help me out? What are the possible use cases here? > nuclear airplanes Radiation is a bitch and lead is heavy. > I don't see how this is a disagreement with what I was saying. Imagine if society had the same amount regulation on building software systems as dealing with radioactive stuff. Moore's law would not exist. This isn't clear to me. I think the hardware would've still be invented. Perhaps the business impact would've been smaller, but regulation of commercial software systems wouldn't have stood in the way of the enabling physics and engineering research. Also, see the Ford quote about Microsoft; if the nuclear industry worked like the software industry, we wouldn't even be here to have this conversation. We'd have BSoDed our way to nuclear Armageddon some time around 2001. > nuclear power plants had grown exponentially for multiple decades... Why didn't that happen? Physics is a bitch. More precisely, I'm unaware of any serious conjectures by modern nuclear scientists that there are obvious advances on the horizon that could give us exponential improvements to reactor output even in the short term. Let alone over 3+ decades. Aside from power, and perhaps inter-planetary travel, nuclear is a case of "tried it, doesn't work for fundamental reasons" or "wtf now you're just throwing nukes on things for fun". And in the case of power, we have a lot of data points from a lot of different regulatory regimes, all of which point to "this is a quite expensive way to make power which won't pay off until fossil fuel externalities are finally internalized... i.e., never"
baq 9y ago
Thiel is... an interesting individual. I'd recommend taking anything he says with a grain of salt. Look at what he does instead.

GuiA 9y ago

The objective of international nuclear regulations is to avoid a small group of hotheads from wiping out humanity/most of the world’s ecosystems due to their botched experiment (and that’s giving them the benefit of the doubt, you could also imagine some crazy cult who believes that inducing a nuclear winter is the only way to heaven). What do you think ISIS would look like in the world you describe? So uh yeah, your argument is pretty insane?

njarboe 9y ago
This is exactly the confusion that I am talking about that stalled nuclear power technology. Nuclear weapons are bad to have floating around and getting the current stockpiles down to low levels would be great, but building a nuclear weapons is very hard to do. Separating out U235 from U238 to make and easy to build gun-like nuclear weapon takes a nation state level of power and dedication. Getting enough pure plutonium 239 is at the same order of difficulty and building a plutonium bomb is very difficult and dangerous. Fuel in nuclear reactors do not have to be a weapons grade levels and only a few research reactors are (or were, as they are being phased out). Also, one or two (or a dozen) of small nuclear bombs set off by some small group is not going to wipe out humanity and most of the worlds ecosystems. Horrible, massive death and destruction for sure, but not an existential threat to life on the planet.

throwawayjava 9y ago

> Advancement in nuclear technologies was basically shut down since the 1970's That's not true at all! Civilian nuclear power in the USA (and most of the west) has stalled out since the 70's, but nuclear technology has seen plenty of advances over the intervening time frame. See esp. modern nuclear propulsion systems. Super impressive. Also, this isn't a problem caused exclusively or even primarily by safety regulation in the nuclear sector. The evidence is in the failure of nuclear power throughout the world, despite significant variations in safety regulations. In fact, if you look at root cause analyses for the failure of nuclear energy, you'll find that lack of regulation is a major reason for the failure of the nuclear energy. If the FF industries had to pay for their externalities, nuclear would be extremely viable (at least in the 80s-00s; now it'd have to compete with solar and wind). > Computer technologies were only allowed to progress so quickly because people did not think computers were dangerous. Again, this is a pretty wild assertion... Moore's law >>>> regulatory environment. Seriously. If the output of nuclear power plants had grown exponentially for multiple decades, we'd be in nuclear-powered paradise.

njarboe 9y ago
I am not sure what you mean by "modern nuclear propulsion systems". Some links to details of those would be great. I'm hoping for applications outside military ship and submarines, which have been around since the 1960's. There were actual engines for nuclear rockets, nuclear airplanes, nuclear excavation techniques, etc in the 1960's. Definitely problems with those systems, but we stopped trying. Nuclear test ban treaty, etc. I'm not saying that was not the correct path for a better future (hard to say), but society definitely stopped working on that stuff. "Moore's law >>>> regulatory environment" I don't see how this is a disagreement with what I was saying. Imagine if society had the same amount regulation on building software systems as dealing with radioactive stuff. Moore's law would not exist. "If the output of nuclear power plants had grown exponentially for multiple decades, we'd be in nuclear-powered paradise." Why didn't that happen? Lots of reasons, but I think it could have and still could given a chance.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  > I'm hoping for applications outside military ship and submarines, which have been around since the 1960's. I'm referring to military ships and submarines. I'm not really sure where the financial incentive for nuclear comes from for anything commercial? TBH it seems like you have a culprit (regulation) in search of a victim (nuclear utopia), and as a result, you have a solution (nuclear power) in search of a problem. If that's the case, there are really many much better examples. > Nuclear test ban treaty, etc. The NTBT covers intentional detonation of nuclear weapons... I'll be the first to concede that regulation has perhaps hamstrung the private sector nuclear weapons market :-) > engines for nuclear rockets Radiation is a bitch and lead is heavy. Conventional rockets that we need for human space flight already can, with modification, get us to where we've wanted to go so far. So we've instead focused our resources on doing useful stuff once we get there. NASA doesn't have inf money. This is something that people continue to research. What's holding it up is a lack of priority in decisions about what science to fund and a complete lack of any private sector market large enough to justify the investment, not any sort of regulatory barrier. > nuclear excavation techniques ...I'm having an extremely difficult time thinking of a use case where this would make any sense. Nuclear bombs are more powerful than conventional explosives. That power has an enormous tactical advantage in wartime because you can take out a city with a single missile instead of weeks worth of bombing runs. But that's not really a particularly beneficial feature in e.g. a commercial mining operation. Plus radiation's a bitch. Help me out? What are the possible use cases here? > nuclear airplanes Radiation is a bitch and lead is heavy. > I don't see how this is a disagreement with what I was saying. Imagine if society had the same amount regulation on building software systems as dealing with radioactive stuff. Moore's law would not exist. This isn't clear to me. I think the hardware would've still be invented. Perhaps the business impact would've been smaller, but regulation of commercial software systems wouldn't have stood in the way of the enabling physics and engineering research. Also, see the Ford quote about Microsoft; if the nuclear industry worked like the software industry, we wouldn't even be here to have this conversation. We'd have BSoDed our way to nuclear Armageddon some time around 2001. > nuclear power plants had grown exponentially for multiple decades... Why didn't that happen? Physics is a bitch. More precisely, I'm unaware of any serious conjectures by modern nuclear scientists that there are obvious advances on the horizon that could give us exponential improvements to reactor output even in the short term. Let alone over 3+ decades. Aside from power, and perhaps inter-planetary travel, nuclear is a case of "tried it, doesn't work for fundamental reasons" or "wtf now you're just throwing nukes on things for fun". And in the case of power, we have a lot of data points from a lot of different regulatory regimes, all of which point to "this is a quite expensive way to make power which won't pay off until fossil fuel externalities are finally internalized... i.e., never"

baq 9y ago

Thiel is... an interesting individual. I'd recommend taking anything he says with a grain of salt. Look at what he does instead.