7 ms·

Peter Thiel says California suffers from a “tech curse”. Is he right?

ElfinTrousers 4y ago
I haven't read the article, but as a general rule of thumb, if Peter Thiel believes something about politics or economics to be true, the opposite is probably so.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  That's a negative view. Why do you say that?
  - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
    Because it's what I believe, for reasons. If you want an explanation of why that's what I believe, you are welcome to make up any in your own head that satisfy you.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
      That's not very productive.
      - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
        LOL
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  Because Peter Thiel has a deranged world view and does sociopathic stuff with his wealth.
  - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
    Couldn't have said it better myself.
helsinkiandrew 4y ago
https://archive.ph/DVnrf https://archive.ph/DVnrf
jasan_s 4y ago
hard to say
ideamotor 4y ago
good weather curse
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bluepizza 4y ago
California suffers from a Peter Thiel curse. One single individual amassing huge amounts of money, influence, and power has never worked for the common good.
- amadeuspagel 4y ago
  There are many people richer then Thiel in California, and Thiel has no political power there.
  - iinnPP 4y ago
    Sorry but Thiel is one of the ones you actually need to worry about ;)
- arinlen 4y ago
  > California suffers from a Peter Thiel curse. This. Mr Thiel's highly hypocritical and incoherent rant on "dysfunctional societies" and "corrupt governments" is nothing more admitting that the likes of him are refusing to contribute at all back to society, let alone proportionally to what they personally benefited from it, and are thus single-handedly actively causing its deterioration. Mr Thiel, pay your taxes, and in the process put your money where your mouth is and start contributing back to fixing problems. You're supposed to be bootstrappy and a problem-solver, aren't you? Why did any of your industrious spirit vanished once it's your time to pay back to society what you owe it? Is it easy to build a huge mansion in a gated community but too hard to work with local and state governments to chip in a fraction of that cost to invest in urban renewal programs, social programs, or even social housing?
  - rayiner 4y ago
    No, the problem is the engineers, not Thiel. European countries also have billionaires. But the billionaires don’t pay for the social housing, etc. Sweden doesn’t have a wealth tax, it has low corporate taxes, and low capital gains taxes too. Sweden has all the robust welfare system because the top tax rate starts at around $75,000/year. The only reason California doesn’t look like Sweden is because your average California liberal is a hypocrite and won’t put their money where their mouth is.
ethanbond 4y ago
TLDR: It’s the land, stupid. Just as it has been since advent of agriculture: the landed class holds power over all productivity, and as productivity rises the landed will reap more of its reward, ensuring desolate poverty immediately adjacent to extreme productivity. Productivity improvements (from tech, public investment, private investment, and sheer population scale) are not evenly distributed, but they raise the value of nearby land which everyone must stomach the costs of, from individual laborers and teachers to grocery stores and coffee shops. Cost of rent rising with productivity obviously ensures impoverishment of people who cannot achieve the higher productivity, and the diminishment of living standards even for people who can (see: Palo Alto residents qualifying for public housing assistance with $200k+ household incomes). The people who primarily win as productivity rises is not the people producing but those who own the land on which producers live and work. It’s a story as old as time. Land is power (see: feudalism; the Queen of England whose wealth and status was from dynastic landlording). It’s not even a new problem in SF. Post gold rush people were asking the same questions, one of whom was Henry George who wrote a great book on this land-oriented (and sector-agnostic) view. Of course California, being already controlled by the landed class, has gone off the rails in the opposite direction with Prop 13 ensuring that landlords have pretty much perpetual rent seeking authority over the entire state’s productive power, whether it be generated by nature, technology, or institutions. Note the conspicuous absence of the productive power of people who simply sit on a piece of land, and their conspicuous accrual of wealth and power. This dynamic causes poverty to grow with progress, only to be mitigated by enormous public expenditures to hide the effects of it.
- acapybara 4y ago
  No need to put up with this! Smart people are everywhere. We can build together remotely. We can make our own companies. If we need to, we can make our own money systems.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    All of which require land. You are seeing the exact same effects in places that are highly desirable for remote work. People bring their NYC or SF incomes to places like Austin, Raleigh, Bozeman, etc. and all the same stuff albeit different intensities. Land is finite and it’s an absolute necessity for all productivity.
AzzieElbab 4y ago
Here is the talk they reference. Fairly short https://youtu.be/balGGAd6ZrI https://youtu.be/balGGAd6ZrI
fundad 4y ago
He has said himself that Florida and Texas aren’t doing any better considering their real estate trends. They’re just not as expensive yet.
WealthVsSurvive 4y ago
Hey I've got an idea, let's artificially restrict the flow of USD currency behind oligopolists, then double-dip and own the company that makes it slightly easier to transact. Can I have a billion dollars now for inventing paypal cause I know HTML? I'm Peter Eat-your-meal, you should listen to what I have to say because I'm the smartest conman in the room.
throwawaymanbot 4y ago
jelliclesfarm 4y ago
California suffers from over population. There really isn’t enough resources to support people as well as industry(including tech) in California. Resource optimization can only occur with automation. For a tech paradise, we are woefully outdated compared to other global tech centers. We don’t even compare favourably with places like Asia. The housing situation in CA is because we have been brainwashed into home ownership. It’s not for everyone. Only a few can afford it truly. Renting is the best economic choice. Unaffordable housing in California is due to the speculative frenzy for home ownership and also partly due to foreign ownership of speculative assets. There will always be the landed gentry and they are necessary for the stability of an economy because they already own the land. When people ‘own’ their little homes splintered only to give them the satisfaction of ‘home ownership’, it is a lie. What happens is instead of land owning citizens collecting rent, banks collect interest on mortgage. It is a macro economic move. It means that the state is leaking $$$ and there is Big Govt that needs revenue for its bloated departments. It also means that interest rates are being manipulated. It has nothing to do with home ownership. I would rather pay rent than pay interest. My controversial take is that I prefer the landed gentry who are rent seekers than be sucked into a fake ownership agenda that is really the govt with the central banks milking interest and more taxes. It’s usury. It only benefits banks and governments. Not tax paying citizens. If anything, California suffers from the wokeness curse. It’s debilitating when rational thought is sacrificed at the altar of political correctness. I am on the side of giving the govt as little powers as possible to operate. Their essential functions should law and order, infrastructure maintenance and social services to bring the marginals up to the center. If they have to be involved in housing, it should be like in Singapore. The govt builds high income, medium income, low income homes in high density townships and offer them at 99 year leases. This would guarantee homes without participating in the speculative home market. But this would never happen in America because the real problem is interest rate fixing and a tap called property taxes that can never be turned off. They are playing us and turning us against each other.

