HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Here is Peter Thiel talking about Globalization. I have not watch the entire video, but I've seen it mentioned for good points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_3r49XXRw4

Peter Thiel summed this all up perfectly: "We were promised flying cars but all we got was 140 characters." I found his talk [1] about the state of technology very accurate. And after watching it I turned on Bloomberg and happened to see Snapchat s IPO for a few billion.

[1] https://youtu.be/Q_3r49XXRw4

⬐ Animats

OK, the big theme here is "innovation has slowed down, but this is being masked by all the activity around computers". So let's take a look at that.

Way too many smart people are tied up doing rather banal things with computers, or in finance. That's capitalism in action.

What isn't being worked on? Thiel is bothered by lack of progress in medicine. Medicine is now working on really hard problems, most of which are consequences of aging. Short of redesigning the human genome to eliminate aging, which may happen, those problems will remain hard.

There hasn't been much visible progress in aircraft in a while. Boeing is still building the 737, which first flew in 1967. Aircraft are lighter, quieter, more fuel efficient and safer than they were back then. But not cheaper.

The biggest societal problem is that we have less and less of a role for a big part of the population. The average IQ is only 100, remember.

⬐ return0

> Medicine is now working on really hard problems

It's not about "what" is being worked on, but how. I think he 's referring to the lack of major centrally-planned projects like the US space program, or the LHC. I think its true that the way scientific funds are being allocated favors short term but unambitious goals. As an example, both the BRAIN initiative and the human brain project have set rather vague goals that point to incremental steps rather than giant leaps.

⬐ Balgair

And what could those giant steps be? Going to the moon was conceptually easy, if very difficult engineering-wise. Like, the moon is there we are here, let's go be there instead.

What could you want for the brain? Mind-machine interfaces (MMI)? We already have those [0]. We have done the 'moon-shots' in neuro already, and in a lot of bio in general too. But you want your own MMI or your own miracle of medicine? Well, I want a vacation to the moon too, but that ain't happening.

The moon-shots in medicine have already happened, they just aren't cheap yet.

[0] http://fortune.com/2016/01/06/bionic-eye-monash/

⬐ w1ntermute

> The average IQ is only 100

You do realize that's a tautology, right? There's no reason productivity couldn't be increased, and one potential method would be to boost human intelligence.

⬐ strictnein

And an IQ score of 100 in 1980 is not equivalent to an IQ score of 100 in 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

⬐ w1ntermute

That's exactly my point.

⬐ kordless

It's certainly not the high plasticity of the brain holding back technology.

It's the average emotional intelligence of the human race in a given area combined with the average EI of another areas. Culture/areas/whatever that encourage a high amount of cognitive dissonance will give way to a "contagion" that gives rise to lower EIs through double binding communications between groups. It's better if you start out with a topic that is highly polarized, as that gives the contagion some energy to feed upon.

You see this with Trump, as he is in constant disagreement with himself in what he says, which is dove tailed in behind whatever blaming remark he made when he first started talking. This gets the dissonance going in groups who are, in general, disgruntled about whatever it is they are disgruntled about.

Sigh.

⬐ aaron695

Some say China is working on this issue with selective breeding etc.

You could at increasing IQ in very poor countries where lack of basic micronutrients is causing IQ issues.

But I think better group intelligence, using current intelligence in poor countries better, AI, productivity increase with better tools currently makes much more sense.

⬐ falsestprophet

Is there large scale government directed selective breeding in China?

⬐ deciplex

No, but some, like aaron695, say there is.

⬐ daveguy

I think he might be referring to this 2013 article:

http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-with-a...

Selective breeding in a sense of "selecting the zygote" for ideal outcome. Aka designer babies. This was referred to as "selective breeding" in the press when it came out. A misnomer in that selective breeding has meant selective pairing of parents for at least a century before this article was written.

Note: this is also a company in China, not "China" although the distinction is sometimes muddled they certainly aren't regulating it like it has been in the West. Also, with the only one child policy that was recently lifted it is easy to confuse oppressive breeding requirements in China.

⬐ hammock

I believe the point is we (HN readers) are mostly exposed to smarter than average folks in our daily lives. Our idea of an "average" person probably is smarter than the true average person. And we would do well to remember that, for example, 42% of Americans believe ghosts are real.

⬐ Irreal

Stop trying to be special.Please

⬐ metaphorm

you may be tooting your own horn there. its a trap to believe you and/or your community is "above average" in intelligence. the community on hacker news is more enculturated than most for a few things.

