Peter Thiel has a bunch of pretty interesting things to say here. But it seemed that all Cornell West and many of the students wanted to talk about is social justice. I got the feeling they were there to “confront this greedy white man about prejudice.” Of course those questions are sometimes worth asking, but an obsessive search for oppression in every nook and cranny can often be counterproductive. This guy is out there trying to spur innovation and, in his own way, make the world a better place. Maybe replace the sanctimony with some charitableness.
From my experience, West is actually one of the more reasonable, amiable and nuanced commentators on race / social justice and not someone who would just point to "white men" as the problem.
David M or we could think about things differently to unleash innovation by listening to ideas that historically are often suppressed or disregarded such as the racial wealth gap and the high inflation of both higher education and healthcare costs.
Most of today's pressing malaise in the US, can be due to the loss of "Public Life", West (as usual) is right on key. Go look at the first country to FULLY EMBRACE technology, Japan, they are the canary in the coal mine for showing that the hyper-individualization, consumeristic ego-fulfillment ("i'm going to be famous one day/a millionaire/happy, i KNOW IT"), and technology's ability to so quickly fulfill our desires (but lowest common denominator e.g. cheeto's and video games--or if you're middle class: trader joe's and netflix), which we think makes us happy (it doesn't, the stoics have preached this from thousands of years ago). Desiring and getting exactly what you want (and when you don't get it it's an "affront" to your freedoms--both the right and left think this: one with "guns, free market, etc", the other with "social justice and kind words") is the impulsivity that a child thinks with, and it does not bring happiness, the most-so when you actually get what you want. But it's a great way to sell people shit, even though they're obese, in debt, and rent out a storage facility to store all their useless bullshit.
If you missed when Thiele was speaking about Henry George then you missed him speaking about social justice. Perhaps you've succumbed to the Orwellian newspeak too. Social justice is an inherently good concept. That other Jesus guy spoke about it too. Or would you prefer antisocial injustice? Perhaps they were speaking with or from some envy too, but don't be against social justice just cos some greedy person told you to be.
You hit the nail on the head. Some o the questions were just the idiotic students emoting their biases about everything. Really sad to see such a smart guy have to answer such dumb questions.
You know you're at the ivy league when the first question to a tech investor is about sexism. That was a perfect encapsulation of his claim that we have a culture of stagnation.
Or maybe your response encapsulates the way that white males privilege their own view and assume the subject of sexism (which presumably is far more relevant to the questioner than it is to you personally) is somehow unserious or demonstrates a "culture of stagnation."
@@MagicPeaceLove The most "over represented" group in Silicon Valley are asian men. They faced mountains of historical racism in decades past. I'm not impressed by people who think they're oppressed til the end of time, when so many other groups quite easily overcome it with hard work.
The subject here was male supremacy & sexism, which you have tried to redirect using a tired conservative strawman argument. Your could try listening to alternative voices rather than reflexively dismissing them.
@@MagicPeaceLove You did not understand, he was giving an example of how a once underprivileged group managed to work its way to the top. So stop complaining and get to work.
I am a third question in and I cannot believe it. I was expecting people will ask about robots, AI, cryptocurrency, economics, geopolitics, and future of progress. So far they are just platitudes about gender and race. I am just waiting to hear about transgender...
well i have not gotten to the questions yets..but it looks like it not worth watching that long ..in 5-10 years the students will be trying to figure out how to pay their 6 figures in college debt ..when robots and ai .. or better educated and much cheeper to use people in asia ..are doing the jobs they got degrees to do ..
American "Elite" institutions have been captured by the most puritanical, self-righteous dogmatists (also this lecture was given in the humanities, I suspect if this had be given in another department it wouldn't have been so anti-progress).
@@ramdas363 it's thiel who is dressed like a toddler and talking in short sentences and constantly saying "um" "and" "uh". as far as speaking grade level, he is the lowest of the three. but that's to be expected since he is a business man not a professor. better to be a rambling bum than a far right authoritarian billionaire
I never heard Peter Thiel before and was very pleasantly surprised at how reasonable and down-to-earth he is. Definitely some interesting threads. Meanwhile, the professors and students do a great job of demonstrating why our country is terrible at innovation: because they're only interested in pushing communism and identity politics and don't care about anything about innovation or actually building value. When all you want to do is redistribute wealth, it's not surprising that you have no answers for how to foster innovation.
man these days the societal focus (i.e. what our time, consideration and resources are directed towards) is either too narrow or too broad...and when its too narrow, we usually focus on the wrong things ! I wish I lived in a world where the 'big thinking' of intellectuals like thiel drove the ideation process and productive output, instead of what we have today 😭
1:37:20 "How can we avoid this evil capitalist system of nepotism" Literally 10 seconds later "Give it up for the son of Roberto!!! Wooo!!! Please clap for nepotism"..... Astounding self-blindness.
I thought the same. You can see Peter cringe at Cornell west's hypocrisy in how he gave that kid some special attention. Hes destroying his students with false illusions of racism and entitlement when they are some of the most entitled people on the planet. Harvard is a joke now.
Thiel didn’t clap. He knew what was going on and always thinks for himself. Never clap because other people around you are clapping, clap because you want to.
I totally agree to your well written short statement...such great rivers of debate to put their hands in, growth is needed for a free society to function...because in a zero sum society, ie no growth, your freedom is taken from somebody else. Nope, they just opened their little red books to psalm 1984. AT FUCKING HARVARD
This is a truly remarkable video, so telling, starting from the mere geometry of the scene: -- Thiel is flanked on either side by two aging, name-brand professors. On the right C. West, a visual self-caricature with his tired 3-piece suit+pocketwatch and hyperbolic Afro, a look that is not aging well. The talk starts with some mumbled reference to "intimate little tableside chit chat". Hmm I see how convenient, that means honored guest PT is literally boxed in. -- On the left, R. Unger, nervously fidgeting in his swivel-chair, impatient to get his words in, looking like a little boy uncomfortable his first suit. -- On the right, C. West very soon moves in even closer, PT clearly taken aback by the personal space violation, shifting a little in response to C. West's intrusion. C. West spends nearly the entire talk crouched, elbows on knees, angled in and insinuating that he's ready to pounce. The old leftists demonstrate their decrepit ideologies with two favorite tactics on full display. C. West attempts to ape the 60s Black oratory tradition with his "brothers and sisters" and exaggerated (and well-timed) African American Vernacular to his enthralled audience in the audience. R. Unger in a truly amazing display of ivory-towerism combined incoherent long-winded diatribe with multiple references to his own Marxist ideas that presumably got him tenure 50 years ago and were seemingly being taught to the students in the class as 2019-relevant (yes PT I wanted to know as well, WTF is "the new vanguardism"??) in the form of "questions" designed specifically to NOT genuinely understand what the class GUEST thought about the subject at hand. Settled behind the immovable desk, with no means of escape and so close to his new friends that from either side he gets hit by the hot air exhaled by both old men's bloviations, PT then gets barraged with questions from an UN-MIC'd (!!) audience. We can barely comprehend their specific questions, they won't be left for the record, no matter, they took the lead from their professors so very well and with an esteemed guest in their midst somehow managed to make every question about themselves, trying to catch PT in a "gotcha" moment where he might stumble and inadvertently cause insult. Or they launched into soft-polite tirades upbraiding PT for something or another via the way only the ignorant+arrogant can. Physically trapped in an old mildewing institution and literally between two of the old mildewing academics it enables, PT faces the firing squad and respectfully engaged these student-footsoldiers and thankfully THIS TIME nobody dies. But don't miss the geometry here, it's really key, and it's dead serious. This is a classic YT video in both content and form, visually and aurally. It encapsulates PT's thinking so well, and then the video ITSELF proves him right, irrefutably, in real time, for all of us to see.
1:37:20 "How can we avoid this evil capitalist system of nepotism" Literally 10 seconds later "Give it up for the son of Roberto!!! Wooo!!! Please clap for nepotism"..... Astounding self-blindness. Also the comment from West about "Monopolies" where PT shot back with,"yes, like Harvard" sent West into a huff. They are prisoners to a sick system, perpetrators of their own captivity, and willfully bind to both. Osiris, old and blind, ready for the fall.
Great summary. This was probably the weirdest PT video I've seen, and I've watched them all. Totally weird comments by West, and the invasion of personal space was totally weird too.
Fascinating it's as if Thiel is from the future and the audience (including the profs to some extent) are just trying to sort of rustle in the cave a bit, many not even grasping the ideas and tone of what he is talking about. His retorts are legendary here, this is an exploration of the current University environment, if this is Harvard....
Entitled Student at one of the "Best" universities in the world - There are not enough women and minorities in positions of power as founders in Silicon Valley. How are we going to change that? Peter - You can change that yourself by starting a company of your own in Silicon Valley. Entitled Student at one of the "Best" universities in the world - And this is the "best" and brightest we have??? This is the attitude and level of logic these people possess???
Yeah, see this is really troubling territory for feminists. The data shows quite clearly that women are doing just fine - if not outperforming men - in the mean. Where the "gaps" start to manifest is at the extreme tail of the curve. And while the tail of the curve favors men, it tends to also greatly favor entrepreneurs/creators. The entrepreneur knows how the game works to make real money and acquire power...you don't climb someone else's ladder, you create the ladder. And this is bad news for feminists because it's one thing to allege that a ladder someone else created and controls is rigged against you, but that argument loses virtually all of its weight when its YOU that does/does not create the ladder. For women to truly take the reigns of power/wealth, therefore, they necessarily CAN'T focus on alleged inequities in others' creations. They must be the creators. Current feminism has it backwards.
No one wants to hear inconvenient truths. People are allergic to hearing any view that contradicts their dogma, even when it is compelling. This is such a problem in our society. I am constantly trying to be more open minded and less chained to any ism or label, but it is difficult I must admit. I think some are worse than others, obviously this group is among the worst.
Also indicative of the fucking attitude of these kids. There isn't any point to her saying that other than to signal her dissaproval of him. Its just passive aggressive nonsense
I think Thiel’s stance and the associated responses, irregardless of the climate of discrimination and lack of diversity in tech, is a great demonstration of a value system people aren’t really taught anymore; we need to be more focused on creating new firms and institutions, rather than attempting to join established one. Entrepreneurship and ingenuity over risk aversion.
I'm stunned at the ignorance of the students and professors at Harvard. If they show this attitude at a job interview good luck,lol. They should be angry at the money being spent while to learn socialism.
The Harvard gang seem to see almost every issue through the lens of power redistribution and social justice, whilst Thiel argues for a decentralised individual empowerment. Enjoyed both point of views, whilst I resonated with the Thiel. Thanks for sharing. Please fix your microphone. 😂
If anything, the fact that Thiel was willing to speak there is very valuable, these kids are in their bubble being indocrinated with 1 viewpoint. At least they are hearing something that challenges their assumptions.
The two academics are leaning forward aggressively and invading Peter’s personal space - which appears very rude and intentional. If I were him, I’d be annoyed to say the least. They’re trying so hard to ‘school’ him and to prove a point, yet he’s proven time and again that he can’t be schooled! It's better to listen to such a brilliant man with an open mind without prejudice, or else you will remain set in the same beliefs that have failed you. Clay Christensen and Milton Friedman are two of the most influential academics IMO, because they speak for themselves in an attempt to truly educate, vs. being beholden to the powers that be. Socialists always, always play the victim. If you're not happy with the way things are, why not work to try and change things for the better? Because you risk failure or damaging your sensitive aristocratic egos? Thiel is suggesting to snap out of this envious ideology, and for more folks to begin creating their own economic value vs. having it handing to them via special titles, pedigrees or entitlements. What a concept? P.S. I’m surprised he didn’t throw out the -$1 Tril student loan debt bombshell into the conversation, instead it appears he carefully chose his words to prevent sparking even more controversy.
