>> This is very visible when Thiel dismisses incremental progress with wind turbines and photovoltaic cells.
I think you've missed his point which he lays out in the opener. If you've listened to him speak on podcasts about this topic (I recommend episode 1 of The Portal with Eric Weinstein) you will realize that his ENTIRE point is that incremental progress is simply refinement of things we already have since the 60s and for him thats NOT good enough. He isn't looking for incremental refinement at all, he is looking for the equivalent of the emergence of the solar cell or the wind turbine from nothing. Basically the emergence of a totally new way of arranging atoms to bring about big leaps, not small refinements. He isnt looking for the next best rocket, he is looking for the emergence of the warp drive. He always pressed the point that if you take away bites, our tech progress has been largely stagnant since the 60s. I've never heard anyone put it that way and I largely have come to agree. Most of what we have today is just better refinement of tech we had in the 60s. TV's, Refrigerators, Microwaves, Cars, Rockets that land themselves. Even computers.
Also, like it or not, capital investment drives innovation, otherwise there is no real incentive. Now I will say one can argue for better models for more longterm investment moon shots that might take decades to achieve, such as say Fusion reactors. ITER is largely stagnant as a multi-government funded 40 billion dollar project and MIT has some incredible designs for fusion reactor prototypes that would put ITER to shame. Problem is they estimate needing 300 million and 10 years to achieve this. Ultimately you need investors to create a company to make this marketable. If Thiel has the money and wants to invest in these sorts of mega leaps ONLY then more power to him and to us all.
I think it's a mistake to assume that technology advancements will come in great leaps and bounds since the day of the wright brothers are over... we've been out of our atmosphere and to the bottom of the sea and made nukes++ and transistors at nm levels. Humanity has been so experienced in the domain of physics for so long that there is no low-hanging fruit left within the periodic table. The physical world has limits that our higher order thinking has identified and relentlessly struggled against. This is done every day by independent humans in labs and dreams around the world and seems by it's distributed nature to be incremental. I think Thiel's being quite foolish for lamenting/admonishing a trend that I believe will only getting stronger as the sophistication of collective human knowledge increases...
As someone with a physics major I largely agree with that point to an extent. I do not at all think we have reached the bottom of physics rabbit hole personally even though it feels that way, but I dont see us making any major leaps anytime soon without a totally new approach. String theory is stagnant and we need to dump it. QED and the link to gravity is still very much a mystery so we have yet to really unlock the quantum-gravity world IMO. I do however think we have yet to arrange atoms in all the possible ways that benefit humanity, even in ways that I think are achievable in the short term, say 10 years. Biotech stuff aside (because that totally changes the starting point), I think we still have some tricks up our sleeve for "conventional" technology: Space Elevators, Fusion reactors for every major city, AI Humanoid Servants. I still hold out hope for the warp drive one day. Often Thiel points to everyday objects in your home, so I try to think of what I would want in my house today that would benefit me. Household robotics are the only thing that comes to mind, and maybe a vehicle that can traverse multiple mediums: air, space, water. The star trek replicator for unlimited resource access. Basically access to things that only the uber-rich have: Labor, Resources, Ability to reach any point on earth or near space.
we have yet to really unlock the quantum-gravity world IMO
Though it is questionable how much a theory of quantum gravity would affect every-day life. Physics hasn't made much progress on that front precisely because it's far removed from the human scale.
I think we still have some tricks up our sleeve for "conventional" technology:
- Space Elevators might never be built
- a warp drive will almost certainly never be built
- Fusion reactors are likely within reach, could potentially even have been achieved already but for ecomomic reasons and policy decisions, though I'm not sure how much of a game changer they would actually be
- AI Humanoid Servants (and related breakthroughs, eg brain simulation: forget warp drives, think about the ability to 'fork' a person, and have that version of yourself embark on a centuries-long journey across the stars aboard conventional space ships), I'm with you
Here's one to add to the list: happiness. Psychology and sociology, developed to the point where we understand how to have happy people and good communities. Somehow this sounds even farther off than warp drives...
I am not sure that the "days of the Wright Brothers are over." Above all else they were experimenters who gathered data on aerodynamic properties and performance of different wing and control surfaces. I think there is much undiscovered in biology at many levels--cellular, organ system, and organism. I think may see the equivalent of an industrial revolution (a quantum step in the quality of life) flowing from breakthroughs in biology.
Oh, than his views on innovation are even more wrong than I thought. Most progress, most innovation is the result of incremental progress. Sometimes you can see a leap forward, which usually comes that someone puts several incremental innovations together and combines them in the right way.
Yeah, ITER is not really a fast project. Weirdly enough there is also Wendelstein 7-X in Germany, which is also mostly funded by the German government is way ahead of other fusion project. No idea if this research will lead to a power source or not, but I'm pretty if it does, those power plants will be subsidised by the government.
