Peter Thiel and George Gilder debate on "The Prospects for Technology and Economic Growth"

Topic: "Accelerating or Decelerating? The Prospects for Technology and Economic Growth"
Peter Thiel, Co-founder of PayPal, Technology Entrepreneur, Investor, and Philanthropist
VS.
George Gilder, Chairman, George Gilder Fund Management, and Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute
Peter Thiel's thesis that technological progress is decelerating has been featured prominently as of late in a number of opinion journals and popular magazines, while George Gilder holds to the supremely optimistic premise of his famous 'Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology'.
Moderator: William Davidow, High-technology Executive, Venture Investor, and Author of 'Overconnected: The Promise and Threat of the Internet'
Interested in more events like this? Or even hosting one yourself? Get involved with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute at isi.org/join-c....
CHAPTERS
Introduction by ISI President Chris Long
• Peter Thiel and George...
Introductions by Moderator William Davidow
• Peter Thiel and George...
Peter Thiel Arguments
• Peter Thiel and George...
George Gilder Arguments
• Peter Thiel and George...
Rebuttals
• Peter Thiel and George...
Questions and Answers
• Peter Thiel and George...
Debate held at Stanford University

[@goldilockszone4389]

These videos are really useful to reflect on what was the thinking 8 years ago

[@smallbluemachine]

Feels like Elon Musk has been doing all the heavy lifting these last eight years. Thiel’s points still hold true. What’s the state of deregulation on anything? iPhone went to 11.

[@sdprz7893]

@@smallbluemachine Elon himself hasn't done anything and Thiel knows that, they used to be partners.

[@doug8766]

Holy cow - of all the Thiel vs... innovation debates, this is the only video I have watched thus far where there are actually fantastic, coherent counterpoints to Theil's thesis.

[@hughtub]

It's all inter-related, the empowerment of people who have increasingly more say, but no liability. Half of people pay no income taxes, but can still vote for what happens with the taxes of the other half.

[@kirschkern8260]

Use DUCKduckGO. COM instead of google . There are allways Alrernatives.

[@sdprz7893]

8 years later and all the innovation that George Gilder said was happening has not remotely moved forward. Peter looks more and more right by the year

[@hughtub]

Great examples by Thiel 59:40 demonstrating how we have declined in ability to construct things as fast or as cheaply as things 100 years ago.

[@m.burgesszbikowski8049]

To prove Peter’s point about the limit on the Stanford Students in innovation. The creation of Uber was done by violating all of the laws around the taxi business. The need for this type of service was obvious for years. But only a bunch of gangster, hell bent guys had the guts to violate the laws and the protectionist rules and innovation killing city government mindset. They so surprised the powers that set everything in concrete, at first, they were not even sued!

[@cherylmack1260]

How old are you? Most of us have lived through the age of toxic air and water. Not anyone in this discussion has addressed those issues of coming back when we continue to push for more types of industry with little oversight. That is why the protectionist rules were invented and what amazing it was when the air in the cities cleared of the extreme pollution.

[@NemoNemoNemo.]

@@cherylmack1260 It's also strange that they consider 'innovation' as using a legal loophole so you don't have the pay a decent wage to the people who work for you. Uber has about a million employees that they define as 'contractors' so they don't have to treat them like employees. Plus, are apps really that much of an innovation? How about better medicine, clean meat, next gen nuclear reactors? Uber as innovation, please. They had copy cats almost immediately because their product was so easy to build.

[@VORTEX___]

@@NemoNemoNemo. That's really interesting. You know, in countries like Germany Uber's Business Model (known as UberPop) is actually outlawed because commercial drivers need licenses, need to return to their base after each ride, need to know the city very well, can't combine rides etc.; Also there are laws against pseudo self-employment / disguised employment that basically outlaw the case that people be an Uber contractor full time. You can use apps like "Taxi Deutschland App" which are basically doing all the good and legal stuff that Uber is doing but it's actually all the traditional cab companies behind it which proves your point of fast imitation.

[@kirschkern8260]

Use DUCKduckGO. COM instead of google . There are allways Alrernatives.

[@MrAdvancedAtheist]

Thiel characterizes Gilder's view of progress as "ghostlike reductionism." But in reality humans need stuff, not bits, and I congratulate Thiel for defending the materialist priorities of progress..

[@ccdavis94303]

This a great discussion. A synthesis looms. Gilder is waaay correct that there remains huge promise in feeding back Turing/Shannon into the rest of what we do. Lots of leverage to address Thiel's big issues.