Lol. I think he's a funny and personable man. I would love to have a coffee and a laugh with him. But I would not entrust him to solve, or identify solutions to, complex problems. Much love to the brother, though.
@@oldboy9267 Social justice is a stillborn concept in and of itself. Hayek and others demolished it in the 70s or earlier. An injustice is a violation of rights by some against specific others.
1. Cornel West's thinking is pragmatic and critical. 2. When people comment on how social justice considerations due to historical persecution and genocide are irrelevant their forms of thought are most likely irrelevant.
This was painful and embarrassing to watch. Thiel was an order of magnitude smarter than the two "professors," and the students at this event. Pay attention to how both the "professors," deliberately obfuscate their positions when they speak, C.West being a more egregious example. Someone who is clear headed and has a well thought out idea doesn't need to hide behind verbal diarrhea. Thiel, even though his ideas are complex, they are and, this is a more important aspect, CAN be put forth in a simple manner that an average person can understand. On a meta level, if this is the level of discourse the best academy can produce, then its too late. America is lost. Its a matter of when the rest will wakeboarding to reality. It is spectacular how a competent, industrious, and confident nation has been reduced to this sorry state. All I can hope for is that the American spirt lives on and isn't forgotten. Maybe in the future some other civilization can learn from our mistakes.
This is what Harvard has come to, they have one of the great minds of gen x in front of them talking about the major issues of the day and all they can do is ask him about social justice. The hour was later than I thought.
Besides being contrarian, I think more so that Theil is a natural skeptic. He likes to question everything to come to a more concrete analysis as opposed to just agreeing with everything. Broadly speaking, he reminds me a lot of the famous skeptic Michael Shermer.
And a basic sound check so when he turns one direction the sound doesn’t suck. It’s a perfect example of what is wrong. No one seems to care cause they’re all focussed on the wrong things.
I was stunned when cornel west asked Thiel about where they get the capital to start a business and the setting is Harvard. Are they nuts, they are the privileged and to waste time on trying to think about how to change your employers culture may also be the reason why you dont provide a profitable service. Harvard is now a joke teaching people to see through lenses of racism which is exactly what will slow their progress in business and life. Labels and victimhood while being at Harvard is laughable and I have no pity for these privileged brats at Harvard complaining from their gilded halls while not enriching themselves with the wisdom of its previous generations.
1:50 onwards "There's a lot of learnt helplessness... It will be super powerful to change that... One of the new age things I've started asking people - tell me what's going to happen to your company - based on the answer you will know if the company will succeed or not"
Good lord the lady upset he told them a straight answer cause it hurt their feelings?! Talk about a tone deaf room unable to even see what Thiel is taking about. It scares me that this is a top tier university. To then ask about a totally unrelated court case was also insulting. Go and look it up. He was right to fight for that invasion of everyone’s privacy.
Wow, I mean you hear stories about socjus and the effect it's having in universities, but damn, to see how obsessed and naive these students are is pretty depressing. The sad thing is, while they're all focusing their energies in abstractions allegedly preventing them from starting the next Microsoft, to the extent that there will be a next wave of such companies in the US (at this rate, I'm starting to wonder), those entrepreneurs are busy building those companies. These poor souls think they're the next leaders of society. How quaint.
They don’t understand the power of capitalism to change the world with constant feedback from the masses. They think a sheltered bubble knows best with little feedback. It’s sad.
Was happy to hear this over lunch, but then read the comments and have a feeling it is going to go sideways from what I was hoping to hear. What a shame these students didn't take advantage of having him there for Q&A. Lets see if they prove me wrong.
17:44 29:10 I think Peter is right. The war on drugs and the war on terror probably weren't winnable with our current strategies. Also, it's funny how Cornell only mentioned the old wars that are seen positively. And not the more recent failures 1:13:28 1:32:06 Complex Coordination or Systems Engineering 1:27:20 How do you keep yourself accountable, in touch with reality, whats really going on, and make sure you doing actual good?
I've been trying to figure out what the setting and context are here? Is this a class at Harvard? A club event? Part of a symposium on some specific subject? And what were the "rules of engagement?"
love seeing peoeple disagree it really makes me think about my own ideas! thank you mr Thiel and Prof. West! this is what education and freedom is about!
This is so telling, professors are so disconnected from real life they aren’t able to ask a simple question without academic and detached undertones. Peter keeps trying to talk about specific issues in a national context and everyone else seems entranced on general issues as portrayed by academic literature. I now get why Thiel thinks we are screwed.
I think all this aggressive grievance culture at places like Harvard just proved Peter's point. If even Harvard grads are talking about how hard it is and looking for a handout, we are screwed.
here you have three guys sitting in a sickly grayish light uncomfortably around a to small desk with one guy hard to hear and another coughing in his mike it splits your ear talking about what ? Technology, Innovation etc
Absolute genius and people only want to ask ideological questions.. Why not ask about the future? Ask deeper questions about life and philosophy. Instead the guy asks about greed.... Yes yes the greedy rich people hate the poor ...
Maybe yes but these universities used to be A LOT better and they used to have intelligent teachers. It's scary how fast the decay has progressed over the past few years. Without proper education, future generations are lost.
Please mic the audience/students next time. Not because their questions were sensible or intelligent but simply for integrity of the historical record and even more simply so that we can hear what is being discussed.
Some interesting comments from Mr. Thiel, but this is an embarrassing video for Harvard in all other respects. This is what passes as the height of intellectual pursuit at a top-tier university today? We're all doomed if so.
Just got into the questions, jesus friggin christ. They have Peter Thiel there in PERSON and they are like "I thought your answer to my question about gender blablah was condesending..." Really pisses me off that they are wasting his time with this bullcrap
Thiel: I want humanity to lift itself to the next level. Everyone: But equality? Shouldn't we invest all our resources into ensuring equality because equality equality, making equality women people of colour women especially trans women and trans people of women colour global south deconstructing patriarchal whiteness? Thiel:
The universe is basically infinite though. There’s more energy than can use need just in solar energy each day and that’s ignoring wind and fusion energy which I believe we will work out one day. Then multi planetary growth. You aren’t thinking even remotely big enough. Try and focus o growth mindset vs closed mindset.
@@MusicalMemeology The universe is for all intents and purposes infinite. Our access to it is not, so whether or not we are dealing with a closed system problem is effectively a matter of timing. Can we develop workable fusion in time for it to make a meaningful difference for our energy needs - potentially to likely. Will this solve all of our problems. No, some of them but not all. Can we align incentives and policy with the deployment of solar, wind and renewables? If you are dealing with rational countries like Germany then yes potentially. Everywhere else - not really as they appear to be sufficiently mired in vested interest corruption and political negligence/malfeasance that even this no-brainer is not happening nearly fast enough. Can we marshal the colossal resources in the time frame required to get off-planet and be self-sustaining out there before the biosphere on earth collapses - very unlikely and getting more unlikely as time goes on. Even assuming we get out into our solar system the physics of interstellar travel - under our current understanding of the universe for sure - is so daunting that it's a potentially insoluble problem. So we may be confined to our solar system - which is a broader horizon but still one that will fill up remarkably quickly with constant growth. It's simple mathematical problem to solve. I hope I'm wrong on all this - I used to be more optimistic but all I've seen in my lifetime is people being pretty exclusively incapable of solving problems on multi-generational timescales and only causing more problems along the way.
Hey Peter Thiel, if you can read this. Please do more discussions, interviews and advising. I believe you could be a great independent negotiator too for political parties, countries and companies. It's very rare to possess your intelligence, please share it with us more often.
Imagine if something happened to PT. They need to preserve him because society would seriously be missing out if he were gone. He’s _that_ valuable of a thinker in my opinion.
Wow did anyone else feel major second hand discomfort at the body language of the other panelists towards Peter Theil? I felt something was off from the moment I started the video
I love how the rest of the American Democracy lectures has views in the triple digits while this one has 100k, hopefully shows where the cultural zeitgeist is heading
![Megan Thee Stallion - Roc Steady (feat. Flo Milli) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HozPPyqW0dY/mqdefault.jpg)
who else searches peter thiel every month to see what new ideas he's thinking about
thiel squad report in
qwertyuiop123456789 🙋🏾♂️
confirmed
Here
been there
@qwertyuiop123456789 yup
Audience confirms Thiel's thesis.
🤣🤣🤣
so sad man😩
He has said that it is a combination of nature vs culture, I wonder if this talk made him put more weight on the culture side. lol
Peter Thiel has a bunch of pretty interesting things to say here. But it seemed that all Cornell West and many of the students wanted to talk about is social justice. I got the feeling they were there to “confront this greedy white man about prejudice.” Of course those questions are sometimes worth asking, but an obsessive search for oppression in every nook and cranny can often be counterproductive. This guy is out there trying to spur innovation and, in his own way, make the world a better place. Maybe replace the sanctimony with some charitableness.
From my experience, West is actually one of the more reasonable, amiable and nuanced commentators on race / social justice and not someone who would just point to "white men" as the problem.
David M or we could think about things differently to unleash innovation by listening to ideas that historically are often suppressed or disregarded such as the racial wealth gap and the high inflation of both higher education and healthcare costs.
Most of today's pressing malaise in the US, can be due to the loss of "Public Life", West (as usual) is right on key.
Go look at the first country to FULLY EMBRACE technology, Japan, they are the canary in the coal mine for showing that the hyper-individualization, consumeristic ego-fulfillment ("i'm going to be famous one day/a millionaire/happy, i KNOW IT"), and technology's ability to so quickly fulfill our desires (but lowest common denominator e.g. cheeto's and video games--or if you're middle class: trader joe's and netflix), which we think makes us happy (it doesn't, the stoics have preached this from thousands of years ago).
Desiring and getting exactly what you want (and when you don't get it it's an "affront" to your freedoms--both the right and left think this: one with "guns, free market, etc", the other with "social justice and kind words") is the impulsivity that a child thinks with, and it does not bring happiness, the most-so when you actually get what you want.
But it's a great way to sell people shit, even though they're obese, in debt, and rent out a storage facility to store all their useless bullshit.
If you missed when Thiele was speaking about Henry George then you missed him speaking about social justice. Perhaps you've succumbed to the Orwellian newspeak too. Social justice is an inherently good concept. That other Jesus guy spoke about it too. Or would you prefer antisocial injustice? Perhaps they were speaking with or from some envy too, but don't be against social justice just cos some greedy person told you to be.
You hit the nail on the head. Some o the questions were just the idiotic students emoting their biases about everything. Really sad to see such a smart guy have to answer such dumb questions.
You know you're at the ivy league when the first question to a tech investor is about sexism. That was a perfect encapsulation of his claim that we have a culture of stagnation.
Or maybe your response encapsulates the way that white males privilege their own view and assume the subject of sexism (which presumably is far more relevant to the questioner than it is to you personally) is somehow unserious or demonstrates a "culture of stagnation."
@@MagicPeaceLove
The most "over represented" group in Silicon Valley are asian men. They faced mountains of historical racism in decades past.
I'm not impressed by people who think they're oppressed til the end of time, when so many other groups quite easily overcome it with hard work.
The subject here was male supremacy & sexism, which you have tried to redirect using a tired conservative strawman argument. Your could try listening to alternative voices rather than reflexively dismissing them.
@@MagicPeaceLove You did not understand, he was giving an example of how a once underprivileged group managed to work its way to the top. So stop complaining and get to work.
Now I get it. Women are just like Asian men. Ha ha, you're adorable.
I am a third question in and I cannot believe it. I was expecting people will ask about robots, AI, cryptocurrency, economics, geopolitics, and future of progress. So far they are just platitudes about gender and race. I am just waiting to hear about transgender...
well i have not gotten to the questions yets..but it looks like it not worth watching that long ..in 5-10 years the students will be trying to figure out how to pay their 6 figures in college debt ..when robots and ai .. or better educated and much cheeper to use people in asia ..are doing the jobs they got degrees to do ..
