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The Shape of the Essay Field

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Shape of the Essay Field

#41

Post by adtac »

analog31 wrote: post #39

>>> So the three reasons readers might not already know what you tell them are (a) that it's not important, (b) that they're obtuse, or (c) that they're inexperienced. (d) because it's false. I'm not saying PG's essay is false, but my scientific upbringing, and rare moments of humility, compel me to include this option.

1. PG is implicitly talking about good essays. And it's very hard to write a good essay if you don't believe it's true.

2. Whether something is true has nothing to do with whether the reader knows it. I know many false things and ideas.

Re: The Shape of the Essay Field

#42

Post by pdonis »

neilv wrote: post #17

> If you're writing for smart people about important things, you're writing for the young. PG has seemed to have a fixation on youth, since at least one essay before YC was started, and there's still hints of it in YC practices today. And I sometimes wonder whether our field would have so much techbro ageism, and the irrationally large egos of many early-20s 'founders', had PG not influenced tech industry culture qui…

> PG has seemed to have a fixation on youth

Or more precisely, young (in their 20s) founders.

Possibly because he was already 32 when he founded Viaweb, and 41 when he founded YC.

Re: The Shape of the Essay Field

#43

Post by sevensor »

> So the three reasons readers might not already know what you tell them are (a) that it's not important, (b) that they're obtuse, or (c) that they're inexperienced

Importance is a loaded idea here. Important to whom? Importance is very contextual. So, for that matter is inexperience. People have vastly different reasons for being inexperienced in any given domain, and youth is only one of them. I for one am inexperienced at riding jet skis, and youth, unfortunately, is not the reason. And yet, to the right person, an essay about jet ski riding might be exactly what they need to read right now.

Re: The Shape of the Essay Field

#44

Post by screye »

rogerkirkness wrote: post #10
yawnxyz wrote: post #7

Everyone's young in some way. I've been looking at getting a Miata, and have been eyeing a nice 2016ish Miata because their prices seem so much lower. Then I read a post from someone saying their transmissions are "like glass" and how it's better off to pay a few more $k for a 2017+ car, b/c that's how much a new transmission would cost anyway. If everyone were to follow Paul's advice, these kinds of posts would neve…

PSA: I did a similar thing using Claude about buying a 2012-2016 era Ford F150 and it was so good at providing information like this about each model year. I went with a 2014 since the V8 was most mature and 2012-2013 issues resolved, and got there in 2 minutes instead of having to surf through forums for hours.

Claude only knows it because someone wrote this stuff somewhere

LLMs are running off other people's good will

Re: The Shape of the Essay Field

#45

Post by fastaguy88 »

PG is an excellent writer, but this essay seems remarkably misleading. The unstated premise seems to be that well-educated adults already know everything they want/need to know about everything, which is silly. I'm older than PG, and pretty well educated, but I am constantly learning new things. I don't think it's because they are not important or I am obtuse. I think it is because I am (still) intellectually curious.

Sometimes I learn new things because they are new. And sometimes I learn new things (that are well known to people in other fields) because while I know a lot about some things, I know very little about others -- so little that I don't even know those things overlap with my interests.

Those of us who enjoy learning appreciate that we will never know everything we would like to, and in fact we will never know the boundaries of knowledge for topics we care a lot about. It's not that it is unimportant to us, it's just that we hadn't learned about it yet. That's why we read essays.

Re: The Shape of the Essay Field

#46

Post by tolerance »

Pushing the needle of literacy and good writing requires eager young readers.

I think the point that PG is trying to make is that young people are easier to influence.

I don't know if acquiring new knowledge guarantees that it's going to be transformative in the way that it can be for the young, especially for those who are young today.

The intention behind acquiring knowledge can make a difference too. I imagine that a young person more likely aiming to independently acquire knowledge due to some practical want, than an older person who may be more content with the theory behind it.

But this is me speculating on a sensitive dichotomy. Although I think we should let the young guys have this one.

Re: The Shape of the Essay Field

#48

Post by neuroticnews25 »

adtac wrote: post #41
analog31 wrote: post #39

>>> So the three reasons readers might not already know what you tell them are (a) that it's not important, (b) that they're obtuse, or (c) that they're inexperienced. (d) because it's false. I'm not saying PG's essay is false, but my scientific upbringing, and rare moments of humility, compel me to include this option.

1. PG is implicitly talking about good essays. And it's very hard to write a good essay if you don't believe it's true. 2. Whether something is true has nothing to do with whether the reader knows it. I know many false things and ideas.

Ad 2, this is not how knowledge is understood in mainstream epistemology and in common language.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge

Re: The Shape of the Essay Field

#49

Post by muzani »

analog31 wrote: post #39

>>> So the three reasons readers might not already know what you tell them are (a) that it's not important, (b) that they're obtuse, or (c) that they're inexperienced. (d) because it's false. I'm not saying PG's essay is false, but my scientific upbringing, and rare moments of humility, compel me to include this option.

But why would someone write a false essay? Could they be more obtuse or inexperienced than the reader?

Re: The Shape of the Essay Field

#50

Post by analog31 »

muzani wrote: post #49
analog31 wrote: post #39

>>> So the three reasons readers might not already know what you tell them are (a) that it's not important, (b) that they're obtuse, or (c) that they're inexperienced. (d) because it's false. I'm not saying PG's essay is false, but my scientific upbringing, and rare moments of humility, compel me to include this option.

But why would someone write a false essay? Could they be more obtuse or inexperienced than the reader?

They could be misinformed themselves, or concocting an argument that doesn't really make sense. Even a lot of seemingly "logical" arguments are really just chains of weak but plausible-sounding inferences.
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