[@aarononks3120]

Peter actually starts at 8:15

[@MrAdvancedAtheist]

Back in 1998 in his article "The Soul of Silicon," which you can find on the Forbes website, Gilder writes that "Today, however, the global network of telecommunications carries more valuable goods than all the world's supertankers," along with blather about the coming economic "overthrow of matter." I wonder if he still feels that way about petroleum. Thiel, by contrast, sensibly says that real progress comes from making more and better stuff.

[@TheKibeer]

Feminism is just a symptom of more prosperity and freedom. Outlawing of the engineering might have something to do with shift in consumer demand reflected in advertising influenced by the liberation of women. Cars are advertised as pretty - no engine parameters mentioned. Fashion industry is ripe - shoes and handbags. Computers are bought for the design features as well. Software is mainly GossipWare (I might have registered that right now :)) Energy production is kind to bunnies etc.

[@VovixLDR]

As a techno optimist, I would still admit that the kind of Thiel's pessimism is a stimulating. practical one and probably a kind of self-destroying prophecy which means we should pay more attention to the future to make it far better. Not a kind of "no way" eco-pessimists who are calling to regressive values. That's why such debates are especially interesting, thanks to both participants!

[@LDSpecialist1]

If one uses Thiel's argument to look at what "average people" think to get an idea of the current state of technology, you will NOT achieve accuracy. I have been an educational professional for 40+ years, beginning as a Mathematics teacher, and for the last 25 years as an educational therapist (a specialist in learning disorders). The "average" American is more ignorant than ever as technology has become more advanced through math and science. The reality is that barely 25% of high school graduates are rated as "proficient" in math. If one cannot do math, one cannot do other sciences, engineering or technology! I know, I have been dealing with students in these subjects for decades. I believe the culprit is the American educational system, starting with the training of teachers in our universities. Most of the classes I was required to take to be certified as a teacher were next to worthless … none of them taught me HOW TO TEACH math, much less students with learning problems … Much of what is done in American classrooms is the same as what was done in 1850! On my own initiative I studied such esoteric subjects as physiological psychology (do you think the brain is involved in learning? --duh), cognitive psychology, child development (I have news for you --children are NOT just small versions of adults --their physical and cognitive faculties develop slowly over time), abnormal psychology (yes, some problems begin in childhood), and even testing and statistics (so I can understand what the data from standardized tests means). Finally, there is the area of Pedagogy --the art and science of teaching --standing in front of a group and talking is NOT teaching! It is shameful how little research there has been in the actual science of teaching --what works and what does not and for whom and under what conditions . In my opinion Education is still in the Dark Ages.

[@mackvolvo9700]

I love GG, go go Sir! Thanks for your wisdom!

[@Jotto999]

Yeah. Could've edited them to be separate monologues and I hardly would have noticed.

[@kirschkern8260]

Start at 8:30

[@MasterOrganicChem]

13:00 it's not clear from Thiel's wording here, but Simon won the initial bet in 1990, that prices would go down between 1980 and 1990.

[@RollinShultz]

OK, I am with Thiel at the 13-15 minute period where clean tech did not pan out as promised and solve the problems intended, but I believe the reason for that isn't so much that the technology is lacking, but that the direction changed in the 80s and 90s on forward of crafting that technology as we originally intended to be used on and individual basis and allowing energy corporations to get all the grant money to try to make that technology conform to the large scale production model. Instead of large coal plants for example we would have large solar plants and that is where the technology breaks. It is better applied at the individual homeowner level, but that would end the monthly bills currently going to large energy corporations.

[@Ramsez]

This is an exceptional panel. Except for Thiel, all of the speakers have witnessed all four industrial revolutions.

[@kirschkern8260]

Use DUCKduckGO. COM instead of google . There are allways Alrernatives.

[@jaeLAX23]

Yeah I believe he has attended a meeting before. All the world's billionaires have. Let's give Thiel the benefit of the doubt for now. His arguments seem very rationale to me. I too congratulate him defending materialistic priorities and for telling people what should be the obvious in an age when propaganda runs amok.

[@TMLutas]

It is not entirely clear why you would debate the state of progress instead of measuring the state of progress. Run through every NAICS code out there and the state of our technological progress outlook will become clear. Or you could just keep on tossing around anecdotes and partial data pictures.

