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I Met Paul Graham Once

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#591

Post by lmm »

mindslight wrote: post #581
lmm wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Self-congratulatory, self-righteous prigs are all over the place within human society. They try to be. A given social movement will be judged on how well it deals with them - whether it embraces/encourages them (or, worse, makes them its leaders), or discourages them. Bullies, grifters, and sexual predators are everywhere, but "this organisation protects/doesn't do enough against its bullies/grifters/sexual predato…

Are megachurches not still a thing? Traditional religion has had quite the assortment of bullies, grifters, and sexual predators.

Perfect example of what I'm talking about. People criticise traditional religions for that kind of thing (and criticise specific sects as handling it particularly badly, rather than just throwing up their hands and saying every community has bad actors) and they are right to do so.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#592

Post by wastle »

jmeyer2k wrote: post #588
wastle wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh so it does make a difference now? Well then, consider that it really is not my problem if these males are offended by the simple word "he". Have you heard of the Stroop effect? More to the point, I've no interest whatsoever in encouraging a man's fantasy "woman" identity, quite the opposite in fact. Perhaps these men would consider giving women and girls the basic decency and respect of refraining from such misogy…

[flagged]

I disagree with your first and third bullet points, as explained in my previous comment.

> If I call you a fucking asshole

Well. Aren't neopronouns getting a bit extreme these days.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#593

Post by julianeon »

rchaud wrote: post #127

Having read many of PG's essays from the 2000s and seeing how he communicates now, I can only reach one conclusion. Like Musk, Zuck and the others who got rich quick decades ago, they are too far removed from any kind of "hacker" ethos today, and see everything from 30,000 ft, almost literally. What kind of self-described hacker spends their days advising incubees on the best way to close "high-touch B2B sales"? They…

As I remember PG took a bold stance on the Israeli-Palestine conflict within the past couple years. For context, you can think of me as an average dude who works at a tech company, and I can't imagine coming out with anything as fiery as he did on this topic (and no one reports to me). I saw other VC's, prominent ones, publicly condemn him for it. So I wouldn't say all his takes are bland.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#594

Post by djur »

crackercrews wrote: post #550
wat10000 wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it goes against your personal beliefs to call someone what they prefer to be called at no expense to yourself, then you need some new personal beliefs.

What about neopronouns? Can someone just make up a new set of words like zi / zim / zis and expect you to remember them whenever talking to or about that person?

You already remember what standard pronouns to use to refer to each person in your life. They're words you learned right from the start of learning the language. The same isn't true of "neopronouns".

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#595

Post by YZF »

dralley wrote: post #530
YZF wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know the Russians are jamming GPS then what's the difference at this point? There are some examples here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_in_Russia_during_the_R... or how about: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/18/russia-says-uk... Just to be clear I'm not claiming the Russians are the good guys and the Ukranians are the bad guys. I'm just pointing out it's not as simple as someone did somethin…

>If you know the Russians are jamming GPS then what's the difference at this point? "Why even bother if the chance of success is less than 100%" Ukrainian attacks are very frequently successful despite GPS jamming and air defense. And vice versa. >Just to be clear I'm not claiming the Russians are the good guys and the Ukranians are the bad guys. I'm just pointing out it's not as simple as someone did something bad i…

I haven't seen those videos which is probably a good thing. Russians are known for their brutality. Doubtless there is brutality on the Ukrainian side as well. Both side have exchanged many prisoners so clearly it's not a matter of policy to execute them. Many Russians have family in Ukraine and vice versa.

It's pretty much a bloody mess. It's also complicated. For me it boils down to the fight between freedom and democracy and oppression and totalitarianism. Putin wants the world to be a worse place for all of us and is willing to have hundreds of thousands of people die for that.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#596

Post by _yb2s »

jhp123 wrote: post #282

I'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…

That hacker spirit is alive and well, and will be long after the fascists for one simple reason:

The same open minded creative attitude that fully and warmly welcomes people who are different, is also what makes us better able to solve science and tech problems in a creative way. The fascists need the hackers, but we don’t need them.

Authoritarianism is fundamentally culturally incompatible with innovation. Nazi cryptography was broken by an eccentric gay man, and so on- thousands of such examples.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#597

Post by sien »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #578
sien wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making these things make money is hard and it's really valuable. Without that people won't get to use them. There is a list of defunct spaceflight companies : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_spaceflight_c... Here is a very small list of just a few of the defunct internet companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_online_compan... It's also worth considering how many millionaires were made…

like I said, you might have a case with SpaceX (though how much does that help humanity? not so sure) internet companies become defunct because some other company puts them out of business - if we had never had Facebook we would still have had a way to keep in touch online > It's also worth considering how many millionaires were made by the companies that the billionaires started. who cares? the world doesn't need mo…

The point is that the 'billionaires' were not exploiting their workforce. The workforce that made Google, MS and many other companies were also highly paid.

The consumer surplus of all these things is the bigger thing.

And getting to that is really not easy.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#598

Post by crackercrews »

djur wrote: post #594
crackercrews wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about neopronouns? Can someone just make up a new set of words like zi / zim / zis and expect you to remember them whenever talking to or about that person?

You already remember what standard pronouns to use to refer to each person in your life. They're words you learned right from the start of learning the language. The same isn't true of "neopronouns".

You seem to be in agreement with my sentiment.

There is also additional work in remembering which pronoun to use with which NB person. With most people, you just automatically say the right thing.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#599

Post by cycrutchfield »

YZF wrote: post #589
cycrutchfield wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can track Russia’s stockpiles through open source satellite imagery, here’s a recent video overview: https://youtu.be/TzR8BacYS6U Ukraine benefits from being on defense, as the attrition rates are significantly in their favor. I’m not sure what will happen after Trump does whatever it is he’s going to do, but it is clear that Russia’s current trajectory is not sustainable beyond a year or so

I agree Ukraine benefits from being on the defense. The question is what are their chances of retaking their lost territory where they need to be on the offense? Russia has higher attrition rates but also has a larger population to recruit from. I'm not seeing Russia just crumble away under Ukrainian assault. If that's the case how does Ukraine benefit from the continuation of the war? I would love to see Ukraine kic…

Ukraine doesn’t necessarily need to retake its lost territories by force. They only need to keep bleeding Russia out until the war becomes untenable for them. Russia loses like 1500+ soldiers and 100+ vehicles per day, just to move a line on a map a few meters. Their economy is hitting double digit inflation despite a 21% interest rate. Their recruitment efforts are running dry and they may have to resort to mobilization soon to continue to fill their ranks with more cannon fodder.

At a certain point they may have to come to the negotiating table, and the longer this drags out the less favorable their position will be.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#600

Post by mgraczyk »

musicale wrote: post #342
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…

> socially regressive robber barons At least we got some good universities (and a somewhat functional transcontinental rail system) out of the 19th century iteration. > In 1975 the student body of Stanford University voted to use "Robber Barons" as the nickname for their sports teams. However, school administrators disallowed it, saying it was disrespectful to the school's founder, Leland Stanford [1] It's a shame th…

And polio is largely cured from this generation, and vaccines now exist that prevent diseases that once killed infants, and we have cheap and fast internet everywhere, ...

This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people of the same size, and I can't imagine how anybody who works in tech can not know of the specific good things they have done or be so confused about the bad to believe they are outweighed.

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