Reflections on the new fundamental breakthroughs after the lecture, Peter Thiel in Stanford

Read Peter Thiel says the dominant pessimism - ... I found it the most important in his message - America enters a phase of uncertainty pessimistic (about the other countries say does not make sense - they do not form the agenda) - no one knows that as is, but there is a vague feeling that the deterioration will continue to grow - on different layers it will manifest itself in different ways ...
Apparently this is because all the important breakthroughs took place at the level of technology - those that significantly improved the external quality of life, but do not come to the man as a person of transformation .... While we surrounded ourselves with the wonderful things we have changed little internally, and the changes that have occurred in the kind of more or less affluent countries prove to be superficial. We stayed essentially primitive, egocentric social dependencies exist for the majority of all the meanings of which boil down to a desire for a stable manger, one large, one with less ambition ...
The technology has enabled us to live warmer, faster moving, more wear, easier to communicate, conditionally to eat better, but for the most part, we did not live meaningfully. Scientists make a lot of discoveries, but it's inertia. Demand for science by and large do not. In the words of the late Clark - we had the opportunity to fly into space, but we prefer to throw birds at pigs ... Of course I'm generalizing, and I say all this not to condemn ... I've been thinking about all this in the context of the main things that sounded in the words Thiel - no projects . He talked a lot about that venture capitalists are becoming increasingly pragmatic, but the reality is not the case - there are no projects that excite the imagination. Innovators flooded Lean Startup, which is about the decline Rikov, but not about the breakthrough innovations. We have accumulated too much knowledge and have become very sophisticated, but it's negative knowledge - we can say - it is not interesting, but not able to say what is interesting and what is interesting from the point of view of investors - looks like a sad shit for geeks, and geeks it seems there is no real ....
... Deficit Deficit meanings of courage and despair ...
No one wants to become a scientist and repeat buzumnym selfless Tesla ... But everyone wants to indulge with their toys while driving a Bentley and live on Rodeo Drava. Science has ceased to be an end in itself and become a career technology for lifelong Tenoura. The path of knowledge has been lost and replaced by Hyde from the series "How to succeed in five steps?", Forgetting that the path of knowledge, there can be certain steps.
All of the modern scientific imagination were formed in the thirties , developed in the 60s and now live not in the universities and in blockbusters from Marvel comics or DiSi. If you look at the heroic action, it can be seen - how monotonous this set superinnovatsy. This dream did not last, and the last century - the instantaneous movement, the ability to see through walls, the ability to read minds, the ability to carry the load, do not get sick, do not feel pain, have superpowers - all of this weak man millennial aspirations and even three thousand years ago, this is not more than the content of myths and fairy tales of primitive society, archaic archetypes of ideas .... But all this external, all this does not affect the existential meaning of human beings and does not give a global answer to the question - why?
You can instantly transport anything, anywhere? But why? You will not be transported in poor countries to richer, because they're not needed. You will not move troops in poorer countries because the poor countries and so you are willing to give up - themselves. Rather, you should think about how the poor would not have got to the rich. You do not need to see through walls, because you do not see that there is nothing new. You do not need to know the thoughts of people, because they are empty. You do not need to invent the perfect opposition to terror, to reach immortality, to deliver people from diseases and solve many problems of antiquity, because these issues are the essence of the modern economy.
Finding a breakthrough solution, you leave without work hundreds of millions of people, you destroying entire industries. If you can instantly transfer knowledge to man for 5 seconds by a wonderful gadget, the entire modern system of education immediately dies. You do not need a person to solar-powered, because the entire agribusiness dies immediately (and I'm sorry, you have to feed the pets), we do not need anti-gravity and teleportation, because the whole transport infrastructure become besmmyslennoy. We do not need the ability to not feel cold and heat, because the whole construction industry immediately becomes unnecessary, and admiring the architecture, we replace the admiration of nature. But such omnipotence is not necessary in the first place because any Superman - he is independent and does not need anything. They can not be controlled, so lost the main principle of power on the planet - creating an artificial shortage of access to resources and the dominant value system based on the same principle - the acquisition. We live in a world of corrosion and entropy, so the only way to counter this - accumulate, acquire and build faster destruction and decay.
In the light of this, I think that the slowing of progress is because people are more or less have begun to realize its meaninglessness in the direction in which he is now. People realize that their life is not me for a domestic level. Yes, life is longer, but the number of creation per unit time decreases rapidly, the problems become more, they just have changed ... But the main thing people have lost sacred meaning and quite far removed from the main questions - about the meaning of their existence. Moreover - to ask such a question was marginal. Science as an existential value paradigm and technology resulting from it changed the environment, has shifted the vector of internal to external, decided some problems and, of course, gave rise to new ones. Philosophy died without finding solutions.
But overall deadlock increases, because the question - WHY gets more and more. The only meaning of the answer to this question is only in geopolitics, the last resort. But this approach is kept alive only military technology. The overall theme here is - we need to have a scientific and technological leadership because otherwise other countries will find it quickly and capture us. While forgetting that the people and the politicians who have the imperial ambitions is no more on earth, they last totalitarian regimes that have evolved due to paranoid ambitions of their leaders.
It is impossible to declare some enemy nation because in spite of the political borders, migration and the Internet have long erased the boundaries psychological and ethno-confessional. Therefore, the topic of technological leadership is not true ... All China scare, but what does that mean? Here China has come to dominate, its inhabitants began to prosper, domestic consumption began to grow, the quality of life began to grow, so what? As it has a negative impact on other countries? In military terms? Brad? Dozen nuclear missiles reduce any military and economic advantages to zero, it is understood back in the 60s of the last century. But even if this happens what will copy paradigm China? The answer is clear - modern US (© Peter Thiel, by the way). Again, nothing new. We must understand that more high-speed railways, more roads, cars are not on gasoline and electricity or biofuel - do not change anything. Several thousand years ago there was no heavy vehicles, but built the pyramids, and now is, but the more fundamental objects are constructed ... In essence, nothing has changed.
What is the use of the development of modern medicine, if more than 95% people it is not available. And the obstacles are not technological, but exclusively political and commercial.
Communism also not an option, abundance does not lead to the need to work, but only to degradation. Experience velfera and series proved it, and continued efforts of the USSR were constantly stimulated by the "military threat" and propaganda - slaves always need a whip, no matter what shape it in the form of a whip, fear, credit collar.
The situation with innovation in the present communication recalls now with the old man. You propose to him all sorts of new gadgets, Fennec, but he does not need anything, because all his friends are already in the grave, it is impossible to restore youth and all this has no meaning for him.
All failed, says Thiel - space, energy technology, Biomed, transportation projects ... He writes that they failed because of the economy, but it is not. They previously had no essential meaning .... They have not changed people's lives and prevented new horizons, it's just a reproduction of old patterns. Do you want to fly into space and win there a new planet? Excellent and that you will play there? The earth with all its problems?
Religion also went bankrupt because herded noumenal (Jung) on its periphery, and have long turned into a corporation with its portion of the impact and the market. Solid Lord for respectable people. Religion as an institution was unable to offer innovation of the human spirit.
Politics has lost the ability to generate calls, because the elite flooded ignorance and focus on the risks. Short courses began to teach charisma. In fact, we are bankrupt and have come to understand the turn that what we believe innovation does not really change our lives. We have become easier to communicate with each other via the Internet, but it did not add more meaning in our communication. We have become faster and more comfortable ride, but it did not change the essence of the problems that we solve. Scientists promise us immortality, but ignore the question of the meaningfulness of life. All innovation and scientific get-together conspire to say - guys leave us alone, we create innovation. We are looking for a cure for cancer, but try to ignore the idea that it is possible cancer consequence of our insanity and frustration. We create antidepressants - it is considered honorable, but pretend to talk about the causes of depression - not comme il faut. Discussions about innovation, we are trying to cover up the dramatic meaninglessness of our lives. The idea of scientific progress and technical perfection while ignoring the spiritual ignorance exhausted and the last who will see it - will financiers and investors as the most stupid.
So what's the breakthrough? What areas can be considered truly breakthrough? I think what is happening what happened in the Middle Ages, when science was born as a new paradigm in the background of religion and science is now apparently turned into a kind of religious dogma. And indeed a breakthrough can not be in any technological direction, because if you imagine a world saturated with inventions that we dreamed of, thanks to science fiction and it is simple, you'll notice that this world resembles a sad shit because it contains no new or old sacred meaning.
Imagine that you have super strength, super view, can walk through walls, not to die, not to hurt, to fly, to consume solar energy, the power of thought to change the physical world. Imagine that you are omnipotent as he could imagine that primitive man. Imagine that you are like a super hero comic book ... Presented? And what will you do? Why live? Who do you need? How to change your point? No, not even that - who needs your superpowers? You will go to replace 1 million. Chinese to dig a hole, you will be working instead of X-rays, you'll catch a dangerous terrorists who invented in secret laboratories, you will work as a motor vehicle? Where do you apply your skills? Will defend the country? What? From whom? From aliens? You will live forever? Okay, how will you entertain yourself? Watch TV shows? Help people? And why the heck - yet like God, then there is no problem. You urgently need someone small, weak and insignificant to your innovations are needed. 100% sure - you can not think of anything - even those who try to think about it. This is the meaning, existential impasse.
What is the meaning of life as a whole and the power of technology, if the same senseless and ignorant and primitive savage life, and packaged modern hipster.
From the middle of the last century science as a paradigm of the offensive, and hastened to draw the line between what is acceptable and what was not comfortable. Science is not a meta-paradigm, and another religion, as exemplified by proven Kuhn fact that the representatives of the old scientific paradigms could not find the strength to accept the facts of new paradigms. Nothing could convince them otherwise. We have not changed the paradigm, probably more than 100 years, and one which we lived - has exhausted itself, and harbingers of new in the works of science fiction and trying to make sense of ancient philosophy and spiritual practice.
We came to a point that separates us - as people like what we used to call a person from something else, open new meanings and views of the world. I think that at this turn of us really expect fundamental breakthroughs related to changes in our essence. And this transformation is not confined to the reduction of the strengthening of cognitive functions.
This is most likely to be related to the ability to perceive the implicit connection of the universe, finding new contexts and communication, have a different architecture of personality and other algorithms produce a picture of the world, on the 20 and 30 years ago wrote pioneers traspersonalnoy psychology. Indeed we expect a fundamental breakthrough in the ability to see differently and, accordingly, otherwise volit, will direct. We sleep and wake up until - no breakthroughs will be no more, even if outwardly we will prosper.
Perhaps it would be like something to do with the ideas of transhumanism, but most likely it will be a vector, implying no other level psycho-physics, and other horizons of meaning, morality, and the collective consciousness. This is something like the transformation of Homo sapiens in human wisdom and collective, for intelligence and wisdom are not equal and reasonable man now looks more like a strange cyborg, controlled by external stimuli. The late Erickson said that all men over 90% of the time are in an unconscious trance, about the same wrote Timothy Leary - the people who were perceived very marginal compared with the official establishment. ul>