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I think Peter Thiel hit the nail on the head when he wrote that America went from being led by definite optimists ("I am going to invent the future and it's goi

I think Peter Thiel hit the nail on the head when he wrote that America went from being led by definite optimists ("I am going to invent the future and it's going to be great"), to being led by indefinite optimists ("the future's probably going to be great, but I'm going to focus on my investment portfolio"). The social capital shifted from inventors and innovators to bean counters at some point after the 60s. FWIW I'm from the UK and we haven't been definite optimists since the 1800s.

scottLobster 6y ago
Yeah, and there's a bit of a bucket crab effect where trying to be a definite optimist in a world of indefinite optimists is much harder. Reminds of me of "The General" from Asimov's Foundation and Empire (spoiler alert for an amazing book from 1952). In a time where the galactic empire is collapsing/shrinking, General Bel Riose makes it his mission to restore the empire militarily and re-conquer the lost territory. He's actually a good commander, has overwhelming force, and looks to be in the process of achieving complete victory in the style of historical military commanders that made the empire great. In light of his achievements, the Emperor sees him as a potential rival, despite the fact that he never appears to have any ambitions to the throne (he's presented as an Imperial True Believer), recalls him right on the cusp of complete victory over the Foundation, and the Foundation survives being snuffed out in its infancy. Even trying to emulate the old greats with the best of intentions will fail if you don't account for your environment. If everyone else is more concerned about their portfolio, to some degree you have to be as well, even if it distracts from the greater goals.
runarberg 6y ago
Did it really? Or is this a bias in favor of private investment. There has been a lot of investments to government programs such as NASA and NOAA (as well as the military for better or worse). Also universities continue to innovate with plenty of new innovation to show for it. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the American private sector has moved from being led by...
- beaconstudios 6y ago
  perhaps it is - but it's a cultural thing, and culture tends to affect both the private and public sectors. DARPA is still doing impressive things though as far as I'm aware. NASA is once again doing cool things, but I can't help but suspect that interest in space was reignited by SpaceX, and Elon Musk is the archetypal definite optimist.
jackfoxy 6y ago
WWI, FDR, and then WW2 ushered in the age of big government, academic-government collaboration, and bureaucracy over all. Everything gets done according to process. Elon Musk is a rare iconoclast.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Our biggest growth happened after those times. I believe the bend in the curve happened closer to the 70s in the US.
- usrusr 6y ago
  Well, that process was an important innovation as a damage control tool for the cost plus thing. I never really understood the cost plus thing, at least not how it can survive the tiniest excursion out of wishful thinking. Not until the pandemic hit. Then it suddenly became clear to me that in exceptional situations the cost plus model, even with all its failing damage control band-aids, is far superior to waiting for The Market to reach an equilibrium. You wouldn't win a war by giving each soldier a budget and then unleashing them to outbid each other for ammunition and medical support, to put it bluntly. The failure of course is when you stick to that model for too long ("F35"). (sorry for bringing the pandemic into a discussion about Wright Flyer bits flying on Mars)
  - beaconstudios 6y ago
    Bureaucracy stifles innovation as the cost of increased risk management. Being incredibly risk adverse can often be a very short sighted attitude because you surrender the opportunity cost of taking calculated risks like trying new approaches and tools. Successful organisations are able to adapt over time, where bureaucracies only stagnate. Markets are orthogonal to that trade off because both bureaucracies and adaptive organisations operate within the market. It's just a tool, you can use it well or poorly.
    - usrusr 6y ago
      Markets are not orthogonal in so far as that certain forms of bureaucracy exist solely for dealing with non-market scenarios ("wartime cost plus"). You want either one or the other, never both at once (a market stifled by redundant bureaucracy) or none at all (decisionmakers just wiring the money to family members for vague promises of maybe trying to deliver, perhaps) Unfortunately it gets a bit murky in that there is another form of bureaucracy to tame markets while they are not circumvented and there's a severe lack of separation between those two forms of bureaucracies. Usually neither critics nor advocates seem to care about the distinction (which plays out much better for critics I suppose).
qqqwerty 6y ago
This is just recency bias. We remember those that did great things and we forget those that did not. In 100 years, folks will look back on our time and remember Elon Musk, Bezos, Jobs, Gates, etc... and will wonder why we were blessed with such great visionaries and will complain about how their generation is nothing but bean counters and bureaucrats.
- beaconstudios 6y ago
  Musk stands out in that crowd for being an actual old-school innovator. Bezos, Jobs and Gates have made huge impacts, but those impacts are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. That's the difference; the rate of actual invention, or as Thiel puts it, going from 0 to 1, has dropped off a cliff.
  - qqqwerty 6y ago
    No it hasn't. CRISPR was a very recent invention and has the potential to radically change biotech. mRNA was just used to roll out a novel vaccine in a record amount of time. Solid state batteries will be a game changer in the EV space. You are just cherry-picking your facts to fit a narrative that you have built. It is easy to glorify the past when you did not live through it. For every Wright Brother, there were hundreds if not thousands of hucksters and shysters. If anything, a close reading of history will illuminate how little has changed regarding the human condition in the last 200 years.
    - beaconstudios 6y ago
      > No it hasn't. CRISPR was a very recent invention and has the potential to radically change biotech. > You are just cherry-picking your facts to fit a narrative that you have built. lol less innovation != no innovation. the human condition may not change, but culture does. Just look to the economy and how many companies are primarily focused on rent extraction or incremental improvements to existing concepts as opposed to inventing new things. How many new inventions did we get in the 50s-60s alone?
tomjen3 6y ago
Barbara Tuckman is more famous for writing the Guns of August, but she also wrote the the Proud Tower[0] about the (European) world in the 25 years leading up to WWI, and in the concluding chapter she talks about how before the war the people thought they were good, they were proud of the society they had built, but that didn't survive the war, and it /never/ came back at least of Europe. And I mean the book was written in 1996, so any memories of the war are both eclipsed by WWII and burried with a few old people. I don't think the social capital shifted so much in the US, certainly there are more people being administrators than there was before, but notice how much people like Elon Musk, or the flowers left outside Apple Stores when Steve Jobs died. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Proud-Tower-Portrait-Before-1890-1914/dp/0345405013/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&qid=1616701449&refinements=p_27%3ABarbara+W.+Tuchman&s=books&sr=1-5&text=Barbara+W.+Tuchman https://www.amazon.com/Proud-Tower-Portrait-Before-1890-1914...

