Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now • Hacker News Board

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#421

Post by droopyEyelids » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

I hope you write a blog about the process of staying off twitter. It's a system that has a lot of psychological rewards and I believe quitting it is almost like changing an addictive habit.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#422

Post by gre » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

ren_engineer wrote: post #404

rc_mob wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

do morons get accepted into Stanford's STEM PhD programs? You can hate Musk for his personality and maybe say he has mental health issues but to say he's stupid seems strange

Money can get you into any university program. I did a google search, he left after two days. This is not impressive.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#423

Post by cmrdporcupine » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

fairity wrote: post #393

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #296

BTW, he's already backtracking and stating he has not "left twitter": https://indieweb.social/@paulg@mas.to/109536543079310226 "I haven't "left Twitter." I just don't want to keep using it while it's banning links to other sites. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn more about Mastodon." Expect Musk to reverse this policy, and all the people who were fine with all the even more ter…

There's nothing to backtrack on. Go re-read the original tweet - he never said he was leaving Twitter. If that was his intention, he probably would've explicitly said so. The OP's post title is based on an incorrect assumption.

Fair enough, it's left ambiguous.

He's applying pressure/lobbying in a passive-aggressive way. Even less principled.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#424

Post by tpush » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

bestcoder69 wrote: post #182

threeseed wrote: post #21

There’s an old adage about never meeting your heroes that applies well to PG. Some of his daily takes were so embarrassing and insipid that it was hard to maintain respect. It’s funny because his long form posts which are often insightful were likely reviewed/edited by a third person. A concept he has actually said only exists in the modern commercial publishing era.

Dude the other day he said "Automation is inductive proof that Marx is wrong"! A mistake you wouldn't make if you sniffed Marx's wikipedia page, let alone opened your eyes to read it. pg deleted it and posted this response: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1600122386346450944 (...after, hilariously, Matt Bruenig replied with a correction from ChatGPT - which is also deleted because he auto-deletes tweets.) e: Reading…

That particular exchange really was one of the most embarrassing and ignorant ones I've seen on part of pg.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#425

Post by ragebol » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

What i hoped he would he'd do was to find another Gwynne Shotwell and have them run the company while taking his advice and kindly ignore it when it makes sense.

Alas, I don't see something like this panning out, that future is gone.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#426

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

bestcoder69 wrote: post #264

adastra22 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you confusing Paul Graham with Peter Thiel? PS: You're posting this on pg's site.

In a meritocracy, this would be dang's site.

To all extents and purposes that are relevant it is, or you can treat it as such. I'm not aware of pg overruling dang on anything, though obviously it is property of YC and there are limits to what dang can do when it comes to risking the site (legal risk, for instance).

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#427

Post by eikenberry » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #409

eikenberry wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've met PG at a book signing and he was quite pleasant. I asked about when Arc would be released (this was a while back) and he laughed and joked about it. Really nice guy. Do you really think twitter equates to meeting someone?

> Do you really think twitter equates to meeting someone? I think you learn more about a person through Twitter than meeting them since for better or worse people drop the polite, professional veneer that normally associates face to face meetings. It showcases (a) what concerns them so much they have to Tweet about it, (b) what their values are, (c) how they read situations, (d) how they treat people etc. It's weirdl…

But you go to far. "Meeting someone" is meeting that public veneer that they use when meeting new/random people. It is not spending a lot of time with them and getting to know them. It is about how first, in-person impressions match up against your expectations.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#428

Post by equalsione » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

tlogan wrote: post #127

belligeront wrote: post #15

Amazing that just a month ago he tweeted[1]: "It's remarkable how many people who've never run any kind of company think they know how to run a tech company better than someone who's run Tesla and SpaceX.". It's been fascinating watching so many VC types ignore so many red flags just because some of Elon's early actions validated their priors (e.g. tech companies are bloated and need to layoff staff). [1] https://twi…

Majority of people here on HN were also convinced he will try to make Twitter better. Not everybody believed that he will succeeded but it seems like majority belived that he will at least try hard. Like improve app to purchase things (one click checkout), integrate with real time news, some free speech, sports, … so many ideas

But this sounds incredibly like “buy the dip!” The situation with twitter is dire. Nothing indicates that any of the things listed are remotely achievable.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#429

Post by malteof » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

LarsDu88 wrote: post #237

Remember how George Lucas made Star Wars and became the genius billionaire who could do no wrong. Then he got a divorce and made Howard the Duck (quite possibly the worst movie of all time). I think the same thing is happening here. As a startup founder you have guardrails, spouses, investors. You have Brian De Palma rewriting the opening trailer crawl, you have Marcia Lucas helping the edit, and you have your old pr…

> Elon is the wealthiest man in the world

Second wealthiest now…

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#430

Post by bmelton » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

Nomentatus wrote: post #340

bmelton wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take the hit here. I thought electric vehicles were a really dumb idea. Too many problems to be solved for. Range. Charging. Depreciation. Getting people to switch. All of the other infrastructure. Now it's what everyone does, and Tesla is (last I checked) one of the very few EV makers that is able to make a profit on EVs, while upstarts in the space (including Ford) are losing money on every EV sale. I thought…

Agreed, well said. Elon's had a busy productive life, and my take on my University friends who've had busy productive lives is that they now have the self-insight of a baked potato, roughly. No doubt because they haven't had spare time to reflect on their actions or motivations. But that doesn't mean they can't self-correct, it just means they usually have to run into a brick wall or two before they do. I'm guessing…

I'm still highly critical of what Musk is doing (again, without knowing the 'why') but something that seems important and is going unnoticed is that while the previous administration's actions were just as arbitrary and capricious, they almost always related to events that were popular topics of discussion like recent elections, a global pandemic, and other things that are naturally topics of discussion.

I think the current rules are likely just as dumb, but the number of people likely to be suspended for doxxing Elon or posting about Mastodon is undoubtedly a MUCH smaller segment of the population.

It's amusing watching the reactions to it. I've run enough communities in the past to appreciate how many times you have to make decisions that go against your personal ethics for the sake of the community. Everyone draws different lines on the sand on what they consider "free" speech, and anything closely resembling what is protected in America will likely get you into trouble internationally. Elon is finding out that it's hard, and while it may seem like he's setting his lines in untenable spots, it seems just as possible to me that we're all wrong and he isn't.