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I Met Paul Graham Once

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#11

>I’m certain he wouldn’t be rude to my face, but he might quietly discriminate against me, say no thanks. He might not even think of it as discrimination, only that I don’t have what it takes. >I’m better at my job than most. I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015. None of that will matter. IMHO, jumping to conclusions just like this is a big reason why 'going woke' isn't a healthy mindset for someo…

This feels like a pretty shallow reading of the article and you've fallen into the trap - described in the article itself - that "woke" is "some left-wing thing that I don't like". Whatever your views on trans issues, I think this article deserves a more thoughtful answer.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#12
I feel this a lot, not so much from the perspective of someone that belongs to a formerly "protected" group, but came into tech at the height of the tech revenge-of-the-nerds style "zeitgeist" in the early 2010's to 2015, around the same time he mentions being involved in startups. My first job was a startup, with a bunch of students and a professor at my alma mater. We failed miserably - not in the way I had envisioned, but because of just basic VC funded stuff. We were a $20 million company with half a dozen of us, which would have been great for any of us, even our founders - but the VC's wanted a $200 million company. Poof.

That put a bitter taste in my mouth that has gotten more bitter when the "promise" of a society led by technocrats has yielded a barrage of increasingly shitty and invasive products that don't provide any additional utility to anyone except the people who stand to profit from them. It's exhausting, extremely depressing, and if I had to do it again I probably would have avoided tech, as much as I like what I do - I feel a deep sense of shame sometimes at the state of how it's gone.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#13
It's complicated isn't it? A business doesn't care about you. It doesn't because it can't. Business doesn't have thoughts and feelings, business is clinical. Business is nothing more than the collection of processed and systems crafted to work together, facilitating the exchange of value between 2 parties. The problem is with the 2 parties part. The 2 parties part, that part very much does have thoughts, feelings, and emotions, those two parties are made up of humans. Bobby Sue just wants the alternator working on the car so they can go to a family funeral and mourn. Jerry in accounting at alternator inc's going through a momentous life shift, spiraling his whole world into a new framing, changing everything. Sally in design is just trying to feed her kids. And while these things matter none to the business technically, they matter deeply to the humans involved. It's complicated because business doesn't, shouldn't, and can't have feelings, however, business activity is indeed made up of people, and they most certainly do. There is always a risk of being too cold and focusing only on the bottom line, or becoming so caught up in individual needs and emotions that you lose sight of the basic structure that keeps a business functioning. Booby Sue needs to mourn, and Jerry needs stability for his life change, Sally has kids. And so, there is some empathy to be found for people deciding fundamental things for their businesses, it's not easy to know when to be clinical in look at the business, especially knowing it's comprised of a collections of humans, organized, into a company. Care too much about the outside, the business fails, care too much about the inside, the business fails. These are not easy things, the trick is to avoid hostage situations, and so rationality and intellectual honesty is key when framing these discussions. I expanded these thoughts here: https://b.h4x.zip/dei/

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#14

>I’m certain he wouldn’t be rude to my face, but he might quietly discriminate against me, say no thanks. He might not even think of it as discrimination, only that I don’t have what it takes. >I’m better at my job than most. I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015. None of that will matter. IMHO, jumping to conclusions just like this is a big reason why 'going woke' isn't a healthy mindset for someo…

> IMHO, jumping to conclusions just like this is a big reason why 'going woke' isn't a healthy mindset for someone to hold

This is not unique to "wokeness" and is in fact much more clearly expressed by people who are "anti-woke". Many folks just can't handle things that don't fit neatly into their (unexamined) categories about the world.

They'd rather destroy that person or thing rather than reflect and improve their understanding of the world.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#15

>I’m certain he wouldn’t be rude to my face, but he might quietly discriminate against me, say no thanks. He might not even think of it as discrimination, only that I don’t have what it takes. >I’m better at my job than most. I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015. None of that will matter. IMHO, jumping to conclusions just like this is a big reason why 'going woke' isn't a healthy mindset for someo…

This feels like a pretty shallow reading of the article and you've fallen into the trap - described in the article itself - that "woke" is "some left-wing thing that I don't like". Whatever your views on trans issues, I think this article deserves a more thoughtful answer.

Will you agree with the author's viewpoint that "none of experience" matters if one is trans?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#16

You should have finished reading PG's essay. It's really quite narrowly scoped. There's no indication I could see that he doesn't still hold the same basically liberal politics (he included explicit disclaimers, for all the good that did); he might still be fine with transgender identity. He just wanted to talk about how the particular loudmouth brand of annoying leftist came to prominence. He even had a decent defin…

This one’s footnote #2 addresses PG’s definition of “woke”, which I agree is useless (I’d go further: that kind’s so inconsequential that it’s nonsense to bring it up unless you’re using those complaints to attack other actions that do maybe have some justification, using the definition as cover to retreat to if called out; if that’s actually the only part you’re complaining about, just don’t write the piece, everyone already dislikes that kind for the same reasons you do)

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#18
Can't help but OP might have been better engaging with PG's Wokeness article itself (it's full of holes, and probably one of the weakest he's written), than talking about what they think the article said made them feel.

Ironically the Wokeness article does what most people accuse "wokeness" of doing, predetermining its conclusion, and then shoehorning in a bunch of loosely connected facts and phenomena to support that assertion.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#19
> Are “identity politics” just a status game that economically advantaged elites play?

Yes. But it's a disgrace that we're throwing the baby (genuine progress, like the slow acceptance of non-binary people) out with the bathwater.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#20

I like the article, but one doesn't need to meet pg once to get to know what he is. You can just read his tweets (x's?) and he, like many VCs or higher-ups in SV doesn't give a huge importance in how other humans feel, just in his kids/family/relatives. So overall, he doesn't care about how you think or feel. If he did, he wouldn't write an essay on a touchy topic without making a big disclaimer. By reading him tweet…

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