@@milodah they will be screaming "fuck your AI privilege" at a blinking iPad screen
American "Elite" institutions have been captured by the most puritanical, self-righteous dogmatists (also this lecture was given in the humanities, I suspect if this had be given in another department it wouldn't have been so anti-progress).
100% waisted questions . Thiel is looking at solving world piece
More Peter Thiel and less muddled thinking please
1:17:01
fuckin insanity there
The student questions are quite depressing.
I can barely hear them. They're not using a mic
Yep
I can feel Peters pain while they invade his private space.
Is that some sort of weird power play to invade his space to see if he gets uncomfortable? It’s was strange.
Peter Thiel's patience is enviable. The level of discourse from CW and the students was demoralizing..
LOL seriously
I would've lost it, although the students+CW would've loved to see that
Thiel did amazingly
It’s all bubbling up with the learned helplessness of the Marxist / Antifa movements.
Demoralization is one of the primary purposes of their ideology.
These profs look, act and speak like the rambling bums that hang around in the park next to my home.
@@ramdas363 it's thiel who is dressed like a toddler and talking in short sentences and constantly saying "um" "and" "uh". as far as speaking grade level, he is the lowest of the three. but that's to be expected since he is a business man not a professor. better to be a rambling bum than a far right authoritarian billionaire
Gods I love Peter Theil, the thinking man's...thinking man.
I never heard Peter Thiel before and was very pleasantly surprised at how reasonable and down-to-earth he is. Definitely some interesting threads.
Meanwhile, the professors and students do a great job of demonstrating why our country is terrible at innovation: because they're only interested in pushing communism and identity politics and don't care about anything about innovation or actually building value. When all you want to do is redistribute wealth, it's not surprising that you have no answers for how to foster innovation.
man these days the societal focus (i.e. what our time, consideration and resources are directed towards) is either too narrow or too broad...and when its too narrow, we usually focus on the wrong things ! I wish I lived in a world where the 'big thinking' of intellectuals like thiel drove the ideation process and productive output, instead of what we have today 😭
Down to earth, but still wants to kill all liberals.
1:37:20 "How can we avoid this evil capitalist system of nepotism" Literally 10 seconds later "Give it up for the son of Roberto!!! Wooo!!! Please clap for nepotism"..... Astounding self-blindness.
I thought the same. You can see Peter cringe at Cornell west's hypocrisy in how he gave that kid some special attention. Hes destroying his students with false illusions of racism and entitlement when they are some of the most entitled people on the planet. Harvard is a joke now.
Human Nature it's real.
Thiel didn’t clap. He knew what was going on and always thinks for himself. Never clap because other people around you are clapping, clap because you want to.
West is educated beyond his wisdom. Thiel exposes him swiftly and completely within an hour without even attacking him. What a sight to see.
@@blessedspear2642 sick burn. Stealing it. Its an example of INT and WIS DnD stats.
This was one of the best talks I’ve heard in a long time and it’s civility gives me hope.
The two professors came off as senile and the student audience didn’t take advantage of any of the hugely inspiring threads Thiel touched upon.
The guy on the left wasn't that bad, but the black guy was atrocious.
I totally agree to your well written short statement...such great rivers of debate to put their hands in, growth is needed for a free society to function...because in a zero sum society, ie no growth, your freedom is taken from somebody else. Nope, they just opened their little red books to psalm 1984. AT FUCKING HARVARD
@@ticket67what was with him sitting like that. So unprofessional invading Peters personal space.
This is a truly remarkable video, so telling, starting from the mere geometry of the scene:
-- Thiel is flanked on either side by two aging, name-brand professors. On the right C. West, a visual self-caricature with his tired 3-piece suit+pocketwatch and hyperbolic Afro, a look that is not aging well. The talk starts with some mumbled reference to "intimate little tableside chit chat". Hmm I see how convenient, that means honored guest PT is literally boxed in.
-- On the left, R. Unger, nervously fidgeting in his swivel-chair, impatient to get his words in, looking like a little boy uncomfortable his first suit.
-- On the right, C. West very soon moves in even closer, PT clearly taken aback by the personal space violation, shifting a little in response to C. West's intrusion. C. West spends nearly the entire talk crouched, elbows on knees, angled in and insinuating that he's ready to pounce.
The old leftists demonstrate their decrepit ideologies with two favorite tactics on full display. C. West attempts to ape the 60s Black oratory tradition with his "brothers and sisters" and exaggerated (and well-timed) African American Vernacular to his enthralled audience in the audience. R. Unger in a truly amazing display of ivory-towerism combined incoherent long-winded diatribe with multiple references to his own Marxist ideas that presumably got him tenure 50 years ago and were seemingly being taught to the students in the class as 2019-relevant (yes PT I wanted to know as well, WTF is "the new vanguardism"??) in the form of "questions" designed specifically to NOT genuinely understand what the class GUEST thought about the subject at hand.
Settled behind the immovable desk, with no means of escape and so close to his new friends that from either side he gets hit by the hot air exhaled by both old men's bloviations, PT then gets barraged with questions from an UN-MIC'd (!!) audience. We can barely comprehend their specific questions, they won't be left for the record, no matter, they took the lead from their professors so very well and with an esteemed guest in their midst somehow managed to make every question about themselves, trying to catch PT in a "gotcha" moment where he might stumble and inadvertently cause insult. Or they launched into soft-polite tirades upbraiding PT for something or another via the way only the ignorant+arrogant can.
Physically trapped in an old mildewing institution and literally between two of the old mildewing academics it enables, PT faces the firing squad and respectfully engaged these student-footsoldiers and thankfully THIS TIME nobody dies. But don't miss the geometry here, it's really key, and it's dead serious. This is a classic YT video in both content and form, visually and aurally. It encapsulates PT's thinking so well, and then the video ITSELF proves him right, irrefutably, in real time, for all of us to see.
1:37:20 "How can we avoid this evil capitalist system of nepotism" Literally 10 seconds later "Give it up for the son of Roberto!!! Wooo!!! Please clap for nepotism"..... Astounding self-blindness.
