Earnestness • Hacker News Board

Re: Earnestness

#91

Post by pjc50 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #63

kabirgoel wrote: post #42

> The most earnest part of Europe is Scandinavia, and not surprisingly this is also the region with the highest number of successful startups per capita. I find it hard to take sweeping statements like this seriously. What makes Scandinavian countries any more or less earnest than, say, Germany or France? This seems no better than to say, “The French make great lovers,” or “The British are terrible cooks.” Absent any…

Scandinavian countries have very high trust societies, based on any survey that looked into this. Why that is is a difficult question and leads us very far. Is it money? Where did the money come from? Oil (but that's not there in all Nordic countries)? Lack of war? Did the lack of war come from their high trust? Or the geographic distance to warring nations and empires of Europe? Is it related to the cold environment…

Everyone forgets the Swedish empire. And the man whose name is a synonym for traitor, Vikrund Quisling. Scandinavia has hardly escaped war.

If I wanted a glib answer I'd attribute it to a combination of less feudalism and more Lutheranism, plus a bit of Hanseatic trading.

Re: Earnestness

#92

Post by nindalf » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #83

nindalf wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His posts aren’t fact based, they’re mostly an expression of his feelings. A great example are his 5-6 posts talking about how the most important facet of a programming language is its brevity ( https://ideolalia.com/essays/thought-leaders-and-chicken-sex... ). At no point does he cite any facts backing that up. Even when the brevity chasing language he created failed to gain traction, he didn’t see that as an indica…

I think you folks are holding PG to a standard that the vast majority of essays which hit the HN frontpage would not meet. Even this critical essay looks like it fails to meet its own standard. A "profoundly unserious" writer which is "mired in intuition and incuriosity"? Nowhere in the post are these terms rigorously defined! And look! The author accuses Graham of "tantalizing the reader by reducing complex problems…

The vast majority of essays submitted to HN don’t reach the front page because the author isn’t famous. Whereas PG rockets to the top of the front page within an hour of submission.

Even then, the average HN comments section is highly sceptical of any claims in any post. The top comment is usually critiquing the link for one reason or another. For some reason, that wasn’t the case with PG articles. You’re only remarking about this now because HN is finally holding PG to the same standard that others are.

Re: Earnestness

#93

Post by qPM9l3XJrF » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

rst wrote: post #49

Odd to see a stress on interest in a problem for its own sake from pg, who has elsewhere written that the startup economy would be crippled by raising taxes on people who had already gotten fabulously rich. If being in it for the money is "the wrong motive" to do a startup, downgrading the potential financial gains from set-for-dynasty to merely set-for-life would seem to be a way of ditching the poseurs...

"People's motives are as mixed in Silicon Valley as anywhere else. Even the founders motivated mostly by money tend to be at least somewhat interested in the problem they're solving, and even the founders most interested in the problem they're solving also like the idea of getting rich."

Re: Earnestness

#94

Post by zepto » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

ckastner wrote: post #65

zepto wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It’s because of who he is. If I wrote this post, it would not have the same meaning as if he wrote it. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but the reason is that we know that PG has huge experience of and access to startup founders and seen their outcomes and has had a great deal of opportunity to formulate thoughts like like this on the basis of what he has seen. I have experience of startups too. I could have…

But what you are describing is just an appeal to authority. It's quite possible that putting the assertions of the text in the context of this particular authority does give it more credibility, but I've also heard that same authority make some very poor assertions. Just look at the objective criticism that some of the posts gather. Sometimes, there are really major, easily contradicted flaws in these texts.

You’re going to need to explain how you conclude that I am making an appeal to authority.

I didn’t say anything about the validity of his argument. Only that it means something different and more interesting given his experience, than it would coming from someone else.

Even when he is wrong, it is more interesting to us than when a random blogger is wrong.

Re: Earnestness

#95

Post by zepto » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

throwaway284534 wrote: post #67

zepto wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It’s because of who he is. If I wrote this post, it would not have the same meaning as if he wrote it. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but the reason is that we know that PG has huge experience of and access to startup founders and seen their outcomes and has had a great deal of opportunity to formulate thoughts like like this on the basis of what he has seen. I have experience of startups too. I could have…

I beg someone out there, please run an experiment that reposts PG’s articles on Medium.com with a different author’s name. All things equal, I wouldn’t doubt that HN would start giving these posts a proper vote count. But then again, some people are more equal than others. shrug

Some people have more experience than others.

