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Who is a serious intellectual? What does that even mean? One thing I know is that serious thinking involves going through many ideas, many of them at risk of being naive or flawed, to sort out how to think about the world. I could name one person but not only is he banned but I would probably be too if I mentioned him.
I was there in the mid-2000s. I used to read everything he wrote. I loved his Lisp books. I totally bought into what he was selling. I really admired the guy. He made greed morally acceptable and I was a confused kid. He said that in "the real world" all the petty drama that makes nerds unpopular would go away. (It ain't true. Unless you're in tech in the 1990s, the corporate world is worse than high school.) I considered applying for YC. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't. I know too many people who flew too close to a garbage fire in the Mountain View sky they thought was the sun and are still recovering, 5–10+ years later.
The fact is, I don't dislike Paul Graham. I think he got out of his depth. Y Combinator, though, is a sleazy institution with a record of ageism, atrocious founder quality— the number of YC-backed people who've turned out to be spousal abusers is shockingly high— and marketing-sans-substance. I actually think that most of YC's atrociousness happened in spite of PG's influence and probably set in after he was a major factor.
I'm not convinced that role of intuition is exactly similar in something as subjective as political commentary as in designing a programming language. Even more frustrating is that the author doesn't clarify what characteristics someone needs to have to become a "serious public intellectual". He clarifies what PG should have done for Arc (read a scientific paper), but there isn't any such specific criticism directed against PG's political essays.
The actual thrust of the argument seems so broad (i.e. reliance on intuition), this could be used to label almost anybody outside pol-sci academic circles a "profoundly unserious public intellectual" for commenting on politics.
1. Be white and well-enough off that you know how to talk to rich people.
2. Be in technology on a US coast (West is better, East also works) during the late 1990s— an anomalous time and place with a level of opportunity that appears about once in 250 years.
3. Get really good at programming and use a "10x" programming language like Lisp.
#3 is actually optional, but it's the one people can control so it's the one you get the most fans if you talk about.
I haven't followed PG much either of late but it was recently brought to my attention by a coworker that he is now on the side of the 'bad guys'. I'm all for substantial criticism and discussion, and am always desperately looking for it, but this (unequivocally political) essay unfortunately has all of the distinct hallmarks of the simplistic contemporary political discourse. It takes a great many words to offer no s…
The only way this is can be seen as a personal attack is if PG (and his followers) identify with being a "serious intellectual." At that point it makes sense that it would seem like an attack to point out that no, he is not a "serious intellectual." Someone's character is only tarred if they insist that they are while being demonstrably not.
I haven't followed PG much either of late but it was recently brought to my attention by a coworker that he is now on the side of the 'bad guys'. I'm all for substantial criticism and discussion, and am always desperately looking for it, but this (unequivocally political) essay unfortunately has all of the distinct hallmarks of the simplistic contemporary political discourse. It takes a great many words to offer no s…
I don't see any point in the article where the author says that PG is a _bad person_. Just that perhaps we shouldn't take him seriously as an intellectual, which is perfectly okay. You can be a good person and but "unserious" w.r.t. being an intellectual - I mostly am! The only way this is can be seen as a personal attack is if PG (and his followers) identify with being a "serious intellectual." At that point it make…
Are we to ‘believe’ all ‘serious intellectuals’ and disregard the ‘unserious’ ones. There’s a clear attempt at this weird kind of classification here—at best it’s a weird kind of paternalized way of thinking about people with ideas; at worst, its a poor rhetoric for classifying PG into the category of ‘wrongthinker’.
The summary of this essay appears to be that Paul Graham relies too much on his own intuition, but intuition can lead people astray- a lengthy discussion on the failure of PG's own Arc language is used to support this argument. And apparently his recent political/social commentary fails for the same reason. The author went as far as to call him "profoundly unserious public intellectual". I'm not convinced that role o…
I feel like I'm in the same boat as the author. PG used to be one of my favorite writers on the web, and now he just seems full of it.
The summary of this essay appears to be that Paul Graham relies too much on his own intuition, but intuition can lead people astray- a lengthy discussion on the failure of PG's own Arc language is used to support this argument. And apparently his recent political/social commentary fails for the same reason. The author went as far as to call him "profoundly unserious public intellectual". I'm not convinced that role o…
That seems like a fair assessment IMHO. Most of us are not "serious public intellectuals," especially w.r.t. politics. This isn't a moral failing; politics is hard.
I don't think the thrust of the author's point necessitates him to rigorously define what a "serious public intellectual" is, although perhaps he'd be a better "serious public intellectual" by doing so. Rather, it's building on the already numerous critiques of PG's political essays, and saying, "He's been like this all along. It's not that he got worse; he's always been like this."
PG's brand relies on us taking him seriously, and this essay's main thesis is that PG - despite his monetary success - has not earned that right, whether through his essays about programming language design or politics.
> I'm not convinced that role of intuition is exactly similar in something as subjective as political commentary as in designing a programming language.
I don't know if one is more or less subjective, but I also don't think that clarifies to me how much success in one or the other has to do with intuition. The essay uses chicken sexing as an example, which is pretty damn objective; yet success is only obtained through trained intuition.