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Peter Thiel Says Covid Marks 21st Century’s True Start
- api 6y agoI've called it the end of the post-9/11 era, but that's not quite the same thing.
- entropicdrifter 6y agoI'd say your description is spot-on, at least culturally. It's also the end of the post-08 crash era and the start of the post-20 crash era
- solumos 6y agoIt seems a lot of people feared a tech bubble pop throughout the 2010s after the 08 crash, but it never really happened - hence the current "froth"
- api 6y agoThere are certainly short term tech bubbles but long term I don't think tech is a bubble. This stuff is here to stay and absolutely core to the economy, even more so after COVID mainstreamed telework. Right now I think the biggest potential bubble is top-tier city real estate where residential is more than 10X median family income. Commercial real estate is probably in a bubble too, at least in those "hot" cities.
- altdatathrow 6y agotech being here to stay is not contradictory with current bubble prices
- aphextron 6y ago> It's also the end of the post-08 crash era and the start of the post-20 crash era What crash? SP500 hit an all time high on Friday.
- hpkuarg 6y agoA crash in the real economy, if you will. Equity prices may or may not follow. There's a good chance that one year from now, the S&P 500 will be substantially lower than it is today.
- poulsbohemian 6y ago>the S&P 500 will be substantially lower than it is today. I'm curious - are you speaking speculatively here or do you have reasons why you believe that will be the case?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 1996 6y agoThe Fed printed 40 cents for every dollar that existed in March: https://www.dailyhandle.com/the-government-has-printed-40-cents-for-every-dollar-that-existed-in-march/ https://www.dailyhandle.com/the-government-has-printed-40-ce... Expect all-time-highs in many things as 40% inflation goes trickles down, now that the velocity of money has stopped crashing: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1V https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1V
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- NineStarPoint 6y agoWorth noting that the current long term trend is the velocity of money going down, no reason to expect it to turn back up necessarily. Definitely is a strong reason stocks are so overvalued though, yeah.
- birdsbirdsbirds 6y agoThe world is going remote, thus finally becoming the global village that the early start-ups envisioned. Why should there be a crash if huge optimization improvements are made? The only things that will tank are the airline industries and the real estate market.
- danhak 6y agoOptimization improvements for whom? Those who already held significant assets and highly-trained white-collar knowledge workers? Yes. Others? Not so much. Wealth inequality was a serious issue before the pandemic and this so-called "K-Shaped Recovery" has dramatically accelerated the trend. We're in for some turbulent times ahead... “The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."
- birdsbirdsbirds 6y agoProduction is limited by energy supply. Once renewable energies have reached the point where carbon hydrates have to be dumped onto the market to make any profit at all, there will be an abundance of energy. At that moment, unless enough AI is built, workers will become the scarce resource.
- poulsbohemian 6y ago>and the real estate market. I'm not sure this will even be the case, depending on your perspective. Yes, we appear to be seeing a correction in commercial class A office space in major metros - but I'd argue that was a long time coming regardless. We may see a correction in residential real estate in those same major metros, but out here in rural America we're seeing an influx of people looking for better value than they were getting in coastal cities and it's driving our markets upward.
- bigbubba 6y agoIt won't be that until I'm allowed to keep my shoes on and bring a liter bottle of seltzer water with me when I fly.
- koolba 6y agoI bet they’ll let you bring it if you tell them it’s hand sanitizer. Which is hilarious as the latter combined with a lighter could be a potent improvised weapon.
- evilduck 6y agoThey already let us fly with numerous lithium fire hazards per person. All you need is something like a metal barreled ink pen to pierce the battery pack. Heck, what protection is there from me getting some volume of mercury on board? A pressurized aluminum airframe would not take kindly to spilling any amount of that.
- na85 6y agoDestroying the aircraft in mid air isn't really the threat any more, though. The threat is using the airplane and its occupants as unwilling kamikaze weapons as in 9/11, and with the armored doors on the flight deck now it's unlikely the aircrew will allow the aircraft to be hijacked no matter what you bring on board. There's a reason the flight attendants stand in front of the door when the pilots have to use the washroom; it's so that you have to kill or incapacitate them first which buys the pilot(s) time to close and secure the armored door.
- bigbubba 6y agoShoes are obstensibly removed to prevent the destruction of planes, not their hijacking. The problem of planes being hijacked was solved around 10am on 2001/9/11, before the government got involved. And if passengers fighting back isn't enough, locked cabin doors should be. Incidentally, passengers kicked the shit out of the would-be shoe bomber too.
- justinzollars 6y agoI'd love for 9/11 era to end. It was so easy to bank before know-your-customer. We not only lost all personal freedom, we lost all of our financial freedom
- ipsocannibal 6y agoThis a duplicate of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25319415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25319415
- crispyambulance 6y agoThe 21st century's "true start" was on New Year's Eve, 2000. Of course, I realize he's talking about defining events that delimit major changes between the previous century and its successor. And more specifically, major changes in what Thiel cares about, like financial markets, start-ups, monopolies, and money in general. But, really, we're only 20% into the century. Something else could easily eclipse Covid-19 even within the parameters of what matters to Thiel. You know, like climate change, the second coming, asteroid hitting the Earth, quantum computing, "the singularity", etc... Who the F knows? There's no utility in this kind of thinking. Just take it for it is and what it becomes since starting on Jan 1st, 2000.
