Dave_In_Norfolk Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 I've heard this criticism before, about our lack of progress in transportation and energy. I thought necessity was the mother of innovation? They HAVE made progress on energy, look at fracking and the deep sea drilling etc. Haven't the oil companies and such did all they could to stop alternative energy? Look at the difference Reagan brought to White House in this regard than Carter did. And why isn't solar cost effect yet? The other stuff is still cheaper. Progress in every single field isn't written in stone--or in the clouds, ha! Transportation has run into it's own wall, and it will have to wait for fundamental breakthroughs in many fields to find a safe, costly and mass producable way to go forward. Look at how many innovations it took to get the automobile. If the Bessemer steel process wasn't invented, no internal combustion engine, electricity to bring fire to the piston chamber, etc. Blaming regulations for the lack of progress in these fields seems sort of petty. It seems to me some people are pointing at innovation in computers and information technology to bash our society for not making more progress, or the same progress, in other areas. That's kind of silly This is where I read those similar ideas, I see Thiel is quoted in it: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-12-20/narcissism-self-esteem-innovation/52121940/1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magox Posted February 15, 2012 Author Share Posted February 15, 2012 (edited) from the comments: " theil just gave a lecture at harvard that advised it's students to drop out and start a business .because, you know, he and a few other zillionaires were successful at it. not sure i trust his judgement". someone else pointed out that kennedy would indeed have had a difficult time dealing with healthcare in the late 60's cuz, um, he was dead. Yeah, I'm sure he was just telling people to just drop out of school. What is more likely than not from what you gathered from the "comments" section was someone who took what Thiel said out of context. Also in regards to regulations, things don't have to be black or white, it's not as if all regulations are bad. Some things need to be regulated, but there is a difference between good common sense regulations, and others that are overreactions to circumstances that form punitive populist nonsensical regulations. It is FACT that regulations can Stymie growth. What Thiel is talking about is overregulation, basically he wants to go in a direction where regulations aren't a burden, and as time passes and as we move more and more to the left, regulations are expanding. Edited February 15, 2012 by Magox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 from the comments: " theil just gave a lecture at harvard that advised it's students to drop out and start a business .because, you know, he and a few other zillionaires were successful at it. not sure i trust his judgement". someone else pointed out that kennedy would indeed have had a difficult time dealing with healthcare in the late 60's cuz, um, he was dead. Yeah, they should instead stick with that whole "Go $100k into debt and then blame Wall Street when your double major in Medieval Japanese Theater and Women's Studies doesn't get you a job." Working well for them so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magox Posted February 15, 2012 Author Share Posted February 15, 2012 Yeah, they should instead stick with that whole "Go $200k into debt, ask for a bailout from the government to pay for it and then blame Wall Street when your double major in Medieval Japanese Theater and Women's Studies doesn't get you a job." Working well for them so far. Fixed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
birdog1960 Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 Yeah, I'm sure he was just telling people to just drop out of school. What is more likely than not from what you gathered from the "comments" section was someone who took what Thiel said out of context. Also in regards to regulations, things don't have to be black or white, it's not as if all regulations are bad. Some things need to be regulated, but there is a difference between good common sense regulations, and others that are overreactions to circumstances that form punitive populist nonsensical regulations. It is FACT that regulations can Stymie growth. What Thiel is talking about is overregulation, basically he wants to go in a direction where regulations aren't a burden, and as time passes and as we move more and more to the left, regulations are expanding. easy pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magox Posted February 15, 2012 Author Share Posted February 15, 2012 easy pete Thank you for providing that link to make my point. Totally taken out of context, he wasn't just saying " theil just gave a lecture at harvard that advised it's students to drop out and start a business .because, you know, he and a few other zillionaires were successful at it. not sure i trust his judgement". "Learning is good. Credentialing and debt is very bad," he said. "College gives people learning and also takes away future opportunities by loading the next generation down with debt." The 43-year-old with a net worth of $1.5 billion recently started a $2 million fund to get college students younger than 20 to drop out of school and start a business with $100,000 each. "We ended up picking 24 people to try to get them to work on very specific projects that would push the frontiers of science and tech in areas ranging from biomedicine to computers to robotics," Thiel told ABC News. Even though Thiel has a law degree from Stanford, he's still questioning the value of a college education. New York Magazine recently rated the worthlessness of a college degree as "one of the year's most fashionable ideas." "Facebook was started in 2004. That was the right time to start that company," said Thiel, whose $500,000 investment in Facebook is now worth about $2 billion. "If all the people had finished their college education and waited till 2006, it would have been too late." College students Eden Full and Jim Danielson say they are not willing to take that chance. They've dropped out of college and put their ideas and inventions on the fast track with Thiel's financial backing. Full said she worried that someone would beat her on her idea for new solar panels, so she passed on a degree from Princeton. "These panels are so unique," she said, "I need to get them out there now." Danielson, who turned an old Porsche into a fully electric car while in high school, put the breaks on Purdue. "I feel like the electric vehicle industry is changing rapidly, and if I passed up this opportunity and waited till I finished my college degree, a lot could be changed," he said. "I could miss the boat on electric vehicles." He wasn't referring for people in general to drop out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
