


January 24, 2011 9:01 am 3 comments

seasteading illustration
Illustration from Wired’s article on seasteading










I thought his position on seasteading was interesting as well:



National Review: Back to the Future with Peter Thiel



Interesting times.


  • There is no such thing as a future. Any future you consider is imaginary. Most futures turn out to be a repeats of past futures (Hegelian thinking)–like nothing was learned from our losing the Vietnam War–just like nothing will be learned from these chaotic involvements in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are led by fools–including Peter Thiel–there is no middle class in this country–and there is certainly no upper middle class–now only the rich or the poor–and seasteading–anything Milton Friedman came up with is pure economic bullshit–the only future in so thinking is Chaos–I say, welcome to the future–our only hope (and I don’t believe in hope–only faith) is in making order out of Chaos–we as a nation (a fraudulent nation from the beginning) are doomed unless we take care of the NOW…immediate change is necessary (can we have a revolution?)–bubbles are created by hot air (and the banks foisted the housing bubble on us and not vice versa–just like in 1929 and the Florida land bubble that burst)–a lot of excess gas–this country needs to let out a huge fart–hopefully followed by a good long shit–we need to evacuate the bowels of this country. As we stand now we are so full of shit.


  • snorky

    It’s not that the degrees are per se worthless, but if you can convince people that they are, then they won’t demand higher salaries, and will accept lower wages and poorer working conditions. The bosses want to keep more for themselves. Corporate profits are having record highs. They could hire more people and pay everyone more money, but they would rather squeeze them to make more money for themselves. This is at least part of what the “higher education” is worthless meme is about.

    This does not mean that I don’t think higher education is extremely overpriced and technically unnecessary since people can self-educate on their own.

    Another thing to consider is that people have a choice in what they study. Where I went to university, it seemed like all of the “hard” math and science classes were predominately filled with Asian students.

  • Laura

    I think that education isn’t a bubble so much as a matter of diminishing marginal returns. Education is paying off less and less on average, but for the outliers, it is doing better and better. The median is seeing less and less from their degrees, but the smartest people in the world are making a greater and greater impact on society and thus creating tons of value back to the system.

    Classical economics would say that the time to quit is when marginal returns reach zero. That is when the value that educated people add to the economy is equal to the cost of educating them. As for identifying talented people rather than educating them, I think that is pretty cynical. Whether they do it efficiently or well is more debatable.

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