"The speedup in information technology contrasts dramatically with the slowdown everywhere else."

I think this is the key sentence in Thiel's article. The issue is then to what degree the application of information technology to the sciences can alleviate the problem. Interestingly, Kurzweil's thesis is essentially that he sees general speed-up as a product of the other sciences becoming information sciences, but he is clearly much more optimistic about the degree to which this is happening and has already happened.