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Haters (2020)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Haters (2020)

#21

Post by onraglanroad »

goatlover wrote: post #12

Using the Michael Jordan vs Lebron James GOAT debate in NBA basketball, haters of one player are often driven by the fanboys of the other player. But NBA players themselves can be haters. Often it's old era versus new where you have older retired players criticizing newer eras with some evident bitterness, and the current players clapping back about how much better they are now, and players in the past wouldn't be ab…

Oh, that kind of goatlover:)

I'm reminded of Don Bradman's conversation with Sachin Tendulkar at his 90th birthday (Google who they are), when he asked, "Sir Don, if you were playing today, what would you have averaged?"

Referring to the difference of the modern game.

Bradman replied, "Maybe around 70." Which seemed bizarrely low for a man who averaged 99.

Tendulkar asked, "Why only 70 and not 99?". Suspecting excessive modesty from the great.

"Come on, an average of 70 is not bad for a 90-year-old"

Re: Haters (2020)

#22

Post by zahlman »

overgard wrote: post #13

People get brushed off as being haters when they point out that a lot of SV is morally bankrupt. It has nothing to do with "achievement" to point out that a lot of the people running the show are people that intend a lot of harm outside their class through either carelessness or active malice. IE, I didn't hate Sam Altman or Dario Amodei until they started doom trolling and selling ridiculous fantasies non-stop. I do…

> when they point out that [some ideological outgroup] is morally bankrupt...

The phrasing already belies the problem. I would naturally and automatically brush off as a "hater" someone who said things like this about me, because it is suggestive of treating one's own idiosyncratic value judgments as objective truth.

Incidentally, "intend... through carelessness" is a contradiction in terms.

Re: Haters (2020)

#24

Post by fwlr »

Haters are described as “losers in a very specific sense”: “some amount of talent” but “never achieved much”, “never will … do great work”.

Haters as “fanboys with the sign bit flipped” is a catchy assertion, but lacks either explanatory or predictive power (how? why? did they get hit by a cosmic ray?).

I think it could just as easily be that the haters are people who can sense that sign bit on the “great work” has been lost in some sort of unsafe bit-aliasing; the famous see their unsigned integers increasing, while the hater sees a large negative signed integer. Certainly this dynamic fits for the rogue’s gallery in the Thanks section.

Re: Haters (2020)

#25

Post by overgard »

zahlman wrote: post #22
overgard wrote: post #13

People get brushed off as being haters when they point out that a lot of SV is morally bankrupt. It has nothing to do with "achievement" to point out that a lot of the people running the show are people that intend a lot of harm outside their class through either carelessness or active malice. IE, I didn't hate Sam Altman or Dario Amodei until they started doom trolling and selling ridiculous fantasies non-stop. I do…

> when they point out that [some ideological outgroup] is morally bankrupt... The phrasing already belies the problem. I would naturally and automatically brush off as a "hater" someone who said things like this about me, because it is suggestive of treating one's own idiosyncratic value judgments as objective truth. Incidentally, "intend... through carelessness" is a contradiction in terms.

You can be careless in a way where it's obvious you'll cause harm, but you just don't do anything about it because you don't care. Drunk driving for instance. SV is the equivalent of a societal drunk driver right now because our normal institutions for regulating these things have been captured mostly by financial interests and corruption. The harm might not be the goal, but SV is not going to do anything to prevent it when it comes to their products (Read "Careless People", as a great example). SV's big projects right now are things that harm almost everyone (surveillance state, data centers, education, massive financial bubble, job losses, AI that's "more dangerous than nuclear weapons but we can't figure out how to build a sandbox".) Most these guys do not give a shit about what they're doing to society, until we start shaming them for their recklessness or even better start voting and enacting policies to stop the bullshit. I will happily own the title hater for saying that.

Re: Haters (2020)

#27

Post by overgard »

greenmilk wrote: post #11

I guess the fact that Paul Graham felt the urge to write and publish this in 2020 is indicative of the toxic relationship that was developing between silicon valley and the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this essay exhibits the hallmark lack of empathy and self-awareness that perpetuate the toxic dynamic. Sure, there are "haters", but the mirror effect is equal: powerful people often end up inside of bubbles that…

I think the biggest problem we have right now is our billionaires essentially live in a completely different society from the rest of us. Some of these guys are building doomsday bunkers! From their perspective, if things get really really bad, they'll just use their infinite money glitch to go somewhere safe.

The problem is these guys lack "skin in the game". They make decisions that affect people that they never even hear from or speak to -- on purpose. They don't want to speak to the commoners. Like Paul Graham, apparently, they think we're losers because we didn't chase money.

IMO, things don't get better until we abolish citizens united and invoke some pretty hefty progressive taxes. There's absolutely no societal value to allowing someone to become a trillionaire, or even a centi-billionaire. Thats way too much power for a very disconnected group of people to have.

Re: Haters (2020)

#28

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

greenmilk wrote: post #11

I guess the fact that Paul Graham felt the urge to write and publish this in 2020 is indicative of the toxic relationship that was developing between silicon valley and the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this essay exhibits the hallmark lack of empathy and self-awareness that perpetuate the toxic dynamic. Sure, there are "haters", but the mirror effect is equal: powerful people often end up inside of bubbles that…

The bubble comes because of the haters. Any decision that is made will piss off someone even if it's for stupid reasons (classic example: https://xkcd.com/1172/) and powerful people make decisions that affect many people. When any choice they make aggravates people and even choosing to do nothing aggravates some people, they quite sensibly stop listening to public opinion entirely.

Re: Haters (2020)

#30

Post by zahlman »

onraglanroad wrote: post #23

It's rather amusing to see a PG post flagged on HN.

Given the most common comment-section responses to PG posts nowadays (this submission is not by any means an exception) it's probably for the better.
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