Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Interview with Paul Graham

pullrequest.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 181 posts

Re: Interview with Paul Graham

#61

Post by Quekid5 »

Abhinav2000 wrote: post #48
Quekid5 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only part of PG's writings I've taken seriously was On Lisp -- which was excellent, TBF! Everything else I was made aware of later was so seriously skewed by Survivor Bias[0] that it wasn't even useful for anyone outside the "world" which he inhabits. I don't place any blame on him personally, it's just that his day-to-day is so removed from anything close to ours that his musings are... irrelevant for the vast m…

I actually read his ANSI Common Lisp book first, and being a newbie at the time, didn’t have any idea of his immense success. Definitely was very cool to find out that the author of book I read was a billionaire! I’ve heard great things about On Lisp, so will read it when I get to a more advanced level. But honestly I feel like I could write a better ANSI Common Lisp book, it has so many convoluted parts. That said,…

I'm not sure Common Lisp has evolved very far in the last 20 years, honestly -- that seems to be part of the value proposition, though I don't quite understand it.

I do recommend On Lisp for people who want to understand and get a feel for lispy ways to solve problems... but, fair warning: I did already have a very solid grasp of programming in general via C, C++, Python, O'Caml, a little bit of Haskell (at the time) when I read it. So... YMMV.

If you want a good book on paradigms in general, I'd recommend something else.

Re: Interview with Paul Graham

#62

Post by Uhhrrr »

jmeister wrote: post #53
lowdose wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to find one for the first. It is in this https://youtu.be/_b4qKv1Ctv8?t=8071 The second one is pretty obvious, Three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—created the service in February 2005. With what we know of Peter Thiel I think the burden of proof is on you that he doesn't make use of the knowledge he has on specific network work effects of youtube. Just like he installed Do…

I’m baffled by the hostility and conspiracy theorizing Thiel provokes on this forum. Maybe people are intimidated by his intelligence and contrarian stances?

Some students look for answers in the back of the book and then figure out how to show work which gets those answers. If you do this long enough, it turns into a cult-like reverence for "the right/approved answers".

Thiel's reasoning on one thing or another may be flawed, but he definitely doesn't work this way. And he has a ton of money. So that can make the back-of-bookers both irritated and resentful.

Re: Interview with Paul Graham

#63

Post by whitepoplar »

Abhinav2000 wrote: post #41
yodsanklai wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he has become too much of a cult figure I didn't know who PG was until recently. I knew he was well respected on HN but I've never found that much value in his blog posts either. Maybe people like his writings in the light of his achievements, rather than for their intrinsic values.

That’s exactly it. Everybody would dream to have his life and his blogs do give a vivid imagery that makes you feel good and believe you can do the same (plus with YC actually giving some hope). But I’ve learnt a lot more from others, who are not nearly as successful.

Who are some of the other people you've learned a great deal from? I'm curious!

Re: Interview with Paul Graham

#64

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

samatman wrote: post #36

> But a few years after it's over, we'll be acting as if [COVID] never happened. We're good at that. I fear this prediction won't come true. There's a great risk that 'health theatre' will join security theatre as a durable if not permanent part of our existence. That years from now, we'll be getting temperatures checked, schools will be shutting down for worse-than-usual influenzas, and so on. I still can't bring an…

This analogy didn't one-hundred percent land with me. There's a difference between security theater and 'health theater'. The probability of getting on a compromised plane is the same for everyone. The consequences for getting COVID are different based on personal risk factors. Framing the discussion with the phrase 'health theater' suggests one's personal risk factor is low (which is wonderful, it's great that we have low-risk groups), but it unfortunately doesn't apply to everyone. Our health policy shouldn't be based on notions of one's individual risk.

Re: Interview with Paul Graham

#65

Post by dang »

yodsanklai wrote: post #40
Abhinav2000 wrote: post #25

Honestly I never found PG’s writing that insightful and ANSI Lisp was a bit of a pain to read That doesn’t take away from any of his success, which has been immense (anybody who has made over a billion is obviously amazing and had the ultimate life) but he has become too much of a cult figure in comparison to others in that stratosphere

> he has become too much of a cult figure I didn't know who PG was until recently. I knew he was well respected on HN but I've never found that much value in his blog posts either. Maybe people like his writings in the light of his achievements, rather than for their intrinsic values.

His essays were what attracted people to YC (and HN) in the first place.