I haven't read the article, but as a general rule of thumb, if Peter Thiel believes something about politics or economics to be true, the opposite is probably so.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
That's a negative view. Why do you say that?
- ElfinTrousers 4y ago
  Because it's what I believe, for reasons. If you want an explanation of why that's what I believe, you are welcome to make up any in your own head that satisfy you.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    That's not very productive.
    - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
      LOL
fnordpiglet 4y ago
Because Peter Thiel has a deranged world view and does sociopathic stuff with his wealth.
- ElfinTrousers 4y ago
  Couldn't have said it better myself.

helsinkiandrew 4y ago

https://archive.ph/DVnrf https://archive.ph/DVnrf

jasan_s 4y ago

hard to say

ideamotor 4y ago

good weather curse

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bluepizza 4y ago

California suffers from a Peter Thiel curse. One single individual amassing huge amounts of money, influence, and power has never worked for the common good.

amadeuspagel 4y ago
There are many people richer then Thiel in California, and Thiel has no political power there.
- iinnPP 4y ago
  Sorry but Thiel is one of the ones you actually need to worry about ;)
arinlen 4y ago
> California suffers from a Peter Thiel curse. This. Mr Thiel's highly hypocritical and incoherent rant on "dysfunctional societies" and "corrupt governments" is nothing more admitting that the likes of him are refusing to contribute at all back to society, let alone proportionally to what they personally benefited from it, and are thus single-handedly actively causing its deterioration. Mr Thiel, pay your taxes, and in the process put your money where your mouth is and start contributing back to fixing problems. You're supposed to be bootstrappy and a problem-solver, aren't you? Why did any of your industrious spirit vanished once it's your time to pay back to society what you owe it? Is it easy to build a huge mansion in a gated community but too hard to work with local and state governments to chip in a fraction of that cost to invest in urban renewal programs, social programs, or even social housing?
- rayiner 4y ago
  No, the problem is the engineers, not Thiel. European countries also have billionaires. But the billionaires don’t pay for the social housing, etc. Sweden doesn’t have a wealth tax, it has low corporate taxes, and low capital gains taxes too. Sweden has all the robust welfare system because the top tax rate starts at around $75,000/year. The only reason California doesn’t look like Sweden is because your average California liberal is a hypocrite and won’t put their money where their mouth is.