1. working with computers

2. selling technology

3. thinking about business in the medium term

4. calling ourselves very smart with little backing evidence for that claim

and besides that stuff I am not particularly impressed by the level of intelligence displayed here (including my own)

⬐ internaut

Maybe intelligence is like the sausage factory. People like the product but nothing that happens to make it is elegant.

⬐ Houshalter

It's not a trap, HN definitely has a higher IQ than the general population. FWIW I have some data on IQs from a similar online community, showing the cumulative distribution of IQ compared to the general population: http://www.leijuvakaupunki.fi/images/box/lw_ssc_iq_cdf.png

HN is highly correlated with technical professions and especially programmers. Those things happen to be highly correlated with and selective of IQ.

⬐ metaphorm

post I responded to said "smarter than average" which is not the same thing as IQ and conflating the two of those is also a trap.

⬐ Houshalter

IQ is the best measure of intelligence we have, and correlates strongly with real world outcomes like income and academic success.

⬐ metaphorm

I don't think we're even talking about the same thing anymore. Nor do I think we could possibly have a productive conversation on this topic.

⬐ reasonattlm

Redesigning the human metabolism to eliminate aging is a project of such vast complexity as to be far, far beyond our present horizons. Consider that it took a few billion dollars and the last fifteen years to gather a little more knowledge of sirtuins, one very tiny slice of mammalian biochemistry related to the calorie restriction response, the most reliable and well-studied way to slightly slow down aging. The research and development community can't even provide a timeline for mimicking even a small fraction of this natural state reliably and safely. Making a whole new human biochemistry that works more like lobsters or hydra? Not until very late this century, I'd imagine, will this be something plausible as a long-term vision.

Meanwhile there is in fact an easy path to eliminating aging. Aging is damage accumulation at root. The easy path is to periodically repair that damage - the damage is already identified, after all. Sufficiently good maintenance is the road to eliminating aging; let it happen but control it. Maintain the biochemistry we have and that we know works.

http://www.sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research

This has a large weight of evidence behind it, and approaches are already being demonstrated in the case of senescent cell clearance, removal of transthyretin and beta amyloids, and averting the consequences of mitochondrial DNA damage. Others will follow as results become more compelling.

⬐ antisthenes

One of the hardest, but also the most pressing issues is regarding population growth.

Should we artificially limit population growth? Can it be done in a way that isn't forceful, but perhaps with the right incentives?

Should humanity, as a global society push for quality over quantity in reproduction? Is basic income still feasible in this scenario?

It's an ethical and ideological mess and frankly, it'll require someone way smarter than I to come up with the answers.

⬐ brbsix

    Should humanity, as a global society push for quality over quantity in reproduction? Is basic income still feasible in this scenario?

This is an unpopular suggestion but simply ending the massive state-sponsored subsidization and propagandization of the opposite (e.g. glorification of single motherhood, third-world immigration) would be a great place to start.

⬐ akbar501

Serious question. Is immigration subsidized? If so, how?

⬐ jacalata

Unpopular because there is overwhelming evidence that the low hanging fruit on reducing population growth is decreasing child mortality and increasing economic opportunity for the huge percentage of the world that is worried they will be alone and destitute in their old age.

⬐ restalis

"One of the hardest, but also the most pressing issues is regarding population growth."

According to whom and on what grounds? The population is a resource. Having more people is having more human potential to throw at problems. There is enough information out there with plenty of arguments on population sustainability and our planet is nowhere close to its limit!

⬐ internaut

According to me. On the grounds I'd like other species to exist other than humans and their domesticated animals.

http://xkcd.com/1338/

This in some ways even understates the problem e.g. Fish stocks.

There are different kinds of limits other than say, the Soylent Green limit. One is whether our planet is cooler with wild animals or having a few percent more cows.

Cows are cool but not as much as that!

We can have billions more people on Earth but in order for that to happen we need radical, radical technology changes. The most obvious step forward is Vat Meat. No animals required.

⬐ Animats

For Europe and Japan, population is in decline. US population would be in decline if it were not for immigration. China is expected to max out around 2026. (The one-child policy worked.) India, though, has real problems.[1]

Two big problems we expected to have were overpopulation and running out of energy. Neither happened.

[1] http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/04/05/indias-population-in...

⬐ arethuza

"For Europe and Japan, population is in decline."

For some of Europe the population is declining and in some places it is increasing - when added together the two pretty much balance out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_...

Of course that data ignores recent immigration trends!

⬐ simula67

Overpopulation is a real problem for India. The population growth is falling, but not fast enough

https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...

⬐ dragonwriter

> For Europe and Japan, population is in decline. US population would be in decline if it were not for immigration.

There are three claims made here, and only one is correct. Europe has a very small net positive population growth (its population, unlike Japan's, is not in decline), and the US has a small net positive rate of natural growth (and so, it would not be shrinking even without immigration.)

⬐ dredmorbius

Yes, we've neither run out of food nor energy. Yet.

But that requires some modulation.

1. The cornucopian arguments that we'd have no problems with food nor energy, or that these would grow without limits, haven't panned. out.

2. Yes, the specific predictions that we would be facing major global starvation by now (or at equivalent populations -- ~8 billion), haven't panned out. But those have been mitigated by a few circumstances.

a). The Green Revolution. Largely unanticipated, but through mechanisation, new plant breeds, fertilisers, and pesticides, per-acre and per-farmer productivity has been increased. This represents, though, another potentially one-time-only transfer, as we've basically amped up the nutrient cycle for plants (using copious amounts of natural gas to produce nitrogen fertiliser), taken over for plant functions in pest and disease resistance (through pesticides), and replaced human and animal power through fossil-fuel powered tractors and other equipment (so long the fuel holds out). Withdraw fertiliser and pesticides, and many of those benefits disappear (or must be replaced with far more labour input). Moreover, topsoil depletion itself is now a major concern.

b). Population growth, accellerating at unprecedented rates in the 1950s and 1960s, levelled off somewhat. This has been fortunate. However rather than growing at a constant percentage (exponential growth), it's been growing at a constant rate (linear growth). Trends such as the demographic transition may be helpful, but they're not assured.

c). The 1970s oil shocks. Prior to the OPEC oil embargo (1973) and Iranian oil embargo (1979), growth in global oil consumption was increasing at an increasing rate. The so-called oil shocks had global economic impacts, and sharply slowed growth in energy consumption. This delayed global peak oil (occurring in 2005 rather than 2000), but also put to lie cornucopian estimates of future energy consumption.

One argument might be that "the market responded" to higher oil prices. I read the response somewhat differently: the system responded to higher energy costs and greater energy volatility. The long period of exceptionally steady growth from 1945 - 1972 was, well, exceptional. Trends since 1973 have been highly erratic, though "better" (in terms of growth) at times, worse at others.

What's increasingly clear to me is that explanations of conventional economics are substantively incorrect. That energy and inputs do matter, hugely. And that "technology" almost certainly lags rather than leads energy availability, though the relationship is complex.

⬐ internaut

> What's increasingly clear to me is that explanations of conventional economics are substantively incorrect. That energy and inputs do matter, hugely. And that "technology" almost certainly lags rather than leads energy availability, though the relationship is complex.

Can you expand on this more?

There is the claim of energy decoupling from GDP a few decades ago if I am not mistaken.

⬐ alphydan

For your information, population in Europe is not in decline [0]. It's still growing at a an annual 0.8%, and has been growing for the past decade (partly due to immigration)

[0] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&l...

⬐ Animats

Immigration to Europe is being stopped. Fences and walls are going up fast.[1]

[1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/01/daily-c...

⬐ specialist

"Thiel is bothered by lack of progress in medicine."

For my part, I'm astonished by the progress. I could go on and on, listing just my own medical history. We live in the age of miracles and it'll only get more amazing.

⬐ None

None

⬐ agumonkey

What about progress in education, so that everybody can enjoy understanding beautiful things like abstract geometry, sophisticated harmony, functional relationships, waves ...

Naturally society polarize intelligence instead of spreading it so we classify instead of nurturing.

⬐ internaut

> The biggest societal problem is that we have less and less of a role for a big part of the population. The average IQ is only 100, remember.

The statistics for the short - medium term belie this intuitive idea.

There is job growth at the top and bottom of the wage spectrum since the crash.

What there isn't, is middle class jobs.

Perhaps you are right over centuries, but by then it won't matter.

⬐ yummyfajitas

We don't have "less and less of a role" for most of the population. Economically they have a role to play. The reasons they aren't playing those roles are simply dumb rules.

https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/robots_didnt_take_ou...

⬐ internaut

Far from progress occurring in medicine many things are going backwards. They coined Eroom's Law to describe it (Moore's law, but the wrong way). The literature on this is not very appealing to journalists. That's why coffee is the cure for, and cause of, everything.

Some answers to the question:

> What isn't being worked on?

