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Life is Short

paulgraham.com

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Re: Life is Short

#171

Post by mattmcknight »

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?

You are missing the difference between a necessary and a sufficient condition. PG's argument is that being driven is necessary, not sufficient. You have to be driven to get rich doing a startup, but being driven on its own is not enough. Thus, you can be driven and poor.

He then weakens his claim even further, as quoted in the parent: "Variation in productivity is far from the only source of economic inequality" such that he admits doing something really productive is not the only source of inequality. So, there is really nothing in there that implies either of things you suggest.

Re: Life is Short

#172

Post by pcote »

The downside to "don't wait to do the things that matter" is what to do when you empty that bucket list early. I've covered the geeky bucket list stuff. (making video games, blogging, open source contribution, IT jobs, BS in CS, ect.) I've covered the more stereotypical bucket list stuff too. (Skydiving, performing onstage, time with friends, writing the novel, marrying the right girl, ect.)

At this point in my life, there's nothing new that interests me that hasn't already been done. It's made life pretty boring at this juncture. I've lived out all my dreams and now it's all just like "Okay, now what?"

Re: Life is Short

#173

Post by spdustin »

numlocked wrote: post #67

And for a completely different perspective, we have Kurt Vonnegut: [Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope] “Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a…

It's so much simpler than all the comments say. And as much as I said, during my childhood, that I'd never deign to repeat the same tired cliches my parents spouted off, I now find myself, as I have many times in my adult life, going back on that youthful assertion.

"Life's a journey, not a destination."

Re: Life is Short

#174

Post by jk4930 »

reasonattlm wrote: post #19

Life is short. So why not do something about that? Are we not meant to be the very essence of creation? Is this not an age of revolutionary progress in biotechnology? Just this past week I helped out a young company whose founders are working toward clinical translation of a method of clearance of senescent cells, one of the very first actual honest-to-goodness narrow focus rejuvenation therapies to emerge from the l…

Love your website. Keep up the good fight. Thanks.

Re: Life is Short

#177

Post by shorttime »

joslin01 wrote: post #113
numlocked wrote: post #67

And for a completely different perspective, we have Kurt Vonnegut: [Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope] “Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a…

I really don't think this contradicts PG's point or challenges it in a way to be deserving of the phrasing "entirely different perspective." For one, from the essay: > But different things matter to different people, and most have to learn what matters to them And for two, Kurt is at odds with himself in that quote though his overall sentiment is correct. He says to "fart around" and then creates a straw-man with com…

I was going to have a similar reply. The first part anyway. Clearly farting around is something that matters to Kurt.

But that makes me think on what actually matters. Doesn't everything we do in our free time matter? If it didn't, why would we do it?

And then we do things that don't matter all the time at work, PG used meetings an example. Usually, they don't matter, but we do them... it seems there's a bit of give and take. I suppose we could ignore some of the meetings but too many missed meetings might piss the boss off. Then we lose the income source and makes it really hard to do what matters.

This piece hit me pretty hard. My dad's in the hospital again, one of the many times over the years. I never know when might be the last. I live hundreds of miles away... it sucks.

Re: Life is Short

#178

Post by asuffield »

wfo wrote: post #82
ageek123 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wide disagreement? Sure, the people who disagreed wrote essays, but people who agree are usually invisible (how do you write an essay about agreeing with some other essay? and why would you bother?). I think the reason some people got so riled up was that there was so much uncomfortable truth in those essays. Just as people usually don't bother to post when they agree with something, they usually don't bother to post…

People got riled up because he touched an issue that effects people a lot in real life, is seriously effecting our society and democracy for the worse and got it really, really laughably wrong. And as one of the hyper-rich he has a bully pulpit with which to broadcast his thoughts. Also because most of his essays are very good, so this one was uncharacteristic and surprising.

Regardless of my personal perspective, this is unfair. He stated a position which is not only widely disputed, but the dispute over which has an entire field of media and academics devoted to it, and which routinely splits the population roughly half and half (look at basically any election result in the western world). And he disagreed with your side. He's in the other 50% of the population from you.

To claim that being in the other 50% makes somebody "laughably wrong" or a "bully" is not a fair statement. (To say that there is "wide disagreement" is entirely reasonable, but to be fair one should also point out that there is also wide agreement)

This argument has been going on for centuries, with countless millions of people chipping in, without anybody really winning it. It is quite unlikely that this thread, or indeed this year, will be the place where somebody wins it. I think it is reasonable for PG to acknowledge this and bow out of the argument, and that's how I interpret what he's doing.

Life's too short to argue red vs blue.

Re: Life is Short

#179

Post by giaour »

sirsar wrote: post #168
giaour wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. S…

So then he's back to saying that inequality would arise because some people are "more driven" than others. Another way to phrase that would be to say that those with less money are simply less driven. Put in uncharitable terms, they would be poor because they were lazy.

It really sounds like he believes this to be the cause of real world inequality, too:

"Most people who get rich tend to be fairly driven. Whatever their other flaws, laziness is usually not one of them. Suppose new policies make it hard to make a fortune in finance. Does it seem plausible that the people who currently go into finance to make their fortunes will continue to do so but be content to work for ordinary salaries? The reason they go into finance is not because they love finance but because they want to get rich. If the only way left to get rich is to start startups, they'll start startups. They'll do well at it too, because determination is the main factor in the success of a startup."

Re: Life is Short

#180

Post by giaour »

mattmcknight wrote: post #171
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?

You are missing the difference between a necessary and a sufficient condition. PG's argument is that being driven is necessary, not sufficient. You have to be driven to get rich doing a startup, but being driven on its own is not enough. Thus, you can be driven and poor. He then weakens his claim even further, as quoted in the parent: "Variation in productivity is far from the only source of economic inequality" such…

PG strongly implies that wealth can be created by anyone with enough drive and determination. Put another way, if you are not creating and amassing wealth, it's because you don't want it hard enough. To quote from his essay:

"Most people who get rich tend to be fairly driven. Whatever their other flaws, laziness is usually not one of them. Suppose new policies make it hard to make a fortune in finance. Does it seem plausible that the people who currently go into finance to make their fortunes will continue to do so but be content to work for ordinary salaries? The reason they go into finance is not because they love finance but because they want to get rich. If the only way left to get rich is to start startups, they'll start startups. They'll do well at it too, because determination is the main factor in the success of a startup."

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