221–230 of 482 posts
Awww did someone get their feelings hurt? The more this Paul Graham person writes the more I realize they are just another regular person.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it's because I'm living in a latino country, but it certainly seems like men start with too much confidence since teenage years, and slowly brings it down so everyone stop calling them arrogant, then there is their appropriate level. While for females (again, at least here in this latino country) it's the opposite, they start off being super humble and careful, and while growing up gaining more and more confide…
Sounds right in line with my experiences and exposure to the "Machismo" portions of many Latino cultures. I always brought this up to my far leftist friends who tried to pretend that the cuban revolution was somehow good for the LGBT minority of Cuba. LOL you think that they abandoned machismo just because they got a hammer and sickle? They call queerness "capitalist decadence" there...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Umm... just so ya know, practically everything in "wokeness" is about somebody saying "Please don't paint me with the broad brush you're using." I think most of what you identify as "wokeness" is other people who aren't directly affected trying to help out, since the affected people are usually a minority who won't be heard if it's just them. That can lead to its own forms of tone-deafness and "you're not helping" be…
I agree with a lot of what the 'woke' are trying to achieve; police reform, less bias (call it institutional racism, etc..) in government institutions, address massive generational wealth gaps, etc... but the 'woke' are mostly reductive and reactionary and are the kings and queens of painting with a broad brush.
This is a very large number of words to essentially say "when I was a jerk in the past it was actually virtue." If you don't see that plainly and transparently I'm not sure what to say to you.
PG deserves credit for creating YC, but from the narrative in this essay it's clear he does not even understand how that happened or his own role in it (assuming he's not being straight up dishonest in his writing). He's a deal making power player, nearly a king maker, not a technocratic nerd. No amount of essay writing will erase that reality.
I am so very weary of this nonsense being taken seriously as sage advice.
We already have too many reductive stereotypes in tech. Let's not lionize them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He certainly started that way; his Common Lisp stuff is interesting, although I don't usually agree that it's the best approach. But as far as I know, the only technical thing he's done since selling Viaweb is ... this forum. You apply to YC for money and for contacts---exactly what dealmakers do.
I think the idea is that some people are naturally dealmakers, and the whole idea of YC was technical-minded people taking over the job that would normally be done by social-minded people and doing it better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For anyone who isn't currently on Twitter, AGM is the guy who publicly called Bay Area women "soft, weak and full of $#!+" and was recently canned from a management role at Apple when people pointed out that his performance assessments of subordinates might not be free from bias. Sucks to be him of course, but what's the alternative?
He wrote a gonzo book full of insensitive over-the-top passages, like the one you're referencing, in order to sell books. It worked. He created a literary persona that people loved or loved to hate. It's a huge leap to go from "you wrote x passage" to "you may be biased against women". If you want to fire someone for bias, you need evidence of bias, not a theory that someone might be biased.
Why do we need to reclaim nerd? A lot of us have painful memories associated with the term, can we just let it fade into well deserved obscurity?
Because others of us have good memories associated with the term. Given the choice between having more language available to use or less, I don't see a reason to want less.
What right do you have to reclaim something that was never a source of harm for you to begin with? Doesn’t that make you just another set of bullies metaphorically shoving people into lockers?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This wasn't even Twitter drama. He wrote that in a published book, that then went on and on and on demeaning women in all sorts of "fun" ways (i.e. this isn't a single throwaway statement that might be misunderstood; the misogyny is core to what he was saying). His girlfriend is "special" of course, but he still manages to say very not-nice things about her.
Why does Apple still sell Beats by Dre if they are taking a stand against misogyny?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He certainly started that way; his Common Lisp stuff is interesting, although I don't usually agree that it's the best approach. But as far as I know, the only technical thing he's done since selling Viaweb is ... this forum. You apply to YC for money and for contacts---exactly what dealmakers do.
He worked on this for several years after leaving YC: http://www.paulgraham.com/bel.html Not sure how that doesn't count as technical.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For anyone who isn't currently on Twitter, AGM is the guy who publicly called Bay Area women "soft, weak and full of $#!+" and was recently canned from a management role at Apple when people pointed out that his performance assessments of subordinates might not be free from bias. Sucks to be him of course, but what's the alternative?
He wrote a gonzo book full of insensitive over-the-top passages, like the one you're referencing, in order to sell books. It worked. He created a literary persona that people loved or loved to hate. It's a huge leap to go from "you wrote x passage" to "you may be biased against women". If you want to fire someone for bias, you need evidence of bias, not a theory that someone might be biased.