In the West there is no real effort going into nuclear R&D or, you know, constructing actual power plants. I think in the US the last nuclear plant was two decades ago. In the UK I don't think they teach nuclear engineering anymore. The Chinese are now to build and maintain their systems! Germany... France is an exception I think.

There are no new types of infrastructure e.g. no personal transit systems, no waste disposal pneumatics. We sure do have a lot of broken roads nowadays though. Road technology hasn't had a game changer in thousands of years (somebody will pounce on this but you know what I mean, it's not like we're expecting Blade Runner), it's still horrendously expensive and difficult as ever. Did I mention there's ugly tangles of black cables hanging above our heads? Maglev exists and Japan is giving it away for free but there appears no will to use it.

With the recent exception of SpaceX, aerospace hasn't really taken off for decades. We were supposed to have Moon Hotels and political tension with moon miners by now. The kind of scale you saw in 2001: A Space Odyssey was seriously expected to occur but instead the whole effort was on the verge of dying out until very recently. In three years it will be half a century since the moon landings. That is quite a while. The quick fire explanations won't do.

There has been no major tangible medicinal advantage to a large number of people from the discovery of DNA let alone the Human Genome Project. I know this one makes me sound bombastic, but come on, tell me how I'm wrong. I was at the doctor the other day and asked him whether having my DNA record would help him out. He said not really and that it's still better to examine my family medical history. Lots of press coverage isn't progress.

In materials technology good insulation is still very expensive. You can get great insulation but only for great money. If aerogels came down in price by 10x that would really lift the bar.

Energy Storage is just... A century with no major breakthroughs.

Biotech is a one horse town called Monsanto. GM is banned in many countries.

Animals. They are great, but they are not becoming more interesting. Back in the day people created all manner of breeds of cats and dogs. I don't see breeders or gene splicers coming up with freaky or cool pets for us. Really more people ought to be outraged. Remember micropigs? It seems they might not be real.

Freeman Dyson's vision is neglected so far. The last thing is people. This is more subjective but I believe people have become immeasurably more boring. Look at old photos of people. They had character. They fought eels, took trips to jungles. Everybody was Ron Swanson and it was fucking awesome.

⬐ LionessLover

The average IQ will always be 100. It will also always be perfectly normally distributed. Because it's designed that way.

http://www.michna.com/iq.htm

> In truth the IQ is a purely statistical measure. It has no direct relation to brain performance, is not proportional to it, and doesn't even have any linear or otherwise straightforward relation to it. The only thing you can say is that somebody with a higher IQ will show higher scores on most other brain performance tests as well, but the IQ doesn't say how much higher.

⬐ hellofunk

There is an interesting TED lecture about the gradual rise in intelligence, how children are usually smarter than their parents.

⬐ amelius

Well, our parents invented things like nuclear energy and semiconductor physics, while we invented, what, social media?

⬐ adrianN

We build the LHC, we landed on a comet, we decoded the human genome...

⬐ api

Evolutionary, not revolutionary. We haven't discovered anything really new in a while. CRISPR-CAS9 and the like may qualify but still I'm not sure they stack up next to the discovery of DNA itself.

All that happened from about 1945 until 1970. Then it stopped. I find it impossible to believe that we learned everything there is in 25 years. Something is broken.

⬐ AnimalMuppet

In 1960, say, the discovery of DNA looked like a fundamental increase in understanding, but not revolutionary - kind of like discovery of the Higgs boson looks today.

What's "broken" is that it takes more than 25 years to work out the practical uses of a lot of these discoveries. We see much more of the total fruit from a discovery in 1950 than we do for an equivalent discover in 1990.

⬐ return0

Not really, the LHC was designed in the 80s. Genome project launched in 1990. It's true that current generations work on incremental problems. The blockchain and social media are something of note.

⬐ patrickk

Don't forget we are close to an electric vehicle breakthrough to the mass market, and it looks like solar PV is on a cost curve that will potentially mean it will dominate electricity generation in the decades ahead (took it's time getting there, but better late than never.)

⬐ return0

Both of which are results of slow incremental progress after decades (and china), which brought the prices of materials (PV panels and batteries) to affordable levels. Of course they are wonderful things, but i cant get very excited about either.

⬐ qrendel

Social media is vastly overrated as a "recent invention," imo. Facebook is basically a copy of MySpace and livejournal which are copies of AOL (instant messaging, profiles, and all). Blogs and microblogs (e.g. twitter) are a nice addition that appeared in the early 2000s, but even they're just a slight reformatting of BBS and forums. Most of this predates the WWW, in some format or another.

