6 ms·

I loathe the fact that Thiel's arguments do not get enough purchase even within the technology circles. Argument 1 The fact - and it is very much a fact - tha

by spitx 13y ago

I loathe the fact that Thiel's arguments do not get enough purchase even within the technology circles. Argument 1 The fact - and it is very much a fact - that, off late, technology hasn't progressed very much at all. Argument 2 And that our scowl-faced culture, that disparages everything technological -- in favor of products of some glorious bygone era where everything that would be ever needed for human purposes has already been conceived, crafted and fabricated -- reinforces this notion in every aspect of our lives. This is the part I hate most about our culture - the utterly stupid, moribund romanticism associated with every stupid thing ever invented -- however ill-suited it is to serve a purpose in this age -- is somehow worthy of our admiration solely because it is antediluvian. Not that it is efficient or infinitely better than any candidate that has since come along to replace it (and there are a few examples of such nature. Very few indeed. Eg: the drinking straw or the common t-shirt). But purely because it served our forefathers well and therefore it is somehow worthy of continued use. Hollywood unabashedly continues to perpetuate these sickening notions to no end. Edit: Rewritten for purposes of clarity.

cinquemb 13y ago
I definitely think the incumbent leaders (the other 2/3 of the forbes list) and their monopolies granted by governments which allows them to sponsor much of the culture (at least in the developed world) can be attributed to this. And which makes me smile when Thiel touches on how developing countries, who are glad to get their solar panels and rain water catch systems that give them access to things they had no access to for most of these past 40 years in the same way developed countries have, might come out ahead in this next go.
- spitx 13y ago
  Thiel had hammered home these points before, yet no one seems to take notice. Links to video footage of past debates and conversations: A Conversation with Peter Thiel and Niall Ferguson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw-rxtwhzcY Innovation or stagnation - Oxford Union Debate http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/videos/view/210 Fireside Chat With Peter Thiel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6taTMa4nls
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    And despite it all Thiel hasn't given up and continues to bring this conversation[at least trying and doing with his ideas/companies/investments] to the forefront of the minds of his fellow human beings… "Today, nobody cares… But tomorrow, they will…" cc: Spain,Greece. bcc: America…
stephenhuey 13y ago
In the last day or so, I heard some researcher say on NPR that some of his postdocs now are accomplishing things that a decade ago would've taken a hundred scientists to do, and all thanks to recent rapid advances in technology. While I understand Thiel's arguments, how should we actually weigh these competing claims? Is it as simple as the notion that lots of people are trying to use technology to safely make big bucks with very minute changes in products whereas other folks might be making big advances in science without getting much press? Talk to me, I want to know!
- spitx 13y ago
  I think the low-cachet quotient society bestows on technology is the huge carcass no one wants to talk about. It is the real answer why we cannot get enough women early on in the STEM pipeline. It is the real answer why technology workers have not-very satisfying careers in the West. Society treats them as lepers here. Whereas in the rest of the world they are highly esteemed members of the society. We will still be talking about the low headcount of women in technology as long as its quite apparent that the likes of a sneaker maker like Isabel Marant or an editor like Anna Wintour are more esteemed in society than any living woman in any field that is remotely scientific or mathematical.
  - hkmurakami 13y ago
    At least in the east, I saw technology workers have much less satisfying careers compared to their US counterparts.
  - joshuagross 13y ago
    All the tech workers I know in the U.S. have very satisfying careers, but it depends on your metric and who you're talking to. Many of my Southeast Asian and Indian tech friends work hard to get to the U.S., and I don't see the reverse happening much.
- ippisl 13y ago
  While i don't generally buy into Thiel's arguments, There are many big barriers between great scientific discovery and massively deployed product: 1. Unneeded regulation. 2. Power structures in industry. 3. Complex and expensive commercialization processes. 4. Lack of funding, lack of long term funding. 5. Market acceptance. 6. Lack of entrepreneurial talent and general talent in the relevant field. In this context, small sustaining innovations tend to produced more than radical innovations.
ShardPhoenix 13y ago
If you're going to be that dramatic about it you could at least give some examples.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  Outside of the examples Thiel mentions which is the subject of the parents thoughts'?
groby_b 13y ago
Right. I just had an article cross my stream about completely thought-controlled hand prosthetics that can actually grasp things and give feedback on pressure. Clearly not a tech advancement. Genetic testing for $99. Clearly just incremental, because hey, last year it was $199. Never mind the fact that it wasn't even imaginable 20 years ago. Private space shipment at a price/weight that's rapidly decreasing way below what we ever had. Rapid acceleration of solar technology. And the list goes on and on. Of course they're all incremental - that's how science and technology work. Einstein's theory of relativity didn't come out of nowhere, but built on predecessors. The transistor built on long research in solid state physics, Shockley didn't just pull it out of his pocket. And if we go to the trope of "but they were paradigm shifts" - so is "big data". So is probabilistic AI. So is molecular engineering.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  Funny because Thiel would remark along the lines of despite those very valid technical advancements (that he himself is invested in), most people in the United States (or developed world) are not even in the context of understanding what value most of the things you listed will be to them. What is the economic value of a thought controlled hand prosthetics to an illusioned college student who just finished watching Minority Report and iRobot who is "able-bodied"(for lack of a better term) and who will probably never use it (maybe they will use it in some form of masturbatory tool) though claim to sympathize with those who do yet knowing nothing of them personally and their experiences? What is the economic value of private space shipment for someone who will probably never receive any financial gain of space travel proportional to the few who do, when working at [insert-mega-corp] CEO makes 1k times the avg employee (that their laying of in increasing numbers) they hope to work at after graduating with 100k in debt for 30k/y designing logos for a brand with sales down y/y for 5 years? What is the economic value of solar technology to most americans whose idea of electricity is flipping a switch that have no idea about the publicly subsidized/poorly maintained aged infrastructure, and think solar panels are fancy tech that is not needed? And the list goes on. Paradigm shifts or not in tech have been effectively moot when the perception (and the benefit in peoples immediately lives) seem to be out of sight (economists might see this as spending more money but getting less and less returns as time progresses). When they are in sight, you bet it will come in the form of drone packed action thriller with big data crunching molecularly engineered AI genetically testing people using 23andMe api to exterminate those with disease risks higher than the overall population coming down from ISS with Space X's grasshopper drone edition, with the video game to follow then preceding the cartoon equivalent for childhood consumption. I bet the teen in Fez, Morroco who didn't have electricity for most of their life and has to hang around tourist bars to watch his favorite team play to go back home to his "house" made of corrugated aluminum roofing(in some places) with walls at least a thousand years old [http://i.imgur.com/1zzmoLa.jpg http://i.imgur.com/1zzmoLa.jpg] outfitted with satellite tv installed by the state and only on few hours of the day (the mother would be watching her favorite american show of course) due to power contraints, will probably appreciate that cheep chinese solar panel installed by EWB more than either of us (which Thiel alludes to in this talk) after never having stable electricity [my personal experience after living there for some time]. I sure know the youth in Spain and Greece sure do appreciate this tech and are using it for their economic benefit as you can tell from their quality of life.
ExpiredLink 13y ago
> The fact - and it is very much a fact - that, off late, technology hasn't progressed very much at all. It's by no means a fact, just anecdotal 'evidence'. > culture, that disparages everything technological Quite the contrary. Technological progress is the fetish of modern civilization. Society still believes that eventually all human problems, even illness and death, will be cured by new technology. BTW, there is absolutely no moral obligation to be progressive and to embrace new technology. We should not hand over our freedom to a technocratic regime.
rollo_tommasi 13y ago
You seem to be confusing a trend towards bespoke consumer products with a rejection of a technological society, when they are not at all the same thing. One is an upper-middle-class reaction against mass consumerism and has nothing really to do with "technology". The other is the philosophy of the Unabomber, which last I checked had yet to gain much traction in America.

