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What I Didn't Say

paulgraham.com

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Re: What I Didn't Say

#411

Post by ars_technician »

kazagistar wrote: post #320
ars_technician wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would be a laughingstock if they did implement a voice adjuster. It makes it appear that rampant sexism is such a problem that they have to implement protection against it.

I don't get this at all. Even with just names discrimination has been shown to occur at places like universities, so it wouldn't be revealing a problem, it would be being proactive in case there is one. Trust but verify. Second, a perfect excuse was provided: for science! Its not that they think they are sexist, but an untested hypothesis is less strong then a tested one.

>Even with just names discrimination has been shown to occur at places like universities

Source? Also, universities are much different than ycombinator so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#412

Post by aptwebapps »

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…

I'm not sure if I've read all of pg's essays, I may have. At the time I read it, that one stood out as the weakest by far. Pick another one.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#413

Post by mattmcknight »

mjburgess wrote: post #333
mattmanser wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disinclined to acquiesce Oh dear. But anyway, given that I actually pointed out I disagree with him in some aspects, how is that fawning? The guy's got a history that reads better than any of us here could probably hope for and he writes some amazingly well thought out and well reasoned essays. I'm don't idolize him, I think he's more intelligent than me. Which I say about very, very few people. I think it's absurd t…

> Which I say about very, very few people. Going by your personality as demonstrated here it seems you idolize intellect so when you "think he's more intelligent than" you you're going to put him on a pedastle. This may seem natural to you, but it comes across as fawning and misplaced.

...but you've invented the idolatry here.

To dig into word choice here a bit. You attack someone for placing a value on "intellect", but criticize pg for being a "pseudo-intellectual". One interpretation of this is that you regard an "intellectual" to be something other than person who effectively used their intellect. Instead, you seem to regard an intellectual as a person who expresses conformity with the majority view of American academia (i.e., a modern liberal who isn't fond of markets.)

Re: What I Didn't Say

#414

Post by ElissaShevinsky »

I wrote this in response: https://medium.com/glimpse-labs/5c6d2ff4ef0d

PG has done a lot for the community and I think he deserves a conversation rather than a lynching. I'm calling for a more civil discourse on sexism. We could say that I'm baised bc my cofounder was similarly attacked by Valleywag, but it's very reasonable to say that these conversations could be handled more thoughtfully.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#415

Post by visakanv »

mjburgess wrote: post #236
grellas wrote: post #229

A word about credibility. It comes from the Latin word credo , meaning "I trust." Its value exceeds that of money because it marks you as a person - as someone who is respected, who is trustworthy, and whom you would want to count as a friend. It marks you not as perfect but as special. It makes others ponder not so much that they did the last deal with you but that they would want to do the next deal too. Just as we…

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?

I have a problem with the term "pseudo-intellectual". What's an intellectual, and what's a psuedo-intellectual? Please define your terms.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#416

Post by abalone »

pg is being disingenuous.

He did only refer to programmers. That's true.

But what he left out is that, he defined programmers as the "pool of potential startup founders". (You have to read the full transcript to notice that.)

So he is not actually referring to a subset of women. He very clearly says women as a whole are underrepresented as founders because they haven't been hacking since age 13 like the attendees of PyCon and open source committers, because it's really hard to get 13 year old girls interested in hacking.

It's completely clear when you read the transcript.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#417

Post by philwelch »

freyrs3 wrote: post #340
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people who wake up in the morning, just like you or me, and instead of doing something productive with their time begin the day's hunt for a topic to be offended about. These are people that spend every day searching for something that offends them so that they can bitch to their followers about it and feel like they are producing some real change in the world. Think on par with "Fox News commentary," excep…

I find the twitter comment you linked to very insightful, it's just a thinly veiled statement of "even if the facts don't support the claims I made about your actions, you're still to blame for your inaction ". This kind of "You're either with us, or against us" mentality is rather alarming...

Most SJW's go with the "you're either part of the problem or part of the solution" formulation rather than explicitly invoking Mussolini.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#418

Post by ryguytilidie »

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…

I don't mean to get in the way of your hyperbole, but the person above you seemed to have no objection to "respecting" pg, he was taking issue with this:

"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."

Which you don't mention at all in your response...

"If you're under 40, I'm largely uninterested in your take on the world. That includes my own; I know I still have things to learn and I make a proactive effort to listen more than I talk. I don't always succeed."

Are you actually being serious? Your brain works in such a way that any person who has lived less than 14,610 days couldn't possibly add any value to your life? I don't mean to be harsh but this could be the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Certainly worse than anything I've seen on Medium.

If I was pg and this was these were the type of people and defenses that were coming to my aid, I would be mortified.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#420

Post by ryguytilidie »

visakanv wrote: post #415
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?

I have a problem with the term "pseudo-intellectual". What's an intellectual, and what's a psuedo-intellectual? Please define your terms.

If you have some sort of actual experience in Philosophy and enter an opinion on a subject relating to Philosophy, that is an intellectual argument. If you are an entrepreneur with no training in Philosophy and enter an opinion on a subject relating to Philosophy that is a pseudo-intellectual argument. Pretty simple really.

Note: I don't think that he actually is a pseudo-intellectual, just giving you the example you were asking for.

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