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Good Writing

paulgraham.com

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Re: Good Writing

#321

Post by thaumasiotes »

pdonis wrote: post #302
thaumasiotes wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But towards the end he backs away from that claim, and makes the claim I described: > "[W]hile we can't safely conclude that beautiful writing is true, it's usually safe to conclude the converse: something that seems clumsily written will usually have gotten the ideas wrong too." What do you mean, backs away? Those aren't different claims. If writing that sounds bad is less likely to be right, it is necessarily the…

> Those aren't different claims. Yes, they are. The first claim (the one he backs away from) is A implies B, where A = "this writing is beautiful" and B is "this writing is true". The second claim is Not A implies Not B. Those are not logically equivalent. The second claim is logically equivalent to B implies A, i.e., "this writing is true" implies "this writing is beautiful". But B implies A is not equivalent to A i…

> It could also be the case that both types of writing, sounding bad and not sounding bad, are less likely to be right (because, say, sophistry is very prevalent).

No, it cannot be the case that every type of writing is less likely to be right. Less likely than what?

Re: Good Writing

#322

Post by thaumasiotes »

himalayan_yak wrote: post #278
thaumasiotes wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But towards the end he backs away from that claim, and makes the claim I described: > "[W]hile we can't safely conclude that beautiful writing is true, it's usually safe to conclude the converse: something that seems clumsily written will usually have gotten the ideas wrong too." What do you mean, backs away? Those aren't different claims. If writing that sounds bad is less likely to be right, it is necessarily the…

No, it is not. If A -> B is Not logically equivalent as If Not A -> Not B. Many make this mistake. It is equivalent to If Not B -> Not A. In this case, if a writing that sounds bad is less likely to be right - leads to - if the writing is right the writing is likely to sound good, (and only that).

> If A -> B is Not logically equivalent as If Not A -> Not B. Many make this mistake.

But many people making a mistake won't show that everything anyone says is an example of that mistake. Your observation isn't relevant here, because a claim of that form hasn't been made. We don't have "not", we have "less", which behaves differently.

For the claim "f(a) > f(b) -> g(a) > g(b)", it is trivial to show that "f(a) g(a) In the present context, we have f(x) representing "quality of the writing in x" and g(x) representing "likelihood that the ideas in x are correct".

Re: Good Writing

#323

Post by mkoubaa »

throw4847285 wrote: post #310
mkoubaa wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kant was an awful writer and _nobody_ thinks otherwise.

I took Intro to Modern Philosophy with one of the top Kant scholars in the world, and when we got to Kant the professor warned us that he was a brilliant thinker but a terrible writer. He shared the old philosophical cliche, "Hume wrote about complex ideas simply, Kant wrote about simple ideas complexly." And yet to this day I suspect that Kant got a lot right, or at least set the terms of debate for hundreds of year…

That tracks. Language is a kind of technology, that evolves to adapt to new uses. A simple elegant python program that fits on a slide might have taken tens of thousands of lines of obtuse fortran.

Re: Good Writing

#324

Post by cafard »

gsf_emergency wrote: post #282
sctb wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTA: > This is only true of writing that's used to develop ideas, though. Descriptive writing, especially for fiction, seems out of scope.

The idea of "haecceitas" has been floating amongst the ... Pop-literati https://www.scribblejerk.com/blog/haecceity-rules My take is that it's "writing that calls attention to itself" (or, if you want, writing that is clearly off the wall) Not sure if it can't be applied to exposition, Pontiggia managed it as above? Some pecunious would like it reduced to Jobs ("editing is all you need") but I'd argue Jony has the sp…

I think that the last time I ran across "haecceitas" in a literary context was in an essay by Randall Jarrell. My guess is that he was referring to William Carlos Williams. In that case, Jarrell meant writing that tried to engage each thing as it is, not as part of a larger class.

