What I Didn't Say • Hacker News Board

Re: What I Didn't Say

#381

Post by pokesmot » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:25 AM UTC

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #284

mjburgess wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine, he was mischaracterized and he replied. But jesus, > pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see. What's with the almost cult-like reverence for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur?

You mean like the cult-like reverence for the pseudo-intellectual issues commentary on Twitter and Medium? The people who have less than a decade in the industry but are experts on compensation, ocracies, power dynamics, and psychology? The ones who work at Silicon Valley startups and lecture the entire industry about how things work, then surround themselves with like-minded people to have strength in numbers? You a…

It's really amazing to see how you've made yourself a victim of this and made it seem like the world against you. Could you be more obviously falling into the pattern of derailing and making this about you?

Re: What I Didn't Say

#382

Post by mjburgess » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:27 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #367

coldtea wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's "amateur social science" in the sense that it's an "off-hand comment". I could write a 5k word essay on this very small point and make it respectable Pics or it didn't happen. > I didnt because HN comment boxes are not vehicles of long essays. (...) Far too much effort to spend on a crowd whose faith in pg's intellectual status is based on his money-making ability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backtracking

> It isnt back tracking when at the time you made the comment you said it was an off-hand comment. So, it isn't backtracking if you pre-emptively declare that you are backtracking. Right. > It isnt "backtracking" to criticize a person for one thing while you are doing another. Jon Stewart criticizes news programs whilst his program isnt a very good news program. Fortunately he's in the comedy business. Unfortunately…

I'm reacting to how he is treated and how he writes (playing up to this image of himself as a Heidegger). If we attribute his writing to a small time blogger who's writing on a few topics for fun then all of my critique looks insanely harsh.

You have to put what im saying in the context of how his work is read (as some kind of obviously briliant religious text).

Re: What I Didn't Say

#383

Post by chanux » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:30 AM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #165

ericabiz wrote: post #32

As a female founder, I think this is a well-thought-out, articulate response, and I appreciate pg stepping up to say something about women in tech. In a similar vein, I'd love to see YC take on one or both of the following: 1) Do at least one application cycle completely blind. How could you accomplish this? Much like in the concert auditions where this was first tried, put people behind a curtain--and then use techn…

Self-selection, as you have done, is a hard problem to solve. Not just in tech, but in our entire culture. As noted elsewhere, Americans are sorting themselves by demographics. It feels awkward to be a woman in a predominantly male organization. It feels awkward to be a republican in San Francisco. It feels awkward to be gay in Mississippi. It feels awkward to be black in Portland. And so we place ourselves in locati…

..that it's nobody's fault

THIS. And this is the problem. People don't understand this. It HAS to be somebody's fault. It has to be black OR white. Gray is beyond the understanding of many.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#384

Post by girvo » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:34 AM UTC

ericabiz wrote: post #309

forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a founder, with due respect, why you don't do anything about it? I think they are good ideas. So how is that you expect someone else to do the work for you? As a founder I know how hard is to make an idea a reality, and my ideas had relative success(I managed to get things done and most people look to me now like "all I have was given" to me, or that what I created was obvious and easy, as it is obvious now, but t…

> As a founder, with due respect, why you don't do anything about it? There's a difference between "good idea" and "marketable business." As founders, we have to make that distinction. I'd like to see YC do blind interviews because I think it's a good idea for them to do so. I am not working on that myself because I can't see that good idea, in and of itself, turning into a business--a product a company could replica…

The issue arises when it comes to defining "better"...

Re: What I Didn't Say

#385

Post by thenerdfiles » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:36 AM UTC

thenerdfiles wrote: post #377

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…

And because 4th gen. programming languages, surely girls, who command on average a wider variety of language concepts due to social capability and variation, will more readily digest the grammars of these languages. Boys are very often emotionally stunted, as is clear, by the excessive machoism of the West, such that their mentalities are restricted and limited, less prone to exploratory thought compared to linearized, route execution.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#386

Post by tvladeck » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:38 AM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #342

tvladeck wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the linked comment, and some of your other comments on the topic on this thread. You took this into meta meta (yea, 2x) territory. Not the actual issues, not the person who wrote the linked essay (pg), but the people discussing the person discussing the issues. Why would you do that? And furthermore, how can you possibly feel you survive your own critique of "pseudo-intellectuals"? This is you [0] spouting ama…

It's "amateur social science" in the sense that it's an "off-hand comment". I could write a 5k word essay on this very small point and make it respectable, I didnt because HN comment boxes are not vehicles of long essays. If pg's observations were confined to small discussion threads on HN i wouldnt have much issue. But he presented the article I mentioned at Defcon. And his "Essays" section are presented as essays,…

> I'm responding to the questions raised in the most convenient way.

Absolutely not the case; here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6987798, the relevant comment that sparked this discussion), you are simply taking the conversation into new territory and insulting people.

> But jesus,

>> pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see.

>What's with the almost cult-like reverence for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur?

Re: What I Didn't Say

#387

Post by sillysaurus2 » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:48 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…

So, I should probably point out that pg went to Harvard specifically to study Philosophy. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy in 1990. Therefore your critique that he should have a degree before writing about philosophy is interesting.

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 your opinion as though it were valuable.

pg spent weeks on each of his early essays. He spent a solid month writing What You Can't Say. He spent at least a couple days writing this one. They aren't opinion pieces.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#388

Post by edouard1234567 » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:50 AM UTC

One can only appreciate the irony of note [3] :)

" The controversy itself is an example of something interesting I'd been meaning to write about, incidentally. I was one of the first users of Reddit, and I couldn't believe the number of times I indignantly upvoted a story about some apparent misdeed or injustice, only to discover later it wasn't as it seemed. As one of the first to be exposed to this phenomenon, I was one of the first to develop an immunity to it. Now when I see something that seems too indignation-inducing to be true, my initial reaction is usually skepticism. But even now I'm still fooled occasionally."

Re: What I Didn't Say

#389

Post by orionblastar » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:50 AM UTC

Crito wrote: post #281

orionblastar wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look you are getting credibility and trust confused with respect and other things. Personally I don't trust anyone, I've been burned too many times. Yeah that makes me paranoid, but it comes from too many bad professional relationships were I was backstabbed by the other person to further their career goals. I must state that this does not happen in every organization, and that there are a few people I would trust if…

Do you give people who you respect the benefit of the doubt? By that, I mean that if they say something that could be interpreted charitably or uncharitably, do you tend to tentatively assume that they meant it the charitable way? I think that is what grellas means by "trust".

Ah I see what you mean.

People I respect I give the benefit of the doubt and interpret it as charitable, but I still have to verify what they say by checking other sources.

People I don't respect, I assume they are lying to screw with me and in 90% of the cases when I try to verify what they are claiming is true, ends up being untrue. The other 10% of the time I had a mistake and had misjudged them.

I have a respect for the Hacker community here, because most people are honest about their feelings and speak from experience and cite sources and stuff.

On Facebook there was this guy on a friend's group who asked me to prove what I was saying, so I cited seven peer reviewed sources. He said he didn't need to prove anything he said was true and that I was wrong for simply disagreeing with him. He then went into a rage and sent me threats via private message. I then blocked him and reported him for abusive behavior, he then accused my friend of censoring the posts to hide the truth because when I blocked him all of my comments vanished from his view. My friend explained to him that he had been blocked by me and that he could no longer see the comments of a user who blocked him. He still refused to believe it. This guy claimed to be a programmer, had no clue how math and science worked, couldn't even figure out how the block feature of Facebook works. Guys like him I have no respect for.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#390

Post by Double_Cast » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 2:50 AM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #319

mjburgess wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"pseudo" was a little strong. But if you have any serious familiarity with his "off-topic" rants, youll see he writes about issues glibly and with a severe lack of information. I dont mind "academic journalism", I do it a lot myself: write on difficult topics for a lay audience and maybe sacrifice a little accurasy a long the way. I think pg likes be seen making points more than he wants further understanding/truth/e…

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…

Preface: Occasionally, I disagree with pg too. But I respect him since I find most of his essays insightful and I appreciate the effortless precision of his writing style. I.e. too many bloggers beat around the bush and rarely attack the crux of their topic directly, let alone adequately support their thesis.

That said, I'm one of those who "don't see the problem". I reread his essay about inequality. I tried to imagine your thought process. I agree that money, freedom, and power are joined at the hip. I don't see how this contradicts pg's quote.

Here's how I understand things. Corruption implies power by definition. But does power necessarily imply corruption? Lord Acton believed power consistently causes corruption in practice. But it doesn't have to be that way. I think we can agree on this.

Here's where I imagine our disagreement lies (best guess, low confidence). Corruption connotates "immoral behavior". But pg's examples indicate (to me) that he wanted to address not immoral behavior per se, but the double standard society imposes between the privileged and the less fortunate.

This distinction frames the discussion in a more actionable way. Like you said, power enables people to do what they want... which isn't always moral (or fair [1]). It's inevitable. So society won't be able to prevent this consistently, lest reality resemble Minority Report. But one thing society can prevent is punishing offenders according to a double standard. Another thing society can prevent is lack of transparency. I imagine either would decrease corruption while allowing the privileged to enjoy their power (money) in more socially acceptable ways.

Personally, I'm especially upset with the U.S. lobby system. In theory, democracy is supposed to afford one vote per capita. In practice, the lobby system allows the powerful to undermine this principle.

[1] http://paulgraham.com/credentials.html