

Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 11 Notes Essay - r4vik
http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/22866240816/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-11-notes-essay

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kiba
Here's my "secret" I believe to be true.

Rule of law makes countries rich. Rule of law foster cooperation and trust in
societies. People can trust authorities and each other.

Democracies don't foster trust. Instead, they ferment disrespect and
corruption. Politicians make law to gain vote. They don't care about long term
consequences. They want pork for their district, not efficient funding. That
lead to distrust, fear, and non-cooperation. People wouldn't help each other
if they think they're going to get screwed or the courts can't help make it
right.

Judges are the one who are immune to democratic pressure, yet they make ruling
that even politicians will follow. If they don't, they destroy the consent of
the people. They destroy trust in the law.

Therefore, western nations are powerful and rich in spite of democracy and
elected officials. They are held together by independent judges and jurors.

Signapore and South Korea like to believe that their interventions help. Maybe
that's not true at all. Perhaps, they achieve their wealth through not being
so corrupted.

This leads to a prediction:

China and India will never be as prosperous as Japan, South Korea, the United
States, or Western Europe if their bureaucracies are inefficient and corrupt.

How will this manifest? Their purchasing power will always be lower. Their
military will be defeated in wars. They will never be as innovative. Maybe,
they will never win any football championship. Maybe their GDP will never
quite dwarf the US.

Or maybe they will surpass ours, in spite of the corruption and evilness of
their officials. If they didn't in the next 20 years, I will consider myself
right.

~~~
pjscott
> Rule of law makes countries rich. Rule of law foster cooperation and trust
> in societies. People can trust authorities and each other.

I don't think that part of your thesis is too controversial. The big idea of
common law, for example, is that courts try to make their decisions reasonably
consistent with previous decisions, not because they think that this will
necessarily lead to the best decisions each time, but because this makes the
law predictable. Predictable laws are an important part of a good business
environment.

(Laws with low overhead are also important, mind you. This is why an AP1000
nuclear power plant made in China costs so much less than one built in the US
or Europe, even though it's the same damn plant. The overhead of dealing with
the government in a very heavyweight regulatory environment is a huge factor
in cost and speed.)

~~~
kiba
_I don't think that part of your thesis is too controversial. The big idea of
common law, for example, is that courts try to make their decisions reasonably
consistent with previous decisions, not because they think that this will
necessarily lead to the best decisions each time, but because this makes the
law predictable. Predictable laws are an important part of a good business
environment._

My big problem with the legislative branch is that they love to make law and
they do so recklessly. This bypass any attempt at making laws consistent and
predictable or any attempt to figure out whether those laws are any good.

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Alex3917
If you haven't actually read Kaczynski you should. His ideas about goals are
interesting, but probably more important are his ideas about how technology
inevitably leads to the loss of freedom.

~~~
aik
Could you give a quick summary of how technology inevitably leads to loss of
freedom?

I understand that this is often the case, but is it always necessarily the
case? Ie. Is it a universal law that "Technology leads to loss of freedom"?

~~~
Alex3917
It's been about ten years since I last read it, but as I remember the basic
argument is:

\- Technology can always be used for both good and evil.

\- As technology gets more powerful, the potential for causing harm will be
greater.

\- Each new technology will require new laws in order to minimize the
potential harms of that technology.

\- Each of those laws is going to have unintended consequences that will
result in the loss of freedom.

\- As the rate of technological discovery increases, the amount of freedom
approaches zero.

He proposes it as a universal law, and I think it makes sense. But I also
suspect that the idea that we're approaching the singularity is actually a
cognitive distortion caused by observer bias, so things might not be quite as
bad as they seem.

~~~
ebabchick
Those first four bullets may be true statements, but the second bullet point
is a half-truth. It should read "As technology gets more powerful, the
potential for causing harm will be greater AND the amount of freedom will
increase by some arbitrary amount." It's then reasonable to say that new laws
are made to put new technologies in check. It's a lot harder to reach the same
conclusion if that's the case.

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srconstantin
Secret I believe to be true:

A good deal of experimental research is a cartel on resources and data. The
"open access" movement in biology is not what programmers would think of as
open; you can get access to many "open" data sets only by application, and you
pretty much need to be an academic biologist to be granted an application.
Science would be _much stronger_ if there was a norm of truly sharing data.
But restricting access is in the interest of each individual researcher who
wants to maintain his/her relative prestige advantage.

------
downvoteme
@kiba, pjscott is correct. But what makes countries rich is not laws. It's
natural resources. Either having them, or having control over them, even if
they are in another country. Give it some thought. Apply the idea to some
sample countries. You might revise your thesis.

Form of government might be a red herring. Corruption and injustice might be
tied to people and culture, not simply to form of government. Think about it.