Also the comment from West about "Monopolies" where PT shot back with,"yes, like Harvard" sent West into a huff. They are prisoners to a sick system, perpetrators of their own captivity, and willfully bind to both. Osiris, old and blind, ready for the fall.
Great summary. This was probably the weirdest PT video I've seen, and I've watched them all. Totally weird comments by West, and the invasion of personal space was totally weird too.
masterful encapsulation sir. i hope you're a writer
Excellent summary and analysis
I think you are projecting and making wild assumptions about men much wiser and smarter than you are.
Love listening to Peter Thiel. I search "Peter Thiel" once a month to listen to his new content
Mr. Solomun Same 👏🏻
20 minutes of great content.
Fascinating it's as if Thiel is from the future and the audience (including the profs to some extent) are just trying to sort of rustle in the cave a bit, many not even grasping the ideas and tone of what he is talking about. His retorts are legendary here, this is an exploration of the current University environment, if this is Harvard....
yes, this is at Harvard
Nice observation
Wow it’s scary how far academia has fallen.
Entitled Student at one of the "Best" universities in the world - There are not enough women and minorities in positions of power as founders in Silicon Valley. How are we going to change that? Peter - You can change that yourself by starting a company of your own in Silicon Valley. Entitled Student at one of the "Best" universities in the world - And this is the "best" and brightest we have??? This is the attitude and level of logic these people possess???
@rockster10101 Neowesternism
It was an epic comment by PT haha!
Yeah, see this is really troubling territory for feminists. The data shows quite clearly that women are doing just fine - if not outperforming men - in the mean. Where the "gaps" start to manifest is at the extreme tail of the curve. And while the tail of the curve favors men, it tends to also greatly favor entrepreneurs/creators. The entrepreneur knows how the game works to make real money and acquire power...you don't climb someone else's ladder, you create the ladder. And this is bad news for feminists because it's one thing to allege that a ladder someone else created and controls is rigged against you, but that argument loses virtually all of its weight when its YOU that does/does not create the ladder. For women to truly take the reigns of power/wealth, therefore, they necessarily CAN'T focus on alleged inequities in others' creations. They must be the creators. Current feminism has it backwards.
No one wants to hear inconvenient truths. People are allergic to hearing any view that contradicts their dogma, even when it is compelling. This is such a problem in our society. I am constantly trying to be more open minded and less chained to any ism or label, but it is difficult I must admit. I think some are worse than others, obviously this group is among the worst.
Time stamp pls
Peter Thiel delivers burn after burn in this almost 2-hour long disaster of a discussion.
Thank you Peter for giving this talk.
3 questions in and they are all social justice cringe
Fourth question, girl literally responds to him by saying "but I dont waaaannnnaa start a tech company". THATS HIS POINT
Also indicative of the fucking attitude of these kids. There isn't any point to her saying that other than to signal her dissaproval of him. Its just passive aggressive nonsense
@@bradenjlloyd almost all of the questions started off by talking about themselves, "I'm doing this", "as a woman ".
I think Thiel’s stance and the associated responses, irregardless of the climate of discrimination and lack of diversity in tech, is a great demonstration of a value system people aren’t really taught anymore; we need to be more focused on creating new firms and institutions, rather than attempting to join established one. Entrepreneurship and ingenuity over risk aversion.
Personal space invaders
lol
great chat thank you. Peter Thiel always fills me with this uncanny combination of hope and terror.
1:44:47 funny how quickly Cornell wants to jump off that train and go to another question. New perspective on universities: 1:47:17
1:44:50 "You mean like Harvard?" Priceless
I'm embarrassed by the comments from the audience.
welcome to Harvard lol
I'm stunned at the ignorance of the students and professors at Harvard. If they show this attitude at a job interview good luck,lol. They should be angry at the money being spent while to learn socialism.
@@melvinbutters2865 They'll work for the state where SJW ideology is mandatory.
They should release the footage of the tennis game Thiel was watching.
an hour of "questions" holy god
Every question is about the oppression olympics. No actual questions about what students and universities can do to contribute more to innovation
I can not believe people pay so much money there, so those 2 '' professors '' will teach them.
Oskar Mika, I know, right??
Looks like a lot of the audience questioners were selected on the basis of their diversity credentials rather than their intelligence.
Great discourse. Thank you for this upload. There are a lot of refined Theil philosophies in this one.
The Harvard gang seem to see almost every issue through the lens of power redistribution and social justice, whilst Thiel argues for a decentralised individual empowerment. Enjoyed both point of views, whilst I resonated with the Thiel.
Thanks for sharing. Please fix your microphone. 😂
If anything, the fact that Thiel was willing to speak there is very valuable, these kids are in their bubble being indocrinated with 1 viewpoint. At least they are hearing something that challenges their assumptions.
Thiel is so correct. Is Yuri Bezmemov and his warnings about ideologicl subversion was correct. This identity politics is so crazy.
I don't agree with thiel on everything but yuri is a stale right wing anti-freedom propagandist religious signalling nutcase. don't compare them.
I think most of the damage is self inflicted.
@@harrison6082you do have to see how closely his warning in the 80s aligns ti today though.
These Harvard kids are absolutely brutal, just embarrassing. The entitlement is rich.
Thiel has come a long way in his public speaking abilities. I love the sit-down format. It helps open everyone up.
Matt - He’s always been brilliant at public speaking!
More hope in the youtube comments than the classroom
"hedonic adjustment in the GDP" Cornell West face goes SHEEEEITTTT
Cornell West might consider not asking leading questions again and again and perhaps some sense of personal space.
The two academics are leaning forward aggressively and invading Peter’s personal space - which appears very rude and intentional. If I were him, I’d be annoyed to say the least. They’re trying so hard to ‘school’ him and to prove a point, yet he’s proven time and again that he can’t be schooled! It's better to listen to such a brilliant man with an open mind without prejudice, or else you will remain set in the same beliefs that have failed you. Clay Christensen and Milton Friedman are two of the most influential academics IMO, because they speak for themselves in an attempt to truly educate, vs. being beholden to the powers that be. Socialists always, always play the victim. If you're not happy with the way things are, why not work to try and change things for the better? Because you risk failure or damaging your sensitive aristocratic egos? Thiel is suggesting to snap out of this envious ideology, and for more folks to begin creating their own economic value vs. having it handing to them via special titles, pedigrees or entitlements. What a concept?
