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[Music]
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welcome to uncommon knowledge I'm Peter
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Robinson my guest today the investor and
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philanthropist and possessor of an
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unusually interesting mind Peter teal
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you'll notice that Peter teal and I are
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having our conversation in front of an
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audience this is a meeting of the Mont
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Pelerin society the organization founded
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in 1947 that brings together nobel
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laureates and government officials and
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investors such as peter himself to
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discuss economics and the state of the
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world and when it comes to the state of
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the world as you will see Peter teal has
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opinions we discuss China and the United
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States under Donald Trump and his own
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world Silicon Valley which he talks
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about as this is his word deranged
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uncommon knowledge with Peter Thiel born
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in Germany Peter Thiel moved to the
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United States with his family when he
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was a child he graduated from Stanford
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and then from Stanford Law School and
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after deciding not to practice law he
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co-founded PayPal and Palantir made the
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first outside investment in Facebook
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funded companies such as SpaceX and
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LinkedIn and started the teal fellowship
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which encourages young people to drop
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out of college to start their own
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businesses mr. teal remains a very
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active tech investor now based in Los
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Angeles ladies and gentlemen Peter Thiel
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chyna the late economist and foreign
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policy analyst Hoover fellow Harry Rowan
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writing in 1996 quote when will try to
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become a democracy the answer is around
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the Year 2015 this prediction is based
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on China's steady and impressive
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economic growth which in turn fits the
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pattern of the way in which freedom has
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grown in Asia and elsewhere in the world
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worked in South Korea worked in Taiwan
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economic growth leads to democracy in
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China what went wrong well Oh Peter this
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is always a set up for me to start by
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both flattering you and criticizing you
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a little bit since there was that very
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famous Reagan speech you gave that you
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wrote wrote for Reagan where it was you
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know tear down that wall mr. Gorbachev
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and it was very effective but it was
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perhaps it was not only in the West that
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we learned lessons from it the Chinese
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Communists also paid very careful
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attention to it and they learned that
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you had to have you know you had to have
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perestroika without glasnost you had to
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get rid of the Marxism without getting
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rid of the Leninism and and and they
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learned somehow the very opposite
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lessons of that fateful year in 1989
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they you know Tiananmen worked in China
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and and that that is what that is what
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what continued to work so I think that's
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that's sort of a a a simple first cut
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there was nothing about history that is
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automatic or predetermined it's always a
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question of agency of people and and
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unfortunately you know China took took
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the lesson very much to heart and has
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stayed on this trajectory as per capita
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you know GDP is close to ten thousand
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dollars which was sort of the point
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where you know democracy was supposed to
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start taking over and it seems to if
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anything then been going the opposite
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direction or there's you know there's
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another there's another sort of
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historical riff I have on this that I
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was thinking about the other day where
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it was this famous this famous interview
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with Chow and why and and the early
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1970s where they asked him about the
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French Revolution and what did he think
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of the French Revolution and he said you