To some extent I agree, and to some extent I do not. I have a physics degree and work as an engineer, so I will say that I do not think we have reached the "end" of physics, and I think we still have things to unlock that we would not today think is achievable. For example:
Warp Drive (or equivalent) - String theory is largely a 30 year dead end and we have no idea what the link between QED and gravity is. Imagine we could unlock the graviton, it would be huge. Currently we have no unified theory and the quantum realm is still considered "spooky" meaning we don't fully understand the hidden substructure. The fact that 2 particles entangled can interact at ANY distance should tell you something. Eric Weinstein talks a lot about this in his podcasts, one of the reason I think he and Thiel are partners.
The Replicator (think star trek) - I know some will say "But what about 3D printers". That is not what I am talking about. That still requires atoms of a material to be fed into what is the incremental advance of the printer, just substitute the ink with X material. I'm talking about a machine that can both synthesize the material from ANY substrate, since its all just proton/neutron/electron arrangements anyways, and then arrange the material in specific placement to create just about anything on a tabletop. I'd even settle for the material part only. That would be mega leap. Equivalent to say the advent of the refrigerator or microwave.
Humanoid Robots - On this point I agree with you somewhat, that both AI and humanoid robots are starting to emerge now from incremental advancement. However Thiel loves to point to household objects likes Refrigerators, TV's, etc, so what would be the next step for the household that would be a large leap: IMO it would be a robot that could do all the trivial tasks that I don't care to such as dishes, laundry, general upkeep, etc. All the dystopian robot takeover stuff aside, that convergence of tech would be a quantum leap for humanity.
A air-ground/water/space ship personal vehicle - I would not agree that this would be an incremental advancement of the car since the car can only do ground (air in 2 dimensions on specific surfaces). You have vehicles that can traverse these mediums in the singular sense, even small 1 person versions, but NONE combine all 3 mediums with full degree of freedom. I'm not talking flying cars, I'm talking flying saucer that can dive into the ocean or take you to orbit.
Another way of thinking of it is, you have access to things now that only the uber rich had long ago, so what do only the uber rich have access to now that you do not: Access to resources (replicator), access to labor (cheap home robots), access to any point on the planet (personal space ships), even access to unlimited energy (fusion reactors, which I would argue are NOT incremental of nuclear). Lets start there. If you want to get outside the box, then you look for the star trek tech: Warp Drive, Tractor Beams (they can do this with sound waves to some extent), transporters, physical-real holographics.
So the counter arguments are "well all tech is incremental". From the point of view the 60's starting version 1 appliances most is, but you haven't got sufficiently outside the box IMO. Combinations of tech maybe (phone+computer=iphone, submarine+airplaine+space-pod=flying saucer, AI+Boston Dynamics Robot=humanoid home servant, 3D printer + ? = replicator), but not always incremental. Something like a warp drive or a star trek transporter would fall outside of that. The best we have is to look to sci-fi and ask what it would take to achieve that kind of breakthrough. Even fusion reactors or space elevators would be a huge leap even if there was only 1 on the planet within the next decade.
The next counter argument is "well we have reached the end of physics so there is nothing left to invent". Please explain the QED-gravity link and submit your unified theory to the journal Nature then, they are waiting. Until then we have not yet unlocked everything.
I think you've missed his point which he lays out in the opener. If you've listened to him speak on podcasts about this topic (I recommend episode 1 of The Portal with Eric Weinstein) you will realize that his ENTIRE point is that incremental progress is simply refinement of things we already have since the 60s and for him thats NOT good enough. He isn't looking for incremental refinement at all, he is looking for the equivalent of the emergence of the solar cell or the wind turbine from nothing. Basically the emergence of a totally new way of arranging atoms to bring about big leaps, not small refinements. He isnt looking for the next best rocket, he is looking for the emergence of the warp drive. He always pressed the point that if you take away bites, our tech progress has been largely stagnant since the 60s. I've never heard anyone put it that way and I largely have come to agree. Most of what we have today is just better refinement of tech we had in the 60s. TV's, Refrigerators, Microwaves, Cars, Rockets that land themselves. Even computers.
Also, like it or not, capital investment drives innovation, otherwise there is no real incentive. Now I will say one can argue for better models for more longterm investment moon shots that might take decades to achieve, such as say Fusion reactors. ITER is largely stagnant as a multi-government funded 40 billion dollar project and MIT has some incredible designs for fusion reactor prototypes that would put ITER to shame. Problem is they estimate needing 300 million and 10 years to achieve this. Ultimately you need investors to create a company to make this marketable. If Thiel has the money and wants to invest in these sorts of mega leaps ONLY then more power to him and to us all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4