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What You Can't Say (2004)

paulgraham.com

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Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#51

Post by lazyasciiart »

BigJono wrote: post #25
aazaa wrote: post #7

This quote is eerily prescient: > I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them. It's especially powerful when paired with this question: > Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front…

What moral taboos are enforced by straight white males?

Ideas suggesting that being a straight white male might give a person advantages.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#52

Post by voidhorse »

jf- wrote: post #32
jonahrd wrote: post #5

> It could be that the scientists are simply smarter; most physicists could, if necessary, make it through a PhD program in French literature, but few professors of French literature could make it through a PhD program in physics. Well having taken a lesson from the article, I think he's purely mistaken with this point. (As well as divisive, insensitive, etc..) Quite the hubris to make that assumption!

We can pretend to be outraged by it but he’s very likely right. We’ve arrived at a point where it’s unacceptable to say that people have different levels of ability or that some professions require more than others. (And this comment didn’t go straight to the bottom this time, that’s a nice change.)

But it’s a very naive and limited conception of intelligence that equates intellegence strictly with mathematical reasoning (and perhaps experimentation).

There are many forms of intellect. For example, plenty of people that excel in mathematics and physics have a horrible time of expressing themselves linguistically and are usually not very good at socializing.

And let’s be really honest then: the vast majority of people that are good at rigorous studies and “hard” sciences are actually people who don’t question accepted beliefs—they use an entire framework of reasoning without ever questioning it on a day to day basis. Hardly skeptics. In fact one of the best qualities you can have as a scientist is to follow mundane proceedures without questioning a thing and regardless of the changing circumstances.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#53

Post by hinkley »

jonahrd wrote: post #5

> It could be that the scientists are simply smarter; most physicists could, if necessary, make it through a PhD program in French literature, but few professors of French literature could make it through a PhD program in physics. Well having taken a lesson from the article, I think he's purely mistaken with this point. (As well as divisive, insensitive, etc..) Quite the hubris to make that assumption!

There is the concept of a polymath. There is overlap in that group with autodidacts (people who can teach themselves about anything if they only want it badly enough).

I think Paul may be falling prey to a correlation issue here.

If you are an autodidact and a polymath, are you more likely to end up as a scientist or engineer, or as a professor of French Literature?

Very few people in the CS program understood why I was contemplating 300 level French classes (I placed out of 4 semesters of french, and that left 2-3 200 level classes and then you were into the hard stuff). A lot of them could not have 'suffered' through twelve semesters of French, no matter how much you bet them.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#54

Post by lazyasciiart »

Tronno wrote: post #45
malandrew wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither conservatism nor progressivism is necessarily correct or better. Sometimes conservatism is worse because it preserves things that we should change for the better. Sometimes progressivism is worse because it doesn't fully understand why society arrived at a solution so progressives try to change things in a way they think is better but then there are all sorts of unintended consequences that turn out to be wor…

"Now progressives are trying to reinstitute segregation and promoting the idea that people should be judged on skin color and not content of character while conservatives fight them on these changes." That's quite a statement. Could you go into more detail?

I believe they are referring to support for concepts like Black History Month or a Women In Engineering group being equivalent to "segregation".

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#55

Post by chrisdhoover »

Uehreka wrote: post #30

Having seen many articles on this topic show up on HN, and this one in particular recur like a comet every year, I’d like to note a trend I feel like I see in the HN comments every time. First I see a highly upvoted top-level comment talking about how tragic it is that thoughtcrime is such a capital offense these days, and lamenting that surely the HN thought police will be coming for their head, but they still feel…

Yet we are governed by a clown posse of low intellect and corrupt officials. Sherriffs who sell Concealed carry permits, legislators who outright run guns, senators that grease their family businesses, a board of supervisors that ignores real issues in favor of voting on symbolic gestures, and a governor who not surprisingly slept with his best friend’s wife. Somehow i was unable to squeeze in the current senator running for president who got ahead through blowjobs and being the venal-worst human through zealous prosecution of anything she didn't like or anything she thought would move her personal career forward in the sentence above.