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know it's too early to tell which was
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which was seen as sort of a funny
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diplomatic
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answer at the time but I've come to
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think that there's sort of a very
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sinister way of thinking about that
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answer which is that you know in some
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sense the French Revolution it ended it
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ended in 1794 when the insanity burned
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itself out and you had Thermidor and
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then of course you know when you had the
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Russian Revolution one of the promises
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Lenin had was that the Russian
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Revolution communist revolution would
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never have a Thermidor but it took a
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little bit longer than five years as did
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in France but I'd argue you know you had
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something like Thermidor 1956 when
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Khrushchev gave the Anti Stalin speech
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certainly by the time of Gorbachev China
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what Chou Enlai was saying in that
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speech was that China is the one country
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that is still true the spirit of the
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French Revolution it is the one country
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in the world in which there will never
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be a Thermidor and and that is that is
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and that and then of course you know the
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way this this manifests is that it will
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still you know continue in the sort of
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revolutionary communism that that will
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have you know one genocide 'el thing
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after another and that that that
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continues under G still China three
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quotations I mean two of them from
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heroes of the Mont Pelerin Society
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Friedrich Hayek in 1982 the mere idea
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that a planning authority could ever
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possess the information necessary to run
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the economy is a somewhat comic fiction
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what prices ought to be can never be
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determined without competitive markets
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close quote if you want economic growth
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you must permit free markets quotation
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to Milton Friedman 1991 when the regime
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in China introduced a greater measure of
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economic freedom that generated pressure
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for more political freedom and that led
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to Chen on men's square if you permit
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free markets sooner or later your people
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will demand political freedom and
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they'll be hard to handle quotation
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number three Peter teal speaking last
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November artificial intelligence is the
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big eye of Sauron watching you at all
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times in all places close quote
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will artificial intelligence overturn
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Hayek and freedom will it enable China
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to achieve sustained economic growth
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without economic
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political freedom well let's let's let's
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not be too dogmatic and answering this
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so you know I certainly um I certainly
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think that it's possible that the
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totalitarian formed the form that
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totalitarian has in China will will
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exhaust itself that it will hit some
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kind of crisis at some point you know
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China does have you know some some very
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serious demographic challenges you know
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maybe it's sort of like you say it's a
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revealed preference that people don't
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want to have children because it's very
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cruel to allow a child to be born into
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such a horrible Society so I think you
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know there are there are ways that we
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can speculate on how how it might
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ultimately exhaust itself but but I
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think but I think we should not be
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dogmatic on the other side and assume
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that it automatically will and that you
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know perhaps perhaps it can sort of
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develop perhaps it can sort of catch up
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you can sort of get things to work and
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and you know there are probably certain
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parts of the economy where you don't
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need to be that free or that creative or
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that innovative there is just sort of
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copying things that work just you know