Things have definitely evolved a lot, but as far as "social media" (reminds me how much I hated that term when they first started using it, when the basic profile + messaging concept had been around over a decade) goes, it's more like comparing a Tesla to a Model T, rather than a whole new type of technology.

⬐ hellofunk

What a superficial thing to say. Is social media all you can think of? Every generation is born into a context out of its control and contributes what it can to what it was dealt. If you think social media is the pinnacle of the Generation X,Y,Z group, you aren't looking very far.

⬐ return0

We 're listening.

⬐ bawana

I am your parents. We invented nuclear weapons. We still regret it. So what if we decided to stay the course and figure out how to make a black hole? The first thing that would happen is it would be weaponized. That is what we do. Weaponize stuff. It's an extension of what makes us human-the ability to make tools. At least social media cannot be wpaonized in an immediately lethal way. The worst it can do is make us dumber. and therefore safer to play with.

⬐ return0

You are obviously not my parents. Btw, what do you think Hitler used to create that nazi army? social media.

⬐ mrdrozdov

Software that everyone in the world can use simultaneously. Sounds like a pretty good invention to me.

⬐ amelius

Except that it isn't. For example, if everybody in the world opened a single Google Docs document, then the system would break horrendously. This type of software is still very much compartmentalized.

⬐ mrdrozdov

Sounds like it's still a good problem for us to keep working on then :)

⬐ amelius

I'm just glad our parents didn't develop the office stapler to perfection instead of working on more relevant issues.

⬐ mrdrozdov

I wish they had spent more time on scalable anonymous election systems, but I guess we'll get there eventually.

⬐ ricksplat

> Software that everyone in the world can use simultaneously

Our parents invented the Internet too ...

⬐ daveguy

That's true. Internet is what makes this possible, not social media. Social Media is like a skin on an internet that was developed when gen x was in diapers.

⬐ ricksplat

> Social Media is like a skin

Which ironically is what our parents called the "Application layer" when they were designing it ;)

⬐ None

None

⬐ daveguy

OSI layers were implied. ;)

⬐ ricksplat

Incorrectly so :-o

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite#Compar...

⬐ qrendel

That is a great lecture, and worth linking to (hence this reply), even more so for its lessons about how changes in abstract thinking lead to changes in moral standards and behavior: http://www.ted.com/talks/james_flynn_why_our_iq_levels_are_h...

If one is more interested in discussion of the effect itself, and whether the IQ score changes reflect actual changes in intelligence between generations, Flynn has a longer and more academic discussion on the subject here: http://www.psychometrics.cam.ac.uk/about-us/directory/beyond...

⬐ ricksplat

> The average IQ will always be 100

Except (and this counters GP post also):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

Our IQs are steadily increasing. Or so it appears ...

With equivalent tests to those administered a few years ago scores are steadily increasing. It's not necessarily that we're getting smarter of course - far more likely to be the case that these tests become the "definition" of intelligence and our children are more specifically trained for them.

⬐ MOARDONGZPLZ

I think the point is that IQ is always normalized to 100, so that "average" is 100% of the time "average" for the current population. Maybe a 100 IQ person now has more intellectual horsepower than a 100 IQ person from 200 years ago, but that doesn't have any effect on what is being said.

⬐ ricksplat

> a 100 IQ person now has more intellectual horsepower than a 100 IQ person from 200 years ago

That's not what I meant. I meant that "scores" were increasing - which is the reason for normalisation against present population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Flynn_ef...

IQ test scores have been rising at an average rate of around three IQ points per decade

So IQ in absolute terms has been increasing steadily - but this doesn't necessarily tell us anything about whether intelligence has been increasing or not.

⬐ Houshalter

That's like saying stuff has gotten more expensive over time because of inflation. Yes it's literally true, but everyone knows to control for inflation. In the same way, because of the Flynn effect, average score on 1960-IQ tests is higher than 100. IQ does change over time.

Anyway just because it wasn't designed to have a linear meaning doesn't mean it's useless. It measures what percent of the population scored better and worse than you. That's still a useful fact to know, just like people talk about "the top 1%" instead of specifying exact income brackets.

⬐ CyberDildonics

> just because it wasn't designed to have a linear meaning doesn't mean it's useless.

He didn't say that it was

⬐ return0

He reiterates many of the things he 's been saying for a while and written in his book. It's worth reiterating them, probably because things have not changed.

