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The Best Essay

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Best Essay

#161

Post by frereubu »

There's a fantastic series of podcasts on great essays by David Runciman from the London Review of Books, which aren't always the ones you'd expect given the authors:

Michel de Montaigne, "Essays": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o...

David Hume, "Of Public Credit:": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o...

David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o...

Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One’s Own": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o...

George Orwell, "The Lion and the Unicorn": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o...

Simone Weil, "Human Personality": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o...

James Baldwin, "Notes of a Native Son": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o...

Susan Sontag, "Against Interpretation": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o...

Joan Didion, "The White Album": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o...

David Foster Wallace, "Up, Simba!": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o...

Umberto Eco, "Thoughts on Wikileaks": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o...

Ta-Nehisi Coates, "The Case for Reparations": https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/history-o...

Re: The Best Essay

#162

Post by benreesman »

As someone who owns a weathered copy of Hackers and Painters and routinely says things like “a rare miss from pg”, I think this is a big miss from pg.

And the real shame is that he gets so close: he talks about discovery, about the intersection of science and technology and the broader world, he identifies the importance of doing things to learn enough to write about them, and most importantly: having an outrageous question with a real and alarming insight lurking around the corner as an answer and thereby avoids vaporous rhapsodizing.

So I’ll ask an outrageous question about which pg has both deep insight and over a decade of lived experience to ground an answer on: is YC still a good thing? I’ll ask a few corollary questions to illustrate.

He talks about the kinds of tests you hack to get ahead in some vague elsewhere: is getting ahead in YC, or the Valley, or the technology business still about merit and capability and being relentlessly resourceful rather than optics, connections, and flexibility? Is it about garages with Ethernet cables snaking everywhere more or less than knowing one’s way around the Rosewood Sand Hill?

His first citation as a reviewer is Sam Altman: is @sama still his pick for most capable founder and best person to guide the sprawling empire that YC sits at the heart of?

I don’t find any of those things obvious, and I think a candid essay about a set of very timely questions would be the most important essay he’d ever written.

Re: The Best Essay

#163

Post by robocat »

DSingularity wrote: post #155
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sheesh how insecure can you sound there are people out there who are better than you in every single regard. dont be jealous, be happy that the world can be composed of people better than you dreamed

What a bold conclusion. I remind you that you don’t know anything about me. But perhaps your characterization is to protect the comfort you draw from your world views. What kind of person thinks that the people whose “brilliance” led them to invent weapons of mass destruction are better than anyone that cannot solve technical problems as fast as they can? Do you apply the same reasoning for wealth also? I suppose mig…

> I remind you that you don’t know anything about me.

Yet you are willing to cast ridiculous assertions about groups of people - stating as fact as though you are the canonical source of truth.

> But perhaps your characterization is to protect the comfort you draw from your world views.

Seems like you define projection.

See if you can find a way to get a colleague or two to tell you what they honestly think of you. I'm sure you will be surprised at how they judge you. The trouble is getting honest feedback - people say they want it but few people receive it well so over time most people learn not to give their opinions.

I read a relevant comment today from Madmallard that rings true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39661279

One of the joys of HN is that many commenters can be thoughtfully blunt.

Moderator also asks that we avoid doing "internet psychology diagnosis": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38589525 - this thread is not good and I'm not helping sorry...

Re: The Best Essay

#164

Post by bdjsiqoocwk »

basil-rash wrote: post #61
gmd63 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of the restricted depth of this nature is a consequence of deliberate obfuscation or neglect by the people who are involved in the doing, such as trade secrets, or simply choosing not to write about or share the actual things that impact their craft. You can easily accumulate depth of knowledge from reading in areas that are well documented.

How can you claim your knowledge of the field is actually deep, if you’ve never even done anything with it? Knowledge without application is nothing, imo. True “depth” comes from the know-how acquired in digging through all the minutia nobody else though to document, on your way to producing a new creation nobody else thought to build.

> Knowledge without application is nothing, imo.

