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I Met Paul Graham Once

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#401

Post by [deleted] »

skywhopper wrote: post #37
andrewflnr wrote: post #10

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…

The mere fact that pg takes the word “woke” seriously tells me he’s fallen for the right-wing doublespeak where they take a word vaguely related to left-wing ideals, pretend it means something else, apply to anyone center-right or leftward, and get the mainstream media and self-conscious centrists like Paul to accept their intentional distortions at face value. This pattern happens again and again with words and phra…

[deleted]

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#403

Post by metabagel »

itsoktocry wrote: post #299
gedpeck wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Why is the comparison always Nazi Germany? By the way, the jury explicitly rejected the rape allegation. So you're just making stuff up from your high-horse: https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a...

The judge said that Trump was guilty of rape, as it is commonly defined.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-car...

> “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote.

He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

Kaplan said New York’s legal definition of “rape” is “far narrower” than the word is understood in “common modern parlance.”

The former requires forcible, unconsented-to penetration with one’s penis. But he said that the conduct the jury effectively found Trump liable for — forced digital penetration — meets a more common definition of rape. He cited definitions offered by the American Psychological Association and the Justice Department, which in 2012 expanded its definition of rape to include penetration “with any body part or object.”

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#404

Post by troad »

low_tech_love wrote: post #379

"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." This resonates pretty strongly (and depressingly) with me being an immigrant academic in Europe who came originally from a third-world country. Even though I am one of the most productive researchers in my department, even tho…

[flagged]

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#405

Post by gyomu »

timeon wrote: post #96
ethbr1 wrote: post #24

Great, cohesive, and clear essay! Hear hear. One thing that I think is underappreciated in our current times, that gets lost on both the left and the right sides -- an individual is more important than their identity . - A specific trans person can also be an asshole. - A specific white man can also be a saint. Extremists on both political sides will scream about the reasons one or the other of those statements is wr…

> gets lost on both the left and the right sides It gets lost because of this black/white US perspective on politics. If you were multiparty system there will be less identities in politics.

> If you were multiparty system there will be less identities in politics.

If only it were that easy. I come from a country that is notorious for having political parties dissolve/new ones forming all the time, and politics are still all about identities and people still treat issues with a very black-or-white perspective.

As many have made the point before, I think this kind of discourse/attitude is more due to the social media echo chambers environment we now evolve in, and that modern societies can't escape it.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#406

Post by tombert »

haswell wrote: post #94
gedpeck wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great harm then? I’m not morally obligated to to treat Putin with respect. Most people agree that there are people who are so reprehensible that they don’t deserve respect.

There are obvious bad/evil actors in the world. When people talk about engaging with other humans respectfully, they're generally not referring to the Putins of the world. And it's pretty rare to have so much clarity about a person to know they're in the "obviously reprehensible" bucket. I'm not saying this is what you're doing, but I often see people argue like this: 1. There are obviously bad actors in the world 2.…

No, I don't really think you're right about this.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. That's a right I wouldn't take away form them even if I could.

They are not entitled to me being nice to them. Fuck that; if they advocate for something that I think is harmful, then I'm not going to be "respectful" to them.

My grandmother in no uncertain terms said that my wife should be deported. She doesn't have any power deport my wife, so she wouldn't fall into the "bad actor" in your definition, but she's made her opinion clear on that.

I could swallow my pride, roll my eyes, and ignore the horrible racist shit she says, but why exactly? The whole point of free speech is the ability to criticize bad ideas, and sometimes that's going to involve hurting a Republican's feelings.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#407

Post by nradov »

ta10496520945 wrote: post #334
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call it "losing my idealism," but, rather "understanding that everything is a lot more complex than my simple young mind could deal with." I'm probably more "idealistic" than I have ever been; it's just that I no longer have the silly "Let's just do this one simple thing" attitude. I've just found that getting places is always a lot more difficult than we think. Usually, it's people, and all their messy pe…

> The one thing that is almost guaranteed to make our cause to go floop, is insisting that everyone else is either with us, or against us. This is especially annoying, when our cause is important to only a small minority of stakeholders. Masterfully said, I'd love this to be the pull quote here.

"The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor."

- Ronald Reagan, 1972

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#408

Post by hooverd »

itsoktocry wrote: post #373
diffxx wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not feel like at all a good faith reading of the situation. Hardcore anti trans-activists on the right would like to make life so miserable for transpeople as to essentially eliminate them from public life entirely. That is the context in which these supposedly hysterical responses emerge. I say supposedly hysterical because transgender people of all ages do commit suicide at a higher rate than other groups…

> Hardcore anti trans-activists on the right would like to make life so miserable for transpeople as to essentially eliminate them from public life entirely Who are these hard core anti-trans activists? Are they mainstream? (Please dont say JK Rowling)

Hmm, the governor of Florida to start with. Criminal penalties for changing your gender marker on your driver's license.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#409

Post by rossdavidh »

So I found the author to come across as a sincere and thoughtful individual, but when I went over to actually read PG's essay on wokeness, it didn't seem to have any resemblance to what was described. I wonder if the author actually read it, or just read enough to see that it was not pro-woke and decided that was all they needed to know?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#410

Post by strken »

hayleox wrote: post #119
andrewflnr wrote: post #10

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…

From the essay: "Consumers have emphatically rejected brands that ventured too far into wokeness. The Bud Light brand may have been permanently damaged by it." What Bud Light did was hire an influencer to promote their product in an Instagram video (and then of course they later backtracked). The only thing "woke" about the video was that the influencer was a trans woman. If Paul Graham would like to elaborate on thi…

I read this less as "the Bud Light campaign was morally wrong because it was woke" and more as "the Bud Light campaign went disastrously badly for its brand and sales because it was woke". I have heard people call it "the gay beer", which is a pretty bad branding change when double-digit percentages of your (former) drinkers are homophobic and you sponsor NASCAR.

One of my personal beliefs is that paedophiles who never act on their inclinations and instead seek treatment are doing the right thing, but I sure as hell wouldn't market a beer using that belief.

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