scottLobster 6y ago

Yeah, and there's a bit of a bucket crab effect where trying to be a definite optimist in a world of indefinite optimists is much harder. Reminds of me of "The General" from Asimov's Foundation and Empire (spoiler alert for an amazing book from 1952). In a time where the galactic empire is collapsing/shrinking, General Bel Riose makes it his mission to restore the empire militarily and re-conquer the lost territory. He's actually a good commander, has overwhelming force, and looks to be in the process of achieving complete victory in the style of historical military commanders that made the empire great. In light of his achievements, the Emperor sees him as a potential rival, despite the fact that he never appears to have any ambitions to the throne (he's presented as an Imperial True Believer), recalls him right on the cusp of complete victory over the Foundation, and the Foundation survives being snuffed out in its infancy. Even trying to emulate the old greats with the best of intentions will fail if you don't account for your environment. If everyone else is more concerned about their portfolio, to some degree you have to be as well, even if it distracts from the greater goals.

runarberg 6y ago

Did it really? Or is this a bias in favor of private investment. There has been a lot of investments to government programs such as NASA and NOAA (as well as the military for better or worse). Also universities continue to innovate with plenty of new innovation to show for it. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the American private sector has moved from being led by...

beaconstudios 6y ago
perhaps it is - but it's a cultural thing, and culture tends to affect both the private and public sectors. DARPA is still doing impressive things though as far as I'm aware. NASA is once again doing cool things, but I can't help but suspect that interest in space was reignited by SpaceX, and Elon Musk is the archetypal definite optimist.

jackfoxy 6y ago

WWI, FDR, and then WW2 ushered in the age of big government, academic-government collaboration, and bureaucracy over all. Everything gets done according to process. Elon Musk is a rare iconoclast.

