Thiel/Fukuyama on technological deceleration

Permabear

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Jaafa

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I don't see any reason to believe what we are currently in a technological stagnation. The past 100 years have been a period of progression never before seen in the history of man, sure we may be slowing down, but relatively speaking I believe we are still progressing ridiculously fast.

You can't expect us to progress exponentially or even at the same pace forever, there will always be a slow down until the next breakthrough, on the scale of Cars, planes, internet etc.

Another factor may be that scientific output in the west is slowing down while increasing in Asia and as result of not being as aware about Asian progress compared to our own, we assume this slow down is world-wide.

For example this study found that Asian output has grown 155% in the past 30 years. http://www.science-metrix.com/30years-Paper.pdf

RedXIV

I don't know if I'd say there is technological stagnation either, sure we may not be getting the benefits of consumer technological leaps where we go from hoover -> dyson -> robot maid in the next few years but an interest in computing, pharmaceutical science and the incredible field of robotics and AI, are showing constant improvements and innovative leaps.

I think the end user of the benefits of today's technological improvements has changed. The previous 100 years has radically changed life for the average working citizen, and a lot of the advances were targeted at the "one in every home" market, whereas today the focus seems to be more R&D around medical issues and computing advancement.

I did see that they managed to write a "bit" of information on a mere 8 atoms recently enough, making it possible to amount of storage on a hard-disk by a factor of 12 which is mind-blowing (if you're into that). If you read Focus magazine, its almost impossible to think that we're reaching a period of stagnation, there are more academics in the world than there ever have been, our problem now appears to be the more answers we get, the more questions we have.

Its a very exciting time to be alive

Cool Mo D

It is definitely true that the rate of accumulation of scientific knowledge is faster now than it ever has been, and it is speeding up rather than slowing down.

The unstated question in that interview is why our vastly increasing knowledge is not making more of an impact in the way we live our lives, and our wealth. But the two interviewees don't even scratch the surface of what is going on in science or engineering at the moment, and instead are really talking about politics, with a few science related cliches thrown in.

What I think is happening, is that the most visible scientific advances in the last 20 years have been in computing and communication. The power of these advances have not increased economic growth, because so far there have been as many losers as winners. Automation of manual tasks has put pressure on unskilled labour. Logically, a person can do jobs that are totally unsuited to a computer, but society has not found a way of taking advantage of this.

SugarHigh

One area it appears to be true is in medical science.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PzSXTWhBUD0

He talks about how the increasing cost of regulation means that developing new drugs is becoming prohibitively expensive.

dashboard_hula

" When people wonder why all the rocket scientists went to work on Wall Street, well, they were no longer able to build rockets. It’s some combination of an ossified, Weberian bureaucracy and the increasingly hostile regulation of technology."

My hero.

No, really. You know what I learned through 1 academic and 2 industry led courses on management theory? It's all a gigantic pile of crap. (Sorry, I haven't picked up academic writing quite yet. Give me time. And another useless class in organisational behaviour.). This mightn't be the point of the OP, but I'd happily put money down that the increase in unnecessary and pointless oversight is going a long way towards stifling genuine progress. With the greatest of respect towards anyone working in R&D fields of any discipline, would I be wrong in saying that a large portion of time is taken up by justifying your job, and keeping your job instead of being able to do your job?

ed2hands

Sorry, ed2hands, I accidentally edited your post. I've restored the original.

Permabear wrote: »

I really enjoyed this conversation between Peter Thiel and Francis Fukuyama about how neither the right nor the left is prepared to confront the real problem facing society: that of technological deceleration and stagnation.

Ah yes. The famous venture capitalist and hedge-funder Peter Thiel.

A very intelligent man by all accounts, but also the perfect example of a self-important, elitist, Malthusian, far right ultra-Libertarian if i ever saw one.

He of course has typical pessimistic views on the future of humanity and it's forthcoming stagnation, or more specifically, the stagnation of those who are not super-rich like him.

In fairness to him he is at least honest in some parts of the interview:

"As for why inequality has gone up, you could point to the technology, as you just have. You could also point to financialization of the economy, but I would say globalization has played a much greater role because it has been the much greater trend."

"The rapid rise in inequality has been an issue that the Right has not been willing to engage. It tends either to say it’s not true or that it doesn’t matter."

You're not wrong there Pete. But describing the current U.S. govt. as "quasi-socialist" says more about your worldview than any reality the rest of us can observe.

It's most telling, but not surprising, that he references Francis Bacons "New Atlantis" in one of his answers, no doubt still obsessed with the idea of creating a rich mans artificial island utopia with his mind-boggling 'Seasteading' project. Not that he's bothered apparently by what anyone thinks about it though. As he said himself before, "We don't need to really worry about those people very much, because since they don't think it's possible they won't take us very seriously. And they will not actually try to stop us until it's too late." Indeed Peter.

A little bit of advice good sir. If you used some of your billion dollar wealth to actually do something worthwhile for humanity instead of sinking your profits from hedge-funding into ill-thought out tax-dodging elitist island communities away from the 'unwashed masses', that would be just great.

His finishes by saying that Leo Strauss was "a very important and profound thinker", and most especially valued his book “Persecution and the Art of Writing”. No surprises there either. Am sure Stauss and that book in particular struck a chord for the man who recently said,
"I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible."

Many of us grew up with the presumption that we would enjoy a technologically progressive future. It would be only a matter of time before science and technology reshaped the world we lived in. But is that still on the cards? And what happens if we're really just entering a prolonged period of stagnation?

Good question. Would go with the other posters in saying that hopefully we're not entering it at all. I suppose the most important challenge is to think of ways to reduce poverty, inequality and environmental degredation. If funds and resources were concentrated more than they are presently into doing that, then maybe the fear of humanity becoming redundant by stagnation would itself become redundant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel