What I Didn't Say • Hacker News Board

Re: What I Didn't Say

#371

Post by mjburgess » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 1:56 AM UTC

ma2rten wrote: post #362

mjburgess wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to have been down-voted, maybe some dont see the problem. Here's a randomly picked example: http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html Randomish quote from end of article, "The problem here is not wealth, but corruption. So why not go after corruption? We don't need to prevent people from being rich if we can prevent wealth from translating into power." Umm... how about in a capitalist society money is the vehicle…

I didn't read the essay in question, but from your quote it sounds like you are deliberately misinterpreting his point. He is talking about political power.

Political power is one form of power; political action are one kind of action. The point I made encompassed them. For example "the ability to be heard" increases with wealth: having your opinion be prominent in a democratic society is politically powerful and the more money you have the more you are able to finance outlets for your views.

One's ability to make money - to have one's skills suit the market; or to be lucky - has nothing to do with the value of your opinions or how frequently/prominently they should be offered to the rest of us.

pg doesn't even begin to engage in anything like this critique of inequality. I dont really think he knows anything about why serious academic researchers and writers have seen inequality as a serious problem for democractic societies. Because he hasnt spent the time to find out.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#372

Post by __pThrow » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:00 AM UTC

freyrs3 wrote: post #361

__pThrow wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think pg is very influential in tech and he has missed several opportunities to speak out for the powerless being abused. I think this is made worse when he runs Hacker News, and lets that platform be used in a very similar case to defend himself. My original post references "First They Came" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_... ) That's not to suggest feminist bullying is anything close to Nazi Germa…

Is pg also to blame for not immediately hopping on a plane to feed starving children in Africa? Just because someone is silent about an issue you personally care about doesn't give you cause to criticize them for their morals.

1. Paul is not influential in African Politics. Paul is influential in tech.

2. Paul runs a press that specializes in topics in tech

3. Paul and his mods goes out of their way to kill threads that discuss this topic when it deals with other people, people who are almost entirely powerless to defend themselves and so rely on the crowdsourced power of others to defend them and discuss the topic

4. Paul then uses the same press to complain how he was treated.

Draw your own conclusions regarding Paul's relative complicity in what happened to others and himself.

And there are of course far more incidents than the three I mention.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#373

Post by zw123456 » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:02 AM UTC

There is obviously a huge amount of energy around this. I think it would be great if YC sponsored a conference around this topic (perhaps Women & Minorities in tech startups).

Re: What I Didn't Say

#374

Post by SamReidHughes » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:12 AM UTC

kazagistar wrote: post #328

ars_technician wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>1.)The fact the female founders are asking for this, tells you that they don't feel on par with the way things are being done today. How many are asking for this? Where are your stats?

You appear to be requesting science in order to justify doing science. I am here to tell you that is silly.

And I'm here to tell you it's not silly, it's very appropriate to do cheap but possibly flawed research first, before diving into an expensive "science" experiment that would cost some multiple of 1/2 a year of many people's lives.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#375

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:15 AM UTC

oskarth wrote: post #285

This piece should have to be written. I think the same goes for the essay Foreign Accents. I'm not a woman, but I am a "foreigner", and it's completely obvious in both cases what pg actually said. That is, unless you have a thing for being Offended or you are looking for excuses. It's sad that pg feels he has to waste time doing these type of clarifications. Especially since he's not even holding any controversial op…

[deleted]

Re: What I Didn't Say

#376

Post by hythloday » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:16 AM UTC

aaronem wrote: post #154

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I appreciate pg stepping up to say something about women in tech." "Do at least one application cycle completely blind." Sorry but this comes off as insulting (I know that wasn't your intention), you applaud and agree with him then turn around and pull a "but I still don't trust you". As if PG can't be trusted, or you think that he's secretly sexist and want him to change his successful interview process just to pro…

> There's something about seeing a strong woman succeed that makes weak men feel weak. Fixed.

Thanks for demonstrating her point for her!

Re: What I Didn't Say

#377

Post by thenerdfiles » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:20 AM UTC

Don't women pick up concepts faster than men?

I mean, it's pretty clear that women excel at language acquisition over men, and these are just computer languages.

Let's say, ceteris paribus, 10,000 hours for adolescent boys, 8,000 hours for adolescent girls. Supposing this is the case, given the history of computer science, I doubt really any one of us is in a position to define credibility on solely that metric of time spent.

Clearly environment plays a very significant role here, and it goes without saying, given the larger cultural context of the West, that women have been excluded. I mean, Women's Suffrage was, like, a century ago.

I'm just going to assert that I'm quite postive more than half of you are talking jive, and that's not good.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#378

Post by nordsieck » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:21 AM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #356

coldtea wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of his achievements as an entrepreneur give him insights into philosophy, political economy or anything else he writes on. You don't get insights into these by getting a degree from some university on the subject. You get insights into those things by studying them, practical experience, and more importantly thinking. If anything, the most clueless people in those areas I know are tenured professors. And REAL…

> the most clueless people in those areas I know are tenured professors. Not about the subjects they research. That is the purpose of research. > are full of scorn for academia in general All of those people are academics par execellance. I'm not talking about business-ified institutional academica. I'm talking about spending a long time on a topic, researching it and thinking deeply, clearly on it before you offer y…

> Not about the subjects they research. That is the purpose of research.

The purpose of research is to farm grant money and citations. Any actual learning that happens during the process is beside the point.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#379

Post by mortyseinfeld » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:23 AM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #324

mattmanser wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pg, a pseudo-intellectual? I'm frankly surprised you've been here for 2 years and never realised. You see the ycombinator in news.ycombinator.com? In this website? That's pg's company. Do you know what ycombinator is? That he started the seed funding movement? That he was blogging about hacking startups before people even really realised you could hack startups? Before lean startup existed? That he's written his own…

None of his achievements as an entrepreneur give him insights into philosophy, political economy or anything else he writes on. I granted him "entrepreneur" status. He can have "compu-sci" intellectual too. You can see my comment here on his pseud-osity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6988150 to save repeating myself.

None of his achievements as an entrepreneur give him insights into philosophy, political economy or anything else he writes on.

It's pretty creepy calling people "intellectuals" if they babble on about "political economy".

Re: What I Didn't Say

#380

Post by foobarian » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:24 AM UTC

Reading the full quotes of what pg said to the reporter, they come off both as quite subtle and arrogant. I can imagine the reporter not quite understanding the point but instead hearing "blah blah blah we're better than you and you can never be a hacker." I'm kind of surprised pg was that open in the "interview," I think I would probably be really careful what I say in a similar situation (been bit more than once).