We may a few free thinkers and intellectuals but increasingly it seems we live in a bad and watered down version of “The Death of Stalin.”

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#56

Post by lazyasciiart »

iconjack wrote: post #17

Things you can't say in the tech world, 2019: * global warming is junk science * there are approximately two genders * Trump is a great president * the US is not a racist country * Apple sucks Edit: If you're one of the many downvoters, who presumably disagree with this, I dare you to say any of these things if you work for a tech company.

* 2 + 2 is a color * there is a worldwide market for about 6 computers * by the year 2000 we will all be living in space.

I don't think you're wrong - I just think that your examples are about equivalent to mine, and nobody is upset by the constraints of society refusing to listen to those.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#57

Post by yourbandsucks »

traderjane wrote: post #14
aazaa wrote: post #7

This quote is eerily prescient: > I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them. It's especially powerful when paired with this question: > Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front…

Which group is countering the strength of straight white males? When one looks at the faces of the powerful in America, what do they see? Gay black women?

Different arenas.

You're talking about representation among the powerful in mainstream America, but OP was talking about accepted speech in tech/academia.

You can both be right.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#58

Post by lazyasciiart »

undefined1 wrote: post #40
jonahrd wrote: post #5

> It could be that the scientists are simply smarter; most physicists could, if necessary, make it through a PhD program in French literature, but few professors of French literature could make it through a PhD program in physics. Well having taken a lesson from the article, I think he's purely mistaken with this point. (As well as divisive, insensitive, etc..) Quite the hubris to make that assumption!

Paul's response to this: "Actually, for illustrative purposes I did include a few things you can't say, but I stuck to domain-specific ones. Within university faculties, this is the great unmentionable. And look at how much trouble I got in for bringing it up. (So far no one from the US car industry has complained though, perhaps because I mentioned explicitly that a heresy was coming, instead of just inlining it.) T…

Pretty high - has he updated his response yet? https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/22/nonsense-pap...

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#59

Post by jf- »

voidhorse wrote: post #52
jf- wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can pretend to be outraged by it but he’s very likely right. We’ve arrived at a point where it’s unacceptable to say that people have different levels of ability or that some professions require more than others. (And this comment didn’t go straight to the bottom this time, that’s a nice change.)

But it’s a very naive and limited conception of intelligence that equates intellegence strictly with mathematical reasoning (and perhaps experimentation). There are many forms of intellect. For example, plenty of people that excel in mathematics and physics have a horrible time of expressing themselves linguistically and are usually not very good at socializing. And let’s be really honest then: the vast majority of p…

Yes, I equate intelligence with reasoning. For me, and realistically most everyone else, intelligence is the ability to reason, formulate solutions to problems and to quickly grasp concepts.

There are a host of other skills that are worthwhile and desirable and whatever else, but why pretend that they are the same thing as intelligence?

I’m not sure I understand the relevance of your skeptics comment.

Edit: you added this since I wrote my reply:

> In fact one of the best qualities you can have as a scientist is to follow mundane proceedures without questioning a thing and regardless of the changing circumstances.

I’m afraid you now just sound like you have a chip on your shoulder.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#60

Post by inimino »

voidhorse wrote: post #52
jf- wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can pretend to be outraged by it but he’s very likely right. We’ve arrived at a point where it’s unacceptable to say that people have different levels of ability or that some professions require more than others. (And this comment didn’t go straight to the bottom this time, that’s a nice change.)

But it’s a very naive and limited conception of intelligence that equates intellegence strictly with mathematical reasoning (and perhaps experimentation). There are many forms of intellect. For example, plenty of people that excel in mathematics and physics have a horrible time of expressing themselves linguistically and are usually not very good at socializing. And let’s be really honest then: the vast majority of p…

> the vast majority of people that are good at rigorous studies and “hard” sciences are actually people who don’t question accepted beliefs—they use an entire framework of reasoning without ever questioning it on a day to day basis.

This is of course true. But if you think this is an any way unique to the hard sciences, I have some humanities departments full of people I'd love to introduce you to.

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