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I Met Paul Graham Once

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#431

Post by foxglacier »

jrflowers wrote: post #372
foxglacier wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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No it's because genocide is too simple and poorly defined a concept to apply appropriately to every situation. It's just the result of people trying to generalize from a few specific events that happened in the past which they already decided were bad for some other reason and ended up creating the label genocide to describe them.

Look at the disagreement people have over whether Israel or Hamas committed genocide in this current war. People can't even agree on the meaning of the word as it applies there. It's a novel situation that doesn't fit the mold of what this word was invented for. Are civilians really civilians if they're complicit in the fighting as in Gaza? Are they really civilians if they've done or are still doing compulsory military service as in Israel? It's just an attempt to draw a line in the sand so people will agree what's bad.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#432

Post by cpncrunch »

>We could get people to pay us hundreds of dollars per month, but not thousands

I find it interesting that they say their startup folded because they could only get people to pay hundreds a month. That sounds like success to me.

>That’s the death knell of a vc-backed b2b saas sales model. >We were too burnt out to pivot to another business idea, and we quietly folded.

I guess VC funding killed their successful startup and burned them out. It sounds like they didn't need funding in the first place, and it caused more harm than good in their case.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#433

Post by davidw »

nradov wrote: post #418
davidw wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of ways of being supportive without being like a full blown activist. I get that there are some 'purity test' type people out there, and they're annoying, but they're a small minority in most things.

The real trouble starts when regular people allow the "purity test" type people to have any sort of power or influence instead of laughing and ignoring them like we should. This can result in a destructive purity spiral, even over seemingly trivial issues. https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the US government coming after people because of who they are is a lot more worrying than some knitters in terms of "people getting access to power".

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#434

Post by dgfitz »

musicale wrote: post #368
CPLX wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least we got some good universities out of the 19th century iteration. You mean the ones that turned around and produced the current market fundamentalist and elite-run culture we have today? What a coincidence.

And the modern generation of tech industrialists? Probably not a coincidence either. Though technically universities are more than just their endowments, business schools, engineering schools, sports teams, etc. They often have pretty good libraries, for example. Many universities also provide a variety of educational and course materials for free over the internet. Some train physicians and operate hospitals. And ma…

> The idea that elite universities produce elite university graduates is probably not controversial…

Isn’t it?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#435

Post by rtpg »

afavour wrote: post #9

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…

The classic Cantrill bit about not anthropormphizing Larry Ellison applies to a lot of tech CEOs.

Thing is Larry Ellison doesn't write blog posts acting like he's a philosopher. Some tech CEOs really position themselves as arbiters of culture and it just feels more and more like trying to transfer their tech/business positioning into a cultural one. I do not like it!

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#436

Post by ethbr1 »

neom wrote: post #87
ethbr1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a third type, that I consider to be the most likely reality given self-selected population of founders / successful leaders: - People who will amorally play to the limits of the rules if it helps them win. It doesn't matter what they personally feel, or even if they have feelings at all. They tack with whatever way the wind is blowing in order to derive the maximum benefit. E.g. the million dollar inaugu…

This is lacking a lot of nuance though isn't it? You're basically saying hate the player not the game, and that isn't really useful. When you step up to the arena and decide to play a competitive sport, because of game dynamics you can only know so much about who you are playing against, so you should play. The whole philosophical theory behind capitalism is literally progress emerges from the conflict and tension cr…

I'm saying it's debatable judging the player if they stay inside the rules as enforced.

I definitely hate the game.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#437

Post by YZF »

nradov wrote: post #421
kelnos wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's still too simplistic. It's certainly not fair to say that every single Russian (or non-Russian!) soldier who is or has been in Ukraine is a "baddie". Some are trapped by their circumstances to fight in a war they don't believe in and don't agree with. It's easy to say, "well then they should refuse to fight", but you are not that person, and you don't know their struggles or what they feel they are capable…

OK, but in practice what sort of common ground do you think we can find here? Because it sure seems like the only possible solution is to give Ukraine enough advanced weapons to exterminate all the orcs. If you have a feasible alternative then I'm sure we'd all love to hear it. The real world is an ugly place and sometimes there is no win-win solution.

Are we solving the Russian-Ukraine war in this thread? ;)

- Realistically no amount of weapons the west supplies Ukraine is going to enable them to push the Russians out of Ukraine.

- Putin doesn't seem to care about the number of Russians lost in this war.

- Direct involvement by western armies could lead to a nuclear escalation. NATO could easily push Russia out of Ukraine in a conventional war. Too big of a gamble.

- This is just part of a larger geopolitical struggle between the different powers. Russia. China. India.

We don't really know what Putin wants here but if some sort of end to the war can be negotiated that includes territorial adjustments in Ukraine I think that's the best win the west can hope for right now. The cold war wasn't won on the battlefield, it was won mostly economically. Doubling down right now on a military solution in Ukraine doesn't feel like the right path forward. Stopping the hot war and switching to a colder war is probably the path of least pain for everyone. Even if it seems like a temporary win for Putin. If the west helped Ukraine more in the early days maybe we'd have a different outcome but the west made some bad choices and here we are.

That said if Putin wants to keep fighting then the war will continue. I don't think he does but who knows.

My take anyways.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#438

Post by djur »

coderc wrote: post #104
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…

It seems to me that prigs, as defined in pg's article, are just jumping on the transgender issue because it's an easy way for them to enforce rules. From my understanding, having read both articles, PG might say that the prigs have chosen to ride the lgbt movement. The problem is not with the lgbt movement itself. Unfortunately, this gives the movement a bad reputation. Some prigs aren't lgbt people at all, but they…

In his article, Graham said the following:

"Consumers have emphatically rejected brands that ventured too far into wokeness. The Bud Light brand may have been permanently damaged by it."

Bud Light sent promotional cans to a trans influencer. The content of the promo was completely anodyne, a joke about March Madness. For this, a boycott was led by social conservatives.

Aren't the people who led this boycott "prigs"? Why is Graham referring to them in a neutral-to-laudatory way if he's so opposed to priggishness? What "wokeness" does he think Bud Light was punished for?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#439

Post by djur »

nathansherburn wrote: post #366
coderc wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that prigs, as defined in pg's article, are just jumping on the transgender issue because it's an easy way for them to enforce rules. From my understanding, having read both articles, PG might say that the prigs have chosen to ride the lgbt movement. The problem is not with the lgbt movement itself. Unfortunately, this gives the movement a bad reputation. Some prigs aren't lgbt people at all, but they…

I think this is spot on. The confusion for me comes from the fact that, as far as I can tell, I've never met a prig in real life. And yet they seem to be the biggest political issue of our time. Is it because I live in Australia and it's more of a US thing? Or is it because I'm not online as much maybe? I find it really confusing.

What Graham means by "prig" is, say, an HR person who informs you that you need to use your coworker's preferred pronouns.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#440

Post by ethbr1 »

gyomu wrote: post #405
timeon wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

India? If so (or otherwise), what do you think a fix would be?

I went down a rabbit hole of Indian parliamentary party history and was fascinated at the level of machination over the decades.

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