"The flagship industry of the definite optimism of the 1950s was engineering. The flagship industry of the indefinite optimism of the 2010s is finance. Finance

"The flagship industry of the definite optimism of the 1950s was engineering. The flagship industry of the indefinite optimism of the 2010s is finance. Finance is about “making money when you have no idea how to create wealth”. While the engineers plan out specific dams and rockets and so on, the more abstract levels of finance invest in “the market”, a vague aggregate of all economic activity which is expected to go up because Progress." From Scott Alexander's review of Thiel's Zero to One: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/31/book-review-zero-to-one/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/31/book-review-zero-to-on...