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What I Didn't Say

paulgraham.com

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Re: What I Didn't Say

#491

Post by reallyseriously »

21echoes wrote: post #468
abalone wrote: post #416

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…

it's amazing you have to scroll down this far to find someone actually thinking critically about the issue at hand rather than saying "they edited out the word 'these'! that's not how journalism works!". yes, they edited the quote. no, the original was not really much less sexist.

Agree w/ the first part but it's not sexist at all for him to note the demographics of the pool of talent he's choosing from.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#492

Post by Confusion »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #420
visakanv wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The people at the bar down the street are not engaging in pseudo-intellectual discussion when they discuss an instance of the current foreign policy that was in the news that day, even though they know nothing about political science and the art of foreign policy. Your definition includes that and is thus just silly.

Just entering an opinion on a subject you don't know 'enough' about is not pseudo-intellectualism. Pseudo-intellectualism is making it seem like you have significantly more intelligence on a subject than most other persons or have put significantly more thought into it, often connecting a subject to other subjects, and are thus qualified to make more informed comments on these subjects. You can lend more credence to your comments by using the correct academic vocabulary, but can be caught as a pseudo-intellectual by using it in the wrong way.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#493

Post by aerique »

coldtea wrote: post #345
theorique wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's with the almost cult-like relevance for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur? - Founded a successful web apps company back in the 1990s when that wasn't common, and sold it to Yahoo - Founded Y Combinator to advise and invest in startups - Smart investor with substantial success and track record (Dropbox, AirBnB, etc) In other words, he's earned a reputation for doing some very smart things, and docum…

And was quite prominent in the Lisp community, back in the day too.

That might still be an understatement. He wrote one of the top books for (Common) Lisp: http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html

Peter Norvig on the book: http://www.amazon.com/review/RRFAH7G81ASUL/ref=cm_cr_dp_titl...

Re: What I Didn't Say

#494

Post by aerique »

Grokit wrote: post #463
theorique wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's with the almost cult-like relevance for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur? - Founded a successful web apps company back in the 1990s when that wasn't common, and sold it to Yahoo - Founded Y Combinator to advise and invest in startups - Smart investor with substantial success and track record (Dropbox, AirBnB, etc) In other words, he's earned a reputation for doing some very smart things, and docum…

"Founded a successful web apps company back in the 1990s when that wasn't common, and sold it to Yahoo" While that is awesome, it is a substantially different game we play nowadays than in the 90's.

You say this like he stopped learning and stopped getting more experienced since the 1990's.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#495

Post by mjburgess »

ars_technician wrote: post #409
mjburgess wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He isnt "echoing their thoughts" any one who has read Adam Smith systematically would know that the very first few lines of this are explicitly rejected by him. They're childish research-lite versions of a 50s-style classical liberalism. It is much the same as Ayn Rand another amateur philosopher who knew very little on the topics she was writing about. I dislike the "talking head" approach to serious topics. I dont…

>I dislike the "talking head" approach to serious topics. Similar to your unsubstantiated comment about Ayn Rand?

It's the opinion of any academic philosopher who has ever reviewed her. It also has nothing to do with her individualistic/libertarian view - Nozick, for example, who shares many of the same conclusions wrote a detailed review of her books in which he exposed her arguments and philosophical analysis as barely at an undergraduate level.

This is why Nozick and others are taught in political philosophy and not ayn rand. You can listen to a somewhat detailed introductory treatment by people well-read in philosophy here: http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2013/07/01/ep78-ayn-ran....

One of her greatest sins is her perpetually trashing people like Kant whilst having no idea what theyve said - because she makes many of the very same points. pg does this too.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#496

Post by mjburgess »

chris_wot wrote: post #398
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thin…

I would consider this to be the definitive comment that puts to bed the argument being pushed.

I know his academic background. His article on philosophy cannot have taken "weeks" because it is so woeful.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#497

Post by mjburgess »

Crito wrote: post #465
throwawaykf03 wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Stephenie Meyer spent years writing the Twilight books. Time spent on a work is in no way indicative on the quality of that work.

How are we measuring "quality"? Reaction from literary critics? Reaction from the target audience? Financial success? It seems to me that by two of those standards Stephenie Meyer knocked the ball out of the park. It is not clear to me why we should care about the other standard of quality.

> It is not clear to me why we should care about the other standard of quality.

Yeah, I think this is a fairly good characterization of pg's audience.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#498

Post by Confusion »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #12
tptacek wrote: post #2

I apologize. I took it on faith that when The Information said they were running a "complete interview" with you, that it was in fact both complete and an actual interview. It seems very clear how this piece misrepresented you; the entire elided question you cite is particularly damning. I retain some of my misgivings (which have much more to do with the industry than with YC), but the "interview" clearly wasn't a go…

It's a little scary how powerful newspapers are at shaping public opinion. At least their reputation will be irreversibly damaged by breaking people's trust.

What everyone should, once again, learn from this is that you cannot take anything you read or hear at face value. Not even from people you trust, because things may be misrepresented by accident. Often it doesn't really matter, but if you get emotional about a subject and wish to comment on it, you should better be sure you have the facts straight and always temper your responses based on the possibility you don't know everything.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#499

Post by mjburgess »

scythe wrote: post #393
mjburgess wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The comment you linked fails to substantially address the article you claim to critique. You basically quoted him once on a rather controversial point and said "I disagree with this quip!". This particular sentence is hilarious: > if you have any serious reading on the last two hundred years of economic, political and sociological critiques of capitalism, wealth and power It seems like you're calling Paul Graham a ps…

I would need to go through many of his articles to expose their chronic lack of information. It's not a case of disagreeing, it's that others have disagreed and he hasnt bothered to make himself aware of how. This is no good for an "intellectual" idol.

> It's a matter of degree.

It has nothing to do with "degree". "Corruption" has nothing to do with the mixture of wealth and power: in extremely capitalist societies the Law codifies wealth as power (eg. Citizens United) and in extremely Socialist societies it codifies the opposite. "Corruption" is perceived to be prevalent in societies (eg. italy) in which the public and private sphere are blended and the Law tracks this lack of clarity.

This is why its not sufficient to say "abuse of wealth" is corruption and we need to fix corruption. Because "corruption" is defined by and against the norms of particular societies and does not measure how much wealth distorts the political landscape. Americans do not see owning many news outlets as "corruption" for example, but it is arguably an abuse of wealth to gain political power and influence.

To treat his articles seriously and engage with them (I have written about his essay on Philosophy before) is to give them too much credit. If i wanted to contribute substantively to this debate I would go and find someone informed on the matter and reply to a essay they have written. To reply to pg is to educate him.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#500

Post by oskarth »

nbouscal wrote: post #341
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…

> This piece should have to be written. I'm guessing you meant "shouldn't" there?

Sorry, yes. Typo and then noprocrast caught me.
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