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Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

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Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#771

Post by BulgarianIdiot »

pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

Dude, he BANNED YOU. He's running this site like a banana republic.

How many stupid things in a row does Elon Musk have to do before you realize this guy isn't wired quite right?

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#772

Post by rizoma_dev »

_cenw wrote: post #599
pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

SpaceX has talented people working there despite Elon, not because of him. They supposedly have an entire handbook on "managing Elon" for deflecting his weird requests and framing things in a way that doesn't provoke his ire. They put up with it because they only have so many opportunities to work on space. Twitter has people dependent on their H-1B and very few true believers that are unfit to serve in their role. E…

It really is criminal how much preferential treatment lott is getting both now and under the previous administration. This alone should be grounds for an investigation into the site

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#773

Post by tim333 »

bestcoder69 wrote: post #182
threeseed wrote: post #21

There’s an old adage about never meeting your heroes that applies well to PG. Some of his daily takes were so embarrassing and insipid that it was hard to maintain respect. It’s funny because his long form posts which are often insightful were likely reviewed/edited by a third person. A concept he has actually said only exists in the modern commercial publishing era.

Dude the other day he said "Automation is inductive proof that Marx is wrong"! A mistake you wouldn't make if you sniffed Marx's wikipedia page, let alone opened your eyes to read it. pg deleted it and posted this response: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1600122386346450944 (...after, hilariously, Matt Bruenig replied with a correction from ChatGPT - which is also deleted because he auto-deletes tweets.) e: Reading…

Twitter now says paulg account suspended

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#774

Post by bambax »

pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

> I'm not leaving Twitter

Yes you are. The smart guy that works on cars and rockets and who's not a villain and who's a political moderate and a totally reasonable guy, just made you.

> I would be delighted to go back to using Twitter regularly

It's not your decision to make, apparently.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#775

Post by DiNovi »

consumer451 wrote: post #223
DiNovi wrote: post #18

Paul is an out of touch reactionary billionaire. when you’ve lost your own, maybe it’s time to acknowledge you don’t know what you’re doing

> Paul is an out of touch reactionary billionaire My theory is that humans are just not evolved for billionaire levels of wealth disparity. It's not a criticism, it just appears to be a fact. Honest question: are there any "in touch" billionaires? Maybe Mark Cuban in some ways for example?

no one who hoards wealth that could save the lives of thousands is in a healthy mental space

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#776

Post by barathr »

granzymes wrote: post #723
barathr wrote: post #91

For those wondering about how to sign up to mastodon and what server to pick: It's like picking an email server. They all have their differences, but generally they are interoperable. You can read users from anywhere, and follow from anywhere. Better yet, it's fairly easy to move your account from one server to another if you don't like it. Your best bet is some of the bigger second-tier servers (ones that have thous…

Just be careful to choose a reputable server, because the moderators will be able to read your DMs.

I think DMs should be treated as semi-public on any platform without end-to-end encryption and a method for verifying keys of who you're DMing. So not really that different than Twitter, Facebook, and many others.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#777

Post by randomsearch »

raspberry1337 wrote: post #643
secos wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus I don't think he realizes that the techniques that work for cars and rockets don't work in social media. This argument made sense a month ago. Unfortunately he really hasn't shown any improvement since then that would lead me to agree with you on that point. It's now a situation where he has to either find enough new people who agree with whatever his approach is or /win people back/ - both of those are quite…

Twitter has less bots yets more activity than ever. In what dimension do these Hacker news posters live?

Whilst I strongly disagree with the banning of links and accounts without good reason, it is true for me that Twitter has greatly improved since Musk took over.

Part of that is that interesting voices like PG’s are not so drowned out by background noise, so losing folks like PG begins to undo that improvement.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#778

Post by ssnistfajen »

rising-sky wrote: post #702
pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

Well account is now suspended so I guess you were "made to leave"

Elon is so incredibly thin-skinned that he's burning bridges with anyone who dares to not agree with him even once. First Bari Weiss, now Paul Graham. Paul clearly stated here & on Mastodon that he still believes in Elon Musk. This is classic self-sabotage of a deranged dictator.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#779

Post by nrdvana »

asim wrote: post #634
pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

Unfortunately for those who idolised Elon, their world view is beginning to crumble. His actions are not justifiable. The way he treats people, the way he rules his companies, the way he governs his new "free speech" platform. The man is a tyrant. He's idolised for the things he's achieved but if he had not achieved them would he be given the same benefit of the doubt? Hypocrisy. The way people treat this man versus…

Or the easier explanation, that Elon has changed. He was my favorite billionaire back when all his prospects related to colonization of Mars and all his investments were aimed at creating new technology. But power can corrupt people, and he seems particularly prone to it. The entire Twitter episode is at odds with everything he did 10 years ago; Mars doesn't need a social network, and he's not innovating anything here. Not to mention that part where he's spent the last 7+ years sleeping around and fathering as many children as possible.

A different way of looking at "power corrupts" is that negative social interactions are an important part of the feedback loop that calibrates a person's sense of right and wrong. When a person decides that they don't want to hear conflicting opinions, they loose out on accurate feedback, and de-calibrate, unless they have a strong internal sense of empathy. Empathy is a disadvantage to becoming a billionaire in the first place, so very few of them have much of it. Guys like Musk and Bezos and Trump end up victims of their own success and echo chamber.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#780

Post by layer8 »

mcv wrote: post #755
_cenw wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX has talented people working there despite Elon, not because of him. They supposedly have an entire handbook on "managing Elon" for deflecting his weird requests and framing things in a way that doesn't provoke his ire. They put up with it because they only have so many opportunities to work on space. Twitter has people dependent on their H-1B and very few true believers that are unfit to serve in their role. E…

> They supposedly have an entire handbook on "managing Elon" for deflecting his weird requests and framing things in a way that doesn't provoke his ire. I heard that too. Is it just a rumour or do we know this is true? And if it's true at SpaceX, is it also true at Tesla?

Regarding your first question, see here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34042340

I see no reason why Tesla would be any different.

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