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copying the West and you can maybe you
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can't get quite the our standard of
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living but maybe you can get to you know
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a half our standard of living or
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something like that but you're not a
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thing yeah you're not singling out AI as
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a game changer here you tend to poopoo
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the notion that AI will change things uh
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well I think if it if it's it's unclear
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I think there's always a lot of
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propaganda around all these these buzz
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words and so I I think it's it's some
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it's somewhat exaggerated but but but
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yes of course there's there's sort of a
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continuation of the computer revolution
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where you'll have you know more powerful
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Leninists controls and you can have
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certain you know maybe the farmers can
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sell you know the back the cabbages in
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the market and and you can still have
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you know face recognition software that
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attracts people in all times in all
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places and so there's sort of a hybrid
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thing that that might work for you no
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longer than we'd like okay so you
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touched on this a moment ago but let
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let's bear in on it two competing
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narratives one is the president she is
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centralizing power more tightly and with
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the help of technology more successfully
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than any other central authority has
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ever been able to do in all of human
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history he is the most successful
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dictator the world has seen the other
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narrative is that the Chinese population
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is growing old its economy is slowing
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its one-child policy has produced 40
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more 40 million more men than women and
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that the freedom movements in Hong Kong
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and Taiwan have placed Beijing seriously
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on the defensive so well let's um you're
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gonna choose one or the other well let
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me um let us are we Telegraph I'm gonna
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I'm gonna give you my speculative
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conspiracy theory on how China the
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Chinese Communists are trying to
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psychologically undermine the West all
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right and I believe they are inducing
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two perspectives on China about in in
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the West one perspective is that China
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is very far behind us that it's still a
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very poor backward country it even in 20
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49 even on a hundred year anniversary it
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will still only be a middle-income
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country and it's it's so far behind that
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we don't need to worry about it and we
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can be in denial about China and the
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other one is that it's so far ahead of
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us that there is no way that that we can
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ever that we can ever catch up it is you
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know it works better there's certain
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things where can it can you know build
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skyscrapers super fast there's certain
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things where it works so much better
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that we have to just accept that we are
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really far behind
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you know denial is extreme optimism
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acceptances extreme pessimism but
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extreme optimism and extreme pessimism
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converge to doing nothing and I think
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there were there was for example I think
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there was this there was this a question
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about Taiwan and how protected Taiwan
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was and I believe it was in a single
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month in the year 2005 where the US
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strategic assessment shifted from Taiwan
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would be safe for decades because of our
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you know aircraft carriers and what not
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to know Taiwan was already lost because
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you know they had all the China had all
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these missiles that they could knock all
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our defenses out overnight and so it's
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it's somehow it's always so the fact
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that it gets framed in these two extreme
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terms I'm wondering if you're sort of a
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mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist
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Party