P.S. I’m surprised he didn’t throw out the -$1 Tril student loan debt bombshell into the conversation, instead it appears he carefully chose his words to prevent sparking even more controversy.
One of these 3 fellows is definitely sharp as a tack.
Take a guess who that person is.
These student questioners need to step outside of Cornel West's faulty Social Justice paradigm. They've been sold lies. It's so sad to see.
i think I can safely say you've never read anything he wrote. especially in bringing up SJ.
the man is a pragmatist. of course SJ is something he must address. I think SJWs have loaded the term.
Lol. I think he's a funny and personable man. I would love to have a coffee and a laugh with him. But I would not entrust him to solve, or identify solutions to, complex problems. Much love to the brother, though.
@@oldboy9267 Social justice is a stillborn concept in and of itself. Hayek and others demolished it in the 70s or earlier. An injustice is a violation of rights by some against specific others.
1. Cornel West's thinking is pragmatic and critical. 2. When people comment on how social justice considerations due to historical persecution and genocide are irrelevant their forms of thought are most likely irrelevant.
Baddahbing!
Haven't watched but SO DAMN PUMPED to have a new Thiel Talk :)
When I get into power there will be a new Peter Thiel talk everyday!
This was painful and embarrassing to watch. Thiel was an order of magnitude smarter than the two "professors," and the students at this event. Pay attention to how both the "professors," deliberately obfuscate their positions when they speak, C.West being a more egregious example. Someone who is clear headed and has a well thought out idea doesn't need to hide behind verbal diarrhea. Thiel, even though his ideas are complex, they are and, this is a more important aspect, CAN be put forth in a simple manner that an average person can understand.
On a meta level, if this is the level of discourse the best academy can produce, then its too late. America is lost. Its a matter of when the rest will wakeboarding to reality. It is spectacular how a competent, industrious, and confident nation has been reduced to this sorry state. All I can hope for is that the American spirt lives on and isn't forgotten. Maybe in the future some other civilization can learn from our mistakes.
The future depends on people like you who understand the issues. so never give up
This is what Harvard has come to, they have one of the great minds of gen x in front of them talking about the major issues of the day and all they can do is ask him about social justice. The hour was later than I thought.
>you will admit that monopolies can be dangerous
>like harvard
BTFO
I never heard Peter Thiel before this video and after I watched this video I have yet to hear him, still.
😂
Besides being contrarian, I think more so that Theil is a natural skeptic. He likes to question everything to come to a more concrete analysis as opposed to just agreeing with everything. Broadly speaking, he reminds me a lot of the famous skeptic Michael Shermer.
The last few great thinker of our world.
Plural or singular?
It's 2019 and we still can't get Q and A videos with the questioners mic'd. Thiel is right about stagnation.
And a basic sound check so when he turns one direction the sound doesn’t suck. It’s a perfect example of what is wrong. No one seems to care cause they’re all focussed on the wrong things.
I was stunned when cornel west asked Thiel about where they get the capital to start a business and the setting is Harvard. Are they nuts, they are the privileged and to waste time on trying to think about how to change your employers culture may also be the reason why you dont provide a profitable service. Harvard is now a joke teaching people to see through lenses of racism which is exactly what will slow their progress in business and life. Labels and victimhood while being at Harvard is laughable and I have no pity for these privileged brats at Harvard complaining from their gilded halls while not enriching themselves with the wisdom of its previous generations.
Something will have to give at some point I hope. Some sort of new enlightenment.
The guy on the left was constantly fidgeting, the guy on the right was constantly nodding.
WTF are those two doing invading his personal space. It’s beyond strange to watch.
Peter Thiel is fascinating!
Please improve audio. Crazy that you have such well known people with poor audio.
Another liberal that feels entitled to better audio. Gee who saw that one coming 🙄🙄😒😒
The arrogance of these people to ask such inane questions is mind-numbing.
1:50 onwards "There's a lot of learnt helplessness... It will be super powerful to change that... One of the new age things I've started asking people - tell me what's going to happen to your company - based on the answer you will know if the company will succeed or not"
What did Peter think would happen coming to a place like this , this is a video showing 3 people conducting monologues
Peter went to Stanford Law, he knows the game.
Good lord the lady upset he told them a straight answer cause it hurt their feelings?! Talk about a tone deaf room unable to even see what Thiel is taking about. It scares me that this is a top tier university. To then ask about a totally unrelated court case was also insulting. Go and look it up. He was right to fight for that invasion of everyone’s privacy.
Wow, I mean you hear stories about socjus and the effect it's having in universities, but damn, to see how obsessed and naive these students are is pretty depressing. The sad thing is, while they're all focusing their energies in abstractions allegedly preventing them from starting the next Microsoft, to the extent that there will be a next wave of such companies in the US (at this rate, I'm starting to wonder), those entrepreneurs are busy building those companies. These poor souls think they're the next leaders of society. How quaint.
They don’t understand the power of capitalism to change the world with constant feedback from the masses. They think a sheltered bubble knows best with little feedback. It’s sad.
They get straightened out in the job market.
Was happy to hear this over lunch, but then read the comments and have a feeling it is going to go sideways from what I was hoping to hear. What a shame these students didn't take advantage of having him there for Q&A. Lets see if they prove me wrong.
17:44
29:10 I think Peter is right. The war on drugs and the war on terror probably weren't winnable with our current strategies.
Also, it's funny how Cornell only mentioned the old wars that are seen positively. And not the more recent failures
1:13:28 1:32:06 Complex Coordination or Systems Engineering
1:27:20 How do you keep yourself accountable, in touch with reality, whats really going on, and make sure you doing actual good?
