Earnestness • Hacker News Board

Re: Earnestness

#191

Post by Bresenham » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #182

Bresenham wrote: post #123

> Reporters literally can't believe it when founders making piles of money say that they started their companies to make the world better. The situation seems made for mockery. How can these founders be so naive as not to realize how implausible they sound? I can't speak for someone like Kara Swisher, but attempting to channel her, I don't think she would think it is beyond belief that some hacker teenager who droppe…

Your argument jumps around. By the time Steve Jobs returned to Apple he had near total control: yet a central point of your argument was that idealistic founders have trouble when they sign away rights. And Job, though he did many wonderful things, had sociopathic tendencies from even before he founded Apple. As for Facebook, Zuckerberg has maintained a very large amount of control. How does this square with your the…

My thesis is that for the earnest young founders mentioned in the essay who want to make the world a better place and to work on X, the trouble starts when they sign a deal with VCs, super seeds etc.

If they are not earnest, but sociopathic, then the thesis does not apply to them. The essay was about earnestness.

Tangentially - if you read the emails, texts etc. found in discovery for Brin, Schmidt etc., they are secretly entering a cartel the DOJ would break up to forbid direct recruitment of their own workers. Even the people who are doing all of the work to supposedly "make the world a better place" are being screwed by the effort, never mind people outside the company and the externalities on the way to that greater profit.

Re: Earnestness

#192

Post by iWorshipFAANGS » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

If you click on the hyperlink Paul Graham hyperlinks as "academic bogus," you'll find a google scholar search for "hermeneutic dialectic hegemonic whiteness."

First of all, I don't think Paul Graham read those 5000 article returned by the search. Instead I think he just typed in a chain of academic words he thought represented useless academic research, and then told himself these "tee-hee postmodern bogus."

I think this is pretty dumb, for multiple reasons.

First of all, all of those terms have long historical uses in academia. -hermeneutics. Meaning close text interpretation. Probably the oldest forms of literary criticism. -dialetics. Broadly meaning "an conversation between two opposing points." Term dates back to Aristotle. -Hegemony. Meaning "a dominating power." Critical term in International relations. -Whiteness. The quality of having the color white. Also relates to the concept of race, which is an important topic in the history of America. Melville wrote about both color and race at the same time in his bogus book Moby Dick.

So maybe these all have long histories, but as soon as you chain these terms together, we all know what happens: PoMo madness! Bad Faithery.

I myself used to think that the "post-modern" philosophers like Derrida and Focault were all a bunch of drivel. Then I read them and I found out a lot interesting things to say.

PG seems to think that all "useless" research in this is done for some non-earnest intention. This is not a new; he said in "How to Do what you love" that no one would seriously look for symbol in Conrad for fun (interesting, Genius.com seems to have tons of amateur criticism). Now it seems like he's getting a little fiestier, specifically singling out "whiteness."

His site, he's free to single out whatever he wants. But the fact is that humanities research absolutely does expand human knowledge of the world, in a way that SaaS startups cannot. It's also done, if one can believe, in earnest.

Feel free to tell me I'm not being fair to the article. However you respond, I'll be sure to take a few key words, stick them in google scholar search, and come back at you with a nice big BOGUS.

Re: Earnestness

#193

Post by graeme » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

Bresenham wrote: post #191

graeme wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument jumps around. By the time Steve Jobs returned to Apple he had near total control: yet a central point of your argument was that idealistic founders have trouble when they sign away rights. And Job, though he did many wonderful things, had sociopathic tendencies from even before he founded Apple. As for Facebook, Zuckerberg has maintained a very large amount of control. How does this square with your the…

My thesis is that for the earnest young founders mentioned in the essay who want to make the world a better place and to work on X, the trouble starts when they sign a deal with VCs, super seeds etc. If they are not earnest, but sociopathic, then the thesis does not apply to them. The essay was about earnestness. Tangentially - if you read the emails, texts etc. found in discovery for Brin, Schmidt etc., they are sec…

Yes but you specifically cited Jobs and Zuckerberg’s Facebook in support of your thesis.

Re: Earnestness

#194

Post by nonce42 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

raphlinus wrote: post #71

zepto wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously you’re going to get downvoted for this. But would you mind saying where the Easter egg is?

It's a link from the word "bogus." I'm going to expand on this a bit, possibly against my better judgment. I believe Paul Graham has a point here, and it's a good one. In intellectual pursuits, there's a spectrum from dealing purely with nature and facts, to dealing with human perceptions. To pick what I hope is a reasonably neutral example, doing the science to get containment of a fusion reaction is on one end of t…

I read the linked paper out of curiosity. It's a theological paper arguing against forms of Christianity that are based on the world-view of whiteness; instead Christianity should move toward a "decolonial option". The paper's arguments are based on the famous theologian Karl Barth and his commentary on Romans 2, so it's not easy reading.

Is this bogus? If you consider theology bogus, then yes. But the paper is highly relevant to current US politics with the influence of evangelical churches and their embrace of a white-centered model of the world. (Although it doesn't explicitly get into politics.)

