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Life is Short

paulgraham.com

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Re: Life is Short

#281

Post by eruditely »

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.

Really? I don't think that at all. Sikh guy here whos extended family back at home actually have to deal with poverty and could definitely use some just start up generating inequality in the area. There is just inequality.

Re: Life is Short

#282

Post by fsloth »

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…

"How am I misreading this? I don't feel like I'm cherry-picking, I feel like I'm finding the theme of the text. If that's not it, then what is its theme? Its central idea?"

I don't see how he advocated a position that poor people deserve to be poor. He advocated a position where being rich is ok. These are two different things. It also focuses discussion on economics - eliminating mega-wealth should not be made priority, but the focus should be placed on poverty minimization.

Re: Life is Short

#283

Post by Pyxl101 »

cryoshon wrote: post #88
mildbow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people will pick fights with people who have an audience (like pg) just so they can borrow that audience for a short while. I'm not convinced that most of the aforementioned responses weren't motivated by that. So, given that almost anything pg will write/has written will get the same treatment, why would he play their game by bothering to defend himself? In fact, there is a pureness to insulating yourself fr…

If you propose a radical idea like "income inequality isn't bad", you need to expect a debate because the idea is far from proven. It sounds lame, but PG's essay is a stanza in a larger societal conversation, and conversations involve more than one person. To weigh in on one side invites response, especially if you're influential.

> If you propose a radical idea like "income inequality isn't bad", you need to expect a debate because the idea is far from proven.

Let's say that Bob is a farmer, and (with the same land) can grow twice as many crops to sell in a year as his neighbor nearby. In this scenario, it seems entirely appropriate to me that Bob has greater income - that is, the income of Bob and his neighbor are unequal.

Let's say that Alice is a video game designer. Alice creates an incredibly popular game called Clash of Clans that has 20 million users and earns $1.5m in revenue per day. Bob the farmer quits his job and creates a video game instead, which only sells 10 copies, since while he's great at farming he's a bad video game designer. Is it surprising or bad that the incomes of Alice and Bob are unequal?

Do you work for a living? Let's say a coworker at your place of employment comes to work and does literally nothing, every day. Does he deserve the same income as you?

No, it is not bad that people earn different amounts when they're differently productive. This incentive toward productivity drives society forward. It would be incredibly demotivating to most of the world if people were not made better off through their own efforts to become more productive, effective, and driven. I doubt anyone would argue that all income inequality is bad - instead, as a peer comment points out, the actual debate is about how much is bad, or for what reasons.

The purpose of PG's essay was to point out that income inequality has multiple components and is a complex phenomenon. He observed that technology amplifies this difference in productivity (consider the example of Alice who can make a video game and sell 20 million copies with recurring revenue; being that much more productive as a video game designer is simply impossible as a farmer.)

Re: Life is Short

#284

Post by eruditely »

jacobolus wrote: post #17
oskrim wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure he's well aware of the critizism. I think this is mostly about the random hate one gets for doing original thought.

Graham’s essay that got dumped on was hardly an “original thought”. The whole “we rich people deserve to have 100x more than the poors because we’re pushing humanity forward” schtick is as old as civilization, and Graham’s version was a particularly lazy and poorly argued one.

Who are your family members that are poor? I hate it when a specific class of people tries to get us feel bad about inequality when we personally know through our extended families what poverty actually is and that inequality isn't whats propelling it, it's what's saving us. The just types of inequality of course bring us more.

Re: Life is Short

#285

Post by eruditely »

kelukelugames wrote: post #251
anunumoose wrote: post #3

Mr Graham, I respect you and you've accomplished more that I will in my life, but I sincerely hope that this essay against "bullshit" and "arguing online" isn't you declaring that you'll be "bubbling" yourself after your last essay was met with wide disagreement. It's possible that sometimes, no matter how smart you are, your experiences have been limited in a way and you're missing a part of something everyone else…

PG is throwing a tantrum. I can't believe he is upset when people disagree with him. Even normal people are misquoted and browbeatend.

In what way is he throwing a tantrum? He hardly writes anything at all! Human neurological uniformity is false.

Re: Life is Short

#286

Post by fsloth »

kelukelugames wrote: post #251
anunumoose wrote: post #3

Mr Graham, I respect you and you've accomplished more that I will in my life, but I sincerely hope that this essay against "bullshit" and "arguing online" isn't you declaring that you'll be "bubbling" yourself after your last essay was met with wide disagreement. It's possible that sometimes, no matter how smart you are, your experiences have been limited in a way and you're missing a part of something everyone else…

PG is throwing a tantrum. I can't believe he is upset when people disagree with him. Even normal people are misquoted and browbeatend.

I disagree. This is an important topic in life. Too bad he published this one just after the previous ones about wealth inequality.