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and and it's always extreme acceptance
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and extreme denial and the realities
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actually no it's it's closed and there
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are strengths the US has and their
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strengths they have and it's a fight and
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it's gonna be a fight for a very long
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time and even if China in some ways
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gains ground in that fight it will be
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strategically close for a long time
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because as China gains ground other
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countries will get more scared of China
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and they will they will they will work
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more closely with the US Japan was
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toying with the idea of being of
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shifting its alliance from the u.s. to
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China this is always the DPJ line in
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Japan in the late 90s early 2000s under
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obey
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that's definitively over Japan is back
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firmly on the side of the u.s. Vietnam
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you know much more on the US side in the
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China side this is very different from
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Vietnam of you know 40 years ago and and
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so even if China you know sort of gains
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ground in certain things I think the the
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the the strategic picture will stay you
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know very even for for a really long
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time it's the exact talk so somehow it's
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in the in between is is probably the
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truth and it will be the truth for a
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long time so the notion is the Chinese
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want us to believe two statements one is
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there's nothing to worry about the other
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is resistance is futile well it's both
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votes and both are frauds its China is
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super weak and China is super strong and
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I've been in meetings in China where in
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some sense you heard you got both
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messages within twenty minutes of one
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another and it's it's it's like
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logically inconsistent but
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psychologically it doubles up all right
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the United States is the center of the
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resistance let's take a moment or two
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considering what we need to resist right
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here zombie socialism socialism rising
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from the dead again a couple of
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quotations the first from a history of
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the Mont Pelerin Society in the 1980s
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and 90s members of the Society had the
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exhilarating feeling that things were at
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last going their way
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several countries starting with Margaret
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Thatcher's government in Britain were
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privatizing their state industries
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governments from China to India to
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America to France were liberalizing
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retrenching or cutting taxes and then in
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1989 with astonishing speed the iron
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curtain fell here's quotation number two
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this is Bernie Sanders he's speaking in
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night
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89 the year the Berlin Wall came down
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quote in Vermont everybody knows I'm a
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socialist and that many people in our
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movement are socialists and I think
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there's been too much of reluctance on
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the part of progressives and radicals to
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use the word socialism close quote as we
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sit here this evening
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the self-avowed socialist Bernie Sanders
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is tipped by many to win the Democratic
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caucuses in Iowa on February third from
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the triumph of Democrat Democratic
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capitalism and all that the Mont Pelerin
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Society stands for to the re-emergence
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of socialism how did this happen
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these are I guess these are like
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sweeping questions are all these
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different answers one could one could
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give but but let's three let's let's
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just challenge a little bit the premise
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that question um you know I I don't
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think he's really a socialist in the
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sense I mean there's no five-year plan
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he doesn't he doesn't actually claim
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that he's gonna make the post office or
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the DMV work better if he was promising
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things like this it would just be it
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would just be completely completely
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ridiculous and you know the way in which
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socialism works is it's just this thing
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that's really different and it's
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different it's meant in opposition to
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the zombie institutions in our society
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and and there is a problem that we have
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you know I you know we don't have a very
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well functioning capitalist society you
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know there's a generational problem
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where it is difficult for young people
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to to acquire capital and you know I say
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there's sort of two if I give sort and
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that's you know the young people that
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are supporting Bernie Sanders and we and
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you know there's sort of the two simple
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political things that you know one
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should one should really think about are
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the the runaway student debt in colleges
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you know it's 300 billion dollars in
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student debt in 2000s up to 1.7 trillion
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dollars today and if you start your life
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in debt that can never be discharged in
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bankruptcy you know it'll be much harder
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to accumulate capital and you might be
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less friendly to capitalism so that's
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that's a that is a big problem and you
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know I think I don't think we should
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socialize the student debt but we should
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deal with it any non soul
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way we should internalize the costs on
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to the universities we should redo the
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bankruptcy laws yes you can discharge
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the student debt and when you discharge
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it it's the college that gave you a bad
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education that gets a that gets um stuck
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with a bill that's for the non-socialist
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alternative and and then and then you
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know I think the other the other basic
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problem of a lack of capital or
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inequality is that it's very hard for
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people to get onto the onto the housing
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ladder you know the main way that the
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people in the middle class in this
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country accumulate capital is through
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owning real estate through owning your
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house and and if it if through a series
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of urban zoning laws and bad planning
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and impossibility of building things it
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has become impossible for people to get
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onto onto that and if you could find
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ways for for people to own more houses
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you would have much less of these sort
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of millennial craze socialism so I think
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I think you know we should we should try
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to understand where it's coming from
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which we need to try to try to solve it
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but but you know at the end of the day I
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think it will be pretty weak because
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it's mainly a critique it's a critique
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of of bad institutions and if if Sanders
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become serious I think it'll be it'll be
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as scary as Corbin was in the UK and
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obviously um you know what we'll be
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talking about the post office and the
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DMV and it'll just be ridiculous Bernie
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Sanders cannot get elected any more
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linked it it cannot write the
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universities you touched on this
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enormity go again a couple of quotations
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Michelle Obama the one thing I've been
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telling my daughters is that I don't
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want them to choose a name University
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there are thousands of amazing
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universities in this country quotation
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number two Peter teal of course we knew
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she was lying
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yes this was this was an interview that
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they gave just before their eldest
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daughter Molly it was was thinking about
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what what university to go to and this
00:17:01
is we sort of it I sort of raised this
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it was heard in the context of I've
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always the sort of question of fact
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checking and you know politicians lying
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and I think the the facts we need to
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check the most analyzed we need to call