Pfhreak 6y ago
Our biggest growth happened after those times. I believe the bend in the curve happened closer to the 70s in the US.
usrusr 6y ago
Well, that process was an important innovation as a damage control tool for the cost plus thing. I never really understood the cost plus thing, at least not how it can survive the tiniest excursion out of wishful thinking. Not until the pandemic hit. Then it suddenly became clear to me that in exceptional situations the cost plus model, even with all its failing damage control band-aids, is far superior to waiting for The Market to reach an equilibrium. You wouldn't win a war by giving each soldier a budget and then unleashing them to outbid each other for ammunition and medical support, to put it bluntly. The failure of course is when you stick to that model for too long ("F35"). (sorry for bringing the pandemic into a discussion about Wright Flyer bits flying on Mars)
- beaconstudios 6y ago
  Bureaucracy stifles innovation as the cost of increased risk management. Being incredibly risk adverse can often be a very short sighted attitude because you surrender the opportunity cost of taking calculated risks like trying new approaches and tools. Successful organisations are able to adapt over time, where bureaucracies only stagnate. Markets are orthogonal to that trade off because both bureaucracies and adaptive organisations operate within the market. It's just a tool, you can use it well or poorly.
  - usrusr 6y ago
    Markets are not orthogonal in so far as that certain forms of bureaucracy exist solely for dealing with non-market scenarios ("wartime cost plus"). You want either one or the other, never both at once (a market stifled by redundant bureaucracy) or none at all (decisionmakers just wiring the money to family members for vague promises of maybe trying to deliver, perhaps) Unfortunately it gets a bit murky in that there is another form of bureaucracy to tame markets while they are not circumvented and there's a severe lack of separation between those two forms of bureaucracies. Usually neither critics nor advocates seem to care about the distinction (which plays out much better for critics I suppose).

qqqwerty 6y ago

This is just recency bias. We remember those that did great things and we forget those that did not. In 100 years, folks will look back on our time and remember Elon Musk, Bezos, Jobs, Gates, etc... and will wonder why we were blessed with such great visionaries and will complain about how their generation is nothing but bean counters and bureaucrats.

beaconstudios 6y ago
Musk stands out in that crowd for being an actual old-school innovator. Bezos, Jobs and Gates have made huge impacts, but those impacts are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. That's the difference; the rate of actual invention, or as Thiel puts it, going from 0 to 1, has dropped off a cliff.
- qqqwerty 6y ago
  No it hasn't. CRISPR was a very recent invention and has the potential to radically change biotech. mRNA was just used to roll out a novel vaccine in a record amount of time. Solid state batteries will be a game changer in the EV space. You are just cherry-picking your facts to fit a narrative that you have built. It is easy to glorify the past when you did not live through it. For every Wright Brother, there were hundreds if not thousands of hucksters and shysters. If anything, a close reading of history will illuminate how little has changed regarding the human condition in the last 200 years.
  - beaconstudios 6y ago
    > No it hasn't. CRISPR was a very recent invention and has the potential to radically change biotech. > You are just cherry-picking your facts to fit a narrative that you have built. lol less innovation != no innovation. the human condition may not change, but culture does. Just look to the economy and how many companies are primarily focused on rent extraction or incremental improvements to existing concepts as opposed to inventing new things. How many new inventions did we get in the 50s-60s alone?

tomjen3 6y ago

Barbara Tuckman is more famous for writing the Guns of August, but she also wrote the the Proud Tower[0] about the (European) world in the 25 years leading up to WWI, and in the concluding chapter she talks about how before the war the people thought they were good, they were proud of the society they had built, but that didn't survive the war, and it /never/ came back at least of Europe. And I mean the book was written in 1996, so any memories of the war are both eclipsed by WWII and burried with a few old people. I don't think the social capital shifted so much in the US, certainly there are more people being administrators than there was before, but notice how much people like Elon Musk, or the flowers left outside Apple Stores when Steve Jobs died. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Proud-Tower-Portrait-Before-1890-1914/dp/0345405013/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&qid=1616701449&refinements=p_27%3ABarbara+W.+Tuchman&s=books&sr=1-5&text=Barbara+W.+Tuchman https://www.amazon.com/Proud-Tower-Portrait-Before-1890-1914...