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I Met Paul Graham Once

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#191

Post by gedpeck »

haswell wrote: post #168
gedpeck wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Herein lies the crux of the matter in my view. The jump from 2 to 3. When Bob Dole ran for President I wholeheartedly agreed with the position about being respectful to those you disagree with. Politics was still normal in the U.S. at that time. But now we in the U.S. elected a known rapist. A felon and a con man. He can’t run a charity in New York due to his misdeeds. He lusts after his own daughter. We have entered…

To me, the issue boils down to pragmatism and utility. It’s just human psychology; people tend not to change their minds when someone screams at them and otherwise disrespects them. If the goal is to move society in any particular direction, that requires some degree of successful communication, and throwing respect out the window directly counteracts the goal. If the goal is just to hold some moral high ground for t…

My personal view is as follows. American society has reached a point of no return. Something has to give before a new equilibrium has been found. As an extreme example look to Nazi Germany. The repugnant views that were normal in 1939 Germany weren’t normal in 1960 Germany. A similar (though far less extreme) change will happen in the U.S.

I have no desire to change anyone’s mind about their political views. Anyone who supports a known rapist and felon and who openly takes bribes can not be convinced of anything. I don’t engage in political discussions with such people. There is no consistency in their beliefs so no meaningful discusion can be had.

For me, my desire is secession. The country needs to beak up. This is an extreme view but will likely be increasingly held by people with similar political beliefs as mine.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#192

Post by otde »

slibhb wrote: post #41

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…

> 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.

It is disingenuous to suggest that anti-discrimination laws for trans people are attempting to legislate away the hatred held in people’s hearts, instead of access to healthcare, public facilities, protections against workplace discrimination — things you describe as having “real questions,” but which are, in fact, the parts of a full and dignified life that bigots would deny to trans people in particular. If you pretend like it’s trying to legislate “thoughtcrime,” it’s much easier to distinguish anti-discrimination laws for trans people from rulings like Obergefell or Brown v. Board — far easier to say “look, those were good, but this particular civil rights legislation is simply unreasonable.”

To platform these beliefs is to afford them a legitimacy they do not deserve. To suggest that bigotry, when amplified, will be in some way countered or reduced is naïve beyond belief. Instead, it becomes easier for bigotry to find an audience of receptive listeners and willing conduits for further transmission.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#193

Post by wastle »

rexpop wrote: post #154
slibhb wrote: post #41

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…

[flagged]

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#194

Post by wastle »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #76
slibhb wrote: post #41

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…

The author isn't talking about abstract "hatred" in the sense of people's internal, personal experiences. They are talking about hate speech , a specific concrete act with external material consequences. > Adding on, the trans issue isn't simple. It really kind of is though.

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#195

Post by gedpeck »

CivBase wrote: post #186
gedpeck wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be curious. Be courteous and respectful. Be a normal, nice goddamn human to human across the table from you. In general I wholeheartedly agree. But if the person in front of you has done or advocated for things that cause harm or is themself a horrible person then I disagree.

What constitutes "harm"? Is hurting someone's feelings harm? Is misinformation harm? How do you determine intention? To what extent does intention matter? How do circumstances impact the answers to these questions? When your creed is basically "I only hate bad people", you have given yourself permission to hate anyone and feel righteously justified about it. And you'll never feel the need to empathize because bad peo…

What constitutes "harm"? Is hurting someone's feelings harm? Is misinformation harm? How do you determine intention? To what extent does intention matter? How do circumstances impact the answers to these questions?

I know the answers to these questions…for me. Each person decides for themselves where the lines are drawn. It has always been this way.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#196

Post by sillyfluke »

spacechild1 wrote: post #17

[flagged]

Didn't downvote you, but I'm not sure there is anyone in the American VC class that shared the harrowing plight of Palestinians as much as Kamala-voting pg did. Not to say he does it alot, but in the VC feeds that I normally check out once in a while it's virtually non-existent. Hell, Musk even attended and applauded Netanyahu's speech in Congress.

...By that metric that would make pg a radical leftist.

You know what wasn't on my bingo card for 2024? Paul Buchheit being red-pilled harder than Paul Graham.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#197

Post by ethbr1 »

watwut wrote: post #153
ethbr1 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not, because there's a difference between 'extremist individuals in a side' and 'a side as monolith.' It is currently en vogue to use the excesses of specific instances or individuals to tar entire identities, but that's statistically dishonest. Most people are not extremists, in the sense of 'if you talk to them at 1:13pm on a random Tuesday.'

There is actual political program and actual laws being pushed on. That is the reality. And yes, that political program belongs to that side. It is OK to blame republicans as such for what Trump or JD Vance does, because they made them big. It is ok to blame them for the for the supreme court politics too, because they knowingly put exactly those people there, knowing they will remove protection for abortion and lied…

I think about it with different divisions.

For politicians (as opposed to people in other professions), they are obviously responsible for the policies their parties support, to the extent that they support their parties. Given not every politician votes in lockstep with their party.

BUT for individuals in the US, their personal positions are often more complex than the binary reductions the two-party system affords us.

Consequently, there are many (most?) dissenters on one issue or another in both parties.

If a person has thoughts on matters, it's therefore more interesting to me to discuss those thoughts, than to derive my interactions with them solely by their D or R label.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#198

Post by ethbr1 »

Suppafly wrote: post #184
ethbr1 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is between judging an individual for what they themselves say vs what identities you associate with them (or even those they associate with themselves).

>or even those they associate with themselves I see no problem judging someone for the identities that they choose to associate themselves with.

Over and above their works and words?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#199

Post by snowwrestler »

inglor_cz wrote: post #181
snowwrestler wrote: post #58

Once upon a time, not that long ago, within my lifetime in fact, being gay was targeted for public abuse the way that transgender people are being targeting now. That has declined as people came to understand that being gay, lesbian, bi is part of how a person is made. Under public pressure, a gay person can act straight or at least act not gay. But it doesn't change who they are, doesn't help anyone around them, and…

I agree with you about a transgender person who is 23, but not about anyone who is claiming to be transgender at 13. That is way too young to be sure of such things, and peer pressures/influences exist. The current backlash is mostly caused by the hardcore activists pressuring for "the alternatives are either gender-affirming care or SUICIDE! SUICIDE! even for 13 y.o.'s" This attitude is so hysterical that it cannot…

There is a social movement that seeks the suppression of all transgender expression, including by fully informed adults. They led with “save the kids” for the emotional impact, as many other well-organized social movements have in the past.

It works because concerns about kids are real. But it’s important to see and understand the greater goals of the movement, and how it affects everyone. The essay at the top of this HN thread was written by an adult, expressing their adult concerns.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#200

Post by selimthegrim »

inglor_cz wrote: post #171
whack wrote: post #42

I appreciate the author and this article. As an immigrant and person of color, the author's concerns resonate with me. I don't think people like PG or Andreessen are evil bigots. But they are underestimating and enabling a movement that is cruel and exclusionary by design. A movement that they seek to tame and harness, but not understanding that the movement is fundamentally untameable. I miss the days when the Repub…

"who told America that Islam is a religion of peace" This is something I considered a brazen lie in the interest of stability. I believe in existence of individual peaceful Muslims, but I don't believe in inherent peacefulness of a religion founded by a warrior who converted Arabia by the sword and which had since seen an endless series of holy wars initiated in the name of Islam. You can't really build societal unde…

To pretend that every Muslim area in the world was converted by the sword is just totally unsupportable
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