One irony of linking to this paper is that religion is highly marked by earnestness, and this paper even more so. The paper's author is clearly genuinely interested in this subject as a "theology nerd". She is writing not for personal gain but to make the world a better place.

Re: Earnestness

#195

Post by timdaub » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 6:54 PM UTC

Blaaaa blaaa. How come earnestness is such a great virtue in that $100 billion company you had lots of shares in, but still Y Combinator's strategy is to invest as diversely as possible in as many good teams a possible since they know that > 90% of them will ultimately fail.

Re: Earnestness

#196

Post by escape_goat » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

What Graham is attempting to prescribe here is an unmediated engagement with a problem. In truth, "making the world better" is no less ulterior a motive in engaging with that problem than "making piles of money."

Re: Earnestness

#197

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

wombatmobile wrote: post #169

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I kinda feel like your example proves the point, because I've never seen MLK described as a "politician" or "political figure". Politics as most people understand it is the process of deciding who ought to run the government, and King specifically avoided discussing this ( https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/sta... ) because he felt that doing so would undercut his mission of social change.

> Politics as most people understand it is the process of deciding who ought to run the government That's a narrow definition, sometimes known as "party politics". And that well might be what PG was referring to. The limitation of party politics in America, and other places, is that to become an elected representative you need money for advertising, which you have to get from somewhere, e.g. donations. These usually…

Ultimately, I guess, "politics" is just a word which can be defined however we want. So I can't tell you that you're wrong or the definition you're using is untrue.

It's not obvious to me that a definition of "politics" which groups together party politics, funding startups, and screaming kids coming home from soccer practice provides much useful insight into the world. At best, it's an imprecise statement of the same sentiment as "everything is physics", that party politics has a large influence on how the world looks. At worst, and I've seen it used quite frequently in this way, it's a sleight of hand maneuver used to slip party politics into contexts where it'd otherwise be excluded.

Re: Earnestness

#198

Post by andi999 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:01 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #111

croissants wrote: post #10

My perception is that one drawback of earnestness is that it often comes off as just being boring. The most earnest people I know are not popular. The most popular people I know are more like twinkle-in-the-eye-kind-of-BS-but-not-pathological-liars. I don't mean to say "grr, why aren't nerds more popular!". I mean more that this specific kind of earnestness seems to preclude the playing of certain conversational game…

Earnest but interesting is sometimes a recipe for drama. Nothing worse than being well-meaning, right about something and saying something no one really wants to hear. If you have any sense whatsoever, you intentionally shoot for "boring" while being publicly earnest. Remember: "May you live in interesting times" is a Chinese curse . There's a downside to being interesting.

That proverb is wrongfully attributed to the chinese.(me beeing the party pooper here)

Re: Earnestness

#199

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

nonce42 wrote: post #194

raphlinus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a link from the word "bogus." I'm going to expand on this a bit, possibly against my better judgment. I believe Paul Graham has a point here, and it's a good one. In intellectual pursuits, there's a spectrum from dealing purely with nature and facts, to dealing with human perceptions. To pick what I hope is a reasonably neutral example, doing the science to get containment of a fusion reaction is on one end of t…

I read the linked paper out of curiosity. It's a theological paper arguing against forms of Christianity that are based on the world-view of whiteness; instead Christianity should move toward a "decolonial option". The paper's arguments are based on the famous theologian Karl Barth and his commentary on Romans 2, so it's not easy reading. Is this bogus? If you consider theology bogus, then yes. But the paper is highl…

I think PG is engaging in a very common form of fallacy, the assumption that everyone agrees with his judgement on an issue (in this case the uselessness of certain avenues of research and endeavor) and thus that their intentions must be viewed by interpreting their actions in light of that ascribed belief, so if they are engaging in the endeavors he finds useless, they must also be doing so through a lack of earnestness.

This is a common way of converting a difference in judgement about the value of particular activities into a characterization of dishonesty and fraudulent activity; when done accidentally it is a sign of lack of ability to recognize differences in viewpoints, when done intentionally it's technique of avoiding debate on the issue on which agreement is assumed through the distraction of casting moral aspersions at those who disagree.

Re: Earnestness

#200

Post by walleeee » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:03 PM UTC

dash2 wrote: post #166

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #82

If you're interested in X for its own sake, you are very unlikely to want to turn that into a business. Unless you're also interested in business and money for their own sakes - both of which should trigger very justified cynicism, because there are far more effective ways to make the world a better place than by getting extremely rich after an IPO.

I disagree. There are many problems that can only be solved by a self-funding organization which sells its solutions to consumers - aka a business. Suppose I would like to build entertaining, educational toys for children. Should I do it as a hobbyist? No. If I seriously want many children to benefit, I will have to get the toys to them, and producing them will take money. Should I get a grant from a charity? No: onl…

> The market is a discovery mechanism. If you are serious about achieving something, you should seek useful feedback. Willingness to pay is one powerful feedback mechanism.

True, but many of the markets we have are neither free nor fair. And even if they were, we should exercise caution before concluding that what is discovered is a need. Markets are equally capable of exploiting wants, socially conditioned propensities, addictions, manifestations of the subconscious, etc.

Even developments which appear unambiguously good can lead to unexpected side effects and easily overlooked externalities.