Re: Good Writing

#325

Post by nchmy »

gist wrote: post #311
nchmy wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see nothing wrong at all with asking people for feedback on an essay that will be broadly published and read. That just seems prudent. What is more concerning is that I don't think many people who have read widely would consider Paul Graham to be a good writer, and yet people who care about him let him publish this article... He's definitely not a bad writer, and he generally communicates good ideas clearly, which…

> I see nothing wrong at all with asking people for feedback on an essay that will be broadly published and read. Is he really 'broadly published and read'? Most people outside of tech have no clue (and no interest) in what PG says. Yes there is 'nothing wrong' except if you put yourself out there as having good unique thoughts why does it not show that you are lacking confidence to have others (again in this situati…

There's probably not many people who write essays generally focused in tech who have a larger audience (or even following). Though it's beside the point how generally popular he is. It can only be helpful to get feedback on anything that we ever do - it doesn't mean we have to incorporate it.

And seeking feedback from specific people who you respect is a vastly different thing than opening up your digital home to the slovenly masses to come and shit in with their comments.

Though, I think he probably should have sought feedback from some actual good writers for a topic like this...

Re: Good Writing

#326

Post by thaumasiotes »

pdonis wrote: post #302
thaumasiotes wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But towards the end he backs away from that claim, and makes the claim I described: > "[W]hile we can't safely conclude that beautiful writing is true, it's usually safe to conclude the converse: something that seems clumsily written will usually have gotten the ideas wrong too." What do you mean, backs away? Those aren't different claims. If writing that sounds bad is less likely to be right, it is necessarily the…

> Those aren't different claims. Yes, they are. The first claim (the one he backs away from) is A implies B, where A = "this writing is beautiful" and B is "this writing is true". The second claim is Not A implies Not B. Those are not logically equivalent. The second claim is logically equivalent to B implies A, i.e., "this writing is true" implies "this writing is beautiful". But B implies A is not equivalent to A i…

Expanding a little further...

> What is necessarily the case is that, if writing that sounds bad is less likely to be right, writing that is right is less likely to sound bad.

That's true. You're 100% right about this.

But if you're able to prove it, you should be well aware that exactly the same proof will quickly show that writing that doesn't sound bad is more likely to be right.

> Which, as above, is not logically equivalent to "writing that doesn't sound bad is more likely to be right".

And that, obviously, is false. They are the same statement; either is sufficient to prove the other. I don't know what happened in your comment.

Re: Good Writing

#327

Post by martin82 »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #250
thomasanders0n wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don’t think witch-hunting at any scale should be okay on online forums. Please don’t. Maybe respond without feeling the need to visit someone’s profile or history?

Why not? How else would you identify a troll?

What if someone has a hidden agenda and in isolation their arguments seem sound, but when you zoom out you see the agenda and understand that the arguments are biased and manipulative and actually counterproductive?

Re: Good Writing

#328

Post by martin82 »

All the woke and progressive ideas "sound good" on paper.

But they are detached from reality, scientifically wrong, and lead to disastrous outcomes.

--

All of marketing "sounds good" and even "looks good" - that is the entire point - but it is actually all lies.

Re: Good Writing

#329

Post by gsf_emergency »

cafard wrote: post #324
gsf_emergency wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of "haecceitas" has been floating amongst the ... Pop-literati https://www.scribblejerk.com/blog/haecceity-rules My take is that it's "writing that calls attention to itself" (or, if you want, writing that is clearly off the wall) Not sure if it can't be applied to exposition, Pontiggia managed it as above? Some pecunious would like it reduced to Jobs ("editing is all you need") but I'd argue Jony has the sp…

I think that the last time I ran across "haecceitas" in a literary context was in an essay by Randall Jarrell. My guess is that he was referring to William Carlos Williams. In that case, Jarrell meant writing that tried to engage each thing as it is, not as part of a larger class.

Yepp the "academic" flavour of it is ... slightly different (& less relevant imho to parent thread) ... than the pop-cultural one, should have stressed that it exists ntheless. Thank you for providing more context for "context elision" :)!

Re: Good Writing

#330

Post by Swannie »

thymine_dimer wrote: post #276

Dear Paul, I'm sure it has been said elsewhere in the comments, but ironically I struggle to agree with this essay...which happens to be nicely and succinctly written. I'm arguing that it's your own bias generated from the synthesis of your own idea that selects for sentences that effectively express the idea, and nothing to do with the writing itself. The anecdote about the puddle who suddenly gains consciousness an…

It's not succinct. It's repetitive. I was hoping it would give more insights, but instead it repeated the same ideas.

This is one of PG's worse essays.

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