Peter Thiel challenges Alex Epstein on Fossil Future
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- From Alex Epstein: "Recently I was having dinner with Peter Thiel (the billionaire investor/entrepreneur who founded PayPal and Palantir) and he raised some interesting challenges to my book Fossil Future (which he has enthusiastically endorsed). I suggested, 'Let’s record a discussion where you give me all your challenges to Fossil Future and I try to answer them.' Peter loved the idea, so we made it happen-recording a 90-minute discussion at his office in West Hollywood.
"We also ended up covering many other issues (sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing) including:
Ayn Rand
Nuclear energy
Why we both oppose the "Effective Altruism" movement
What we can learn from Elon Musk about how to create a vision
My strategy for Energy Talking Points
How to create political change"
"I hope people enjoy this unique discussion. It isn't an interview or a debate or a panel, it's a genuine discussion, including some spirited arguments-that almost exactly resembles how Peter and I discuss and argue when there is no camera."
Special thanks to Rian Doris, founder of Flow Research Collective and owner of Consulting.com, for filming, producing, and editing this video. Learn more about Rian's work here: • How To Unlock Insane F...
Get Fossil Future on Amazon: www.amazon.com...
Listen to Fossil Future on Audible: www.audible.co...
Students and educators, get a free copy of Fossil Future: fossilfuture.com
Speaking inquiries: alexepstein.co...
Media inquiries: alexepstein.co...
Get bulk discounts on Fossil Future: fossilfuture.com
Get the world’s best talking about energy: EnergyTalkingPo...
Learn more about Alex Epstein: AlexEpstein.com
Follow Alex Epstein on TH-cam: / improvetheplanet
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Support Alex’s work: alexepstein.com/accelerate
28:00 Peter raise I think one of the biggest issues with US politics. It’s a lack of moral backing that has made policy so confused over decades. If the USA had stood up for core moral values many of the issues wouldn’t exist for example funding the Taliban against Russia is arguably immoral and led to 9/11.
Alex's point is the ingenuity of man will likely solve our problems with hydro carbons, which will open new frontiers. Peter is seeing the world in current terms.
That was my take too, at least based on the first few minutes I've consumed at the time of posting.
Wrong, he is saying hydrocarbons and quadrupling production is not doable and we should be focusing on nuclear and fusion plus more fracking. Solar and ugly windmills will never be enough.
They both have good points, on one hand people will likely figure stuff out, on the other hand you can't make decisions based on that assumption.
One thing not talked enough about is the carpeting of methyl mercury all over earth from burning coal and is now in all of our food especially fish now. That’s really terrible and ash from coal generation is super toxic. I don’t hear enough people talking about this.
this was great - so refreshing to hear a post-alarmist debate about the future of energy - thank you both
They ignore every major development in the last 10 years of energy technology and focus on social philosophies and politics. If that's refreshing to you, I can't imagine the kind of "air" you're used to breathing.
@@asnark7115 they completely ignore the consequences of emissions too and the increasingly brutal effect it is having on our economies and our "prosperity", especially poorer countries who these guys claim to care about. Newest floods have left India about 5 billion $ in losses in just 2 days
@@ravoid36 please look up charts of the total number of deaths from natural disasters annually over the last hundred years.
@@ravoid36 poor countries have lots of contamination due to being poor and having to choose the cheapest fuel, not because they want to use the cheapest one
You should put time stamps.
The “ holistic strategy” is so bad. The guy sounded like a flat earth theorist or a leftist that thinks men and women are the same. Why did Thiel keep trying to talk sense in that ideologue instead of talking about other things.
Why not you
Anyone can add timestamps.
@@investornabil8825thiel likes to steel man ideas so he wants to debate with someone so his arguments become stronger and more concise. That’s how real academics work you don’t only talk to people you agree with I fear too many ppl have forgotten this.
@@investornabil8825 I don't think you've really been listening.
Two people I love to listen to while they work through complex ideas and visions of the future talking to each other, one on one?
Yes, please!
Thank you Alex for everything you do!
Are these all bots or something?
@@michaelwright8896 Yes, bots promoting a scam.
This guy is just a ripoff of Bjørn Lomborg and Julian Simon, he's not making any new arguments that haven't been made and debunked before, and he has never resolved the moral question from the libertarian point of view: Negative rights, my right to swing my fist ends at your face -- applied to pollution. Why do I have a right to burn coal in my backyard and fill your children's lungs with mercury and radioactive dust?