Having lost my parents some time ago and having two kids I can concur with his sentiments fully and can confirm they are spot on.

The incentive to respond to acidic comments and trolls in online discourse is a pervasive feature of the medium - and it seldom creates any value. Thus it's a perfect example of useless bullshit. The discussions are usually ephemeral in nature - quickly forgotten - and not influential. This is not to say there are no influential discussions - but that at the heat of the moment most discussions feel more important than they really are.

Re: Life is Short

#287

Post by ageek123 »

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…

You're using the colloquial definition of productivity while PG was using the economic definition. The economic definition has nothing to do with how hard you work--it has to do with your economic output. Bill Gates working at McDonalds would be tremendously unproductive (by the economic definition). A farmer who works the land manually is much less productive than one who uses a tractor, even though the manual laborer is probably working "harder" than the technology-enabled one.

Re: Life is Short

#288

Post by [deleted] »

eruditely wrote: post #284
jacobolus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Graham’s essay that got dumped on was hardly an “original thought”. The whole “we rich people deserve to have 100x more than the poors because we’re pushing humanity forward” schtick is as old as civilization, and Graham’s version was a particularly lazy and poorly argued one.

Who are your family members that are poor? I hate it when a specific class of people tries to get us feel bad about inequality when we personally know through our extended families what poverty actually is and that inequality isn't whats propelling it, it's what's saving us. The just types of inequality of course bring us more.

[deleted]

Re: Life is Short

#289

Post by eruditely »

silverlake wrote: post #8
the_watcher wrote: post #2

This is probably my favorite thing pg has ever written. He's right in so many ways, but my favorite is just his reminder of "don't wait."

This is my least favorite. I respect his advice on startups, but little else. This sounds like the stuff Oprah used to say.

You sound like an idiot. How in the world is this comparable to something oprah says?

This reminds me of how Karl Popper critiques people's opinions, at times he rejects both the pro/anti side of something, as he did in anti-naturalist history vs naturalist history arguing that both were based on a misunderstanding of the logical content of the thing in question.

In this regard you have misunderstood the logical content of the essay in question, drawing a contrast on two things that are not.

Re: Life is Short

#290

Post by Pyxl101 »

jacobolus wrote: post #226
invalidOrTaken wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PG claimed that some rich people "create wealth" and are thus entitled to it. Close enough. But, like, is anyone really going to argue with this? With scare quotes, sure, OK, I guess there's an example of someone out there churning out widgets from their blood-diamond-financed widget factory, and that's more of a grey area, but without weird factors like this...yes, people ought to be entitled to what they create.…

Unpacking the whole context and philosophical debate (e.g. between libertarians and Marxists) requires a book-length argument. (But to briefly answer your question, no. “People ought to be entitled to what they create” is not a universally accepted principle.) So folks responding to Graham are mostly not going to do the topic justice. (Side note: In a similar but less defensible way, Paul Graham’s summary of Joseph S…

> “People ought to be entitled to what they create” is not a universally accepted principle

Yes, in the society and economy we are discussing this is a universally accepted principle.

Bob is a farmer. He has the same amount of land as his neighbor, but he works twice as hard, and grows twice the number of crops to sell in a year. He has twice the income. No one would reasonably claim that he's entitled to none of what he produced. Bob's greater productivity than his neighbor is a source of income inequality - he earns twice as much!

There is a mainstream view that society has the right to tax Bob's income, so he does not receive all of what he creates. That's the debate: how much is fair? Maybe it's fair for Bob to have twice the income of his neighbor, or maybe less than twice as much. Unless Bob gets the same as his neighbor, there's income inequality because of differences in productivity.

No farmer is going to singlehandedly earn a million times what his neighbor earns. However, because of technology, this is now possible in some industries. For example, Notch is a game designer, and he singlehandedly makes a game that sells 20 million copies. Notch now has a vast income that far exceeds the typical game designer. Is this bad? What is bad about 20 million people choosing to give Notch their money in exchange for his game? I don't see anything wrong or unjust about this.

PG's essay points out that income inequality is a complex phenomenon, with multiple causes, some that are good (small groups or individuals creating amazingly valuable things) and some that are bad ("kids with no chance of reaching their potential"). PG's essay from my perspective serves to make the point that perhaps not all income equality is bad, and that there deserves to be more thought on the topic of "how much is bad?" or "what causes of income inequality are bad?", instead of treating income inequality as a one-dimensional issue that is intrinsically bad.

From my perspective, PG's point is fair. Income inequality is not intrinsically bad: when people work hard, improve, and become more productive, they earn more, leading to income inequality. This incentive to improve and produce is good, in my opinion. Perhaps what we as a society should be tackling are bad problems like "kids with no chance of reaching their potential", rather than considering income inequality to be a problem ipso facto.

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