Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Met Paul Graham Once

okayfail.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 860 posts

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#441

Post by ethbr1 »

redcobra762 wrote: post #344
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.'

I would argue it's currently en vogue to incessantly repeat the argument that "Both Sides" have bad actors, thus commenting on the bad actors of one side is an incomplete argument. It's tiring and non sequitur to hear such arguments however, as what the opposition to a position does is wholly unrelated to the arguments related to that position.

I'm not making a "both sides" argument: I'm making a "the individuals that support sides are more important than the sides" one.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#442

Post by foxglacier »

gedpeck wrote: post #333
foxglacier wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still in the goodies-vs-baddies mindset. Western media pushes people into that way of thinking but it's the Marvel level view and is wrong. Also, look at all the people who think Russia is the baddies for starting that war, but Israel is the baddies despite not starting its war. That's an arbitrary standard people invented to justify their simply goodie-baddie view. If you apply a different standard to every w…

It’s mostly about willful acts of violence against innocents. This might be a nuance that is too subtle though. Bad acts and bad actors should be called out. Russia is the bad actor in the Ukrainian invasion. Hamas and IDF are bad actors in their conflict.

But then everyone is a bad actor. All the countries supplying arms to Ukraine are perpetuating the war and causing more deaths, so they're bad actors. As is Ukraine itself of course. You can't actually define that in way that has any use. It's ultimately just whatever your cultural influences led you to believe.

People should just be honest and admit they're nationalists, other kinds of ideologists, or just trying to fit in when it comes to opinions about war, because that's really all it is. If it was really unambiguous who was a bad actor, it wouldn't be a war in the first place because everyone would agree.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#443

Post by djur »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #315
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…

> But it doesn't change who they are This is the part that we all don't really actually converse about. It's not an easy point to prove (genetically, after sequencing the entire human genome, there is not actually any proof that gay is something one "is" intrinsically), but it's also so personal and getting it wrong has such heavy consequences that most avoid the topic.

Graham says he thinks wokeness is a religion, which I think is silly, but ironically religion in the workplace is an effective model here. I don't have to believe in someone's religion to understand that I shouldn't challenge their beliefs in the workplace, nor should I whine that so-and-so took time off for their holiday, and so on. I've regularly seen people make "[holiday greeting] for those who celebrate" remarks in work chats for Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu holidays, and it would be pretty inappropriate to jump in and say (as an atheist myself) "by the way, your god doesn't exist".

Similarly, I don't need to have any particular belief about the nature of gender to respond to my coworkers asking me to use "she" or "he" or "they" to refer to them. It's not my business.

Even trans people don't have a single monolithic set of opinions about what it means to be trans, what gender is, etc. The bar for not offending most people is extremely low.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#444

Post by nradov »

yread wrote: post #295
inglor_cz wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." You may be right, but the anti-trans backlash in the context of the anti-woke backlash is much wider than just a few hardcore anti-trans activists on the far right. And it mostly revolves around two issues: a. Very young kids being treated in invasive or hard-to…

I don't get why is there so much energy wasted on these non issues: > a. Very young kids being treated in invasive or hard-to-revert ways on flimsy evidence. Leave it to the doctors/counsellors/psychologists and parents. They know best. If my kids wanted to change their gender I would sure appreciate if the state wasn't making it any more difficult. > b. People with male musculature competing in women's sports league…

Sports are more than just entertainment. There is no way for the state to avoid getting involved when the sports are run through publicly funded schools. And this impacts more than just boxing. At some point the state has to decide whether inclusion or fair play is more important. At least for sports that involve strength and speed we can't have it both ways. There are no easy answers here, and we can't just pretend the issue doesn't matter.

https://www.shewon.org/

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#445

Post by maximilianburke »

djur wrote: post #439
nathansherburn wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you're calling a coworker something that they are uncomfortable with enough to get HR involved, HR may be the prigs but you're being an asshole.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#446

Post by coderc »

ajbt200128 wrote: post #423
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…

Read his essay again, past the first two paragraphs. Look at the social movements he describes as priggish, woke, politically correct etc. > There was at this time a great backlash against sexual harassment; the mid 1980s were the point when the definition of sexual harassment was expanded from explicit sexual advances to creating a "hostile environment." > In the first phase of political correctness there were reall…

I don't think that's a fair reading of it.

Consider, for example, expanding the definition of sexual harassment to also include creating a "hostile environment".

I think that pg's point is that this expansion to include a "hostile environment" makes it fall under the "eye of the beholder", which makes it a lot more vague and arbitrary. Something being vague and arbitrary is the perfect playground for a prig, because they can essentially invent new rules and enforce them. For one example: Microagressions. What are they? They could be anything, really.

"Supporting women" and "enforcing arbitrary rules" are not necessarily the same thing. One can claim that they're doing the former when they're really just doing the latter.

If you were to make up a new rule and say that men need to bow to every woman within a 10ft radius in order to show respect, is that really "supporting women"? Is that what women want? This is an intentionally ridiculous hypothetical (in certain cultures), but I think it demonstrates the issue that an arbitrary rule is not necessarily "support".

Remember Donglegate? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681

Did this joke create a hostile environment? Did the shaming of these people make anything better, or did it make things worse? Was this an example of "supporting women", or was this just an example of punishing people for not following arbitrary rules?

>He says it in black and white, his problem is with minorities standing up for themselves.

Someone who acts priggishly may not be a part of the minority that they are 'standing up' for.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#447

Post by m0llusk »

The wokeness essay was long, hard to process, and still vexes me and makes me wonder if there were any specific triggers involved. One of the parts that most leapt out at me was the question of what would activists worry about after the Iron Curtain fell? Most of Europe both east and west have health care integrated with their social fabric, so that seems a likely target. And that subject is especially problematic since Romney put the Heritage Foundation market based universal health care access in place in Massachusetts which means that there is no longer any political or philosophical basis for fighting so called "socialized medicine". But instead of extending health care to all the problem is the wokeness which might lead us to conceive of such a thing in the first place?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#448

Post by djur »

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)

Stephen Miller just gave a speech last night saying that trans people don't exist, and the new President he advises is issuing an executive order to that effect.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-sex-gender-transgender-dei-...

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#449

Post by djur »

yread wrote: post #295
inglor_cz wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." You may be right, but the anti-trans backlash in the context of the anti-woke backlash is much wider than just a few hardcore anti-trans activists on the far right. And it mostly revolves around two issues: a. Very young kids being treated in invasive or hard-to…

I don't get why is there so much energy wasted on these non issues: > a. Very young kids being treated in invasive or hard-to-revert ways on flimsy evidence. Leave it to the doctors/counsellors/psychologists and parents. They know best. If my kids wanted to change their gender I would sure appreciate if the state wasn't making it any more difficult. > b. People with male musculature competing in women's sports league…

> So a man won a boxing match with women

This should be stated hypothetically, because it hasn't happened (at least, not in any official, regulated match).

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#450

Post by djur »

strken wrote: post #410
hayleox wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nev…

How was the campaign "woke" unless you define "trans people exist and should be supported" as woke? If Graham dislikes prigs, shouldn't he be criticizing the censorious social conservatives that led the boycott?
Post reply on HN