Why Peter Thiel Fears Star Trek
I kind of skimmed the article, mainly because I can&#x27;t be bothered to care about the topic, but I didn&#x27;t see where Theil &quot;fears&quot; _Star Trek_. But let&#x27;s run with that: why does Mr. Theil fear _Star Trek_? Because that world doesn&#x27;t need Peter Theil. If you think Ayn Rand is an insightful novelist, then ST:NG probably isn&#x27;t going to be your preferred brand of entertainment.<p>But it seems to me the article misses the mark in that it assumes Theil to be a &quot;tech guy&quot;. Meh, I dunno, I kind of view him as a &quot;money guy&quot; who happened to bet on some tech companies. It&#x27;s a cherry-picked (by me) quote, but:
<i>&quot;In 2011, for instance, he told George Packer that he did not consider the iPhone a technological breakthrough. &#x27;Compare this with the Apollo space program&#x27;&quot;</i><p>The Apollo space program, which ended before most people were born (or thereabouts), affected our lives in a peripheral manner if at all. Tang, Velcro, and a big swinging &quot;if we can put a man on the moon, we can put an ICBM on your capitol&quot; dick to show for it. Umm, thanks, I guess. Too bad there&#x27;s no real follow-through fifty years later. The &quot;super-computer-in-your-pocket&quot;, OTOH, changed the way people live their lives (and, granted, not all for the better). I don&#x27;t ask for directions, I don&#x27;t have a land line, and any question I might have (&quot;what octane fuel goes in this car?&quot;, &quot;where&#x27;s the fuse box on this thing?&quot;) can be answered instantly.<p>So I guess I don&#x27;t care which side Theil takes in the &quot;Star Wars&#x2F;Star Trek&quot; nerd battle.