by spitx 13y ago

cinquemb 13y ago

I definitely think the incumbent leaders (the other 2/3 of the forbes list) and their monopolies granted by governments which allows them to sponsor much of the culture (at least in the developed world) can be attributed to this. And which makes me smile when Thiel touches on how developing countries, who are glad to get their solar panels and rain water catch systems that give them access to things they had no access to for most of these past 40 years in the same way developed countries have, might come out ahead in this next go.

spitx 13y ago
Thiel had hammered home these points before, yet no one seems to take notice. Links to video footage of past debates and conversations: A Conversation with Peter Thiel and Niall Ferguson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw-rxtwhzcY Innovation or stagnation - Oxford Union Debate http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/videos/view/210 Fireside Chat With Peter Thiel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6taTMa4nls
- cinquemb 13y ago
  And despite it all Thiel hasn't given up and continues to bring this conversation[at least trying and doing with his ideas/companies/investments] to the forefront of the minds of his fellow human beings… "Today, nobody cares… But tomorrow, they will…" cc: Spain,Greece. bcc: America…

stephenhuey 13y ago

In the last day or so, I heard some researcher say on NPR that some of his postdocs now are accomplishing things that a decade ago would've taken a hundred scientists to do, and all thanks to recent rapid advances in technology. While I understand Thiel's arguments, how should we actually weigh these competing claims? Is it as simple as the notion that lots of people are trying to use technology to safely make big bucks with very minute changes in products whereas other folks might be making big advances in science without getting much press? Talk to me, I want to know!

