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I see many things wrong with the arguments (both the authors and Thiels). Both are very selective about which countries they look at i.e. they talk about the fu

I see many things wrong with the arguments (both the authors and Thiels). Both are very selective about which countries they look at i.e. they talk about the fundamental changes made to English and US societies before, but completely ignore the changes we have seen in China in the last 20 years (I would argue is part of the "democratising" of wealth). There are also many false statements, for example they mention a person from the early 20th century would not be surprised by the way we communicate, because it is all still radio waves. Which is wrong, our communications relies almost exclusively on fibre optical communications, which was invented and made a reality in the 60s and 70s. Moreover, communications has changed from analog to digital, which rely on completely different mathematics. Discounting the progress made in communications (exponential growth in throughput over an optical fiber over 40 years, with several revolutionary inventions) seems to be completely unjustified and arbitrary. The thought that any person could converse with any one else in the world with video at any time was pretty much unthinkable and has completely transformed society. The progress that has been made in advanced fabrication with lithography is also revolutionary. This has enabled us to harness the power of the sun directly. I would argue the transition that we are (hopefully) seeing now with the move to renewables is a much more fundamental revolution, because everything before was essentially still digging stuff out the ground and burning it.

knownastron 4y ago
> but completely ignore the changes we have seen in China in the last 20 years (I would argue is part of the "democratising" of wealth). To argue from Thiel’s perspective, I believe he sees the US as the leader in “zero to one” technologies and China as mostly “1 to n” technologies. Therefore, he focuses on pushing/keeping the US on this frontier, that’s also where he has the most influence. I don’t think he would say there have absolutely been no breakthrough technological improvements, just not enough. I would imagine if you asked him if the advances in solar power was a great achievement he would say yes. But he would also say we still spend too much time and money building the next mobile app that marginally improves on the status quo. I also don’t see him as a historian of technological progress, carefully documenting the wins and the losses in his writing and speeches. He’s trying to push a narrative which I think is broadly true but obviously has the pitfalls of any subjective opinion.

knownastron 4y ago

> but completely ignore the changes we have seen in China in the last 20 years (I would argue is part of the "democratising" of wealth). To argue from Thiel’s perspective, I believe he sees the US as the leader in “zero to one” technologies and China as mostly “1 to n” technologies. Therefore, he focuses on pushing/keeping the US on this frontier, that’s also where he has the most influence. I don’t think he would say there have absolutely been no breakthrough technological improvements, just not enough. I would imagine if you asked him if the advances in solar power was a great achievement he would say yes. But he would also say we still spend too much time and money building the next mobile app that marginally improves on the status quo. I also don’t see him as a historian of technological progress, carefully documenting the wins and the losses in his writing and speeches. He’s trying to push a narrative which I think is broadly true but obviously has the pitfalls of any subjective opinion.