I met PG once when we went to visit him for some office hours for my YC startup. I was a late cofounder so I hadn't been part of the program. During the conversation I said something, he looked and me and said "I have no idea what you just said", then turned back to my cofounder and kept chatting. o_O
I Met Paul Graham Once
281–290 of 860 posts
Re: I Met Paul Graham Once
#282I'm not a target of tech's fascist turn, but my head is still spinning from the change of direction. When I entered this industry it was for hackers, nonconformists, weirdos, nerds, people who don't care about titles or clothes or what your genitals are.
What particularly stings is that the vipers at the top tricked people into giving away an enormous amount of intellectual property. Zuck is removing tampons from the men's room—will he also remove open source code written by queer people from his company? Of course not.
Re: I Met Paul Graham Once
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
It only “doesn’t work” if your goal is to appear morally impeccable to everyone. If instead of this worrying you > you will be the one who, according to some, is advocating for things that cause harm and is considered a horrible person. you have a set of morals that centers something more or different than theoretical other people’s opinions, your example of the current “conflict in the Middle East” is still a good e…
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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once
#284I was genuinely afraid of this post hitting HN, but thank you for the kind words.
As someone pondering the exact same sentiment of "I like women so much that I kinda want to be one" but who hasn't fully committed to it yet, I really appreciated your vulnerability and lucid writing. I hope folks are kind here in the comments.
> It took me a while to remove my facial hair, I still haven’t trained my voice.
The facial hair removal really does take forever, it's so annoying :sob:. And I've found voice training (particularly around other people) to be really intimidating. I wish you the best of luck if you decide to pursue it!
Take care, OP.
Re: I Met Paul Graham Once
#285In 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…
> 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.
I have enjoyed most of Paul Graham's essays, and even been slightly influenced by a few of them, but let's not overstate his influence. We're in a real echo chamber here. Outside of a tiny tech industry bubble no one in positions of power reads those essays and they have virtually zero influence.
Re: I Met Paul Graham Once
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Right and wrong are largely a function of culture, not universal law. Sure, but then you're handwaving away questions about why cultures align along similar axioms.
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according to gedpeck, nearly everyone in Africa and Asia, and every single practicing Muslim, is a horrible person...
I said no such thing.
Re: I Met Paul Graham Once
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
>My only consolation is knowing that I'm seeing the world more accurately than I used to. also known as growing older ;-)
For sure. I almost included something in my comment about "I guess this is what getting old is like", losing your idealism as you age. But equally, maybe not. If I'd grown up in, I dunno the 60s? I would have witnessed enormous leaps in technological possibility and enormous increases in standards of living, personal freedoms, yadda yadda. In my youth it felt like there was a viable future where tech enabled radical…
"I saw a dead head sticker on a Cadillac."
Re: I Met Paul Graham Once
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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
I have enjoyed most of Paul Graham's essays, and even been slightly influenced by a few of them, but let's not overstate his influence. We're in a real echo chamber here. Outside of a tiny tech industry bubble no one in positions of power reads those essays and they have virtually zero influence.
Sure, but at this point, YC is a pretty big echo chamber. And for an individual inside the echo chamber, Paul's words can hurt more than most.
Re: I Met Paul Graham Once
#290There are a lot of things that bother me these days. But particularly some things that are pervasive, unnecessary, habitual amplifiers of disagreement. If someone is going to address extremists on an issue, don't just be anti-extremist. What empty courage is that? Address extremists by pushing the dialog back to the real issue. In this case, treating people who have been denigrated for centuries better. Otherwise, un…
I agree with your premise that there is often an unproductive pendulum-like phenomenon in public debates where interpretations swing from one extreme to the other, making nuanced discussions difficult.
However I don't believe that PG's article meant to address the elephant, but rather was a meta-level thesis on how he sees debates being shut down by orthodoxy, and for that he does suggest what he thinks would be a possible solution.
Perhaps the thesis could have gained in being more balanced to as you say "avoid giving tacit permissions for the extremists on the other side"? On the other hand, does one always have to shield one's expressions with disclaimers and is one not free to share thoughts however raw in order to express, discuss and learn, update our beliefs?
There likely is a bigger responsibility when one has a larger audience to avoid misinterpretations, but ultimately I believe as long as there is a rational and nuanced discussion to take the good points and have a productive debate, it should be okay.
How can we create incentives to have a more nuanced discussion?