Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Write Usefully

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 308 posts

Re: How to Write Usefully

#261

Post by lliamander »

tptacek wrote: post #256
lliamander wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes the following claims: * encryption of email in transit is good because it does provide some security against things like dragnets. * attempts to bolt end-to-end encryption on email, regardless of what tools you use, are insufficient to provide any real security against the kinds of threats you generally use end-to-end encryption against. * If you need secure messaging, use Signal * If you need to send docume…

Not that I want to perpetuate a discussion about my post on this thread, but "use Signal" isn't the claim we make; "use any modern secure messenger, they are all better than email" is the claim we made.

Fair enough. I was attempting to be succinct, but the correction is appropriate (I believe you did say that Signal was "standard" and "best").

Btw, I did find your essay persuasive. In my search for a paid email provider (as an alternative to Gmail) I've decided not to go for one that uses E2E encrypted email. If I need secure messaging, I'll use Signal (or something similar) but for email I would rather go for features and ease of use than E2E encryption.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#262

Post by sjwright »

jstummbillig wrote: post #64
sjwright wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this risk of being accused of snark, tu quoque. If you don’t understand the basis of the OP’s opinion, you’re welcome to ask. There’s no need to assume bad faith.

> At this risk of being accused of snark, tu quoque. How so? I feel I was being quite concise. > There’s no need to assume bad faith I did not assume anything. There simply was nothing to work with.

> I feel I was being quite concise.

And so does the OP, I'd wager. Personally I found the basis of the OP's criticism sufficiently self-evident to not require dissertation. If you didn't, that's fine too—but it's lazy criticism to declare that because YOU formed a different opinion that the OP was being lazy.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#263

Post by AgentME »

luord wrote: post #260
AgentME wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing to argue exactly how much politeness is necessary and whether a specific article meets the standard or not, but it seems ridiculous to write off the entire concept of politeness. If someone wrote an article arguing a point and included tons of expletives at anyone who believed otherwise -- even if they're fully right and it's about an important safety issue -- then the article probably isn't going to b…

I'm having trouble seeing how anything you said in this comment is relevant to anything I wrote in mine. So much so I am tempted to ask if you accidentally replied to the wrong person. Among other things, I never "wrote off the entire concept of politeness", the article I was talking about didn't include a ton of expletives, I never commented on how convincing or not the article was and I don't remember the article i…

Your original comment is talking about how the politeness of some post didn't matter at all because it was right, and that critics were wrong to consider the politeness level because it was right. That's what I was arguing against. I mentioned a hypothetical post with a bunch of expletives as just a more extreme example of where it would be more obviously right to consider the politeness of a post.

I had actually previously read the post you linked to, and while I agreed with its point, I also agreed with the critics of its tone. I don't think that post would be convincing to people who didn't already agree with it. I think your original post here is overly dismissive to that criticism.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#264

Post by wildermuthn »

An unpersuasive essay is never useful.

While I don’t think PG’s logical mindset would dispute this fact, I do wish his essay explored more pointedly the tension between persuasiveness and usefulness. His essay has a hint of despair: that it is impossible to persuade most people, and that the minority of humanity that are open to being persuaded (i.e., to learning something novel) are precisely the kind of people who are too intellectually rigorous to be influenced by rhetoric. Thus, persuasive writing is a waste of time?

Not a week goes by where I am persuaded of something that is true, that I had not previously accepted as true because... well... because I had not yet been persuaded.

PG isn’t really arguing that persuasion is unimportant. He is trying to persuade us that persuasion, as a rhetorical art, is a fools errand. And to give him credit, he uses the very method of persuasion in his essay that he promotes: unvarnished condensed truth.

“People believe whatever they want to believe, so you might as well tell them the truth bluntly, accurately, and simply. Even though they won’t listen to you, you’ll be better off for it. And who knows, if you reach 10 other people it will have been worth it. See the single starfish thrown back into the ocean? It mattered to her.”

Having said all that, I’m inclined to agree with PG, because almost no one will change a belief they already hold because of an essay. There’s a good book called “Changing Minds” that explores why people change their beliefs, and very low on a long list is intellectual insight. High on the list is what your peers believe and what beliefs serve your self-interest. It takes a heart of a hero to believe something no one else believes, especially when such a belief requires you to act against your own welfare.