ethanbond 4y ago

TLDR: It’s the land, stupid. Just as it has been since advent of agriculture: the landed class holds power over all productivity, and as productivity rises the landed will reap more of its reward, ensuring desolate poverty immediately adjacent to extreme productivity. Productivity improvements (from tech, public investment, private investment, and sheer population scale) are not evenly distributed, but they raise the value of nearby land which everyone must stomach the costs of, from individual laborers and teachers to grocery stores and coffee shops. Cost of rent rising with productivity obviously ensures impoverishment of people who cannot achieve the higher productivity, and the diminishment of living standards even for people who can (see: Palo Alto residents qualifying for public housing assistance with $200k+ household incomes). The people who primarily win as productivity rises is not the people producing but those who own the land on which producers live and work. It’s a story as old as time. Land is power (see: feudalism; the Queen of England whose wealth and status was from dynastic landlording). It’s not even a new problem in SF. Post gold rush people were asking the same questions, one of whom was Henry George who wrote a great book on this land-oriented (and sector-agnostic) view. Of course California, being already controlled by the landed class, has gone off the rails in the opposite direction with Prop 13 ensuring that landlords have pretty much perpetual rent seeking authority over the entire state’s productive power, whether it be generated by nature, technology, or institutions. Note the conspicuous absence of the productive power of people who simply sit on a piece of land, and their conspicuous accrual of wealth and power. This dynamic causes poverty to grow with progress, only to be mitigated by enormous public expenditures to hide the effects of it.

acapybara 4y ago
No need to put up with this! Smart people are everywhere. We can build together remotely. We can make our own companies. If we need to, we can make our own money systems.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  All of which require land. You are seeing the exact same effects in places that are highly desirable for remote work. People bring their NYC or SF incomes to places like Austin, Raleigh, Bozeman, etc. and all the same stuff albeit different intensities. Land is finite and it’s an absolute necessity for all productivity.

AzzieElbab 4y ago

Here is the talk they reference. Fairly short https://youtu.be/balGGAd6ZrI https://youtu.be/balGGAd6ZrI

fundad 4y ago

He has said himself that Florida and Texas aren’t doing any better considering their real estate trends. They’re just not as expensive yet.

WealthVsSurvive 4y ago

Hey I've got an idea, let's artificially restrict the flow of USD currency behind oligopolists, then double-dip and own the company that makes it slightly easier to transact. Can I have a billion dollars now for inventing paypal cause I know HTML? I'm Peter Eat-your-meal, you should listen to what I have to say because I'm the smartest conman in the room.

throwawaymanbot 4y ago

jelliclesfarm 4y ago

California suffers from over population. There really isn’t enough resources to support people as well as industry(including tech) in California. Resource optimization can only occur with automation. For a tech paradise, we are woefully outdated compared to other global tech centers. We don’t even compare favourably with places like Asia. The housing situation in CA is because we have been brainwashed into home ownership. It’s not for everyone. Only a few can afford it truly. Renting is the best economic choice. Unaffordable housing in California is due to the speculative frenzy for home ownership and also partly due to foreign ownership of speculative assets. There will always be the landed gentry and they are necessary for the stability of an economy because they already own the land. When people ‘own’ their little homes splintered only to give them the satisfaction of ‘home ownership’, it is a lie. What happens is instead of land owning citizens collecting rent, banks collect interest on mortgage. It is a macro economic move. It means that the state is leaking $$$ and there is Big Govt that needs revenue for its bloated departments. It also means that interest rates are being manipulated. It has nothing to do with home ownership. I would rather pay rent than pay interest. My controversial take is that I prefer the landed gentry who are rent seekers than be sucked into a fake ownership agenda that is really the govt with the central banks milking interest and more taxes. It’s usury. It only benefits banks and governments. Not tax paying citizens. If anything, California suffers from the wokeness curse. It’s debilitating when rational thought is sacrificed at the altar of political correctness. I am on the side of giving the govt as little powers as possible to operate. Their essential functions should law and order, infrastructure maintenance and social services to bring the marginals up to the center. If they have to be involved in housing, it should be like in Singapore. The govt builds high income, medium income, low income homes in high density townships and offer them at 99 year leases. This would guarantee homes without participating in the speculative home market. But this would never happen in America because the real problem is interest rate fixing and a tap called property taxes that can never be turned off. They are playing us and turning us against each other.