He makes a distinction of computers as the "one field that has progres", but, is it really true that IT is not stuck in a rut as well? What are the new paradigms developed recently? Computer vision, machine learning were established in the 80s , despite only becoming commonplace nowadays. There is little progress in theory since then. Engineers obsess over the rediscovery of functional languages, a relic of the 50s.

Commercial success should not be taken as an indicator of real progress.

⬐ None

None

⬐ internaut

Progress can be a rather nebulous word. It can mean breaking new ground or on a lower level: a continuation in effort. Replace progress with 'vital energies'. New ground is what we all want (new nuclear systems) but when there isn't even a continuation of effort (no old style nuclear plants being built) it's even worse.

Computer science is in a rut. It's just that other things have even lost the energy to cycle through old accomplishments. I'd say the Art world is one of those areas that has lost all vitality.

⬐ virmundi

I agree that there doesn't seem to be much advancement over the 80s (I'm trying to learn emacs for Clojure right now). I don't agree that commercial success is not an indicator of real progress.

For example, LISPs did not run well on 80s computers. The Japanese, amongst others, had to create special computers to control their trains. Rules based programming performed poorly too. May other such paradigms and tools fall into this category.

For the most part the old, neat tools of now have the hardware necessary for them to be useful. The JVM provides great performance for Clojure. Over the last 30 years, multi-threaded concepts coalesced too. Now they're built into mainstream languages. Provided people stop trying to solve already solved problems like task management, we could possibly be on the verge of productivity improvements.

⬐ someguydave

THIEL: "one other way of interpreting the AI boom is that on the surface, it is about extreme optimism about the potentialities of computer technology, and the beneath the surface, it is simultaneously, perhaps, a great deal of pessimism around the possibilities in other technologies that will be developed by humans, and deep pessimism about the possibility of what humans can do."

This is what I think about whenever I hear folks scaremongering about the "singularity". In my opinion these beliefs reflect a kind of spiritual emptiness; a yearning for answers that only God can fulfill.

⬐ norea-armozel

I'm of the mind the technological singularity won't come from AI but from enhanced human minds. I think it's easier to load more memory, processing, and the like indirectly to the human brain that it is to recreate a perfect mind inside a machine not even equipped to handle the questions we wish to ask it.

⬐ ThomPete

So you are ready to believe that physics and chemistry created simple organism which through the process of evolution become more complex organism eventually turning into us.

But you can't believe that this evolution will continue?

Perhaps it's exactly because their argument is empty of spiritualism that they see the world more clearly.

⬐ eli_gottlieb

What I find funny is people who think that metaphysics is real, even at the mild level of mathematical Platonism, but think that it can only ever be figured out from our armchairs, that there's no way I could build a machine to do it for me.

On the other hand, I find it pretty easily believable that we can receive compounding returns from advances in ML/AI. After all, pretty much as soon as we invent new techniques in computational statistics, the go-to fields needing to apply them are the other computational sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, medicine.

⬐ kriro

Very interesting talk. I'd love for him to write a history of capitalism type book. "The History of Innovation and Globalization". Start it off with the x-axis=globalization and y-axis=innovation model and go from say 18th century to now. I always enjoy history of economics books. I like the mainstream books but really enjoyed the perspective and research that went into "An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought". I am not aware of any good history type books from a more pragmatic business oriented point of view. Thiel has some interesting insights and perspectives.

Unfortunately that book probably wouldn't be a good use of his time but come on Peter, I know you want to write it :)

⬐ mseebach

Zero to One actually has some good material in this vein.

⬐ mark_l_watson

The book does, and is well worth the reading time. I have Zero to One as an audio book and I am on my second way through it.

The concept that zero to one is much more valuable than one to ten helped me understand my own career better. I have always been a risk taker and even though some of my work projects over the last 30 years have failed, my bosses never seemed unhappy with me. I would usually really nail a few new ideas a year. This book helped me to understand why I seemed to get perks (like ocean view window offices at two consequative companies) that none of the other programmers got, even though they seemed to be much steadier workers than I was.

⬐ return0

I think it would be a biased history book. He has strong opinions and that would not apply well to history.

⬐ jk4930

You might like "The Birth of Plenty", the first chapter is online: http://www.efficientfrontier.com/ef/404/CH1.HTM

It's not the pragmatic business POV, but it has some highly interesting considerations.

⬐ andrewfromx

"From 1982 to 2007, that 25 year period, NYC was the world center for globalization, moving money around to do things we already know how to do. Now from 2008 to Present the center is Silicon Valley. Moving money around to do things we don't yet know how to do."

