Some comments by entrepreneur Peter Thiel, interviewed by author� Francis
Fukuyama:
I think there's a close link between technological deceleration and
increasing cynicism and pessimism about politics and economics.
We should debate whether it should be decentralized or centralized, but
what the United States has today is an extremely big government, a
quasi-socialist government, but without a five-year plan, with no plan
whatsoever.
If there is going to be a government role in getting innovation started,
people have to believe philosophically that it's possible to plan.
That's not the world we're living in. A letter from Einstein to the
White House would get lost in the mail room today. Nobody would think that
any single person would have that kind of expertise.
It's much harder to get a new drug through the FDA process. It takes a
billion dollars. I don't even know if you could get the polio vaccine
approved today.
I'm deeply skeptical about any sort of rationalization of death.
When I taught at Stanford Law School last year, I asked students what they
planned to do with their lives. Most were headed to big law firms but
didn't expect to become partners and didn't know the next step after
that. They didn't have long-term plans about what they wanted to achieve
in their lives. I think the educational system has become a major factor
stopping people from thinking about the future.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1187
It also reminds me of the insight* that the US is thinking about the next
quarter, Japan is thinking about the next 10 years, and China is thinking
about the next 100 years.
*I think it was James Clavell, or maybe Michael Crichton . . . .
Original summary came from Kurzweil's blog:
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