tdehnel

It is easier than ever to start a company, even one that makes physical goods, and compete in almost every sector.

Please knock it off. Your logic doesn’t even make sense. Covid happened everywhere, yet SF has had among the worst recoveries: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sanfrancisco/news/sf-covid-19-pa...

In other parts of the country, they are actually building new malls. Go down to Palo Alto or San Jose, or even Stonestown. Those malls are thriving. https://montco.today/2023/01/triple-five-group-florida-king-...

Imagine thinking the world is so simplistically assholes vs decent people and you’ve magically chosen to be decent.

Here’s a hint: Being a “good person” aka compassion is not the only virtue.

Contrast with conscientiousness which is doing what is right (even when it hurts someone).

Ok, you pick the areas in which to limit progress.

Or we could try to progress everywhere, including in areas of safety from technological risk.

We should pair with this more innovation and cost reduction for air conditioning and other climate control technology.

It’s more expensive up front to have separate units for all rooms.

Eventually, some thing that we cannot control (e.g. Giant meteor, pandemic, etc) will come to destroy us.

If it does, it will be our fault for not progressing fast enough in terms of knowledge.

There is no world in which we could, or would want to limit our growth in terms of scientific knowledge. Not to mention the fact that to do so would mean ceding full totalitarian control.

Most people think information is transmitted from source to receiver. This is actually wrong.

What happens is the information is creatively formed in the mind of the receiver, by the receiver, in all cases.

In other words, people form an explanation for the observation in their minds and judge it compared to other competing explanations.

So instead of the post-truth, doom-and-gloom world that you fear, another possible outcome is that people get better at forming or identifying good explanatory knowledge. In other words, the bar for what you call truth actually goes up and people get smarter.

An example of this happening would be door-to-door sales people. They basically no longer exist. Because people learned not to answer the door when a random person knocks.

The old explanation “someone I want to talk to is here to see me” got replaced with a new better explanation of “some time wasting stranger is probably at the door.”

Why would diversity necessarily be associated with leftism?

It was an anti-signal before.

Would be great if they just came out and said it, instead of this passive aggressive nonsense.

It could just as well be an improvement that makes people smarter, because they will learn not to just believe what they see/hear/read.

Instead, they will have to learn to identify good explanations and rule out bad explanations.

There is nothing in principle which prevents us from solving this problem. We cannot predict which new knowledge will solve it. But we can say that if we don’t solve it, it will be our fault for not producing the required knowledge fast enough.

Waking babies, causing anxiety attacks, generally disturbing the peace for many many people all so a single person can go vroom.

I almost entirely always say we should err on the side of more personal freedom, but loud motorcycles need to be completely banned.

“…a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.

Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions.

Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them.

If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to.”

In this case, the progress is “we learned that censoring nude statues is wrong, so we stopped doing it.”

Would keeping slaves as a reminder of the evils of slavery make sense?

This is a bad argument because it could be used to rationalize preventing any progress whatsoever.

This is a textbook “not true but if so good” comment.

Oh knock it off.

By your logic you can’t even define what a definition is so your whole schtick goes poof.

Bad unfalsifiable philosophy like this is why people hate philosophy. You’re just deliberately confusing people and trying to make yourself seem clever by sucking people into this silly definitions game.

This is a bad theory because it could apply to literally any time in the past or in the future. It’s infinitely variable and not falsifiable thus unscientific.

Meanwhile, progress (aka people trying to make the world better) will continue whether you like it or not, bringing benefits to practically everyone forever. Pessimists may temporarily stifle progress, but the genie has been out of the bottle for the last 400 years or so. Good luck trying to stop people from wanting better for themselves aka solving problems.

Yes, the lighthearted Medium post about food ordering is certainly the place to display your unwavering commitment to scientific rigor. We got a real intellectual heavyweight here everyone!

Socialism is when the public owns the means of production. Sounds super democratic and fun! Except how are decisions made in such a system? The answer is always bureaucrats.

Every year there's some new tax on the ballot to fix these problems. Every year they get worse. We pay more money here in SF, and the problems get worse.

Genuinely asking: How do you solve societal issues? Because we know for sure how to solve quality of life issues: See NYC in the 80s - More police enforcement and state prosecution.

Utter nonsense. Anyone driving on the highway will check their speed when passing a police car.

You switched from the motte to the bailey so fast right there it made my head spin.

Yes, money is good. No, more centralized control over money is not good. Stop it with the socialist nonsense.

I'm going to try and explain how I understand Peter Thiel's worldview here, which I've learned from listening to him talk and reading what he writes. You can downvote this all you want, but I believe it's an accurate interpretation. I'll try to keep my own opinions out of it.

To understand Thiel's position, you have to broaden your idea of harm past immediate harm to a single group of people.

While I'm sure Thiel has personal economic concerns, his stated primary moral concern is preventing wealth redistribution, socialism, and the mass-scale violence that those programs have caused in the past. You can choose to believe him as to whether this is his true motivation or not, but you asked for an explanation of this worldview and that's what he's stuck with over 10+ years now.

While you might be more worried about Nazis, Thiel is more worried about things like 1905 and 1917 Russian revolutions, the ensuing Red Terror, and mass starvation/poverty. About 20M people died in Russia during this time, mostly from starvation but up to 200,000 dead by being executed by the state for having the wrong political beliefs. And many more during the various violent uprisings and civil wars.

Some of you reading this are going to huff and just disregard it, but for Thiel, preventing potential massive tragedy in the future is likely worth a tradeoff of some people being "harmed" now.

Edit: the number of replies to your comment which basically amount to "he just doesn't care about others/he's rich so he's evil" indicate that even the Hacker News audience is not immune to believing in lazy explanations and supernatural forces. Google "The Myth of Pure Evil" for more on this.

Why not just apply this same logic to finding a good accountant?

What a condescending thing to say.

I am surprised I have to explain good faith discussion to you, something I assumed was part of our culture here.

The thing I believe you're missing is that new knowledge gained by solving one problem also solves many other future problems. But because some problems are so big (massive suffering and extinction), and there are infinitely many of them, the only game in town is to make progress as quickly as possible. Otherwise we're just waiting around to be obliterated.

Anyhow, maybe you will find this point of view enlightening. If you have 30 minutes it just might broaden your perspective. I would welcome your thoughts in response: https://youtu.be/01C3a4fL1m0

You’re being needlessly condescending.

But I think you’ll find it’s a harmless question: What are you gathering evidence for exactly? What is the purpose of your observations?

Sounds like you’ll be angling for the position of Commissar of Which Things are OK to Innovate.