During the conversation Thiel said the following, which is a bit odd:
I think one of the … you know, the countercultural in the 60s was the hippies. You know, we landed on the moon in July of 1969. Woodstock started three weeks later, and with the benefit of hindsight, that's when progress ended, and the hippies took over the country.
Today the counterculture is to believe in science and technology. You know, our society, the dominant culture doesn't like science. It doesn't like technology. You just look at the science fiction movies that come out of Hollywood-Terminator, Matrix, Avatar, Elysium. I watched the Gravity movie the other day. It's like you would never want to go into outer space. You would just want to be back on some muddy island. And so I think we're in a world where actually believing that a better future is possible that you can have agency and work towards a better future, that is actually radically countercultural.
We're not so sure we agree with him, especially about that last bit. It's not particularly countercultural to like technology right now.
After all, people love their iPhones. They love Google. In fact, five of the ten most valuable brands are technology companies.
Elon Musk, who embodies Thiel's idea about the future, is a mainstream figure. The Iron Man movies are partly inspired by Musk who leads an electric car company as well as a space exploration company.
The reason science fiction movies tend to have a scary take on space is because 1. space is pretty scary, and 2. it wouldn't be a very fun movie if they went to space and everything was great, and that's the end of the film.
Arguably, it's still nerdy and geeky to be into computers and coding if you're young. But, as people like Thiel, Musk, Zuckerberg, and Jobs become mainstream figures who are idolized, it's becoming increasingly cool.
As for the thing about hippies taking over and killing progress: We have no idea what he means.
Anywho, here's the video of them talking about a lot of stuff: