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I Met Paul Graham Once

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#451

Post by chrisweekly »

dgfitz wrote: post #434
musicale wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, it's a statement of fact, akin to "universities produce graduates".

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#452

Post by prarro »

maximilianburke wrote: post #445
djur wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes on a pragmatic basis, if the coworker is male and gets upset at being referred to by "he", but it goes against your own personal beliefs to refer to him as "she", it's best just to refer to him by name and practise wording your sentences to be pronounless. And, where possible and not disadvantageous, to avoid situations where he's involved in your own work.

With this approach, he's less likely to make a complaint to HR about you (though he might notice the careful lack of "she", but that's much more difficult to make a substantiated complaint about), and you still get to stick to your own beliefs.

It's still somewhat vexing to have to do this, but at least it prevents you from getting in the crosshairs of HR.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#453

Post by phillmv »

mkaic wrote: post #284
phillmv wrote: post #73

I 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…

Hi, thanks!

My unsolicited advice is: whether they realize it or not, _everyone transitions_ ;) http://okayfail.com/garden/everyone-transitions.html

I came out socially for most of a year before I committed to hormones, and it took me another year and a half to commit to removing my facial hair. At some point it really is a leap of faith. But you can do a lot of exploring and trying things out until you feel comfortable – or decide it's not really what you want.

Either way, good luck!

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#454

Post by wredcoll »

btilly wrote: post #424
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…

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This is genuinely absurd. 99.99% of the time the issue of 'where do female identify rapists belong' is brought up, it's because someone who disagrees with the broader point is trying to create some kind of gotcha.

It happens constantly online. Leftist A will say something about respecting gender self-identification and then rightwinger B will manipulate the conversation so that the leftist is now trying to defend putting biological men in women's prisons [1]

It's incredibly disengenous and bad faith.

[1] regardless of your moral position on this issue, there's a fuckload of other awful things about american prisons that these type of people are rarely concerned about.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#455

Post by djur »

metabagel wrote: post #386
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 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. I don't understand any of this. It feels like you live in a different information bubble than mine. What was the "war on hate", and who is turning away from it? What would it mean to say that the "war on hate" worked? That there was no more hate, or that the situation imp…

I've literally never heard the phrase "war on hate" in my life.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#456

Post by djur »

patresh wrote: post #151

Some of the disagreement or confusion seems to stem from the definition of the word "woke" which means different things to different people? Having read both essays I don't see them necessarily in disagreement. pg criticizes the performative and orthodox nature of some social justice activists' behavior, however it doesn't seem that the author's behavior here is performative at all. Perhaps we should just avoid these…

Graham's essay refers to Bud Light sending a trans influencer promotional beer cans as "woke". I don't know how that's "performative and orthodox social justice activism".

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#457

Post by beefc4ke »

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…

[dead]

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#458

Post by djur »

prarro wrote: post #452
maximilianburke wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes on a pragmatic basis, if the coworker is male and gets upset at being referred to by "he", but it goes against your own personal beliefs to refer to him as "she", it's best just to refer to him by name and practise wording your sentences to be pronounless. And, where possible and not disadvantageous, to avoid situations where he's involved in your own work. With this approach, he's less likely to make a complaint…

Or you could just call people what they want to be called when it does not inconvenience you in the slightest.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#459

Post by beefc4ke »

lisper wrote: post #82
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…

> 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.

[dead]

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#460

Post by thr48833rway »

phillmv wrote: post #453
mkaic wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Hi, thanks! My unsolicited advice is: whether they realize it or not, _everyone transitions_ ;) http://okayfail.com/garden/everyone-transitions.html I came out socially for most of a year before I committed to hormones, and it took me another year and a half to commit to removing my facial hair. At some point it really is a leap of faith. But you can do a lot of exploring and trying things out until you feel comforta…

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