Live data from Hacker News

Life is Short

paulgraham.com

411–420 of 452 posts

Re: Life is Short

#411
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that addresses what I said.

Here’s a more carefully elaborated version of the criticism of Graham’s sloppy thinking and lazy writing from his inequality essay: https://glyph.twistedmatrix.com/2016/01/premises.html Since life is short, that’s it for me for this thread.

You're acting as if the correctness of pg's views is relevant to your misconduct on this site. But the two have nothing to do with each other. It's against the values (and rules) of HN to misrepresent what someone said or personally attack them in order to vent your spleen, regardless of how wrong they are.

Re: Life is Short

#412
> The "flow" that imaginative people love so much has a darker cousin that prevents you from pausing to savor life amid the daily slurry of errands and alarms.

A similar thought scares the shit of me. I can code for hours on end (in the "flow") toward even perhaps the most trivial ends established by my employer. On the one hand, you could say I'm doing what I love in life. On the other,d darker hand, it seems like I'm squandering so many hours of my life playing this (effective) video game where I code for points (money).

Re: Life is Short

#413
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious to understand the downvotes. I felt I gave this essay a very objective treatment.

Probably because HN threads are supposed to be conversations and that kind of summary interrupts a conversation.

That theory wouldn't explain why all of my other such summaries have done so well though.

Re: Life is Short

#414
"Relentlessly prune bullshit, don't wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That's what you do when life is short."

As a 40+ parent, I savor the time with my children, parents and friends and I prune the bullshit in work down to minimum.

The big problem: How do you choose what matters if nothing matters on the grand scale?

Life is so short that at 40+ you realize you will never get to do even 0.1% of your bucket list. So which rock do you push uphill?

In other words at 20-30 you can be adventurous and make mistakes. At 40+ you have promises to keep and miles to go before you sleep.

Re: Life is Short

#415
post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 blames poor people for being poor. How am I misreading this? FWIW, I read it differently. I think Paul is saying that even if we had a world where everyone had a truly equal opportunity, in the sense of having simila…

> if we had a world where everyone had a truly equal opportunity, in the sense of having similar (or at least adequate) childhood nutrition, intellectual stimulation, education, etc., there would still be variations in productivity between individuals that would result in different economic outcomes. That argument is still missing the point. Variations you will always have, but no guarantee that the same people would…

It's a weird essay. I think it goes wrong from the very beginning. From the second paragraph:

[B]y helping startup founders I've been helping to increase economic inequality. If economic inequality is bad and should be decreased, I shouldn't be helping founders. No one should be.

I think this is ridiculous. Creating new millionaires is not increasing inequality. I don't know anyone who thinks that (not to say that Paul might not have run into a few people who think that way). The problem, as you say, is the profound concentration of wealth into the hands of a few multi-billionaires. I would say also, it's the fact that the middle class in the US is actually shrinking.

The fundamental way that the wealthy can help the middle class, while helping themselves at the same time, is by investing in new businesses that create jobs. This is precisely what YC is doing! This isn't increasing inequality but decreasing it. Not only are they creating jobs directly, they're also doing so indirectly, by teaching people -- even those who don't get into their program -- how to start startups.

Founders don't get rich unless they build a successful business. And again, I don't think anybody minds that they can get rich; after all, a lot of them then either start new businesses or become angel investors themselves. There's nothing wrong with any of this, quite the contrary, and if Paul really does run into people who think there is something wrong with it, this is what he should tell them.

I would go so far as to say that YC and its ilk are among the most creative, hopeful, positive things happening in the US economy today. Though I'm not involved with them directly -- I haven't even worked for a YC company -- I am very glad to have them here in the Valley, and I'm excited to see what they do in the coming years.

Re: Life is Short

#416
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do both. I love seeing the blue sky and clouds and I love just walking outside even if a bike ride or bus ride would be faster. I also want to not be late for work, and have enough time to finish my errands. I want to have comfort and pay off my student loans and see Europe before I turn 35 (had to move the goal posts, unfortunately). It comes down to balancing things. Also, chatting with a sales clerk, reall…

You can fly to Europe round trip ~$700 or cheaper if you look around and are not particular about which city you start in. Why not see it now?

I'm not noobermin, but for me it's not really the cost of the trip, it's the loss of the income I would have generated during the trip. I could take vacation, but I don't wouldn't want to rush through the trip. Ideally it would stretch across a few months.

Re: Life is Short

#417

I actually liked the message in this essay. That said, I've wondered why we put so much stock/interest in PG's essays? I've casually read some of PG's essays, and came away with a few observations: 1. It doesn't appear he puts a lot of thought into his writing. His thoughts are not new. 2. He's a C- writer. (I'm a horrid writer, but I know it.) 3. He shouldn't dash off an essays while imbibing in any chemical. I'm no…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10917949 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Life is Short

#418
post #59
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you mean cancer research? It is much more likely to kill us all than old age.

Why do young people not have cancer? (save for rare genetic forms).

Some cancers are the result of damage. I.e. asbestos in your lungs. Children just haven't punched enough time on the clock to have as many of those experiences. By the time you are old your probability of exposure to at least one of those experiences gets pretty high. That's not aging doing the deed, it's living.

Also, some cancers take time to develop, which would make for fewer diagnoses in childhood.

Re: Life is Short

#419
post #22

I lived in Sydney for 8 months and Brisbane for 4 years. When thinking back, both feel like a distinct part of my life to a surprisingly equal extent. Maximizing the number of distinct phases in your life seems to me to be important in making it seem longer.

This rings very true to me.

It points at another approach to getting the most out of life: change as much as you can. Maybe once everyone in your family had had a few of those magical Christmases it's time to look for something else fun.

Re: Life is Short

#420
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do young people not have cancer? (save for rare genetic forms).

Some cancers are the result of damage. I.e. asbestos in your lungs. Children just haven't punched enough time on the clock to have as many of those experiences. By the time you are old your probability of exposure to at least one of those experiences gets pretty high. That's not aging doing the deed, it's living. Also, some cancers take time to develop, which would make for fewer diagnoses in childhood.

Well, one of the least ambiguous definitions of aging is "accumulation of damage at the microscopic/cellular level", that includes both accumulation of foreign matter over time (e.g., accumulation of asbestos particles, or cholesterol) and accumulation of damage due to matter or othewise (e.g., damage accumulation due to daily asbestos exposure without asbestos actually accumulating). So you essentially supported my point.

If you have a different meaningful definition of aging I'd like to know.

Post reply on HN