Peter Thiel: belief

Transcript context

…In an age increasingly dominated by intellectual ability, what should a person of modest cognitive ability do with his life, to find meaning or make a contribution? Related to that, what person of average, or modest, intelligence do you admire most? [laughter] I’m not going to answer the second question, because I’m always nervous that I’d be insulting people if I did. There are a lot of things that people can do, that are strikingly underexplored. There are certainly all these vocational careers where people can do quite well. They are somehow considered not cool, not prestigious. The average plumber makes about as much as the average medical doctor. I do think this idea of what’s unfashionable is very important as an initial anchor. There’s no reason that people of average ability are going to be more pushed towards what’s fashionable than people who are very smart. I think often the smarter people are more prone to trendy, fashionable thinking because they can pick up on things, they can pick up on cues more easily, and so they’re even more trapped by it than people of average ability. I’m going to take you on in your challenge about sharing something we know to be true that everyone disagrees with, and then ask you a question about it. The truth that I know to be the case is that the future of human evolution and how we think about how we structure society lies in privately funded, managed, for-profit cities built in partnership with, but independent from, governments today in the world. My question to you, and then also I have a follow-up for Dr. Cowen, is “What do we need to do to enlist your powerful support in that view, in addition to getting introduced by someone in your inner circle?” Dr. Cowen, my question to you is, “What do we need to do to be on that stage, having a similar conversation with you and the crowd that you have managed to get out here?”…

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