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Technology has shitty leadership, and society as a whole has even worse leadership. Thiel is right. Global economic growth was 5-6% per year in the 1960s. Now

Technology has shitty leadership, and society as a whole has even worse leadership. Thiel is right. Global economic growth was 5-6% per year in the 1960s. Now it's around 4%. The main culprit: disinvestment in R&D. Those "cushy jobs" for engineers whom the MBA dickheads claimed "weren't earning their keep" were actually the R&D pushing the country (and the world) forward. Transportation is another thing we suck at, as a country. We're frozen in the 1960s, but with worst traffic. Trains are expensive and slow, planes are only cheap if you play the constantly changing, convoluted system, and cars are probably up against the limits of human reflexes and the roads. Finally, the middle class has had its collective face ripped off by the Satanic Trinity (housing, healthcare, tuition costs). Things that used to be comparable to utility bills are now life-wrecking constraints and, because no one has any fucking savings anymore, entrepreneurship is at an all-time low (whatever nonsense the VCs fund isn't entrepreneurship; in that world, investors are just bosses by another name). Thiel is right. We've had a lack of vision and leadership for a long time and it has really slowed the world down.

enraged_camel 12y ago
>>Finally, the middle class has had its collective face ripped off by the Satanic Trinity (housing, healthcare, tuition costs). Things that used to be comparable to utility bills are now life-wrecking constraints and, because no one has any fucking savings anymore, entrepreneurship is at an all-time low. This is why unconditional basic income is an absolute necessity, in my opinion. It's the only way to save the middle class. If every individual received $1,000 per month from the government, they could start working part-time and have much more time and energy left for creative pursuits, including entrepreneurial endeavors. As things stand though, most brilliant minds work for (and are wage-slaves of) corporations and all their work does is enrich the people at the top.

enraged_camel 12y ago

>>Finally, the middle class has had its collective face ripped off by the Satanic Trinity (housing, healthcare, tuition costs). Things that used to be comparable to utility bills are now life-wrecking constraints and, because no one has any fucking savings anymore, entrepreneurship is at an all-time low. This is why unconditional basic income is an absolute necessity, in my opinion. It's the only way to save the middle class. If every individual received $1,000 per month from the government, they could start working part-time and have much more time and energy left for creative pursuits, including entrepreneurial endeavors. As things stand though, most brilliant minds work for (and are wage-slaves of) corporations and all their work does is enrich the people at the top.