The size of this thread, and the split of opinions, is a clear indication to me that this goes beyond the single decision of "Whether or not keep Thiel on board".
I would like to bring your attention to that bigger issue (sorry if this comment is useless to you in making up your mind about Thiel).
I consider myself a transhumanist, a futurologist, a technologist, that sort of thing. I got into this about 3 years ago. And I've done a lot of thinking/reading on this topic, and I've tried my best to gauge the perception about technology in the eyes of non-techies, especially economists, and politicians.
And my conclusion is that, except for a few, economists and politicians are hopelessly lagging behind the fast pace of socio-economic change. I also predicted that within a matter of years, we're headed for a serious social disruption of an unpredictable nature.
Here is my thesis: 2016 is the beginning of that socially disruptive era. And it's all due to technological progress and automation-driven-unemployment!
If you think it's only about the 2016 US election, and things will settle down within weeks after November 8 election of Clinton, you would be misguided. Of course the election fever will settle down, but not the frustration behind it, which is growing like a frog in a slowly boiling water. I can tell you right now, the 2018 election season would be worse, and 2020 season would be far worse!
Case in point: Have you seen the statistics related to self-driving cars and trucks? Arguably it'll put 3 million truckers out of work. This will happen within a matter of months, not years, not decades. What do you think would happen when all of a sudden 3 million people are without means to put food on their table? Something that would make you forget Trump!
You might ask, we don't have self-driving cars yet why do we have social disruption? Well, self-driving cars is a poster-child of automation. It's something that's easy to understand and relate to. There is a ton of subtle, behind-the-scenes, automation going on, that is indirectly making harder for humans to utilize their skills for making money. Smart-phone and related apps, news article bots, automated warehousing like Amazon Kivy, Uber/Lyft, Airbnb, Etsy, vertical farming, solar and wind power, on, and on, and on. But more importantly:
Social disruption is not a step function but a logistic curve. It's not that we'll have zero disruption until self-driving trucks are available for retail purchasing, and after that we'll have full disruption. Instead, it's a sign of things to come, and we're off the zero-level, and slowly rising up the S-curve of the logistic function.
Please think of this problem in a bigger context. If technologists cannot do this, economists and politicians definitely can't.
I would like to bring your attention to that bigger issue (sorry if this comment is useless to you in making up your mind about Thiel).
I consider myself a transhumanist, a futurologist, a technologist, that sort of thing. I got into this about 3 years ago. And I've done a lot of thinking/reading on this topic, and I've tried my best to gauge the perception about technology in the eyes of non-techies, especially economists, and politicians.
And my conclusion is that, except for a few, economists and politicians are hopelessly lagging behind the fast pace of socio-economic change. I also predicted that within a matter of years, we're headed for a serious social disruption of an unpredictable nature.
Here is my thesis: 2016 is the beginning of that socially disruptive era. And it's all due to technological progress and automation-driven-unemployment!
If you think it's only about the 2016 US election, and things will settle down within weeks after November 8 election of Clinton, you would be misguided. Of course the election fever will settle down, but not the frustration behind it, which is growing like a frog in a slowly boiling water. I can tell you right now, the 2018 election season would be worse, and 2020 season would be far worse!
Case in point: Have you seen the statistics related to self-driving cars and trucks? Arguably it'll put 3 million truckers out of work. This will happen within a matter of months, not years, not decades. What do you think would happen when all of a sudden 3 million people are without means to put food on their table? Something that would make you forget Trump!
You might ask, we don't have self-driving cars yet why do we have social disruption? Well, self-driving cars is a poster-child of automation. It's something that's easy to understand and relate to. There is a ton of subtle, behind-the-scenes, automation going on, that is indirectly making harder for humans to utilize their skills for making money. Smart-phone and related apps, news article bots, automated warehousing like Amazon Kivy, Uber/Lyft, Airbnb, Etsy, vertical farming, solar and wind power, on, and on, and on. But more importantly:
Social disruption is not a step function but a logistic curve. It's not that we'll have zero disruption until self-driving trucks are available for retail purchasing, and after that we'll have full disruption. Instead, it's a sign of things to come, and we're off the zero-level, and slowly rising up the S-curve of the logistic function.
Please think of this problem in a bigger context. If technologists cannot do this, economists and politicians definitely can't.