⬐ peternilson

For those who would prefer just the audio it's also offered as a podcast on iTunes.

⬐ mrep

Is there a transcript anywhere? I much prefer reading over watching/listening

⬐ tristanj

Youtube has an auto-generated transcript feature. In the video description, click More->Transcript.

Edit: actually don't use the YouTube transcripts, there's a human-curated transcript here http://conversationswithbillkristol.org/transcript/peter-thi...

⬐ Animats

That transcript system doesn't recognize sentence breaks.

Theil speaks in run-on sentences, so it's not entirely the transcription system's fault.

⬐ jessriedel

It also doesn't try to distinguish the speakers, which is weird. (It could just be "speaker #1", "speaker #2", etc.) I'd have thought it would be a lot easier to distinguish voices than to understand the English words they are saying.

⬐ mrep

Beautiful, thanks!

⬐ patrickk

> Edit: actually don't use the YouTube transcripts, there's a human-curated transcript here

How very meta.

⬐ codingmyway

Peter mentions Robert Gordon and his theory that all the good innovation is done but the one I'm looking forward to is the coming revolution in brain research.

Wait until procrastination, anxiety, depression and fatigue can be turned off by a device behind your ear that controls your amygdala and instantly puts you in the zone.

See see how much productivity goes up when everyone has the energy and motivation of the Richard Bransons of the world.

⬐ some_guy1234

Well, I am working on hard science. Neuroevolutionary development algorithms for reinforcement learning. Online unsupervised learning.

I can't get funding.

He talks big but he doesn't invest in the research. He still wants some business plan dropped in front of him. It doesn't work that way until the hard science is done first.

⬐ jk4930

Check out http://www.breakoutlabs.org/

⬐ kwisatzh

He's a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian. He never grew up beyond 16. It's not worth bothering about what he says or means.

⬐ dredmorbius

Innovation discussion at 20m38s

Transcript:

http://conversationswithbillkristol.org/transcript/peter-thi...

⬐ codingmyway

His bit about wisdom of crowds won't please The DAO fans.

⬐ tiler

One interpretation of this interview: If Machiavelli had had a prince for a disciple, the first thing he would have recommended him to do would have been to write a book against Machiavellism. --Voltaire

Another interpretation of this interview: P.T. for POTUS.

⬐ dang

Url changed from http://conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/peter-thiel-ii..., which points to this.

⬐ kruipen

I don't think this is a good URL change. It is not like http://conversationswithbillkristol.org is a blog spam for "Conversations with Bill Kristol". And the original site has video divided into chapters which is useful.

⬐ dang

It was a borderline call, but I'm guessing a URL with Bill Kristol in it would have had an evil-catnip effect. So, risk mitigation.

⬐ dredmorbius

It definitely gave me pause when I hit the YT link.

Fair call.

⬐ daemoncat

after Trump nomination, o to -1, sorry Thiel, you are not welcome

⬐ return0

Your comment is not useful, but nevertheless his endorsement is worth discussing. It's obvious that trump is more aligned with his world view of a more risk taking, long-term planning and less people-pleasing leadership.

You should also not assert yourself as a representative or gatekeeper of the community. It's this mindset that should not be welcome here.

⬐ samastur

Trump long-term planning? In what way?

⬐ jimmysdown

What if Thiel started openly calling for the deportation of Muslims? Or if he started calling non-white people rapists? Or made grossly misogynist comments? Would it be alright to tell him to take a hike then?

At some point, if a person is supporting values that are antithetical to your culture, then you're going to ask them to leave. This may or may not be that time for Thiel.

⬐ return0

You can't judge people with "what if they did X".

Many of the immigrants who arrive to a western countries have antithetical cultural views. Do you find it appropriate to tell them to take a hike? Isn't it better to act as grown ups instead?

⬐ jimmysdown

> You can't judge people with "what if they did X".

What I'm saying is that at some point, someone's behavior will become toxic to "your group" (not the whole US - here, the "tech community" however you want to define that) and then they get asked to leave.

This is actually the mature thing to do, to part ways, as opposed to escalating conflict where the same thing happens in the end but the participants are left bloodied and hurting after the in-fighting.

⬐ return0

Not if the debate is conducted in civil terms. There is no indication that thiel will start shouting and calling names. However you're suggesting that people should be preemptively removed from debate. That's evil.

⬐ dang

Ok, but let's not call names ("evil") ourselves.