The most useful essays are those that change lives. The sweet spot is to attack those areas of life that people tend to not have a formed opinion about. And this is where PG’s genius lives: at the edge of technology, where few live, let alone believe. That’s where he is at his best. I for one would devour and re-devour an essay about privacy, or AGI, or VR, or even about Twitter. Here’s hoping that this is PG’s opening salvo in more essays that are as powerful as this one, but as relevant to startups as his earlier writings. As he wrote: there is still much left unwritten and undiscovered!

Re: How to Write Usefully

#265

Post by hinkley »

osdiab wrote: post #12

While the internet is full of garbage writing, I don't feel like telling people that they shouldn't say anything wrong or potentially unimportant is the right way to go. That's a perfectionist attitude that stifles people's ability to explore, experiment, be wrong, learn, improve, and act. Like learning a language, if you never speak it because you're afraid to say something wrong, you'll never learn. And separately,…

It's the sort of advice you get from either a worrier or someone who has already perfected their craft.

And in an era where people talk a lot about how others achieve something and then 'close the door behind them', well, this is closing the door behind you, Paul.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#266

Post by jblow »

AgentME wrote: post #263
luord wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having trouble seeing how anything you said in this comment is relevant to anything I wrote in mine. So much so I am tempted to ask if you accidentally replied to the wrong person. Among other things, I never "wrote off the entire concept of politeness", the article I was talking about didn't include a ton of expletives, I never commented on how convincing or not the article was and I don't remember the article i…

Your original comment is talking about how the politeness of some post didn't matter at all because it was right, and that critics were wrong to consider the politeness level because it was right. That's what I was arguing against. I mentioned a hypothetical post with a bunch of expletives as just a more extreme example of where it would be more obviously right to consider the politeness of a post. I had actually pre…

You are doing exactly the thing pg talks about in this essay -- making up a fictional version of what the other person said so that you can argue with it.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#267

Post by kragen »

CaptArmchair wrote: post #96
keiferski wrote: post #13

As a counterpoint, I'd argue that the "mathematical" approach to good writing is inherently flawed. That is, trying to arrive at the formula for the "best" essay via dialectic (argument) is to miss the forest for the trees. Writing is an art, not a science. Formal logic was developed to display arguments, so if you are trying to be as precise and mathematical as possible, use that instead. Instead, I'd suggest readin…

I think the fallacy is in the premise: "An essay should be useful." Well, useful is always in the eye of the beholder. There is no such thing as an absolute truth, after all. And pretending there is, and it's even attainable, is intellectually dishonest. Sure, an essay could be a formal piece that approaches an almost "mathematical" approach. After all, an essay a first and foremost an argument presented by the autho…

> There is no such thing as an absolute truth, after all.

In a relative sense, it's true that there's no such thing as an absolute truth, but it's also true that there is such a thing as an absolute truth. However, in an absolute sense — the sense in which, for example, real-number multiplication is commutative — it is only true that there is such a thing as an absolute truth, and the assertion that "there's no such thing as an absolute truth" is simply an error of reasoning.

> And pretending there is, and it's even attainable, is intellectually dishonest.

No. You know what's intellectually dishonest? Asserting that your viewpoint is so obviously correct that nobody could possibly disagree with it sincerely, and that if they claim to disagree, they are simply being dishonest.

Given the self-referential and self-refuting nature of your comment, I'm guessing that it's merely an elaborate joke, intended to expose the moral relativism it ostensibly espouses to ridicule.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#268

Post by AgentME »

jblow wrote: post #266
AgentME wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your original comment is talking about how the politeness of some post didn't matter at all because it was right, and that critics were wrong to consider the politeness level because it was right. That's what I was arguing against. I mentioned a hypothetical post with a bunch of expletives as just a more extreme example of where it would be more obviously right to consider the politeness of a post. I had actually pre…

You are doing exactly the thing pg talks about in this essay -- making up a fictional version of what the other person said so that you can argue with it.

Am I really going wrong in interpreting this text as saying "it's wrong to criticize impoliteness if the author happens to be right"?

>Someone was telling the author that he would achieve more if he phrased his point in a more "polite" way, just because the certainty of the writing made the critic mad. Thankfully, the author was here in the comments responding, and he didn't budge.

>That interaction was very refreshing for that very reason: The author was right, knew he was right, someone didn't like that the author knew he was right, but the author remained steadfast.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#270

Post by jodrellblank »

injb wrote: post #213
Swizec wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best way to learn on the internet is to give the wrong answer and get corrected

That's the best way if you don't know that you're wrong, sure. If you do know, why not just ask what the right answer is?

> why not just ask what the right answer is?

“RTFM”

“Nobody’s going to do your homework for you”

“whathaveyoutried.com”

Post reply on HN