Supremely narrow minded. Knowledge has many facets.

Re: The Best Essay

#165

Post by fhe »

I find the separation between the body of the essay and notes makes it harder to read. When I read PG's essay, I always have two tabs open, one on the essay and the other on the Notes section. When I come across a note reference, e.g. "the answer turns out to be completely different. [4]", I switch to the Notes tab to look it up. This back and forth between the two tabs disrupt the reading experience.

Wouldn't it be easier on the reader to simply include the Notes in the body part of the essay? Especially when the notes are short. For example the aforementioned note no. 4 goes:

"[4]Corollary: If you're not intellectually honest, your writing won't just be biased, but also boring, because you'll miss all the ideas you'd have discovered if you pushed for the truth."

Which is short, relevant, and insightful. What's the criteria for which piece of text goes into the body of the essay, and which goes to Notes? I guess if a substantial percentage of readers skip the Notes part, then it's a time-saving practice to separate the two.

Re: The Best Essay

#166

Post by baxtr »

benreesman wrote: post #162

As someone who owns a weathered copy of Hackers and Painters and routinely says things like “a rare miss from pg”, I think this is a big miss from pg. And the real shame is that he gets so close: he talks about discovery, about the intersection of science and technology and the broader world, he identifies the importance of doing things to learn enough to write about them, and most importantly : having an outrageous…

PG would probably never admit it, but any reference to a person such as @sama is not only talking about him as a person but also to him.

Of course one can only guess what the message for him might be.

Re: The Best Essay

#167

Post by arketyp »

fhe wrote: post #165

I find the separation between the body of the essay and notes makes it harder to read. When I read PG's essay, I always have two tabs open, one on the essay and the other on the Notes section. When I come across a note reference, e.g. "the answer turns out to be completely different. [4]", I switch to the Notes tab to look it up. This back and forth between the two tabs disrupt the reading experience. Wouldn't it be…

With books, I tend to not bother with the notes if they are bundled up at the end of the book or chapter. I prefer to have them on the bottom of the page. A web page doesn't even have the benefit of easy page turning to a bookmark, so I think some medium adapted solution like mouse hover would be appropriate.

Re: The Best Essay

#168

Post by LoveMortuus »

fhe wrote: post #165

I find the separation between the body of the essay and notes makes it harder to read. When I read PG's essay, I always have two tabs open, one on the essay and the other on the Notes section. When I come across a note reference, e.g. "the answer turns out to be completely different. [4]", I switch to the Notes tab to look it up. This back and forth between the two tabs disrupt the reading experience. Wouldn't it be…

I agree, having them separated is quite bad. They could have just put them into brackets ( ) and include it in the normal body of the text, that way if you're not interested you can just skip it, but if you are interested then you don't have to list through/switch tabs/search at the bottom of the page/...

I believe that the reading flow is quite important, probably near the top of importance, because if the reader gets into the reading flow they're much more likely to read it all and enjoy it!

Re: The Best Essay

#169

Post by basil-rash »

bdjsiqoocwk wrote: post #164
basil-rash wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you claim your knowledge of the field is actually deep, if you’ve never even done anything with it? Knowledge without application is nothing, imo. True “depth” comes from the know-how acquired in digging through all the minutia nobody else though to document, on your way to producing a new creation nobody else thought to build.

> Knowledge without application is nothing, imo. Supremely narrow minded. Knowledge has many facets.

Claims without support are nothing too.

In other words: example?

Re: The Best Essay

#170

Post by rmnwski »

fhe wrote: post #165

I find the separation between the body of the essay and notes makes it harder to read. When I read PG's essay, I always have two tabs open, one on the essay and the other on the Notes section. When I come across a note reference, e.g. "the answer turns out to be completely different. [4]", I switch to the Notes tab to look it up. This back and forth between the two tabs disrupt the reading experience. Wouldn't it be…

You can click on [4] which brings you to the footnote and when done you can just use the back button which brings you back to [4] in the text. Works for me.
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