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people out on the most are the really
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big lies that everybody tells and so you
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know I added that it was it was actually
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it was very reassuring disturbing if
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they weren't lying I mean like if they
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if they actually believed that nonsense
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that would been really disturbing and
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where did Molly end up going to Harvard
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but it's always you know this is a theme
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that you know and you can go on all
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these all these critiques at the
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universities but basically you know the
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basic problem is if you think of it as
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an economic good you know is it a
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consumption good is an investment good
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so as a day is it an investment where
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you're investing for your future is it a
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consider before your party okay that
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hybrid is pretty weird but I think it's
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actually a hybrid of a on a an insurance
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policy that people buy to avoid falling
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through the big cracks in our society
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and a tournament a zero-sum tournament
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where the elite universities like
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Harvard and Stanford are basically on
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sort of a studio 54 night club with a
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long line and a big velvet rope and and
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if you were you know if you were the
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president of Stanford or of Harvard and
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if you had some kind of crazed martyr
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complex where you wanted a mob of
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students faculty and alumni to come
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after you should give a speech saying
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this University is offering a great
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education and you know Harvard you know
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it used to just educate the 200 million
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people who live in the US states
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educating the eight billion people in
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the world and so we should increase the
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enrollment not by factor of 40 but let's
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say two or three over the next 20 years
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and you would just get lunched because
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you're running a studio 54 nightclub you
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shouldn't forget it political
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correctness at the universities if this
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is you I'm quoting you once again if you
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have a majority of the vote that's good
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if you get 70 percent that's even better
00:19:01
and if you get 99.99% of the vote you're
00:19:05
in North Korea
00:19:07
in 2016 how many professors at the top
00:19:10
five law schools endorsed Donald Trump
00:19:13
zero and and the law school examples
00:19:17
interesting because you would think it's
00:19:20
one where if you took the control law a
00:19:23
lot of academic fields are more internal
00:19:25
to academia but law is one that sort of
00:19:28
cashes out in a governmental political
00:19:31
context and taking a contrarian position
00:19:34
in theory is quite valuable you know if
00:19:36
you're a tenured law professor at
00:19:37
Harvard and you're the only law
00:19:39
professor to top law school to endorse
00:19:42
Trump o'madden I think there would be
00:19:43
like a 50% chance you would have gotten
00:19:45
nominated to the Supreme Court or
00:19:46
something like that and that that seems
00:19:48
so it seems like it's the sort of thing
00:19:50
where the contrarian the contrarian
00:19:53
thing is is quite would be quite
00:19:55
valuable and then when if nobody takes
00:19:57
that bet I mean wow there must be some
00:19:59
unbelievable enforcement mechanisms and
00:20:02
it's you know it's not it's sort of like
00:20:03
a gentle version of North Korea but it's
00:20:05
it's like you know even though you have
00:20:07
tenure it's like wow they can they can
00:20:10
relegate you to some broom closet and
00:20:13
play loud music or something I mean
00:20:15
they'll figure out something some way to
00:20:17
punish you Silicon Valley we've
00:20:21
discussed this a number of times when
00:20:22
you were starting PayPal you have said
00:20:25
many times the whole valley felt as if
00:20:28
it was truly dedicated to free markets
00:20:30
and entrepreneurship and if you talked
00:20:32
about politics you were wasting your
00:20:34
time today it feels woke more than woke
00:20:37
I'm going to quote you again in recent
00:20:40
years Silicon Valley has become
00:20:42
completely deranged close quote what is
00:20:46
the nature of that derangement and how
00:20:48
did that happen well this is what this
00:20:51
one's actually hard for me to explain
00:20:52
because it's it's it's it's it's it's
00:20:55
it's quite uh it's it's a it's a
00:20:58
remarkable shift certainly from from 20
00:21:00
years ago I I would say that there is a
00:21:04
question how much how much innovation is
00:21:08
actually happening and that's that I
00:21:10
always come back to where I'm somewhat
00:21:11
on the sort of side that we've we've had
00:21:14
you know generally sort of limited
00:21:17
progress and technology and science the
00:21:19
last 50 years there was you
00:21:20
very big exception and computers
00:21:23
software internet mobile internet the
00:21:24
last quarter century this was sort of
00:21:26
this narrow cone of progress in the
00:21:28
world of bits that that really drove
00:21:30
things and and I sort of wonder if if
00:21:34
there's actually less innovation
00:21:36
possible even in those areas at this
00:21:39
point so if you if you look back over
00:21:40
the last five years let's say there have
00:21:43
been fewer new consumer Internet
00:21:45
companies that have come out and sort of
00:21:47
maybe the easy ideas have been picked
00:21:49
maybe we need to move on to other areas
00:21:50
but the other areas are regulated and
00:21:52
difficult so biotech or you know um all
00:21:55
kinds of futuristic science areas are
00:21:58
deceptively hard and and we're in a zone
00:22:02