Re: Interview with Paul Graham

#66

Post by navd »

marcinzm wrote: post #31
gonehome wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What PG describes is basically what's proposed - the main difference is that most American proposals have a floor before it kicks in. That floor is pretty high depending on the proposal ($30-50 million), but that doesn't stop the problem of equity ownership being eaten away over time when a lot of your worth is tied up into a successful company (like Bezos). You also get other incentive problems with things like ange…

Why is disincentivizing the accumulation of massive wealth in a small subset of the population bad for society? What is the advantage to society of an individual accumulating tens of billions of dollars worth of wealth?

Because then you incentivize people to seek status.

Re: Interview with Paul Graham

#67

Post by BrianOnHN »

ghufran_syed wrote: post #55
BrianOnHN wrote: post #33

Once upon a time I saw pg as a guy that was leveling the playing field, and I think he succeeded because of that. As another comment pointed out, concerning his writing about the wealth tax, I think he's lost sight of the fact that's there's more wealth to be created that's outside the scope of what the wealth advisors for the uber-wealthy are familiar with.

Could you expand on this a bit or give a link where I can read more? And why do you think he has "lost sight" of that potential wealth, as opposed to the idea that many businesses are simply not appropriate for equity financing?

No. And that's a strawman.

Re: Interview with Paul Graham

#68

Post by TheDong »

tazjin wrote: post #49
samatman wrote: post #36

> But a few years after it's over, we'll be acting as if [COVID] never happened. We're good at that. I fear this prediction won't come true. There's a great risk that 'health theatre' will join security theatre as a durable if not permanent part of our existence. That years from now, we'll be getting temperatures checked, schools will be shutting down for worse-than-usual influenzas, and so on. I still can't bring an…

I've had a thought about this that I haven't articulated before, so bear with me if this sounds a little rambly: There's a large group of people who've become extremely scared as a result of what's going on at the moment. Most of them haven't actually evaluated what the risk for them personally is, yet they've made significant changes to their behaviours in the name of the health theatre. On the other hand, you've go…

I think there may be a third option: people recognize both that the risk is low and selfishly they need not change their behaviors, but they also recognize that the socially correct behavior is to change their behavior so in aggregate we lower risk.

I do believe that the risk is fairly low right now. So low that if I'm only thinking of myself, there's not sufficient justification to change my behaviors.

However, I also believe that if no one changed their behaviors, the risk would be high enough I'd have to (as is the nature of an exponentially spreading thing).

As such, I behave how I need everyone else to: I change my behaviors in the hope everyone behaves similarly to me.

For a very similar analogy, there's no need individually to get vaccinated risk wise. Developed countries have such a high level of vaccination that there's a vanishingly small probability you're exposed in your entire life to the things you're vaccinated against. There's a higher risk of side-effects from being vaccinated.

However, if no one got vaccinated, the math doesn't work out anymore, and it's back to vaccination making sense for you as an individual. As such, most people get vaccinated since it's the socially conscious thing to do, it's what we ourselves need most other people to also do for our own health.

Re: Interview with Paul Graham

#69

Post by sombremesa »

WalterBright wrote: post #60
WanderPanda wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- If there isn't any danger, danger will be exaggerated or simply invented. Citation needed

Read any daily newspaper :-) and then compare to CDC statistics of what people actually die from.

Isn't there any difference between claiming "our brains" do something versus a publication publishing something?

Re: Interview with Paul Graham

#70

Post by somewhereoutth »

tazjin wrote: post #49
samatman wrote: post #36

> But a few years after it's over, we'll be acting as if [COVID] never happened. We're good at that. I fear this prediction won't come true. There's a great risk that 'health theatre' will join security theatre as a durable if not permanent part of our existence. That years from now, we'll be getting temperatures checked, schools will be shutting down for worse-than-usual influenzas, and so on. I still can't bring an…

I've had a thought about this that I haven't articulated before, so bear with me if this sounds a little rambly: There's a large group of people who've become extremely scared as a result of what's going on at the moment. Most of them haven't actually evaluated what the risk for them personally is, yet they've made significant changes to their behaviours in the name of the health theatre. On the other hand, you've go…

No. There is a large group of people who have some sort of understanding of what is going on, and what needs to be done. Unfortunately there is another large group of people who are not able to think as clearly. Large parts of East Asia are now virus free - I imagine they have more of the former group, or at least are better able to deal with the latter.
Post reply on HN