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Life is Short

paulgraham.com

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Re: Life is Short

#161

Post by sirsar »

giaour wrote: post #148
natrius wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This blames poor people for being poor. No it doesn't. A claim that most rich people are driven doesn't imply that most poor people are lazy. The portion you quoted makes this distinction clear: "Variation in productivity is far from the only source of economic inequality, but it is the irreducible core of it, in the sense that you'll have that left when you eliminate all other sources." If we found a way to give e…

> A claim that most rich people are driven doesn't imply that most poor people are lazy. If it doesn't imply that poor people are lazy, then what does it imply? That the rich and poor are equally driven, and that something other than effort (luck, inherited wealth, etc) makes the rich rich and the poor poor?

I read it as claiming that there are lucky driven people, unlucky driven people, lucky undriven people, and unlucky undriven people. And then that most rich people fall into the first category.

This is totally compatible with all poor people being in the second category, and no poor people being lazy (3rd and 4th categories).

(I disagree with his essay, but for different reasons than this.)

Re: Life is Short

#162

Post by Aeolun »

to3m wrote: post #86
treebeard901 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, how long does it really take to build a new PC? Maybe an hour for research and ordering parts... another two hours at most to put it together. Seems like a small investment for something you're going to use a lot.

Well, sure, but if you spend a bit more money it will take no time at all, because somebody else will do it for you while you get on and do something else :) Much easier to find more money than more time.

Sure, for some people finding more money might be easier than finding more time. For others, not so much.

Re: Life is Short

#163

Post by Aeolun »

iiiggglll wrote: post #130
S4M wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally didn't like too much that essay about inequalities, but I think your comment is unnecessarily nasty. I believe arguing with commenters like you is exactly the bullshit PG mentioned.

His tone might seem unnecessarily harsh at first, but when taken in context of the amount of ass-kissing that goes on here, it starts to seem more like an appropriate counterweight.

You can be a counterweight without being an asshole. If not, you're just contributing to the problem.

Re: Life is Short

#164

Post by ebbv »

This is the first pg essay I have read and fully agreed with at the end without reservation. Good advice.

Re: Life is Short

#165

Post by chrisweekly »

Beautiful post.

As a father of young children, and a cancer survivor, these words resonated more with me than anything I've encountered on hn in a very long time -- maybe ever.

Re: Life is Short

#166

Post by giaour »

sirsar wrote: post #161
giaour wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A claim that most rich people are driven doesn't imply that most poor people are lazy. If it doesn't imply that poor people are lazy, then what does it imply? That the rich and poor are equally driven, and that something other than effort (luck, inherited wealth, etc) makes the rich rich and the poor poor?

I read it as claiming that there are lucky driven people, unlucky driven people, lucky undriven people, and unlucky undriven people. And then that most rich people fall into the first category. This is totally compatible with all poor people being in the second category, and no poor people being lazy (3rd and 4th categories). (I disagree with his essay, but for different reasons than this.)

I see what you mean, but wouldn't that make PG's point a tautology? If the difference is "productivity," and "productivity" is defined as the intersection of luck and drive that make people rich, then all PG is saying is that "the irreducible core of [economic inequality]" is having come into possession of wealth.

It really seems like one can either read PG's essay as a Randian screed or as poorly argued cant. I saw it as the former, but I can understand reading it as the latter.

Re: Life is Short

#167

Post by sjg007 »

xiaoma wrote: post #157
sjg007 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bayesian spam thing was already known before the essay. Essayists should expect critiques. His argument was that technology is the creator of inequality and it can't be stopped. That startups (and stock options) capture a lot of that wealth is a side effect. This is the capitalist thesis. It's not quite Randian but it's close enough that it comes across as one dimensional. In his defense he said we should focus o…

> "His argument was that technology is the creator of inequality and it can't be stopped." Not quite. The argument was that technology is a lever that multiplies the differences in productivity between us, not that it is the creator of it. > "That startups (and stock options) capture a lot of that wealth is a side effect." Businesses generally capture this wealth. PG has argued in many essays that start-ups are a gre…

One loophole was the use of corporate benefits in lieu of higher pay. So yes, ideally you should organize to capture your value. Either in a startup, or a union, or a country, or a planet. Wealth is not capital. It is human ingenuity.

Re: Life is Short

#168

Post by sirsar »

giaour wrote: post #166
sirsar wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it as claiming that there are lucky driven people, unlucky driven people, lucky undriven people, and unlucky undriven people. And then that most rich people fall into the first category. This is totally compatible with all poor people being in the second category, and no poor people being lazy (3rd and 4th categories). (I disagree with his essay, but for different reasons than this.)

I see what you mean, but wouldn't that make PG's point a tautology? If the difference is "productivity," and "productivity" is defined as the intersection of luck and drive that make people rich, then all PG is saying is that "the irreducible core of [economic inequality]" is having come into possession of wealth. It really seems like one can either read PG's essay as a Randian screed or as poorly argued cant. I saw…

> then all PG is saying is that "the irreducible core of [economic inequality]" is having come into possession of wealth.

Not quite. He's saying (in my reading) that even if you legislate away all the other sources of inequality (even to the point of wiping out all assets and giving each citizen an equal amount of cash to start anew), inequality would still arise due to differences in personal productivity / drive.

Seems true to me, although entirely irrelevant to the topic of real world inequality.

Re: Life is Short

#169

Post by orbitur »

drhayes9 wrote: post #68
vcarl wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read some "rebuttals" to the previous essay, and while there were definitely some valid points brought up, a lot of them seemed to me to have misinterpreted a lot of what was said. PG tweeted about feeling like a lot of his side of the "debate" was pointing out that he hadn't said something. [1] [1]: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/688044252744527875

From PG's essay "Economic Inequality": "Most people who get rich tend to be fairly driven. Whatever their other flaws, laziness is usually not one of them... Variation in productivity is far from the only source of economic inequality, but it is the irreducible core of it, in the sense that you'll have that left when you eliminate all other sources." This feels like the heart of that particular essay and displays a r…

> This blames poor people for being poor.

Huh? He said all the people at the top are not lazy. "All people at the bottom are lazy" doesn't follow from his statement.

Re: Life is Short

#170

Post by PerfectElement »

xenadu02 wrote: post #6

I'm a more productive engineer now that I have small kids than I ever was before. I don't have time for bullshit. I don't build my own PCs, I buy Macs. I don't waste time building some over-architected nonsense on a side project, I ship the MVP. When I do take time away from my kids I maximize it by learning three or four new technologies, patterns, or libraries at once. When you realize how short time really is you…

I didn't know one had to know how to build a PC to use a PC.
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