where you know the returns accrue to the
00:22:06
larger companies and so if you say if
00:22:08
you're sort of an early innovative boom
00:22:11
face like the dot-com boom in the 90s
00:22:13
it's all startups it's some small
00:22:15
companies that you start new things
00:22:17
um you know when I when I started PayPal
00:22:19
in 99 one of the questions I was always
00:22:21
asked was why can't a big bank just do
00:22:23
this and I never really had a good
00:22:26
answer to it I I now think the answer is
00:22:31
roughly that most big corporate
00:22:34
institutions are very political they're
00:22:37
very slow they're not actually good at
00:22:39
innovating and and that's that's why you
00:22:42
have startups that's why you have small
00:22:44
companies that's why you're able to
00:22:46
emerge and the big banks are too
00:22:47
political to do anything new and so if
00:22:49
you can do something anyone can do
00:22:50
reasonably quickly there's their space
00:22:52
to do this and I think that the ratio of
00:22:55
these bigger to smaller ones has shifted
00:22:57
a lot and it is probably just a less
00:23:01
innovative place and so in this cash is
00:23:04
out you know in all sorts of in all
00:23:06
sorts of ways in all sorts of ways in
00:23:08
all sorts of ways politically there's of
00:23:10
course you know these things are always
00:23:11
over determined you can say it's it's
00:23:13
it's linked to California California was
00:23:15
you know a 50/50 Republican Democrat
00:23:18
state forty years ago now it's a d-plus
00:23:21
thirty it's the second most democratic
00:23:22
state in this country and so there's
00:23:24
sort of a way in which the environment
00:23:25
pushes it there's probably there's
00:23:28
probably a degree to which Silicon
00:23:30
Valley the work force in Silicon Valley
00:23:32
is the most educated in the country has
00:23:34
most you know advanced degrees college
00:23:36
degrees in advanced degrees and from the
00:23:38
elite universities and maybe the more
00:23:40
education you have more brainwashed you
00:23:42
are and and so there's sort of just sort
00:23:44
of a version of that so so I think it I
00:23:46
think it's sort of um you know I but but
00:23:49
I think I think there are parts of it
00:23:51
that just seem that seem you know
00:23:52
completely unhinged you know Elizabeth
00:23:54
Warren has taken out these uh these
00:23:55
banners I'm saying that you know she she
00:23:59
would on in Silicon Valley's billboard
00:24:00
saying that she would break up Facebook
00:24:02
Google Amazon for antitrust and I
00:24:04
believe maybe it's shifted a little bit
00:24:08
but the first two three quarters of 2019
00:24:11
among Google employees I think Google's
00:24:13
the craziest of the other big tech
00:24:15
companies um Elizabeth Warren got a
00:24:18
plurality of the donations she got more
00:24:20
donations than anybody else and so you
00:24:23
know if she were by some miracle to get
00:24:26
elected I think you know I think she
00:24:29
would be able to argue that even the
00:24:31
people at the big tech companies think
00:24:32
they should be destroyed and and so
00:24:35
there are there are parts of it that
00:24:36
seem seem just completely deranged in
00:24:38
ways I can't fully explain visions of
00:24:41
the future during a trip to Europe last
00:24:43
year you realize that at least in
00:24:45
Western Europe there are really only
00:24:47
three visions of the future on offer
00:24:50
vision one accommodation more or less in
00:24:54
one way or another with Sharia explain
00:24:58
well well I would say that I think in in
00:25:02
politics or culture for the future to
00:25:05
have power over the present me start
00:25:07
with the general point it has to it has
00:25:09
to be different from the present the
00:25:11
future has power because it's a time
00:25:13
that will look different from the
00:25:14
present and and and so it can't just be
00:25:18
an endless Groundhog Day if it's just
00:25:21
always the same it's just always
00:25:22
repetition then the future does not have
00:25:25
any appeal and that's not part of a
00:25:27
political agenda and so if we if we look
00:25:30
at Europe and we say well how will
00:25:32
Europe be different from from from the
00:25:36
way it is today in the future I think
00:25:39
there's sort of three pictures of a very
00:25:41
different future and sort of behind door
00:25:43
number one is Islamic sharia law and if
00:25:46
you're a woman you'll be wearing a burqa
00:25:48
so that's a very different picture of
00:25:50
the future it's very concrete behind
00:25:52
door number two is the Chinese Communist
00:25:56
a I and it's the big eye of Sauron that
00:25:58
we're watching you at all times in all
00:26:00
places that's a door number two for the
00:26:02
future and door number three is the
00:26:06
green movement and you will be puttering
00:26:09
around in an East scooter and you'll be
00:26:11
separating out your garbage and
00:26:13
recycling can and and and then and then
00:26:17
I think the the challenges that there
00:26:19
are no other doors those are the three
00:26:20
options and this is a even though I'm
00:26:23
you know I'm not I'm not a crazy
00:26:24
environmentalist this is this is this
00:26:26
would be my sort of our argument for why
00:26:29
the green stuff has so much traction in
00:26:31
Europe it's if those are the only three
00:26:33
options you know I mean I'll go with
00:26:35
greater so but so but there are two
00:26:41
places maybe I'm putting this to you to
00:26:43
see what you think of it where there is
00:26:45
a fourth vision of the future that
00:26:47
involves economic growth a reassertion
00:26:50
of economic growth a reassertion of
00:26:52
national sovereignty and a reassertion
00:26:56
of cultural self-confidence and those
00:26:58
two places would be the United Kingdom
00:27:00
of Boris Johnson and the United States
00:27:02
of Donald Trump you're going to go for
00:27:05
that I I would go with much more much
00:27:09
more than you know well the UK is sort
00:27:13
of you us much more than the UK but I'll
00:27:15
drop out Lee I'm just what your vote for
00:27:19
I'd go with Israel over the UK before of
00:27:22
course me to listen to but but sure
00:27:24
let's say let's say US UK Israel I'll go
00:27:26
with those three okay okay that's that's
00:27:30
that's usually try to ask questions you
00:27:34
pay sort of halfway between it's halfway
00:27:36
between the US and Europe so it's you
00:27:39
know it's it's a it's better than Europe
00:27:41
it's worse than the US all right Peter
00:27:44
according you again last November I
00:27:46
would encourage us and you were talking
00:27:48
to a conservative crowd like this crowd
00:27:50
I would encourage us to rethink the
00:27:53
doctrine of American exceptionalism what
00:27:56
did you mean by that
00:27:58
well it's it's um it's it's it's it's
00:28:04
again it's it's this question of how you
00:28:09
know how we're stacking up as a as a as
00:28:12
a country and and I think the you know
00:28:15
the the analogy that I have made to
00:28:19
exceptionalism is is that it's it's like
00:28:21
it's like the radically monotheistic God
00:28:24
of Islam and Judaism where it's so
00:28:27
one-of-a-kind and so radically different
00:28:29
that it can't be compared or measured in
00:28:32
any way and so when we say that we are
00:28:35
exceptional
00:28:36
we are often saying that we're so
00:28:38
different that we can't even make sense
00:28:40
of how we're doing and then one gets the
00:28:43
suspicion that there's a way that
00:28:45
exceptionalism can degenerate into a
00:28:47
cover for all sorts of things that are
00:28:49
exceptionally out of kilter and so we
00:28:51
have a society in which people are
00:28:53
exceptionally addicted to opioids we
00:28:55
have a society in which people are
00:28:56