spitx 13y ago
I think the low-cachet quotient society bestows on technology is the huge carcass no one wants to talk about. It is the real answer why we cannot get enough women early on in the STEM pipeline. It is the real answer why technology workers have not-very satisfying careers in the West. Society treats them as lepers here. Whereas in the rest of the world they are highly esteemed members of the society. We will still be talking about the low headcount of women in technology as long as its quite apparent that the likes of a sneaker maker like Isabel Marant or an editor like Anna Wintour are more esteemed in society than any living woman in any field that is remotely scientific or mathematical.
- hkmurakami 13y ago
  At least in the east, I saw technology workers have much less satisfying careers compared to their US counterparts.
- joshuagross 13y ago
  All the tech workers I know in the U.S. have very satisfying careers, but it depends on your metric and who you're talking to. Many of my Southeast Asian and Indian tech friends work hard to get to the U.S., and I don't see the reverse happening much.
ippisl 13y ago
While i don't generally buy into Thiel's arguments, There are many big barriers between great scientific discovery and massively deployed product: 1. Unneeded regulation. 2. Power structures in industry. 3. Complex and expensive commercialization processes. 4. Lack of funding, lack of long term funding. 5. Market acceptance. 6. Lack of entrepreneurial talent and general talent in the relevant field. In this context, small sustaining innovations tend to produced more than radical innovations.

ShardPhoenix 13y ago

If you're going to be that dramatic about it you could at least give some examples.

cinquemb 13y ago
Outside of the examples Thiel mentions which is the subject of the parents thoughts'?

groby_b 13y ago

Right. I just had an article cross my stream about completely thought-controlled hand prosthetics that can actually grasp things and give feedback on pressure. Clearly not a tech advancement. Genetic testing for $99. Clearly just incremental, because hey, last year it was $199. Never mind the fact that it wasn't even imaginable 20 years ago. Private space shipment at a price/weight that's rapidly decreasing way below what we ever had. Rapid acceleration of solar technology. And the list goes on and on. Of course they're all incremental - that's how science and technology work. Einstein's theory of relativity didn't come out of nowhere, but built on predecessors. The transistor built on long research in solid state physics, Shockley didn't just pull it out of his pocket. And if we go to the trope of "but they were paradigm shifts" - so is "big data". So is probabilistic AI. So is molecular engineering.

cinquemb 13y ago
Funny because Thiel would remark along the lines of despite those very valid technical advancements (that he himself is invested in), most people in the United States (or developed world) are not even in the context of understanding what value most of the things you listed will be to them. What is the economic value of a thought controlled hand prosthetics to an illusioned college student who just finished watching Minority Report and iRobot who is "able-bodied"(for lack of a better term) and who will probably never use it (maybe they will use it in some form of masturbatory tool) though claim to sympathize with those who do yet knowing nothing of them personally and their experiences? What is the economic value of private space shipment for someone who will probably never receive any financial gain of space travel proportional to the few who do, when working at [insert-mega-corp] CEO makes 1k times the avg employee (that their laying of in increasing numbers) they hope to work at after graduating with 100k in debt for 30k/y designing logos for a brand with sales down y/y for 5 years? What is the economic value of solar technology to most americans whose idea of electricity is flipping a switch that have no idea about the publicly subsidized/poorly maintained aged infrastructure, and think solar panels are fancy tech that is not needed? And the list goes on. Paradigm shifts or not in tech have been effectively moot when the perception (and the benefit in peoples immediately lives) seem to be out of sight (economists might see this as spending more money but getting less and less returns as time progresses). When they are in sight, you bet it will come in the form of drone packed action thriller with big data crunching molecularly engineered AI genetically testing people using 23andMe api to exterminate those with disease risks higher than the overall population coming down from ISS with Space X's grasshopper drone edition, with the video game to follow then preceding the cartoon equivalent for childhood consumption. I bet the teen in Fez, Morroco who didn't have electricity for most of their life and has to hang around tourist bars to watch his favorite team play to go back home to his "house" made of corrugated aluminum roofing(in some places) with walls at least a thousand years old [http://i.imgur.com/1zzmoLa.jpg http://i.imgur.com/1zzmoLa.jpg] outfitted with satellite tv installed by the state and only on few hours of the day (the mother would be watching her favorite american show of course) due to power contraints, will probably appreciate that cheep chinese solar panel installed by EWB more than either of us (which Thiel alludes to in this talk) after never having stable electricity [my personal experience after living there for some time]. I sure know the youth in Spain and Greece sure do appreciate this tech and are using it for their economic benefit as you can tell from their quality of life.

ExpiredLink 13y ago

> The fact - and it is very much a fact - that, off late, technology hasn't progressed very much at all. It's by no means a fact, just anecdotal 'evidence'. > culture, that disparages everything technological Quite the contrary. Technological progress is the fetish of modern civilization. Society still believes that eventually all human problems, even illness and death, will be cured by new technology. BTW, there is absolutely no moral obligation to be progressive and to embrace new technology. We should not hand over our freedom to a technocratic regime.

rollo_tommasi 13y ago

You seem to be confusing a trend towards bespoke consumer products with a rejection of a technological society, when they are not at all the same thing. One is an upper-middle-class reaction against mass consumerism and has nothing really to do with "technology". The other is the philosophy of the Unabomber, which last I checked had yet to gain much traction in America.