[@RollinShultz]

A good opening declaration in the first two minutes, but I have a question about: "If America is to advance to new levels of freedom and prosperity so that the next generation is better than the last" wait why is that what is wrong with previous generations that we need improvement for the next? At what point do we say life is acceptable as it is. When do we say we have enough technology and industry? I'd say right off that we need to improve behavior more than we need to improve material things to increase prosperity. We should focus on building better families and stronger communities.

[@SanJuanIslandsTV]

The issue is not oppression of innovation by government, nor is it the ever expanding technology in bio, gmo's, nano materials/material science, mapping, inference engines, or size and power use reductions in computing, nor sensor costs. The issue stuffing the average American is the super-sizing of centralized systems under the joke of efficiency, when actually serving only to enrich the few by influencing the many - the ad and surveillance economy. Certainly, tech is moving forward, but its often crushed by overly generous patent and copyright laws, capital barriers, no limits to M&A. So Peter is myopic - saying the same things even when times change, and Gilder, thankfully, continues to encourage and highlight those areas where progress is being made. Noting: often by plucky little startups, and can-do approaches. I never really understood what Paypal's tech contribution to the world was or is. I do understand Facebook's ads-from-surveillance business model is. I don't see either as major technology contributions. Perhaps with the goggles of Paypal and Facebook on, Thiel sees tech as really stalled. It seems he suggests de-regulating the Facebooks and Paypals of the world would create more 'innovation'. Bravo to Stanford for hosting. More please.

[@donaldclifford5763]

Is innovation stalled, or the global economy? Low oil prices hinder the roll out of new energy technology. Amazon is simply to the point where they have been heading for decades, scaling up to dominate the market. The global economy has stalled, as it needs to restructure to conform to newer. faster, smarter ways of doing things. You might say it's got indigestion. Or, perhaps, growing pains.

[@fabiogaucho77]

In monetary policy, Thiel is basically a Freidmaninan. The idea that the money supply should have increased at that time is 100% Milton Friedman

[@hughtub]

Do you mean the discrepancy between the increasing perfection and precision of the computing environment, vs the stagnation of the meat world, of everything untouched by electronics technology, like how wicker furniture is incompatible with a world that contains things like iphones?

[@MrAdvancedAtheist]

You know, this would explain why "transhumanism" hasn't gotten anywhere, and why adult thinkers mock it. Transhumanism assumes "accelerating change/progress,": when in fact we've had pervasive technological stagnation since 1970.

[@MrAdvancedAtheist]

Help me start a new meme: We've entered the Stagnularity, where rapid progress in computing has run up against limits from the stagnation in living standards in the world of stuff.

[@AdamGeest]

Haha! Excellent!

[@jepkofficial]

Is this even a debate? Or just two people addressing some positives and negatives within our human situation today?

[@cellocovers3982]

Gilder is the king of anecdotes and hype

[@NEMO-NEMO]

Do we have affordable health insurance yet? Just checking.

[@roberthumphreys7977]

American parents can be extraordinarily emotional and involved in their children's sports, almost to the point of obsession. I hear dads talking about their child of 7 getting a "full ride" to some university with no mention of the academic side of university attendance. Parents needed the pandemic to clue in to the curricula their children were being taught and mixed bathroom nonsense before they realized something in their public education system was seriously wrong. Most Americans do not understand what education is. If they did, public education would be fit for the 21st century rather than unfit for the 20th.

[@tuck-brainwks-eutent-hidva1098]

The framing of this debate as an issue of "virtual bits vs. real world stuff" is disturbing in itself; it offers a clue as to the "senseless violence" of a society where the capital of humanity's core created-ness is largely unidentified, ignored, and/or dismissed. I hate to see what happens to the economy based on the contributions of the "cognitive elite" when we have a major solar event, or an EMP attack.... Particularly since we have been neglecting the care of our humanity for several generations and counting....

[@RollinShultz]

Anyone who doesn't realize nuclear fission energy is dangerous, doesn't understand the inherent behavior of mankind. The engineers that worked on the MOX reactors like Fukushima has, rejected the final design as dangerous and would not sign off on it. Who in their right mind would ever think storing used fuel rods on the roof of a reactor building could possibly be a good idea? It was always an accident waiting to happen. So the main reason to reject the technology is that greed will always over ride any safeties we wish to believe are in place.