exceptionally overweight or we have a
00:28:58
society in which people are
00:29:00
exceptionally unselfish and and the
00:29:05
alternative that I would that I would
00:29:08
pose is something more like greatness
00:29:10
where it is it's a comparative function
00:29:12
and we would ask questions you know how
00:29:14
are we stacking up how are we stacking
00:29:16
up compared to our past how are we
00:29:18
stacking up compared to other countries
00:29:20
and and that's where there all sorts of
00:29:22
questions that would come to the fore
00:29:24
you know I think I think coming back to
00:29:26
the the stagnation one you know one of
00:29:28
the things that I would want to quantify
00:29:31
more is you know we in the world of
00:29:33
science we can quantify things to annex
00:29:36
credible degree of Avogadro's number the
00:29:38
fine structure constant physics all
00:29:40
these things are precise to many
00:29:41
significant figures but the question
00:29:43
about the rate of progress of science of
00:29:46
innovation is incredibly unquantified
00:29:49
and it's just sort of hand waving and if
00:29:51
you sort of have service Pangloss Ian's
00:29:54
hand waving where everything's
00:29:56
exceptional and we're accelerating at
00:29:58
the fastest pace possible and it's not
00:30:00
measurable my my sort of suspicion is
00:30:02
that these are sort of the ever narrower
00:30:05
communities of sub experts the string
00:30:07
theorists the cancer researchers telling
00:30:10
us how great other strings there is some
00:30:12
cancer
00:30:12
Searchers respectively are it's a it's a
00:30:14
place where there's no outside check no
00:30:16
reality check
00:30:17
no no ability to really keep score and
00:30:20
you are you are certainly not
00:30:22
exceptional and you're not even great
00:30:25
once again from the history of the Mont
00:30:27
Pelerin Society quote the original
00:30:29
members shared a common sense of crisis
00:30:31
a conviction that freedom was being
00:30:33
threatened and that something should be
00:30:34
done about it they concluded that the
00:30:36
threat arose from erroneous Theory so
00:30:38
they committed themselves not to
00:30:40
political action but to winning the
00:30:42
intellectual battle of ideas close quote
00:30:45
here are some members of the mount
00:30:47
Pelerin society over the years Milton
00:30:49
Friedman Friedrich Hayek George Stigler
00:30:50
Gary Becker James Buchanan and others
00:30:53
have won Nobel prizes has the
00:30:56
intellectual battle been won such that
00:30:59
we should all shift our attention to
00:31:02
political action well it's um I don't I
00:31:09
don't think the intellectual battle is
00:31:11
ever fully over because I don't think
00:31:13
history is over alright and I I would
00:31:17
say um I would save anything if I if I
00:31:20
had to sort of characterize the the
00:31:23
intellectual landscape you know we've
00:31:27
been in a world for a very long time in
00:31:30
which somehow the range of intellectual
00:31:33
debate has gotten more and more narrow
00:31:35
and you sort of know the Overtoun
00:31:37
windows shift to the left but generally
00:31:39
in an ever narrower way and you could
00:31:42
sort of say that we've been in a bear
00:31:45
market for ideas I think for something
00:31:47
like the last 50 years and so you know a
00:31:50
lot of people you cited I think of as
00:31:51
pre the late 1960s and and that in the
00:31:54
last 50 years if you had crazy ideas he
00:31:57
could ideas that were outside the box
00:31:59
those were always bad and you got
00:32:01
clobbered and you couldn't get tenure
00:32:03
you couldn't even you couldn't get
00:32:04
funding because everything was
00:32:06
peer-reviewed up the wazoo and and and I
00:32:10
think we're now at a point where we've
00:32:14
been in such a long bear market for
00:32:16
ideas and the Overton Window is so
00:32:18
uncomfortably narrow that I would I
00:32:21
would be long ideas more than any other
00:32:24
point in the last 50 years
00:32:26
I think I think we're not going to find
00:32:28
solutions inside the intellectual
00:32:31
straightjacket in which our universities
00:32:33
in our society put us and I think I
00:32:37
think there will be positive returns to
00:32:39
ideas greater than there have been in
00:32:40
the last 50 years last couple of
00:32:42
questions one this one begins again by
00:32:44
quoting Milton Friedman I believe a
00:32:47
relatively free economy is a necessary
00:32:49
condition for a Democratic Society
00:32:51
but I also believe there is evidence
00:32:54
that a Democratic Society once
00:32:56
established destroys a free economy
00:32:59
close quote
00:33:01
do we really have any reason at all for
00:33:04
optimism or is the whole magnificent
00:33:06
project doomed I just I just um I you
00:33:11
know I'm not I'm not sure like I think
00:33:13
always extreme optimism extreme
00:33:15
pessimism are both equally wrong it's
00:33:17
always you know as a libertarian we
00:33:19
should always the libertarians we should
00:33:21
always come back to the question of
00:33:23
individual agency and it's it's it's not
00:33:26
these these large historic forces and
00:33:28
there are there are libertarian or
00:33:30
pseudo libertarian narratives in which
00:33:32
there were these large historic forces
00:33:34
and we sort of definitively won these
00:33:36
battles but that's that's not even true
00:33:38
to to the spirit of free markets or
00:33:42
belief in individuals there's always
00:33:44
room for history there's always room for
00:33:46
new ideas and these things are are never
00:33:49
definitively decided one way or the
00:33:51
other
00:33:51
all right last question and this touches
00:33:53
on the notion of greatness that you were
00:33:55
discussing a moment ago George Kennan
00:33:58
the issue of soviet-american relations
00:34:00
is in essence a test of the overall
00:34:04
worth of the United States to avoid
00:34:07
destruction the United States need only
00:34:09
measure up to its own best traditions
00:34:12
and prove itself worthy of preservation
00:34:14
as a great nation Kenan writes that in
00:34:18
1951 if we replace the reference to the
00:34:22
Soviet Union with a reference to China
00:34:25
would you subscribe to that statement
00:34:27
today yes and I I don't I don't know I
00:34:38
always I'm always uncomfortable with
00:34:39
saying it's a simple template though so
00:34:42
so if we just go with the simple
00:34:43
template it's to automatic and then if
00:34:46
it's to automatic we're back in your in
00:34:48
your berlin tear down this wall speech
00:34:50
and then we've replaced the reference
00:34:52
and we're you know we we know china's a
00:34:55
soviet union and because we say it's the
00:34:56
soviet union we don't need to do
00:34:57
anything else because we knew that just
00:34:59
all happened on its own and you know in
00:35:02
practice you know the Cold War was one
00:35:04
and you know in you know very specific
00:35:07
ways that was sort of there were sort of
00:35:09
a whole series of concrete situations
00:35:11
that you had to deal with and and the
00:35:14
rival with with China it's it's somewhat
00:35:16
different that's happening in an
00:35:17
Information Age not industrial age it's
00:35:19
happening it's you know there's sort of
00:35:24
a there's sort of a global a global
00:35:25
competition question there's a there's
00:35:29
sort of a way in which the two economies
00:35:31
are very deeply connected
00:35:32
we weren't deeply connect to the Soviet
00:35:34
Union so there are sort of a lot of
00:35:36
things about it that are are very
00:35:38
different and and I think yeah we have
00:35:41
to you know it's not like 2020 is like
00:35:44
1951 or like you know 1989 2020 is like
00:35:49
2020 which is much less helpful but much
00:35:52
more accurate peter thiel thank you
00:35:57
[Music]
