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Livetweeting thoughts on the Graeber v. Thiel debate.
G:
“If you grew up in HG Wells’ time, there was a list of inventions you thought were coming. And you got all of them!
Growing up in the 60s, we had a list too. I never would have thought we’d get nothing! But when 2000 hit, people just pretended we were living in the future.”
“If you grew up in HG Wells’ time, there was a list of inventions you thought were coming. And you got all of them!
Growing up in the 60s, we had a list too. I never would have thought we’d get nothing! But when 2000 hit, people just pretended we were living in the future.”
G:
“The right and left both started worrying about robots replacing people. There was an idea social change is happening too quickly, when around that time innovation slowed down. I think this is due to the bureaucratisation of research that happened around the 70s.”
“The right and left both started worrying about robots replacing people. There was an idea social change is happening too quickly, when around that time innovation slowed down. I think this is due to the bureaucratisation of research that happened around the 70s.”
G:
“NASA was built by imaginative, super impractical weirdos that have no place in our modern bureaucracies and with whom we’d have no idea what to do with.”
This hits hard. This is me. This is why every professor I looked up to told me not to go into academia.
“NASA was built by imaginative, super impractical weirdos that have no place in our modern bureaucracies and with whom we’d have no idea what to do with.”
This hits hard. This is me. This is why every professor I looked up to told me not to go into academia.
G:
“If you want to maximize breakthroughs, get creative people, give them the resources they need; a few will come up with something amazing.
If you want to do the opposite, take those same people and tell them they have to compete to prove they know what they want to create.”
“If you want to maximize breakthroughs, get creative people, give them the resources they need; a few will come up with something amazing.
If you want to do the opposite, take those same people and tell them they have to compete to prove they know what they want to create.”
T:
“We have a line at Founders Fund — they promised us flying cars and all we got was 140 characters. There’s something about tech that’s stagnated, and a sense it didn’t have to be this way. When I talk to people in tech, I always get the sense we could be doing more.”
“We have a line at Founders Fund — they promised us flying cars and all we got was 140 characters. There’s something about tech that’s stagnated, and a sense it didn’t have to be this way. When I talk to people in tech, I always get the sense we could be doing more.”
T:
“We could blame all these superstructures but I think there is a surprising amount we can do today.
Being an anarchist means you act as if you’re already free. But it’s not just free to speak or break things — it’s building them too. We did this at PayPal.”
“We could blame all these superstructures but I think there is a surprising amount we can do today.
Being an anarchist means you act as if you’re already free. But it’s not just free to speak or break things — it’s building them too. We did this at PayPal.”
T:
“I believe in startups instead of massive movements b/c you have to convince fewer people. Given we’re in a culture with a failure of the imagination, the way to get out of it is to convince a small number of people that the future can be different and building it together.”
“I believe in startups instead of massive movements b/c you have to convince fewer people. Given we’re in a culture with a failure of the imagination, the way to get out of it is to convince a small number of people that the future can be different and building it together.”
T:
“We’re not going to get to Mars by having endless debates. To solve climate change, we need to be working on energy solutions today. So I’m not one to be part of some mass movement, I’m focusing on convincing a small number of people so we can get going right now.”
“We’re not going to get to Mars by having endless debates. To solve climate change, we need to be working on energy solutions today. So I’m not one to be part of some mass movement, I’m focusing on convincing a small number of people so we can get going right now.”
G:
“I would go further. You change people’s minds by doing something. What we found in our direct democracy experiments was nobody had experience with that new system so you just had to do it. Suddenly, 1000 people make a decision together without a leader and it just works.”
“I would go further. You change people’s minds by doing something. What we found in our direct democracy experiments was nobody had experience with that new system so you just had to do it. Suddenly, 1000 people make a decision together without a leader and it just works.”
G:
“So now you have a thousand people that went from ‘I thought that was impossible’ to ‘If that’s possible, what else that I thought was impossible could be possible too? Thiel’s thinking about startups is very similar to my thinking about Affinity Groups.”
“So now you have a thousand people that went from ‘I thought that was impossible’ to ‘If that’s possible, what else that I thought was impossible could be possible too? Thiel’s thinking about startups is very similar to my thinking about Affinity Groups.”
G:
“What I ask is, is it possible within a structure designed to prevent innovation to produce enough innovation? In the 70s we went from making money by building stuff to financialization and rent extraction. And current monopolies, as Thiel argues, focus on rent extraction.”
“What I ask is, is it possible within a structure designed to prevent innovation to produce enough innovation? In the 70s we went from making money by building stuff to financialization and rent extraction. And current monopolies, as Thiel argues, focus on rent extraction.”
G:
“Thiel thinks new monopolies built around innovation — making the pie larger — will be better than both pure markets that treat innovation as an externality and current monopolies. Great. What I ask is, is that possible, or will monopolies always seek rent extraction?”
“Thiel thinks new monopolies built around innovation — making the pie larger — will be better than both pure markets that treat innovation as an externality and current monopolies. Great. What I ask is, is that possible, or will monopolies always seek rent extraction?”
(Note: I think Graeber has a point here. Apple’s been sitting on a $200 billion cash pile they’ve done nothing with. They’re a rent extractor! So is Google; so is Facebook. Particularly when they buy up novel tech just to kill it.)
