The future is categorized according to optimism/pessimism and determinacy/uncertainty. When the future is definite, one can engage in plans with conviction, while indefinite futures require diversification. In moving from determinacy to uncertainty, we move from tools like calculus to tools like statistics, and instead of focusing on the substance or specifics of projects, we instead focus on processes and product delivery platforms.
Thiel notes that indeterminate optimism is potentially an unstable quadrant, since it is characterized by both low savings (why save now if things will be better in the future) and low investment (things are uncertain, so investment opportunities are unclear). One manifestation of this is tumbling bond yields, which I will write more about later this week. Clearly it is ...erm, unclear, how an iterative year-by-year process with these characteristics (no saving, no investment) can on average lead to a future which is better. His main argument is therefore that we are transitioning to another quadrant, and implicitly suggests that if we fail to form definite plans for a better future through technological advance, a 1990's style Japanese death spiral awaits. Mercy.
I view these ideas mostly as a version of Larry Summers secular stagnation hypothesis, where slowing technological development leads to a dearth of investment opportunity and weakens aggregate demand. In this sense, Thiel is in agreement with Ben Bernanke, who also argues that secular stagnation is unstable (in Ben's argument, due to global capital flows).
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