Both from an economic and a moral standpoint, the simplistic libertarian arguments have always been naive. Even if you wanted to argue that using coal to bring up the rest of the world to a Western standard of living was 'good', it is not clear there aren't hard limits on that, constraints with respect to pollution, water, food, and other materials that aren't magically solved by waving a Coal Magic Wand.
On top of that, this guy handwaves solutions to coal like conversion to liquid fuels or sequestration or filtering, all of which are only even proposed because of regulation over the years making coal pollution (eg acid rain) bad, and he doesn't do anything to evaluate the difficulties and trade offs between say, the technical difficulty of developing this liquid coal solution, vs the technical difficulty of competing solutions (battery tech, new fission plants, fusion, geo, etc)
Also, a petro economy is a centralizing one. From a libertarian standpoint, if you want a adhocracy, and flattened power structure and more diverse competition, geo, solar, and wind are distributed solutions, you can go out in the middle of no where, and exist on them, but petro makes you a b1tch to the petro state.
Thiel is a much deeper thinker than this Alex guy. Most people who read Ayn Rand as a teenager eventually grow out of it and realize how dumb Rand actually was. Some unfortunate adults, live inside of a sci-fi novel and never wake up.
you like to listen to someone who only cares about humans
GREAT discussion. Only thing lacking was mention of the importance of freely fluctuating prices on the market, so that resources can go to their highest real demand - the key think for entrepreneurs, scientists, capitalists, etc. to make positive change happen as fast as possible toward satisfying the needs/desires of real humans.
Buyers arent stupid. Apart from the usual local booms and busts, the policymakers wont just mandate something that sees nickel, cobalt, or lithium skyrocket to the point of absurdity.
The market at the moment, despite all the warnings of shortages for nickel, cobalt, and lithium, doesnt price any of those warnings in. The prices are quite stable, and quite short term focused.
@lieshtmeiser5542
I'm really curious as to why you think that long-term expectations aren't reflected in present day prices.
Speaking for myself, I don't believe that there will be a "shortages" of any of those metals, and I'd say that most investors agree with me. If you know better than us, then you might consider using that knowledge to make yourself wealthy.
I don't mean this in an antagonistic way. I'm just saying...
@@jflaccid5442 "I'm really curious as to why you think that long-term expectations aren't reflected in present day prices."
I see these prices because I trade stocks, and nickel is only elevated, it is not up enough to encourage brand new supply. The market is only pricing such things based on what they think can be done over the next few years at best. This short term thinking is only exacerbated by the current tightening of interest rates, which has sucked liquidity out of the stock markets.
That still leaves autocratic owners of projects, like communist china and putins russia etc, but those are not going to be reliable sources of future battery metals. Look at the 5 year chart on nickel, is is barely at the upper end of the US$5 to 10 / pound level. Its nowhere near enough to stimulate a lot of new mines to be developed.
There is a lot of drilling, but in the context of the bear market a lot of those companies are devalued, in the doldrums, or have failed.
Lithium recently boomed, and there is far more excitement there, but still not reflecting the quantities that will be required a few years from now.
@@jflaccid5442 I believe the latest prices DO reflect the latest/most current understanding of what long-term prices will be. Why do you think my comment did NOT imply that? Prices are far from perfect in prediction. BUT they are probably the very best motivator for getting the future right, compared to all other methods. THAT is partly why my comment was made, since there seemed to be no discussion of this in the video. I am a big fan of Mises and Hayek's understanding/writing on the importance of prices and the market for the betterment of humankind.
@@lieshtmeiser5542 markets dont work like that, my lovely investor, they growth in price if demand is higher than supply, not because in the future there maybe bottlenecks
I would really love to just listen to Peter Thiel explain the world in detail over 100 hours. He has a rare ability to explain complex topics with a minimum amount of jargon. I don't think anyone has reached his level in this particular skill since Richard Feynman. It is also a dangerous skill. It is easier to avoid criticisms when you say something that is technically irrefutable, highly abstract, and 30% in Latin, than when you are being specific, using simple words, and providing helpful approximate numbers,.
Thiel has t-shirts and Feynman worked on the Manhattan project.
@@michaelwright8896I respect Feynman very much but he does not possess the broad knowledge that Thiel does. Feynman is great but as soon as he steps out of his field of expertise, he lacks breadth.