I've been trying to figure out what the setting and context are here? Is this a class at Harvard? A club event? Part of a symposium on some specific subject? And what were the "rules of engagement?"
keenan Pawley it’s a Harvard Law School class.
Peter Theil 4 shadow president 🙏🏻
Peter Thiel is the greatest. These two guys just ruin it. He does handle them very well, I enjoyed that.
You get an opportunity to ask Peter Thiel anything you want and these people ask these questions. Yikes.
love seeing peoeple disagree it really makes me think about my own ideas! thank you mr Thiel and Prof. West! this is what education and freedom is about!
Resentment isn’t a virtue it’s a self-inflicted curse
This is a is a great ad for online education
Not if this is the quality of the sound.
This is the best Harvard has to offer. Save your time and money. Your not learning shit.
Great discussion Roberto, thanks for posting!
The audience seem like they are trying to teach the speakers something rather than learn something.
Personal space invasion, the black guy is strange, both dwarfed by Peters mind
This is so telling, professors are so disconnected from real life they aren’t able to ask a simple question without academic and detached undertones. Peter keeps trying to talk about specific issues in a national context and everyone else seems entranced on general issues as portrayed by academic literature. I now get why Thiel thinks we are screwed.
im just glad there were no protests. baby steps.
Great video. Had to use Ears:Bass Boost (chrome extension) to be able to hear alot of it though
Very helpful!
Thanks Buddy!
I used to be liberatrian, now i am an authoritarian monarchist.
I think all this aggressive grievance culture at places like Harvard just proved Peter's point. If even Harvard grads are talking about how hard it is and looking for a handout, we are screwed.
rich perspectives all around. theil gave the most cogent representation of libertarianism that i've come across
Great talk but could you have given Peter a better microphone?
Maybe it would be good to have a description of the topic at hand under the video description,.
Dr. West is all up in Peter's business
Space invader west.
here you have three guys sitting in a sickly grayish light uncomfortably around a to small desk with one guy hard to hear and another coughing in his mike it splits your ear talking about what ? Technology, Innovation etc
Absolute genius and people only want to ask ideological questions.. Why not ask about the future? Ask deeper questions about life and philosophy. Instead the guy asks about greed.... Yes yes the greedy rich people hate the poor ...
thiel fell back on christian philosophy at one point (7 mortal sins, particularly envy, unsurprising considering his background in mimesis). powerful.
Always remember: Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.
Maybe yes but these universities used to be A LOT better and they used to have intelligent teachers. It's scary how fast the decay has progressed over the past few years. Without proper education, future generations are lost.
@@ramdas363 it’s clearly infected the minds of the students too judging by their choice of questions. It’s a sad sight.
Great video
Please mic the audience/students next time. Not because their questions were sensible or intelligent but simply for integrity of the historical record and even more simply so that we can hear what is being discussed.
The fact of China has changed the design.
Some interesting comments from Mr. Thiel, but this is an embarrassing video for Harvard in all other respects. This is what passes as the height of intellectual pursuit at a top-tier university today? We're all doomed if so.
I love Lord of The Rings and Peter Thiel.
His company names are LOTR references
1:38:39 the guy who asked this question has my respects. He wants innovation to happen in all parts of America. Not just the major cities.
Just got into the questions, jesus friggin christ. They have Peter Thiel there in PERSON and they are like "I thought your answer to my question about gender blablah was condesending..."
Really pisses me off that they are wasting his time with this bullcrap
Thiel: I want humanity to lift itself to the next level.
Everyone: But equality? Shouldn't we invest all our resources into ensuring equality because equality equality, making equality women people of colour women especially trans women and trans people of women colour global south deconstructing patriarchal whiteness?
Thiel:
1st Question for Peter. What do the laws of thermodynamics say about the possibility of ever increasing growth in a closed system?
The universe is basically infinite though. There’s more energy than can use need just in solar energy each day and that’s ignoring wind and fusion energy which I believe we will work out one day. Then multi planetary growth. You aren’t thinking even remotely big enough. Try and focus o growth mindset vs closed mindset.
@@MusicalMemeology The universe is for all intents and purposes infinite. Our access to it is not, so whether or not we are dealing with a closed system problem is effectively a matter of timing.
Can we develop workable fusion in time for it to make a meaningful difference for our energy needs - potentially to likely. Will this solve all of our problems. No, some of them but not all.
Can we align incentives and policy with the deployment of solar, wind and renewables? If you are dealing with rational countries like Germany then yes potentially. Everywhere else - not really as they appear to be sufficiently mired in vested interest corruption and political negligence/malfeasance that even this no-brainer is not happening nearly fast enough.
Can we marshal the colossal resources in the time frame required to get off-planet and be self-sustaining out there before the biosphere on earth collapses - very unlikely and getting more unlikely as time goes on.
Even assuming we get out into our solar system the physics of interstellar travel - under our current understanding of the universe for sure - is so daunting that it's a potentially insoluble problem. So we may be confined to our solar system - which is a broader horizon but still one that will fill up remarkably quickly with constant growth. It's simple mathematical problem to solve.
I hope I'm wrong on all this - I used to be more optimistic but all I've seen in my lifetime is people being pretty exclusively incapable of solving problems on multi-generational timescales and only causing more problems along the way.
Hey Peter Thiel, if you can read this. Please do more discussions, interviews and advising. I believe you could be a great independent negotiator too for political parties, countries and companies. It's very rare to possess your intelligence, please share it with us more often.
God, I couldn’t agree more. I get so much from listening to him speak on these things.
Gap Rame Mlon Eusk already got it! I get all the updates cuz I have watched so many of his videos. Thanks though :)
Imagine if something happened to PT. They need to preserve him because society would seriously be missing out if he were gone. He’s _that_ valuable of a thinker in my opinion.
Imagine if he was president.
Wow did anyone else feel major second hand discomfort at the body language of the other panelists towards Peter Theil? I felt something was off from the moment I started the video
Pete is a God.
I love how the rest of the American Democracy lectures has views in the triple digits while this one has 100k, hopefully shows where the cultural zeitgeist is heading