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.

Free access to the full version through Google News:

http://news.google.com/news/search?q=%22Technology+%3D+Salva...

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.

"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.

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://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2008/05/seaste...

>"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.

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.

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

undefined

"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.

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.

undefined

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?

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.

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

undefined