birdog1960 Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 Thank you for providing that link to make my point. Totally taken out of context, he wasn't just saying " theil just gave a lecture at harvard that advised it's students to drop out and start a business .because, you know, he and a few other zillionaires were successful at it. not sure i trust his judgement". He wasn't referring for people in general to drop out some who study entrepreneurship disagree with your interpretation of thiel's theme. his huge recent losses cited in this article also underscore the fact that he doesn't have all the answers and his crystal ball may be getting a little cloudy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magox Posted February 15, 2012 Author Share Posted February 15, 2012 (edited) some who study entrepreneurship disagree with your interpretation of thiel's theme. his huge recent losses cited in this article also underscore the fact that he doesn't have all the answers and his crystal ball may be getting a little cloudy. You have a reading comprehension problem. Nowhere in the article did this particular person infer that Thiel was suggesting that people just drop out of school willy nilly as the poster in that comments section did. This dude disagrees with the basic premise of people dropping out of school and chasing after their dreams. That's fine, thats an honest argument to have, one is an inside the box thinker the other is an outside the box one. I'm Sorry that you have to try to find an article to understand context from people within a "comments" section. Here, I have a suggestion, how about just reading the comment, then reading the thiel article and try deciphering on your own. Anyone who has the capacity to comprehend things would be able to conclude that Thiel was referring to people who already have big ideas or are willing to go after big things. Even in the article that you provided to help form your thought even addressed what he perceived to be flawed thinking, but nowhere was it suggested that THiel was advocating for people just to drop out of school simply because dropping out of school would somehow magically make you into a millionaire. Edited February 15, 2012 by Magox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GG Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 some who study entrepreneurship disagree with your interpretation of thiel's theme. his huge recent losses cited in this article also underscore the fact that he doesn't have all the answers and his crystal ball may be getting a little cloudy. This is a craptastic article, because you can't site studies that show that historically more successful ventures were led by experienced college graduates because you never had a program like Thiel's to compare it to. The corollary point should be made that older college students perform better, because they don't waste a good portion of their undergraduate years getting wasted. So if someone waits a few years to return to college after an unsuccessful entrepreneurial stint, he will be a much better student than the average teenage drunk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 So if someone waits a few years to return to college after an unsuccessful entrepreneurial stint, he will be a much better student than the average teenage drunk. But not nearly as good a protester. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCinBuffalo Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Hmm. Much has been made of the "brain drain"--> the movement of talent from manufacturing, energy, etc. to finance by liberals. If you listen to most liberals, they will tell you it's because Wall Street is out of control, and most smart kids are going where they can make the most money as fast as possible. And then of course we hear that we need to get back to making things in this country and away from simply moving money around for profit. I supposed it hasn't occurred to most liberals that they and the policies they support are the cause of of the problem they have identified. The smart kids also don't want to waste their brains being told they can't innovate, or being told that there's only a 20% chance they can benefit from their innovations due to government regulations, taxes and the effect they have on securing capital. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeviF Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Hmm. Much has been made of the "brain drain"--> the movement of talent from manufacturing, energy, etc. to finance by liberals. If you listen to most liberals, they will tell you it's because Wall Street is out of control, and most smart kids are going where they can make the most money as fast as possible. And then of course we hear that we need to get back to making things in this country and away from simply moving money around for profit. I supposed it hasn't occurred to most liberals that they and the policies they support are the cause of of the problem they have identified. The smart kids also don't want to waste their brains being told they can't innovate, or being told that there's only a 20% chance they can benefit from their innovations due to government regulations, taxes and the effect they have on securing capital. Time to go Galt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
/dev/null Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Time to go Galt. Galt is long gone. Mouch, Boyle, and Thompson have been running the show for awhile Edited February 17, 2012 by /dev/null Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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