@@datatransformation69 I don't know much about Thiel but when he debated David Graeber he got his ass kicked and just kept repeating the same line over and over again.
The devil is in the details and Theil’s explanation of UK National coal strike of 1912 falls short of reality. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_National_coal_strike_of_1912 follow the links within the article and see where they lead
@@michaelwright8896, indeed, you do not know much about Thiel.
Thiel is smart. PayPal, Mrta, Palantir etc 🎉
Not really. He’s very confused.
@@terjeoseberg990Because he does his own thinking before he acts?
Fantastic. I thank you Peter and Alex.
Thiel says "cheap oil". No one ever calls it "cheap wind turbines" or "cheap solar". The oil in the ground is actually "free", so is the sunshine, so is the wind - it's how you "harness" the energy that's costly, and how we use wind and solar is extremely limited, whereas combined fossil fuel's uses are already virtually endless.
Oil free to you,
I'm subscribed, with all notifications and always upvote your video's.
Yet YT choose to not inform me of this video...
It's for his email list. The video is also marked as "unlisted", meaning that it's only accessible via a direct link such as an URL.
@@nwaneri0it got recommended for me so maybe that was changed recently.
Great content and interview. Thank you.
Great quality sound production!. Engaging conversation. Thank you.
Massively important conversation. Why only 545 views in 20 hours though?
Could be because the video is Unlisted on TH-cam. I only saw it because I'm subscribed to Epstein's Substack and got the email notification.
@@DavidLee-js8ew Quite. The video was listed ~ 17:35 UTC, a couple of hors later than your comment.
Consider the audience is rather small, compared to other subjects on TH-cam. At this point (June 14, 2023), there are 14.3K views. The first twenty hours is no barometer of popularity. People had to find it first. There are more people who have never heard of Alex and Peter than there are who have. Give it a chance.
Wow. It's incredible to find content like this for free. hanks for sharing!
Based on this conversation, Alex seems more optimistic overall compared to Peter. few reason i feel this are:
Alex believes fossil fuel freedom and technological progress can enable endless energy abundance and human flourishing. Peter thinks alternatives like nuclear are ultimately needed and is more cautious on fossil fuel optimism.
Alex advocates providing pro-energy messaging to politicians as a path to change. Peter agrees but emphasizes real-world examples are also critical, suggesting some skepticism just arguments alone will suffice.
Alex appears very optimistic that his moral case for fossil fuels and similar messaging can continue convincing more people. Peter seems less convinced it will reach a critical mass.
Alex comes across as having more unbound optimism in principle about human progress through technology. Peterl is sympathetic but seems more measured about limits/tradeoffs.
please correct me if im wrong :)
Alex is very pro-nuclear but focuses more on fossil fuels because it's a far more important technology for humanity today and for the foreseeable future.
If you're pro-nuclear but don't care about fossil fuels then you're not living in current reality but some alternate universe where nuclear can be used to replace most fossil fuels (it can't).
This conversation is such a treat!
In the 1920s people said there's not enough oil and yet we always find more and more and more.
More and more that’s NOT in America.
Makes me want to stop saying "nature", "holistic" and "human flourishing"
@PeterThiel How is Norway the most disfunctional Scandinavian country? Having travelled the length and breadth of both Sweden and Norway and spent a month working in Finland (Scandi adjacent:) this is not my impression.
I have gained respect for Thiel watching this video.
why?
Whhy
Ive watched him speak in the past, was not impressed. He is ok here.
I was honored to meet Mr. Epstein in person a few years ago, during John Locke Institute's Public Policy Symposium hosted in Princeton. He gave us new perspectives on fossil fuel applications and was a very intelligent man.
Alex nails it when he says he wants us to have the freedom to use more fossil fuel and to explore other options, without government’s thumb on the scale.
lol
Peter agrees
$TSLA
Agreed. Profits ensure good ideas succeed. Subsidies ensure bad ideas are adopted.
Any good information on hydrocarbons guys
This is absolutely amazing, so awesome to see these two inspiring figures together discussing this serious issue at a high sincere level
Do you understand what Peter Thiel does, and who he does it for?
@@asnark7115, No. He doesn’t.
It would be a lot more informative if you actually shared your opinion guys in stead of just taunting. Go ahead, speak up!
@@asnark7115 Don’t keep your secrets, enlighten us, do tell!
@@user-lb8nj7gs9n How so?
Let. Him. Finish. Thx.
Thank you for your amazing work Alex!!! Keep it up!
Economists write about "externalities" that affect outcomes. One of the most serious externalities affecting our consumption of fossil fuels and the impact on environmental sustainability is automobile use. And, key to reduction of the use of automobiles is to curtail sprawling development. And, key to curtailing sprawl is far more efficient land use. And, key to efficient land use is the public capture of the potential annual rental value of all locations (at the same time eliminating the annual taxation of buildings and other property improvements. This solution came from Henry George in the late 19th century.
Alex is awesome! Alex, could you please do an interview with Sam Harris or Steven Pinker??
Peter is a definite optimist - he wants to hear a strategy.
Alex is an optimist who realizes that the future growth of knowledge can’t be predicted.
The focus on growth should be quality not quantity. If anything, responsible de-growth should prevail.
Your death-worship is noted.
@@TeaParty1776 I hope you enjoy the sixth mass extinction while you still can.
Eugenics FTW
@@kreek22 No, de-growth doesn’t imply eugenics. It means voluntarily having one less child.
@@paulwhetstone0473 Who said this? "quality not quantity"
Reducing reproduction rates does nothing to impact human quality. It's all in the genes. Fortunately, the 21st century eugenics revolution is well underway, commercially operating.
I now have both your books Alex and plan to read them soon. Love your work
i have a t shirt
@@TheKieshaKiesha a shorter read!
Super interesting comment from Alex concerning the ability to turn coal into liquid hydrocarbons.
Yeah part of me says let the oil companies go nuts and lets drill and frack the shit out of everything until we quadruple production. The markets and governments would go nuttier than they already are and corruption would be at all time high.
Peter wanted to drill down on the numbers for this proposal. I suspect the EROI is nowhere good enough.
More of this Alex!! Thank you 🙏
I see a big achilles heel with batteries. Have there been any breakthroughs with that?
Just be more energy efficient, Climate activist say.
It's funny. Watch Natuve Americans and Climate activist fight each other over Lithium mining.
Air compressor batteries
If we lived in a serious society, almost all of the money spent on renewables would be redirected to battery technology R&D, but of course, our society is anything but serious.
@@parmenidesofelea9092 Total Clown World by my estimation! Haha!!
I’m pretty sure batteries are limited by literal physical space. No way to ‘solve’ that.
Thiel's up to something BIG or planning on it. Great dialogue on 0-1 for energy progress and proliferation
2 people having a good conversation
I hadn't realized there was such opportunity to turn coal into liquid fuel. Interesting idea.
probably uneconomic
@@kreek22But could BECOME economical. The point is that it’s an option.
@@sybo59 Yes, the Germans used this option in WWII. So did the South Africans in the 1980s. It was expensive and very dirty.
@@kreek22 Hemp For Victory.
@@sybo59 We know from Chemistry that there clear Thermodynamical bounds when converting hydrocarbons. For it to be economical, the price of coal would have to be lower.
I agree almost 100% with what both of these guys are saying and I could not finish the video.
I like Alex at least he makes sense and he's on humanity's side.he has great talking points.the climate cult is anti human and its all about control.this man deserves respect
Photography 101, never film yourself in front of a window.
Why? This looks exceptional.
@@Zack_Raheem It creates a silhouette and flattens color.
@@anthonymorris5084 Oh, Thank you.
Thiel: "let me make this more concrete...political economy shifted radically to the left...cornucopian".
Can't find this on your channel page for some reason and didn't come up when I searched directly. Had to save link from Twitter > YT mobile to computer.
Maybe because it's marked as Unlisted.
Big W for Peter right there 🎉🎉🎉
Feels like an outlawed conversation
In some circles, definitely...
Hemp For Victory.
What is next? The case for fire to cook meat?
Both of these are acceptable perspectives from my POV. It's really just more constrained versus less constrained visions, but highly rational either way.
An ESG (environmental, social, and governance) score is a measure of a company's exposure to environmental, social, and governance risks.
These risks can include energy efficiency, worker safety, and board independence.
ESG scores are a tool for investors to assess a company's sustainability and ethical performance.
A high ESG score may indicate that a company is considering its impact on people and the planet, and how this impact could affect its financial performance.
ESG scores typically range from 0 to 100, with a score of less than 50 considered relatively poor and more than 70 considered good.