⬐ jimmysdown

Thiel is though actively supporting someone for POTUS who has made jingoistic, racist and misogynist comments and stands by them. It's a discussion worth having. Saying that is "evil" is a bit over the top - Thiel is a rich and powerful person by any definition; he can more than handle some criticism.

⬐ xiaoma

No. The mature thing would be for you to part ways when in situations you disapprove of, not try to derail others' conversations about unrelated topics simply because you disagree with their politics.

You have a problem with Theil? Don't take funding from him. Or if you're exceptionally aggrieved then don't engage with Paypal, Facebook, Tesla, SpaceX or any other companies he's had an instrumental effect on as an employee or investor. More rational would be to simply put your energy into positively supporting a candidate you do approve of.

⬐ qrendel

>... nevertheless his endorsement is worth discussing. It's obvious that trump is more aligned with his world view of a more risk taking, long-term planning and less people-pleasing leadership.

Given some of Thiel's views and statements on politics (and without necessarily making a value judgment on those views), I'd honestly put more money on his just wanting to hurt the functioning and credibility of the US government as much as possible by seeing Trump elected.

At least one source[1] reports it as: "'Peter has become an increasing admirer of Trump's public attacks on political correctness, especially what he has been saying about women,' says a close friend of Thiel...."

[1]https://heatst.com/politics/the-real-reasons-peter-thiel-has...

⬐ return0

It's certainly a possibility. But what if political correctness is indeed becoming problematic. For example political correctness is often limited to "what he has been saying about women", even though in america racism is visibly more prevalent than sexism. In the end, i may not agree with the positions, but he doesnt sound like a fundamentalist who is not open to debate. Certainly people with contrarian views are not "not welcome".

⬐ oneloop

This is also my first instinct. But be careful, people who do things you find wrong might still have intelligent things to say. Evaluate ideas on their own merit.

⬐ hugh4

Way to deal calmly with the fact that not everybody in the world shares your political opinions, bro.

⬐ dang

Comments like this are not welcome here, regardless of how wrong you think someone is.

⬐ kurtpre

Wait, isn't that the buddy of our all good friend Mr. Trump? I guess we should all listen to him.

⬐ camillomiller

Palantir needs monies bro

⬐ mineshaftgap

Are any HN users stupid enough to say they will leave the country if he is elected?

⬐ aaharb

This video is oddly pessimistic, but to me, Thiel is overlooking where the greatest advances are yet to come.

The advances in computers are advances in processing power and connectivity. Every industry uses both of these elements to succeed. Now that computers are reaching a sort of peak development, there is going to be a dispensing of the capabilities that computers offer into other industries.

Its hard for me to put it into words, but I think that computers are simply a stepping stone for real achievements to come.

The car has basically reached peak performance years ago, but we aren't disappointed in the fact that there was a lot of focus improving the car and a giant vehicle industry for many many years. Instead we moved on to building things that can use a car, such as the highway system. Or the mail delivery system, or the thousands of industries that completely rely on highways or mail.

In the same way with computers, we are now going to see industries and technologies appear that rely on having computers that have reached this advanced level of processing power we have today. Once this mighty computer is passed on to the common man, innovation begins to move in different paths again. Like a tree.

I dont know, this may have delved into a bit of a rant but that video made me extremely optimistic :)

⬐ mark_l_watson

I don't think that computers are anywhere near a stall-point as far as new advances go. I expect to see computers that use very much less energy, more memory but still get much smaller, and CPUs with more special instructions that enable faster neural networks, data structure manipulation a that might enable symbolic AI, etc.

You do make good points, and I up voted you.

⬐ internaut

Thiel would agree with your main statements.

He's said before that he's not particularly worried about advancements in computers continuing to unfold and the potential for the Net to become ever more like a planet wide nervous system with many more use cases coming into existence.

His complaint is that if progress does not occur in fields outside of computation there will be stagnation. No amount of computational intelligence can mine asteroids or convert the Sahara to arable land without doing something with the material world.

You can have rapid improvements in specific technologies in the midst of a general decline or a stagnation. For example; surely there a great deal of improvement in weapons systems during the middle ages. The stirrup, the crossbow, the gun, the cannon. Most of the advantages of those technologies didn't really help the average person's situation.

This is not a hypothetical. While there was enormous increases in computational power in the past three - four decades median wages have not budged. People were able to consume more primarily due to debt.

We ought to question whether computers will be enough to raise living standards in the developed world in the short to medium term (his main contention I think).