Re: Earnestness

#96

Post by qPM9l3XJrF » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #92

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you folks are holding PG to a standard that the vast majority of essays which hit the HN frontpage would not meet. Even this critical essay looks like it fails to meet its own standard. A "profoundly unserious" writer which is "mired in intuition and incuriosity"? Nowhere in the post are these terms rigorously defined! And look! The author accuses Graham of "tantalizing the reader by reducing complex problems…

The vast majority of essays submitted to HN don’t reach the front page because the author isn’t famous. Whereas PG rockets to the top of the front page within an hour of submission. Even then, the average HN comments section is highly sceptical of any claims in any post. The top comment is usually critiquing the link for one reason or another. For some reason, that wasn’t the case with PG articles. You’re only remark…

I value PG's opinion more than a rando blogger because he's very successful, has observed a lot of data about what makes startups successful, seems unusually serious about being correct, and has written a lot of things I consider insightful in the past. He's a name I know and I click it when I see it on HN. There are a lot of other people with similar HN clout, patio11 for instance.

I haven't noticed a trend for comments on PG articles to be less critical. If anything I think I've noticed users feeling a need to be more critical (as I feel your comment illustrates).

It's OK to hold pg to a higher standard than others in terms of factually supporting his claims. Fine. Just be clear that you are doing so. It's fine to remind others not to take his word as gospel as well.

Re: Earnestness

#97

Post by zepto » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

ajju wrote: post #74

zepto wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and when we say ‘created’ hacker news, he coded it himself in a dialect of lisp which he also coded just for this purpose .

Is this a tongue in cheek reference to Ken Thompson’s trick in “reflections on trusting trust”? [1] if so, it wins the 2020 award for originality in HN conspiracy theories! 1 - https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/hh/thompson/trust.html

No. It’s just historical context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_(programming_language)

Re: Earnestness

#98

Post by afpx » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

I love PG, but some of his essays lately seem to make me sad, like he's out of touch. I know plenty of earnest (and, frankly, quite talented) people. What they lack is capital and guidance (and maybe some discipline and motivation, to be fair). But, they will read a PG essay and say, "Hey! That's me! Why can't PG invest in me?". To which case, they quickly realize, "Oh, cause I can't show that I can make any money from my idea. Or, because I'm not savvy at manipulating people or presenting my ideas well." Or something like that.

So, what are those types of people to do?

Re: Earnestness

#99

Post by trap_chateau » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

qwerty1234599 wrote: post #80

bonoboTP wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scandinavian countries have very high trust societies, based on any survey that looked into this. Why that is is a difficult question and leads us very far. Is it money? Where did the money come from? Oil (but that's not there in all Nordic countries)? Lack of war? Did the lack of war come from their high trust? Or the geographic distance to warring nations and empires of Europe? Is it related to the cold environment…

Scandinavian countries are not really countries. More like a family club. (This is starting to change though) When everybody is just like you, it leads to high trust, no us vs them mentality. Same is true in eg. South Korea and Japan. Contrast this with their similarily northern neighbour Russia, which is basically the America of eastern europe. A nation resulting from a melting pot of ethnicitiess, languages, cultur…

While I'm not disagreeing with your proposed cause to high trust within a culture, I disagree with 'high diversity causing corruption'. I think the corruption issues in eastern europe are a whole different conversation and I'm not sure how diversity in ethnicity would necessarily cause that.

Re: Earnestness

#100

Post by ajju » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #97

ajju wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a tongue in cheek reference to Ken Thompson’s trick in “reflections on trusting trust”? [1] if so, it wins the 2020 award for originality in HN conspiracy theories! 1 - https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/hh/thompson/trust.html

No. It’s just historical context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_(programming_language)

Got it. I am aware of the history. I was reading too much into your comment. I thought you were joking that PG may have used the Thompson trick to juice scores for his posts on HN.