ESG scores are calculated using a combination of data collection, analysis, weighting, and comparison to industry peers. These scores help investors and businesses gain insights into a company's ESG performance and identify potential areas for improvement.
Very much enjoyed the exchange between you two, and also wish I had $1.00 for every time I heard the term "holistic."
"But you can't think about that in a vacuum" also pays $1
Excellent conversation, very enjoyable
Why does Peter Thiel rely on his intuition regarding resource constraints when there are experts available who can cite numerical values for resource supply and demand?
I argue in my eclectic way that the energy supply for human consumption should be independent of human action, just as all life forms have historically relied solely on the sun's energy. Before dismissing this statement as impractical, consider what might happen if we were to provide abundant, clean energy solely for fulfilling all current and future human dreams, sourced from a strictly isolated segment of society - apart from all other economic activity - dedicated exclusively to this purpose. This would allow humans to operate on an unimaginably large scale without the ability to control or weaponize the energy supply.
15:19 isn’t it a highly eleastic good if an increase of 1% in supply causes a 20% decrease in demand?
That's what I was thinking. Yeah he def made a mistake there
What I'm about to say is far less insightful than most of the comments I've read here, but... If i wrote a book, and I became aware that Peter Thiel had read it, I can't imagine having much else to look forward to as an author... but I'm not an author, so I can't say for sure, that I'd know how I'd feel.
Their whole exchange here is amazing to me.
I'd love to see Alex talk with Isaac Arthur and perhaps have his futurism visions help paint a visual for Alex in illustrating Human Flourishing.
As long as the practicality tracks alongside the ideals, I think the environmental trends will continue in a rights respecting framework of freedom.
Alex never disappoints.
I enjoyed it too. At the end of this fascinating conversation several ideas emerged for me. One, Alex and Ben Shapiro would be best buddies in HS and would talk for hours in the school library. They would also "win" all the school debates. Unfortunately Ben and Alex would grow apart in later years. And two, Peter is a wise Professor politely "enjoying" the rhetorical skills of his nerdy precocious student.
@@juzi68 Very vivid scenario!
Do you know about Ned Nikolov and his discovery that greenhouse gasses don't exist. Alex disappoints because he won't even take a look at it and gets snarky.
@@MrApplewine, pleasantly surprised to read a commenter mention Nikolov here! His work is intriguing.
@@cantankerouspatriarch4981 Yep, I've emailed alex and he won't respond when I talk about nikolov. When I even suggested that he take a look at somebody like Nikolov he sent back "Well I could prove there is no such thing as germs".
Peter is correct about the hijacking of the oil industry. I personally know someone (I wouldn't call him a friend) that is working "for" a Nigerian oil company, and his role is to get them off of oil production! He comes from a "privileged" English family.
Peter Theil is very articulate and balanced. Alex Epstein seems to deal in hypothetical extremes which can be useful but seem to go off course and seem to lack common sense. So far I feel Theil is much more compelling, not that they are very much in disagreement. I very much disagree with the notion of switching to coal. Turing coal into oil is expensive, which is why they dont do it right now. Its not
Only oil, but cheap oil that develops economies. Therefore, alternatives are necessary imo.
2 of my favorite thinkers.
42:00 "a market is always better than a non-market" - does this mean that a market is better than every single other form of preference signaling?
Also, Is he implying here that the issue of carbon footprint reduction is simply a matter of whether or not there's a market for carbon? (At least the only one he takes seriously)
Perhaps the biggest advantage for fossil fuels is that you can move vast quantities vast distances at cheap prices at almost no loss
Whereas electricity is very costly to move vast distances it costs almost 10x as much to move electricity than it does to move Natural Gas and you lose maybe 10% of it
If someone could invent a way to move electricity long distances 10x cheaper than today then you'd have far more nuclear/wind/solar as you'll be able to build/specialise in a few locations and export it
So for instance a single country could potentially build 500 nuclear reactors and get very good at doing it. Thr first 5 will be expensive the next 50 will be okay and the next 450 will be very good
But that isn't possible as the cost to transmit electricity 2,000 miles is too expensive
Thiel: “I’m not sure that there is a limitless amount of oil.” Really? I think it’s pretty well known that oil reserves aren’t limitless.
Things a like about Alex when he positions a theme of say Net Zero or many things…he doesn’t do that Goffy voice that say Joe Rogan does-he’s a total pro Alex
I’m in the UK-he’s been on before but I wish he’d make another couple of appearances on GB News….a lot of the presenters aren’t skilled on the push back of minerals and alternatives etc.
He’d teach them a lot
What’s funny to my mind is the question, why it is that simply capturing the carbon emitted from releasing the energy is so cost prohibitive relative to the energy produced by the fuel.
Just as one might intuitively understand physics, my intuition tells me that the energy for carbon capture should be quite small relative to the energy produced.
This is why I don’t believe the false reality we have made for ourselves, that there are pollution constraints to fossil fuels.
I think, politics aside, the real underlying constraint defining policy is what we are willing to pay for energy. Assuming the hippies didn’t hijack the country I don’t think we would have even started down the nuclear path, let alone veered off of it later. I think if the hippies didn’t take over the country we would have done the work to scale a clean fossil fuel industry. I think what’s really eating into the industry is the energy efficiency of the logistics and process itself. There’s probably a lot that can be done to reduce transport costs to the efficiency of the industry.
One can think about humand civilisation as a whole, as having a Oil-Account, from which it can withdrawl but on to witch it can not deposit anything. Now the question is, on what does it make sense to spend our limited oil.
What is Peter saying at 16:55? Is he saying oil companies are reducing output and pretending it's for ESG reasons but really that just want to decrease supply to raise the price of oil?
I think he is comparing how OPEC can curtail demand to drive price and revenues forward for oil companies to how western oil companies are basically doing the same thing, but they can’t cut demand due to regulation so they have to partner with these ESG groups to arrive at the same results.
Yes that is what he is saying.
When Peter's model for the "greener" version of the future is Greta Thunberg and he thinks this will be cleaner and less dystopian, that says a lot more about Peter than it does anything else. Then there was his maligning of those who "came of age in the seventies." I was 20 in 1972, when Peter was just starting kindergarten. I had not only learned a great deal more about the world by then than Peter gives me credit for, but I have had an enormous amount of time since then to learn even more, still. Believe me, I'm hardly set in my ways and, if anything, am routinely mistaken for being much younger than I am, not just because of my genetic propensity to look younger than I am, but because I have a younger, more active mind than my peers. Maybe Peter's just assuming we're all like his father.
his Palantir is big on government contracts for population surveillance, so the green dystopia is gonna benefit him
You have it totally opposite. Greta is completely dystopian; it's just the other two narratives are worse. Do you actually think anybody was arguing anything in favor of this poor unhappy soul that is confused, and easily misalinnged Greta?
Exactly. Thiel is just a more conservative version of the liberal WEF/Roma club mind. Honestly, two sides of the same coin.
@ayyleeuz4892 Hmmm but wasn't Leo Strauss more respecting of the sacred? Wouldn't he abhor transhumanism (fundamentally anti-Christian)? Thiel seems quite cosy with it... And also his longtermism... He criticizes effective altruism (and correctly so) but doesn't he in the end also fall into the same mistakes?
@ayyleeuz4892 by anti-Christian I meant anti-religious/sacred. Also, Thiel describes himself as Christian, which is why I struggle to understand his cozyness with crazy stuff like transhumanism or longtermism.
Peter international moral leadership we need as a usa president
I think we should go half and half, between Dirty energy(Natural gas/coal) and Clean energy(nuclear). Also, there must be ways to ensure the air emitted by Dirty energy production is cleaner. If we could somehow convert dirty air into dirty water, which is more easily managed, we might be able make dirty energy less bad.
How great would it be to create a clean coal production that, yes, has lower energy output, but can be scaled to infinity.
Basic Principle:
th-cam.com/video/BOvsXL0pk8Y/w-d-xo.htmlfeature=shared
This product would create dirty vapors, but if new water is constantly introduced to the system and the dirt is effectively captured from the vapors and excessed from the system, it could be cleaned. I'd like to look at the tried experiments.
Rarely is a business regulated where the businesses don’t engage in some sort of regulatory capture.
The ESG argument being made by Thiel, is compelling.
Just keep in mind Netflix was following ESG guidelines before its stock dropped 70%. Trying to be ESG ultimately causes your stock to plummet.
ESG is nothing more than a social credit system for corporations and enforced by a cartel.
Humans first!
Isn't it oil first, humans second?
@@Apjooz No, humans first!
What about the freedom of future generations to live in a world where the atmosphere hasn't been catastrophically polluted with CO2, Methane et cetera?
The cavalier abuse of the word "freedom" to defend the most petty and indefensible recklessness is a sort of modern madness. Even in 1250AD the fact that pollution must result in constraints to private property was recognised under the common law, and in fact this was recognised since the most ancient times.
These market fundamentalists who warp science, economics, philosophy - really everything - in the service of a boneheaded politics that's anything but conservative are a fascinating study in self deception.
"The Ultimate Resource" by Julian Simon, published in 1981. Simon argued against the idea of fixed resource limits, suggesting that human innovation and technology continually redefine and expand what resources are available, thus countering the pessimistic views of the "Peak Oil" movement and other resource scarcity theories.
Boring Robots can extract coal, for instance. Until the women are no longer so scared of Micro-Nuclear, until we get fusion online. Trim-tabbing and baby-steps.
At 37:00 what is meant by capitalists given us property rights? I thought rights were inalienable?
The problem with "human flourishing" is that it's a very abstract term that - like Peter Thiel says - *can* work on a micro level, which is not saying that it's easy even there.
Love this! Keep it up!!!
35:50 - "It hasn't reached a stopping point". Why?
More atmospheric CO2 is good for the environment and food production up to at least 4 times the current level!
Grid power for the foreseeable future is in molten salt reactors, particularly modular.
Liquid fossil fuel for transportation, though nuclear works for heavy transportation too.
Solar power works for most off-grid and mobile applications.
Wind power only works in niche off-grid applications.
And geothermal?
@@Sara3346 Geothermal like wind is a niche solution in off-grid power. Though it works nicely in Iceland currently, in the future, it may be more economical to run modular molten salt reactors.
I think Peter Thiel was trying to point out that Alex’s book cover should say, human flourishing is about increasing energy production while reducing the negative effects.
I've read the damned thing, and I struggle to think of any respect in which it diverges from this.
Is the problem oil consumption or what we consume oil for?
A decent amount of it is burned through for microliters of dopamine with nothing to show for it in the end isnt it?
If we conceive the oil reserves as a battery that we are going to draw down anyways why not at least use it for things that we agree upon that are useful longterm.
Yea the impact of rampant consumerism needs to be exposed more. Energy is a necessity but there is so much waste and junk consumerism from oil (plastic) it's insane.
I am about 9 minutes into the conversation. Wow, I am really surprised that Peter Thiel, one of the sharpest minds in the tech world, does not get the big story about resources. Resources are not limited in any meaningful sense. Energy is also not limited. Coal is limited, hydrocarbons are limited, nuclear is limited -- but humanity will never "run out" of them. The answer was given by Julian Simon decades ago. Disappointed that Thiel did not learn that lesson.
@Atanu If coal is limited, hydrocarbons are limited and nuclear is limited why will humanity never "run out" of them?
@@wtucker4773 The explanation for why humanity does not run out of any particular resource is simply because of what economists call substitutes. Oil is a substitute for coal, coal is a substitute for wood, wood is a substitute for muscle power, etc. As we need more energy, we also figure out better sources of energy. The Industrial Revolution of the 1750 - 1820 which began in Britain was powered by coal. People worried that the end of economic growth was near because coal was limited for sure. See the wiki entry "The Coal Question". Anyway, we did not "run out" of coal. Oil was the new source, the substitute. Now we will have other substitutes such as nuclear fusion.
On a less serious note, it is said that the Stone Age ended not because we "ran out" of stones but because we invented bronze. And the Bronze Age ended when we figured out how to make iron. And we are still in the Iron Age (with steel being the main variant.)
And finally, to really understand what are resources, where they come from, why we don't run out of them, etc., I recommend Julian Simon's "The Ultimate Resource". A great place to start is www.humanprogress.org/simonproject/
Best wishes.
I read the youtube climate "truth" paragraph. I am now assimilated, resistance was futile.
It’s seems to me that in a way the increased fossil fuel argument makes sense to create a greater momentum to progress technologies of alternative energies. These grossly over exaggerated projections to the reduction of fossil fuels seems not only unrealistic but a rather naive perspective on the scalability of things like wind and solar. Nuclear seems like the logical choice so long as there able to convince the public that they have the technology and will to prove they have mitigated most of the dangers.
Why is Alex discussing this with Thiel?
Because Thiel was on the other (offender) Epstein's list. This is Thiel's way of manipulating Google results. Glad to see you have a curious mind too ;)
I love how they co-opted the term freedom … they don’t mean your freedom they mean their freedom to pursue profits as see fit and that is in opposition to your freedom. Don’t get duped.
This is incorrect. Profit is proof that you have created value for other individuals. There is no exploitation. If the businessman profits, so do consumers and workers.
@@freetrade8830 I can easily offer examples that disprove that insulin is one. It doesn’t mean that if you profit from something is socially optimal. Rent seeking , Georgism, 0% interest rates that enable market capture and scaling without actually generating profits and organic growth … etc
Is the “human flourishing debate” just a debate about how to do MARKETING for this pro-energy movement? Lol
Yes.
Repeal Price Anderson and see what the market picks
Fantastic discourse
You should regulate audio. Your mic is much louder than Peter's
Good episode
Peter is compelling, a noble moral leader. Strike artivle 2 cinstitutional convention. We need voting app for this.
Competition for resources is more of a zero sum game than the libertarian minded Alex seems to understand. The history of human conflict especially recently relates to some having energy and others not. In the short and medium term there is not enough to go around for everyone to meet their desires for growth and power.
Sure there is, just use coal or more fracking and drilling.
There's enough uranium in the oceans which can be used in fission fast breeder reactors to supply us with clean energy until the Sun melts us in its red giant phase.
Proving that over population is the actual threat, not climate change.
@@anthonymorris5084 you mean *under population. Malthus was proven wrong throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The world population will stabilize by mid-century and then start falling most likely. The question is whether we can (partially) manage that decline and aging with things like AI.
@@tomasfontes3616 Over population is at the foundation of almost every single threat facing humanity. From energy resources to the depletion of other resources. Water shortages, pollution, overfishing, habitat destruction, deforestation, consumption etc. Over population exacerbates all of these issues.
Capitalism and wealth, education, access to birth control, family planning and the rights for women all contribute to lower population levels. Unfortunately, many of these things are under attack.
Both Alex and Peter's philosophy espoused here has a serious flaw in that it ignores or discounts the rights of future individuals of agency. The presumption is that anyone today who is operating to maximize their individual freedom has full and complete knowledge that their action will not affect future generations. That is just hubris to me. Of course the way to get around that is that this concern is not material because "technology will solve that problem" in the future. That is essentially a belief-system that cannot be proved. The European Green's are frankly more consistent with Libertarian principles as they acknowledge that CO2 emissions impact the freedoms of individuals in other countries, and freedoms for future generations as well. As such, minimizing one's impact is morally consistent with the idea of maximizing personal freedom while not infringing on freedom of others. Personally, I see solar panels on every household roof to be more consistent with individual freedom than to rely upon a fossil fuel industry which is subject to gamesmanship.
One can instinctively feel that while Peter truly cares about the truth and seeks it freely, Alex is more protective about his position on things.
You miss the point of this conversation
Instincts can't tell whether something is true or not. You should use your thinking.
totally disagree. Alex wasn't trying to protect anything and is extremely open and easy to understand. Watch the video again or please explain what exactly he was protective on?
@@Harp00n007 Humanity is "tired" because of the incessant demand to eliminate inexpensive reliable energy and undermine capitalism. Subsidies are not the answer to humanity's energy needs.
@@Harp00n007 No matter how you spin it, the US runs on a free market economy. The US is also not the center of the universe or the sole domain of capitalism. The entire Western world has embraced free market economics. How is solar "deflationary".
Love the convo but you really need to increase your audio.
While I am very interested in Alex's ideas and am sure he means the best, Alex ultimately strikes me as someone who is excessively defensive and whiny.
"human flourishing"
Way too ideological
Same vibe I got even from reading his book where he's obviously not being directly challenged.
The way he constantly interrupted made me think he is either being defensive or likes the sound of his own voice a lot lol
tough going against thiel on any front, even when the core is aligned. really challenges you. well done alex
He helped trim the fat from Alex's argument, which should really help him hone his arguments in the future.
Fascinating discussion, I wonder if Epstein realized he was speaking to Strauss.
I think human flourishing is a great term to contrast the human impact approach. I understand Peter's anxiety in applying the term as a utopian ideal, but he needs a name for his book after all and it works.
There must be room for freedom in the term.