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Haters

paulgraham.com

101–110 of 308 posts

Re: Haters

#101
This isn't startup-centric. This is life. We've taken it. And most of us, at some point, have been a fan or a hater.

That said, on Quora, many years ago there was an article summed up by: If you're not pissing someone off, you're doing it all wrong.

I think these's truth to that. So if you want to do it not all wrong, then you have to expect there's gonna be some friction

Re: Haters

#102

I thought the article was interesting, but this footnote left me cold: “How can you distinguish between x calling y a fraud because x is a hater, and because y is a fraud? ... Thoughtful people are rarely taken in by [frauds]“ The world is full of “thoughtful” people who have been taken in by frauds - Theranos is a recent example - and so I think this is pretty terrible advice in general - although I can see how it m…

>Thoughtful people are rarely taken in by [frauds]“

If there's better evidence that VCs think they're smarter than everyone else, I' don't know what it is.

The Waltons; Carlos Slim, Rupert Murdoch; Robert Kraft; George Shultz; Larry Ellison. Are these not "thoughtful people"? This is from ONE FRAUD.

Articles like this are how you get "haters".

Re: Haters

#103
post #3

I find this parallel interesting. I definitely have "fanboys" (I cringe at the term, but it's what pg uses, so I'll be consistent) who drive me crazy with their complete lack of critical thinking about my work -- I can see obvious flaws in many things I do, but they apparently can't -- but I can't think of anyone whom I would describe as hating me. Plenty of people ignore me, of course -- but that's quite different f…

>I'm leaning towards the third possibility, but I'm curious what other readers think here.

True "haters" are way more rare than overly sensitive people imagine, and those people have a tendency to label any criticism as "hate". I think it's as simple as that.

How else do you explain Elon Musk being on the cover of mainstream magazine publications 50 times in the past 5 years while at the same time claiming the media treats him unfairly?

These overly sensitive people are the same type who believe their accomplishments are all skill, no luck.

Re: Haters

#104
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not write this as a casting of blame. Merely as an observation. One can observe that having a broken leg is not optimal for locomotion without blaming the person who is in that condition.

I hear you. At the same time, I see this story of “if your life isn't exciting, it's your fault” too often, and I call bullshit. I believe this story is incredibly harmful because it doesn't help 'non-participants’ or 'spectators’, as you call them, understand the limitations of their society, and how this impacts them. One of the things I'd like to do instead is to help show them (and anyone else who is interested i…

We should realize that there is not always a very sharp distinction between a participant and a spectator. We all are sometimes a participant and sometimes are tired and just want to watch TV and be a spectator. Drawing a disctinction between spectator and participant may on occasion be helpful. E.g., a young person might hear this and start wondering by him/herself 'what am I doing on these social media for hours and hours' and cut back on it. Such things occasionally happen. The question is more whether a person is doing enough participation for the purposes of his/her creativity or not enough.

You are right that systemic inequalities should be pointed out and improved upon. On the other hand we should also not lose sight of the fact that the most equal and fair societies on the planet are the western ones. Even if one is part of a disadvantaged minority it might well be possible to make much of ones life in the West. Try being part of a disadvantaged minority in China and one might find oneself in a concentration camp instead.

I don't live in the US so I am a spectator as far as racism goes there but I agree that this exists and is a problem. Especially police shooting unarmed black people is obviously a horrible thing. I do have to note though, that your example comes from a long time ago and that much improvement has been made on this front over the decades. I also agree about imperialistic intellectual property, especially patents are a big problem. Software patents should just not exist, for instance. As far as the global south vs the global north I was under the impression that this situation has actually been improving in the last decade or so. People starving to death has been a diminishing problem, as far as I know.

On the one hand it is good to point out inequalities and do something about them but on the other hand it can also make people feel hopeless so that they will achieve less then they otherwise would. This is also something that is happening to black people in the US. I once was on an online forum where the posts of a young black person gave me the impression that a case of self-learned helplessness was going on there where most of the racism involved was coming from fellow black persons and that the group-think thing was not beneficial at all.

Re: Haters

#105
That's part of the worst writing I have read about people. Writing a complete armchair analyst pamphlet indicating among other things than some people are "less than a man" reflects rather poorly on the author. I hope I'm not a "hater" by saying that -- at the same time if he wrote that because he encountered some "haters" of him, I can imagine where that hatred could came from.

Should also serves as a lesson illustrating it is not easy to point faults at other, even less so at whole classes of people, when yourself have your own elephant in the room ones...

Re: Haters

#106

Silicon Valley is simply preparing itself for the immense blowback it will receive when this whole operation unravels financially...again.

Which operation?

Re: Haters

#107
post #92

To me this is such a toxic post. Using sentences like: "He's less than a man" and "Haters are generally losers" - to me shows an unhealthy level of grandiosity, and an inability to fully understand another person's experience. Yes this article might help you deal with some stuff, but it's also not scalable and avoids examining the underlying deep rooted societal inequities that cause these addictive behaviors in peop…

How would you express the central point? Or is it the central point that you disagree with, or feel is "toxic"? (I dislike that word, because it's one of those words that has a tendency to shut down rational discussion). On a certain level, I probably agree with you. The word 'loser' dehumanizes people by focusing on their lack of achievements that society cares about, and achievements or agency in their own life. Ho…

Not the OP but as I grew older I started to realize that calling someone a “loser” (seen as bad) just because they haven’t “achieved” much is simply not ok, it only helps to prolong this (I think unhealthy) state of affairs where everyone should be seen as doing something, anything, preferably something “productive”.

Re: Haters

#108

To me this is such a toxic post. Using sentences like: "He's less than a man" and "Haters are generally losers" - to me shows an unhealthy level of grandiosity, and an inability to fully understand another person's experience. Yes this article might help you deal with some stuff, but it's also not scalable and avoids examining the underlying deep rooted societal inequities that cause these addictive behaviors in peop…

Gary Vee has a great pov on this...his thesis is that we hoist our self image problems inot most situations and that we should fix our self image first and that will take care of us in that we will not a negative reaction to critics

Re: Haters

#109

To me this is such a toxic post. Using sentences like: "He's less than a man" and "Haters are generally losers" - to me shows an unhealthy level of grandiosity, and an inability to fully understand another person's experience. Yes this article might help you deal with some stuff, but it's also not scalable and avoids examining the underlying deep rooted societal inequities that cause these addictive behaviors in peop…

"shows an unhealthy level of grandiosity"

... plus some very unfortunate gender stereotyping.

Re: Haters

#110
I once read an article in Readers Digest with the title "Why we gossip". I started reading, prepared for something which was probably going to point out all the flaws in those people who gossip, and how they can be rectified etc.

But the article took a very interesting turn. It said, (paraphrasing) without gossip, people in power will arrange everything in the general direction of usurping more power (e.g. dictators). And how gossip serves a very important evolutionary need (a powerful, guerilla style technique to destroy power-grabs). If you were under a dictator, openly criticizing them leaves you with a small chance of being murdered. Hence you will choose instead to gossip. Imagine if the dictator then tells all his subjects - "whatever you have heard about me is untrue, it is just some haters hating".

So there is another explanation for haters (and their apparent obsession) - they look around and see a lot of injustice. Usually they are powerless to do anything, and waiting until they achieve something in life might make the problem much worse before they can offer their viewpoint. So perhaps hating has an evolutionary benefit - it gives clues to non-haters to then go and do their own additional research. Sometimes it results in reducing the power of those who become so out of touch that they just casually dismiss all criticism as hating, much like Hillary thought everyone who doesn't agree with her is a deplorable person.

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