Eric Weinstein, who is a mathematician, economist and Managing Director of Thiel Capital, announced on Joe Rogan Experience podcast (episode #1320) that he was launching his own podcast called “The Portal”. The Portal represents theories, mental models, views that significantly improves your way of thinking about the world. It is “dedicated to our search for a path to a more transcendent and transformative future together.” In the first episode of this podcast his guest on the show is his boss Peter Thiel. Thiel is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He co-founded PayPal and served as its CEO, founded Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund. Thiel became Facebook’s first outside investor when he acquired a 10.2% stake for $500,000 in August 2004.
In this first episode, Thiel and Weinstein discuss the link between growth and violence, and the need to rejoin the quest for a more energizing future for all levels of society.
Key Discussion Points
- Scientific progress has for the most part been stagnant since 1970-1972, with the notable exception of computer technology (both hardware and software). As an example very little progress has been made in terms of particle physics or string theory. Thiel argues that some of this may stem from the inherit correlation between progress and violence. He points out that our progress within particle physics gave birth to the atomic bomb, and quite soon rockets were developed to deliver these atomic bombs much faster and to pretty much anywhere in the world. By the early 1970s we had enough nuclear warheads to destroy the entire world about 20+ times over. At this point, further progress would not really matter in terms of violence impact, and it seems that progress more or less stagnated.
- René Girard and his mimetic theory greatly influenced Peter Thiel and made him re-evaluate his life. Mimetic theory posits that human behavior is based upon mimesis, which means that we mimic the behaviors and desires of other people as we tend to rely on mediators/models to help us identify who/what to desire. Thus, if we are not conscious about mimetic theory, we might be acting out and pursuing someone else’s life. Thus, you should aim to identify your intrinsic desire, avoiding a model in which you become a rival who compete for the same as most other people. When applying mimetic theory to business, the lesson is further not to obsess over what your competitors are doing or their strategy, but rather keep focus on how you can reach new customers and improve your service/product. Thiel applied this theory to his personal life and business ventures.
More on mimetic theory can be found in the book: “Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World” by René Girard. - Our current education system is fairly broken as it does not encourage, allow for/tolerate that people challenge the structure of our academic institutions, to improve them. It also does not enable people to deeply study very distinct fields simultaneously, as it is thought you can only excel in a field if you devote all your time to it. Thus, the system is not built to enable polymaths to flourish and the possibility of cross-pollination between disciplines is reduced. The current system is built for conservation of the status quo and people pursuing the academic path setup is very often under the spell of the mimetic theory. In other words, people are pursuing degrees they don’t really need or aspire to, only because they have copied the desire from someone else, or society at large.
- Preference falsification: people very often have one opinion in public and a completely different one in private. This is exacerbated by political correctness. Thus, e.g. elections in such a climate can render very surprising results.
- When observing political debates, pay close attention to where the energy is coming from. Politicians often draw energy from, and people often applaud, the call-to-arms to bring down the bad people (whomever those might be in that given context). Whereas talks about everyone uniting around a common cause, working in solidarity, no bad guys to remove, often does not stir up as much enthusiasm or energy in a crowd. Thiel argues that all through history some level of violence has been required to restore order and to keep peace. The challenge, however, is to keep this amount of violence to the absolute minimum necessary. No violence is a utopia, as in order to reach a state of absolute peace, one might have to inflict enormous amount of violence, or the total absence of violence would (probably) inevitably lead to anarchy (as there is nothing to keep people in check). This school of thinking, its origins, backing in history and line of argumentation is covered in great depth in the book “The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age” by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg, which is a highly recommended read.
- Thiel is very interested in longevity (increasing the human life span) and have invested in biotech companies and funded research by Aubrey de Grey and others. Aubrey de Grey is an English author and theoretician in the field of gerontology and the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation. He has previously visited the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on 22.April 2015 (episode #638) in which he shared more info about the programs he is overseeing, the results so far and the estimated timelines for when the treatments will be available to the public.
Update: Aubrey de Grey re-appeared in February 2020 on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast (episode #1432) to share the status of the ongoing research.
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