

Technology = Salvation: An Interview with Peter Thiel - riffer
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704696304575537882643165738.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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zoomzoom
This piece is amazing. It masquerades as a critique of science, but at bottom
I would argue it is really just a very complicated smokescreen for Obama-
hating and anti-Keynesianism. I bet this guy Thiel just wants lower taxes.

Thiel admits that we could print money without fear if our future looked
brighter. And the 20th century saw such amazing progress that we did just that
successfully. But he says that things are different now. We cannot print money
because growth will not support it unless we get sentient robots and nanotech
red blood cells, FAST! We better support the Republicans because at least they
talk tough and hate Keynes, but it doesn't matter who we support because shit
will hit the fan anyway.

But really, how much has technology failed us? Of course we must agree that
the Jetson's world is not yet manifest. But the hardest problems that humanity
faces are not technological. If anything, the 20th century's lesson was not
that we need to get deeper into tech faster, it is that we need to approach
the problems in a different way. We built airplanes as soon as we could, and
Hitler turned them into blitzkreig. Einstein and Bohr pushed the limits of
physics and we built A-bombs. Tesla gave us AC and Radio; and we built coal
power plants to power Air Conditioned McDonalds advertised on TV via mass
media.

The reason we don't have undersea cities is not because we cannot build them.
I believe that we have the technology. But if 100 rich people could live
forever in an undersea bubble powered by green nanotech, would it really
change the global situation? The real technological problem is bringing the
billions of people who eke out a stone-age existence in tribal towns all over
Asia and Africa into the modern world. And we are making progress every day at
an accelerating rate. Tell Google that AI is a pipe dream. Urbanization,
digitalization, communication; these are the things that are accelerating like
electrons and oil were 100 years ago. Don't give up on Keynes just yet, HN. Of
course it will not be easy for our species to survive another 100 years. But
let's not give up on ourselves either.

~~~
apsec112
"This piece is amazing. It masquerades as a critique of science, but at bottom
I would argue it is really just a very complicated smokescreen for Obama-
hating and anti-Keynesianism. I bet this guy Thiel just wants lower taxes."

I personally discussed this topic with Peter in that same cafe several weeks
ago, and I find that hard to believe. He didn't seem interested in discussing
near-term politics at all, or near-term stuff in general. What's your
evidence?

"We built airplanes as soon as we could, and Hitler turned them into
blitzkreig."

If the airplane had been built fifty years later, is there some reason that it
would _not_ have been used to wage war more efficiently?

"But if 100 rich people could live forever in an undersea bubble powered by
green nanotech, would it really change the global situation?"

Yes, because the technology that would need to be developed for that to happen
would benefit everyone else.

"The real technological problem is bringing the billions of people who eke out
a stone-age existence in tribal towns all over Asia and Africa into the modern
world."

That's not a technological problem, it's a political problem. The example of
China shows that a well-run country is perfectly capable of starting out from
ancient-world level and catching up to the industrialized West within fifty
years or so; there are no big technological barriers, just political ones.

~~~
zoomzoom
I bet that Peter pretends not to care about taxes. But that is really besides
the point. All I am trying to say is that tech is hardly failing us in the
drastic way Peter supposes it is.

My point is not to delay the invention of airplanes, but to focus on the
political problems first. Technology and politics are connected - that is
Keynesianism is all about and that is what Peter, and you (it seems), fail to
understand. The problem with medicare and social security, for example, is not
"too few robots" but actually probably too many MRIs and prescription drugs.
Not that we shouldn't have MRIs.

The political barriers are the hardest ones to jump over, because acts of
individual genius are rarely meaningful in a political context. And try mass-
producing smartphones (or solar panels) in a world where China and India are
regressing towards chaos.

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blazamos
Free access to the full version through Google News:

[http://news.google.com/news/search?q=%22Technology+%3D+Salva...](http://news.google.com/news/search?q=%22Technology+%3D+Salvation%22)

~~~
ronnier
Full readable text here:
[http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://online.wsj.com/articl...](http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704696304575537882643165738.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)

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hristov
Sigh, he almost has the answer, but he is too limited by his set political
believes to actually see it.

Lack of technology is not the problem, the problem is lack of demand, and
there is lack of demand because most people are poor. That's pretty much it.
Once there is demand the technology will catch up pretty quickly.

For example, when after WWII middle class americans ended up with money
(either from their pay as soldiers, or due to the higher salaries during the
war time labor shortages), the US economy and technology grew very quickly to
acomodate every single desire they might have, cars, houses, highways, boats,
every consumer product you may think of, etc. were built in enormous
quantities.

But now the middle class is relatively poor and at their best hope is to stay
at the same level. So their spending decreases or stays the same. And the
economy suffers.

Why aren't there household robots? Because people are too poor. The middle
class american is too poor to afford a complex piece of robotics, and also
there is a bunch of even poorer people that will do your housework for cheap.
So why would anybody invest in a complex expensive Jetson's like household
robot?

Take Hacker News for example, full of innovative people but most of them are
working hard trying to figure out how to make money from a free product. Why?
Because the average American does not have much money to spend.

So IMO, Thiel is in denial when he blames lack of technological know-how and
advances for the economic woes.

~~~
callmeed
First of all, there _are_ robots that will vacuum/scrub your floors, clean
your pool, and clear you gutter (<http://store.irobot.com>).

It's the not the Jetsons, but when I think about how complex other household
chores can be (from an AI perspective), Thiel's theory makes more sense than
yours. Are there even commercial/industrial robots advanced enough to collect,
sort, wash, dry, fold and put away my family's laundry?

You say the middle class is relatively poor– _relative to what?_

I didn't know there was huge demand for self-driving cars–and it's cheaper to
ride the bus–but Google is working on the technology.

------
TedBlosser
"The great exception is information technology, whose rapid advance is no
fluke: "So far computers and the Internet have been the one sector immune from
excessive regulation."

-so true, and let's hope we can keep it that way.

~~~
stretchwithme
Can you imagine if government had tried to pick winning information
technologies the way its now trying to do with electric cars?

Yep, its all over transportation. And you can see from the daily block long
backup in front of Apple's global headquarters of cars waiting to get on the
clogged highway 280 that innovative entrepreneurs aren't allowed to fix it.

~~~
orangecat
_Can you imagine if government had tried to pick winning information
technologies the way its now trying to do with electric cars?_

For a real-world example see South Korea, where until just a few months ago
government regulations mandated the use of IE for all commerce:
[http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/07/01/korea.no.longe...](http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/07/01/korea.no.longer.requires.activex.for.online.sales/)

~~~
stretchwithme
wow, that's whacked. And that was in place for over 10 years.

And the reason was so you could have ActiveX verifying your identity. Yeah,
bet ya Microsoft worked real hard getting the latest and greatest browser out
for that market.

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hop
Thiel also invested in a seasteading initiative to build sovereign offshore
floating colonies. Maybe its his technological answer to the housing bubble,
as well as a libertarian Shangri-La.

[http://reason.com/archives/2008/04/28/homesteading-on-the-
hi...](http://reason.com/archives/2008/04/28/homesteading-on-the-high-seas)
[http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2008/05/seaste...](http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2008/05/seasteading)

------
moultano
>"libertarians seem incapable of winning elections. . . . There are a lot of
people you can't sell libertarian politics to."

As soon as I see a Libertarian candidate on the ballot who believes in climate
change, they'll have my vote in a heartbeat.

------
narrator
I think technological progress has slowed down dramatically. in 60 years we
went from the first plane to landing on the moon. We haven't been back to the
moon since. The invention of electricity, atomic theory, radio, the internal
combustion engine were all far more world changing inventions than anything
we've developed over the last 60 years, including the Internet. For instance,
we are desperately trying to keep Iran from getting hold of 60 year old
technology (uranium refining)!

I love studying the period in history between the franco-prussian war and
World War II (1871-1940). The speed at which technology snuck up on the world
and completely changed it was astonishing.

~~~
Jeema3000
I tend to actually think that the period during and immediately after World
War 2 saw an even greater increase in terms of technology. Think about this,
for example:

In 1940, the US army air force's best fighter plane was probably the P-40: a
piston-driven, straight-wing, propeller-driven aircraft that had a top speed
of 360mph.

A mere 20 years later they were using the F-106 Delta Dart, a jet-powered,
delta wing aircraft that had a top speed of 1,525mph (Mach 2.3)...

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tocomment
When is his book coming out? This idea of technological stagnation really
rings true to me.

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amatriain
"The West, he says, needs to do "new things." Innovation, he says, comes from
a "frontier" culture, a culture of "exceptionalism," where "people expect to
do exceptional things"—in our world, still an almost uniquely American
characteristic, and one we're losing."

Ok, the article lost me there. I really can't connect with that way of
thinking.

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donaldc
_Except for computers and the Internet, the idea that we're experiencing rapid
technological progress is a myth._

First, even if this were true, that's a gigantic _except_. By comparison, one
would probably not talk about the mid-1400's being a time of little progress,
_except_ for the development of the printing press.

Second, the U.S. GDP has been roughly doubling every 20 years since at least
1890 (source: <http://norvig.com/speech.html>), and I doubt such a
longstanding trajectory is going to change anytime soon, Thiel's pessimism
notwithstanding.

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mr_twj
Theoretically speaking, in a future where the world runs itself and all
notions of "scarcity" are eliminated by energy, technological, and
agricultural abundance, what need would there be for capitalism, let alone
money?

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bad_user
There wouldn't be, that's why technological progress is always hampered by
politics.

And if the economical system would be a pure capitalism, we'd get there
anyway, but unfortunately people feel the need for government regulation,
which produces more scarcity and monopolies, ultimately hurting innovation
(e.g. DMCA, DRM, patents, or my recent favorite, Net neutrality).

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skybrian
It's a pretty bizarre claim. How can anyone credibly claim that the housing
bubble had anything to do with _science_? But I can see why the Wall Street
Journal editors like this guy.

~~~
kiba
You're misreading.

You see, people are betting that technological progress will take of
everything. You can keep inflating and there will still be price deflation.
Unfortunately, that's a rather naive notion.

Technological progress are not guaranteed. You have to work at it to ensure
that technological progress outpace the bad behaviors of politicians.

~~~
orangecat
Right. Moore's Law vs Medicare:
[http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2003/07/the-
great-r...](http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2003/07/the-great-
race.html)

It's clear that neither party in the US has the slightest interest in fiscal
responsibility, not as long as it's a winning strategy to buy votes with tax
cuts and free benefits. The only way I see to avoid the coming demographic and
financial time bomb is massive economic growth, e.g. one or more of
AI/robotics (replace most human labor), nanotech (make material goods much
cheaper), and biotech (cure aging, radically reducing medical expenses and
increasing productivity).

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tocomment
Is there a full version for free? It looks like an interesting read.

~~~
jdale27
Usually you can access full WSJ articles through Google News.

~~~
mwytock
also through search, top result for [thiel wsj]