[@tuck-brainwks-eutent-hidva1098]

Fission literally unwinds the basic building blocks of reality. Sounds good for hyper-destructive weapons, but like the height of human arrogance to think we can corral and "secure" this process for producing energy. Fusion is (on a concrete level) complex, but philosophically, at least reasonably in keeping with the idea of energy production -- it's ambitious, but it falls on the constructive side of the reality line.... (More broadly, if fusion might be Babel, then fission is Eden!) 😏

[@MrAdvancedAtheist]

Thiel supports Ron Paul financially, but he doesn't seem to go along with the anti-Fed crankery Paul promotes. Actually Thiel surprised me when he said that the Fed should have increased the money supply during the early 1930's because the rapid technological progress in that decade would have supported economic growth. But doing that doesn't work now because we suffer from technological stagnation. I guess Thiel acknowledges that chartalism has some validity as a monetary system.

[@MrAdvancedAtheist]

33:00 Gilder joins the ranks of the people who have seen through Eric Drexler's charlatanry over the past quarter century.

[@Triumverat]

The first guy seemed lucid the second one seemed nuts.

[@awhodothey]

There were several fallacies in Peter's first monologue. Planes don't fly faster? Sure, there are physical and biological limits to travel speed, but we hardly stopped advancing. Speed is not the only value that we have to advance. How about production cost advancements? Safety advancements? Advancements in environmental protection? And advancements in the systems which use these tools? All of these advancements cost resources, and all of his examples are cherry picked. Also, Simon won the wager not Eurlich. Oil prices are now less than half of what they were during this debate. I think the real question is whether technology has increased production potential, not whether cartels allow prices to go up or down. Of course we could produce more, faster, and cheaper; but we can't act like we have the same values that we did 100 years ago.

[@MB561]

But the half cost of oil right now vs this debate as well as the idea that oil will be above 100$ from 2007 and onward was wrong not due to OPEC letting more supply into the market, but because we were not at "peak oil" and we had tech step in to revolutionize oil production via things like fracking technology.

[@smallbluemachine]

737 max is modern and unsafe, While Russia beat the United States to develop hypersonic technology.

[@awhodothey]

@@MB561 that's exactly my point.

[@nuriamin6481]

George Gilder is a historian

[@FreshYoungLeaves]

October 2018 , Indication china global trade were over

[@MrAdvancedAtheist]

I wonder if the rise of feminism has something to do with the outlawing of most new engineering since 1970, given women's natural risk-aversion and resistance to conceptual thinking.

[@poseidonofsuburbia3000]

47:28 "we started worshipping trees...and we became druids creating sunhenges around the country" hahaha

[@JohnVandivier]

20:44 lol

[@Mew178]

I like how he has a very space race centric mindset, totally ignoring the robotic/space station achievements of Russia and Europe. While like everyone I'd love to see some more human space explorations it's far more economical to use robotic probes. Also while I do agree that space programs had had a drastic slowdown in the last decade there some considerable private work being done right now.

[@DanElton]

Gilder, as in the intelligent design guy? LMAO

[@FreshYoungLeaves]

Is Israel experiencing braindrain ?

[@JoshuaZelinsky]

As far as I can tell he was always a very confused fellow.

[@johnprescott169]

take a SPEECH CLASS HERO

[@julianjdogg]

See that's the kind of shit people who are devoid of content in their lives would say

[@Deathcoyled]

I could barely watch George's segments. Sad, I'm sure he was very smart back in the day, but he's obviously too old now.

[@hodlcoin8560]

He's very sharp even today, but his delivery is a bit rough, especially here. Some of that is due to the kinda odd format of this discussion. If you can look past that he still has a lot of interesting things to say.

[@erichartmann1512]

@@hodlcoin8560 better speaker than eemmm ummmm Thiel. Love em both

[@eligho8767]

Point taken.....from a presentation perspective. I was fortunate enough to know Professor Peter Drucker in his very late years of his tenure and publications. His presentation was extremely difficult to witness; the wisdom however was more than an offset to the positive side of value.

[@georgebenfield]

And ah-- n ah- and ah

[@smallbluemachine]

Ah ah a-(COUGH)!

[@timourkh]

George appears delusional

[@georgebenfield]

Say "ahh" one more f****** time guy

[@jaeLAX23]

In part I believe the leftist-feminist movmn't is partly responsible, but others are responsible as well. For example, check out the book Higher Superstition on amazon[dot]com

[@georgebenfield]

sound like they've been eating s*** for 3 days straight