- stcredzero 6y agoSomething else could easily eclipse Covid-19 even within the parameters of what matters to Thiel. Did WWI define the 20th century, or was it WWII? I think WWI demarcates the 1st of a series of really big, interrelated events. I suspect Covid-19 could be the 1st of a series of really big, interrelated events.
- dougmwne 6y agoTo me it's quite obviously a preview of the ecological collapses that climate change will bring over the rest of the century. This is a small taste of things to come and the scale of the solutions and sacrifices required to adapt to them. The amount of government intervention, which was met with a lot of skepticism in the West, is going to remain a prominent feature.
- buu700 6y agoThat's a fair take. Before this year, most of us might have said 9/11 was the defining moment of the start of this century. I'm not going to try to predict what history will look like 80 years from now, or whether 9/11 or covid will be considered more significant by then, but this does raise an interesting question of how people in 1913 perceived the nascent 20th century. Obviously things happened over those 13 years, but whatever they were, history ultimately decided that they were inconsequential enough for the "20th-century events" Wikipedia article to not even mention anything before WWI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_events
- m3kw9 6y agoIt just sounds hype, what is true is Covid accelerated a lot of digital platforms maybe as much as 10 years ahead.
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- kthxbye123 6y agoIt is still a little shocking to me that Peter Thiel can be quoted in mainstream business publications without any note being made of his quite open support for white nationalist hate groups. Not far off from quoting Albert Speer as an architecture critic!
- badconvincer 6y agoI agree, I’m all for separating a person from his work but in Peter Thiel’s case they are so intertwined it does not make sense to give him the benefit of the doubt.
- kthxbye123 6y agoCurious to hear from the downvoters. What about Peter Thiel’s banal punditry justifies overlooking his active and enthusiastic contributions to neo-Nazis?
- ephextom 6y agoCan you comment with links pointing to his support for neo-Nazis? I can agree that some of the people and ideas he aligns with are creepy, but Nazism has a meaning, and critiques like this need to be accurate and evidence-backed.
- aussiegreenie 6y agojust another demonstration of how out of touch Thiel is. He is genuinely a nut in the John McAfee class.
- gumby 6y agoThat headline was wonderful, and it surprised me as I have typically been unimpressed by anything he's had to say. Then I read the rest of the article and was disappointed in its scope. 2020 really is a year of phase change (or in Thiel-like terms, a node point through which a number of trends pass through). If you can correctly predict which issues will not revert to status quo ante (retail, remote work, delivery, retrograde fear of science, class stratification, or something nobody else yet sees) you can have influence, riches, and/or a lot of fun.
- rhacker 6y agoI don't know why one would think so, 100 years after the spanish flu, it's barely a footnote that, let's be honest, most people that frequent this board hadn't heard of before covid-19. I think one would mark the previous century as either the great depression or wwii. I don't think in 100 years covid will have any lasting effect on the 25-45 year olds of the 2120 crowd (and we'll all be close to death). Besides they will be more worried about the coming war with the Xanthiane'kkas and the Mars colony massacre.
- LordFast 6y agoThiel is a very smart guy. I have no doubt that if there is an opportunity to frame the world in a way that is the most advantageous and beneficial to him and his beliefs, he would take that opportunity. Controlling the belief system is more powerful than controlling the resources, which is more powerful than controlling the machinations of a single company, which is more powerful than controlling the product itself. Once that's understood, I think people are free to make their own judgement calls regarding this opinion of his.
- techelite 6y agoI'm more curious what caused the wave of populism in the late 2010s. Was it really Russian propagandists on social media? COVID will be gone in a year or 2, but the economic damage may cause things to be worse. My best hope is a reform of the medical cartels, but that is wishful thinking in the face of a billion dollar lobbyist group.
- mikem170 6y agoIt was the great recession. I remember reading at the time that it is typical for there to be populist right wing movements after economic calamities, same as happened after the great depression.
- techelite 6y agoIs it only right wing? The left elected AOC and gave Bernie a platform.
- mikem170 6y ago>Is it only right wing? That's what it said. I assumed they were talking about how bad economies led to people like Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, and since then maybe Thatcher and Reagan, also Putin, and more recently Brexit, Le May, Orban, the leaders of Poland, Brazil, Philippines, etc. Nobody's propaganda did all that. Bad economies and folks scared about change and their future did. A very interesting book I read called "The Republican Brain" posited that people are born with a lot of their left/right thinking as part of their personalities, but that when the shit hits the fan a certain amount of left-thinking people will become more conservative.
- techelite 6y agoNotably absent are your left wing Maos and lenin. Either you aren't discussing in good faith or ignorant of left wing populism.
- 6y ago
- Cro_on 6y agoAs a matter of fact the 21st century started prematurely in 1989 with the invention of the world wide web. It was officially inaugurated on NYE 2000, and has since been filled with all sorts of interesting things. 9/11, that started the 21st century's great fear, and security obsession. The 2008 financial crisis, started off the 21st century's fury at the fraudulent capitalist finance system. iPhone / android facilitated the 21st century's incessant protest. Trump and social media showed us some gaping holes in democracy, and the allowed an inherent fascism to reveal itself. COVID revealed to us problems of over population, easy travel and access to healthcare. And then? Clearly it's just the beginning, but there was no point when anything started or ended, other than the date. My only speculation is that the 21st century is as it is because of an appreciation for round numbers, and words like millennium. Or that we are definitely not base reality.
- hollerith 6y ago> the 21st century started prematurely in 1989 with the invention of the world wide web and the fall of the Berlin Wall.