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This is a good case study in why one should never fight against something. When you fight against, you end up copying your enemy. Thiel here argues that Americ

by api 6y ago

This is a good case study in why one should never fight against something. When you fight against, you end up copying your enemy. Thiel here argues that America, to counter China, needs to become a lot more like China. The idea that "competition" is bad because it makes you copy your enemy is the most valuable insight in the book Zero to One by Thiel and Masters, yet here he doesn't seem to be using that insight at all.

HKH2 6y ago
I guess in ZTO he's referring to when there are shared ground rules. With China, there's a clear asymmetry, because they're able to be openly opportunistic without consequence. Idealism vs. realpolitik doesn't last long, and it seems people think the US needs more idealism.
- api 6y ago
  There are ultimately shared ground rules: the laws of physics, our shared ecosystem, etc. Here's an example of the kind of thinking ZTO would advocate, and that I'd expect Thiel to be advocating: So what if China eclipses the USA in aggregate GDP? It's easy for them to do that: they have 4X as many people so all they need is 1/4 US per-capita GDP to equal ours. Per-capita matters more in terms of our subjective experience of our success. We should focus on reversing the decline of our own per-capita wealth, such as focusing on fixing the problems destroying our middle class and domestic industry. Lets settle and establish bases and eventually offshoot civilizations in LEO, on the Moon, and on Mars instead of worrying about China climbing the hill we climbed a century ago. The only two policies I would really advocate re: China are: (1) Making sure we stop treating them like a developing nation and establish fair trade with them instead of trade that is favorable to China. This will require fighting with corporations that have been benefiting massively from unfair trade with China due to wage arbitrage. (2) Make sure we have a credible military deterrent and pursue a sound game theoretic approach to protecting our integrity. (3) Pursue technologies that reduce our dependency on anything overseas that China can interfere with, such as using EVs instead of being dependent on the global oil market. Develop domestic sources of resources and domestic high-tech expertise. ... then build us some rockets. The final and eternal frontier beckons. Fuck warring over little bits of mud down here. It's hard to sustain this kind of thinking. Adversity drags us down into the weeds. ZTO (the good parts) is a manifesto against this, urging us to keep our eyes on the prize. Thiel should re-read his book and maybe stop listening to the "intellectual dark web" crap he indirectly supports.

by api 6y ago

HKH2 6y ago

I guess in ZTO he's referring to when there are shared ground rules. With China, there's a clear asymmetry, because they're able to be openly opportunistic without consequence. Idealism vs. realpolitik doesn't last long, and it seems people think the US needs more idealism.

api 6y ago
There are ultimately shared ground rules: the laws of physics, our shared ecosystem, etc. Here's an example of the kind of thinking ZTO would advocate, and that I'd expect Thiel to be advocating: So what if China eclipses the USA in aggregate GDP? It's easy for them to do that: they have 4X as many people so all they need is 1/4 US per-capita GDP to equal ours. Per-capita matters more in terms of our subjective experience of our success. We should focus on reversing the decline of our own per-capita wealth, such as focusing on fixing the problems destroying our middle class and domestic industry. Lets settle and establish bases and eventually offshoot civilizations in LEO, on the Moon, and on Mars instead of worrying about China climbing the hill we climbed a century ago. The only two policies I would really advocate re: China are: (1) Making sure we stop treating them like a developing nation and establish fair trade with them instead of trade that is favorable to China. This will require fighting with corporations that have been benefiting massively from unfair trade with China due to wage arbitrage. (2) Make sure we have a credible military deterrent and pursue a sound game theoretic approach to protecting our integrity. (3) Pursue technologies that reduce our dependency on anything overseas that China can interfere with, such as using EVs instead of being dependent on the global oil market. Develop domestic sources of resources and domestic high-tech expertise. ... then build us some rockets. The final and eternal frontier beckons. Fuck warring over little bits of mud down here. It's hard to sustain this kind of thinking. Adversity drags us down into the weeds. ZTO (the good parts) is a manifesto against this, urging us to keep our eyes on the prize. Thiel should re-read his book and maybe stop listening to the "intellectual dark web" crap he indirectly supports.