131–140 of 860 posts
I would like to see more of the HN caste engage with the very notion of a caste system, but I can't immediately think of a way to do it that also accommodates the spirit of HN—which I value—that dictates we focus on technical subjects. Perhaps the techie workforce angle is the only good faith approach.
It's interesting to see how tech bros are slowly sliding to the right. The first thing I ever read from Paul was his thing about lisp, and I almost instantly disliked him. There is an intense ego that radiates from his ilk. You see a similar thing with some small business owners. Owning and running a business gives them a feeling of superiority. They feel that they are affluent thanks solely to their own efforts (and…
https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm
Reading that helped me come to terms with how most of the time when I read PG essays I was a lot less impressed than everyone else seemed to be, and often (any time the topic wasn’t narrowly tech or maaaybe business) his writing struck me as actually bad—not well-reasoned, not convincing, and giving an impression of his being poorly-informed.
When I experience an author everyone else is praising that way, I wonder if I’m the moron. But, sometimes, maybe I’m not…
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, an…
I disagree with your axiom that businesses shouldn’t have feelings. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a business that feels it should treat its workforce kindly and ethically and recruit a diverse set of people.
If you observe the business "feeling" - done correctly, what you're observing the outcome of an evaluation process that decided it functioned more competitively in a different mode. (The best world class employees are in Spain, lets make our HR more diverse in it's language) A business cannot, should not, and does not, have feelings. The only place ethics technically come into play are in the context of law.
It's nuanced, but it's important, without being fully fleshed in your framings, things get muddy. Businesses are systems and processes that fairly and adequately serve the parties involved while hedging out individual humans.
In the long run I think realizations like the authors are healthy ones. PG is not a hero. He's just a guy. A guy who entered into business transactions with a number of people, many of whom benefitted greatly (as did Paul himself). I'm not saying any of that as a negative! Just that we have a habit of attributing superhuman characteristics to folks (Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize comes to mind) and ending up dis…
Upvoted because I couldn't describe better how I feel if I tried. There were so many of these tech leaders who I looked at with such awe, and a lot of it was because they did have a set of skills that I didn't and that I really envied (namely an incredible perseverance, amount of energy, and ability to thrive under pressure, while I was often the reverse). So it's hard to overstate how disappointed I am with people (and really, myself for idolizing them) whom I used to look at with such admiration, who now I often look at with something that varies between dissatisfaction and disgust.
But I realized 2 important things: the same qualities that allowed these leaders to get ahead also figures in to why I don't like them now. That is, if you care too much about other people and what they think, it will be paralyzing in the tech/startup world - you do have to "break some eggs" when you're doing big things or trying to make changes. At the same time, this empathy deficit is a fundamental reason I think of a lot of these guys and gals (it's usually guys but not always, e.g. Carly Fiorina) as high school-level douchebags now. Second, it's allowed me to have a higher, more compassionate vision of myself. I used to feel bad that I wasn't as "successful" as I wanted to be, and while I do have some regrets, I'd much rather be someone who cares deeply about my friends and family and really wants to do some good in the world, as opposed to someone I see as just trying to vacuum up power and money under the false guise of "changing the world".
> 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.
Huge pretending going on though that we are doing this. We are not throwing away the baby. There is nuance and people are pretending there is not. I support trans people but also support safety for all people. There are some nuanced details when you get to reality, and we can’t just pretend those away. The symptoms or pretending are things like not finishing the essay, or not even reading far enough to uncover PG’s d…
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This is exactly the thing the essay seems to be complaining about. It's not the ethics of equality being targeted, it's the moral hypocrisy. People put on a false front with offensive messaging claiming support of these groups, but the whole purpose is to build clout or benefit themselves. They don't care about the message at all. Messages like "I support lgbtq, and if you don't you're a bigot," are self-aggrandizeme…
Re your last paragraph: I feel I'm quite left, but it feels like a lot of these activists are busy trying to make enemies out of everyone, which makes me think "I'll just shut the hell up" and, if I ever get confronted as being a part of the enemy class (I'm a heterosexual male, get the pitchforks!) , I'll just point out, "if you don't want me as your ally, then hey, no worries, I can be your enemy."...
I'll just say it must suck being precisely in the crosshairs of a political proxy battle. The truth is, neither the left nor the right really give a shit about transgenders but use them to rile up their bases. First, the brief "woke" movement which was soon taken by the right and extrapolated to the extreme. It's the same tactic used by the right for any issue - when I was a kid it was "if gays can marry, then they w…
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>My only consolation is knowing that I'm seeing the world more accurately than I used to. also known as growing older ;-)
At the end of the essay he says "I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015" and my thought was, yea but YC is biased towards college kids. And then I saw your comment and I think something clicked for me. But maybe the ignorance and pliability of youth really is required to make the crazy bet on the startup dream.
Not entirely dissimilar to the exploitation of eg college athletes.
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> He's just a guy. A guy who entered into business transactions with a number of people Unfortunately, that's not true. He is also a well-read and influential essayist. He wields power and influence through his words as well as his money.
Not mutually exclusive.
I thought this was better than most essays in this vein. I do fundamentally disagree with the author. People can think poorly of you for whatever reason they want. If someone hates trans people, they can, and you can't stop them. The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it. Adding on, the trans issue isn't simple. The…
> There are real questions about bathrooms, women's sports, and when medical interventions are called for. Yes there are real questions, but there are also real answers. Currently, 99% of people asking questions have literally zero interest in answers. They do not care about what research say or whether there is harm or not. They ask questions to convince the audience about their political project. They do not care a…
I miss the days of Ally McBeal when unisex bathrooms were hip and the future.