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I Met Paul Graham Once

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#691

Post by nathan_compton »

sbarre wrote: post #268
beardedwizard wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very underrated comment. Right and wrong are largely a function of culture, not universal law.

I dunno man.. When someone advocates for treating another person as "not human" or wants to deny them basic human rights, that's universally wrong in my book.

I think talking about whether it is universally wrong or not is a distraction. It is sufficient to simply _not like it_ without having to get the universe (which almost certainly doesn't care, at least not enough to step in and do something about it) involved.

Personally, I am a moral skeptic - I don't really believe that moral truths exist in the same way that physical truths exist. For me, the only questions are what kind of world do I want to live and and what power do I have to make the world that way?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#692

Post by nathan_compton »

coderc wrote: post #104
snowwrestler wrote: post #58

Once upon a time, not that long ago, within my lifetime in fact, being gay was targeted for public abuse the way that transgender people are being targeting now. That has declined as people came to understand that being gay, lesbian, bi is part of how a person is made. Under public pressure, a gay person can act straight or at least act not gay. But it doesn't change who they are, doesn't help anyone around them, and…

It seems to me that prigs, as defined in pg's article, are just jumping on the transgender issue because it's an easy way for them to enforce rules. From my understanding, having read both articles, PG might say that the prigs have chosen to ride the lgbt movement. The problem is not with the lgbt movement itself. Unfortunately, this gives the movement a bad reputation. Some prigs aren't lgbt people at all, but they…

Prigs really aren't that big of a deal. Like literally who cares what they are up to?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#693

Post by redcobra762 »

ethbr1 wrote: post #441
redcobra762 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue it's currently en vogue to incessantly repeat the argument that "Both Sides" have bad actors, thus commenting on the bad actors of one side is an incomplete argument. It's tiring and non sequitur to hear such arguments however, as what the opposition to a position does is wholly unrelated to the arguments related to that position.

I'm not making a "both sides" argument: I'm making a "the individuals that support sides are more important than the sides" one.

Haha trying to get around pattern matching by lopping off the word “both” doesn’t really strengthen your argument.

The problem is that you’re pretending like the sides don’t exist now, yet they do.

In reality, the individuals that compose one side are different from the individuals that compose the other side in predictable and problematic ways. Yes, individuals matter, but so too does the trend those individuals embody.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#694

Post by theGnuMe »

lisper wrote: post #82
afavour wrote: post #9

In the long run I think realizations like the authors are healthy ones. PG is not a hero. He's just a guy. A guy who entered into business transactions with a number of people, many of whom benefitted greatly (as did Paul himself). I'm not saying any of that as a negative! Just that we have a habit of attributing superhuman characteristics to folks (Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize comes to mind) and ending up dis…

> He's just a guy. A guy who entered into business transactions with a number of people Unfortunately, that's not true. He is also a well-read and influential essayist. He wields power and influence through his words as well as his money.

The "business of tech" is and has always been politically expedient.

A counter here would be well written essays offering the humanist perspective.

I don't think PG is particularly well read in the area of "wokeness" anyway since he has fallen for the traditional conservative trap of redefinition.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#695

Post by user_7832 »

_yb2s wrote: post #657
gunian wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did accomplish a lot you just don't hear about it because history is written by the victor. Think about the numbers it took to defeat them: USSR, USA, British Empire, French Empire, and China. The reason the scientists were gobbled up by the US and USSR is precisely because of the knowledge they developed during and why everyone else was hanged. One can argue a lot of the advancements made until the era of compu…

I do hear all about it because my wife is an obscure history buff interested in Ww2 and Soviet history, and I am particularly interested in foreign science and technology we don’t here about in the USA, and enjoy learning about soviet research and other science that still hasn’t made it back into mainstream western knowledge. Authoritarianism does not fundamentally make it impossible to develop technology, it just st…

Just wanted to thank you and the commenter above for your thoughtful comment chain. It’s exceedingly rare to encounter such thoughtful nuanced conversation online.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#696

Post by mbarria »

chriscappuccio wrote: post #681
foldr wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think PG's problem is with the prigs, not the lgbt movement itself. Can these be separated? You're essentially asking if the LGBT movement can be separated from the exact kind of activism that's enabled the advances in LGBT rights that we've seen since the 1960s. In a word, no, they can't be separated. The 'priggishness' of one or two decades ago is the moral truism of the present. Here, for example, is a spoof fl…

Of course it can be separated. There is no inherent reason the two must be molded together. Zero.

History is a pretty good argument that they can't be separated.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#697

Post by mbarria »

patanegra wrote: post #118
snowwrestler wrote: post #58

Once upon a time, not that long ago, within my lifetime in fact, being gay was targeted for public abuse the way that transgender people are being targeting now. That has declined as people came to understand that being gay, lesbian, bi is part of how a person is made. Under public pressure, a gay person can act straight or at least act not gay. But it doesn't change who they are, doesn't help anyone around them, and…

I think being gay and having gender identity disorder are two things that are somewhat related culturally, but not that much as a condition. Being gay has no negative consequences and when homosexuals are left to live how they want, they are happy and overall have no problems. Also, this identity doesn't change much during their lives. In comparison with that, people who are delusional, are not feeling any better whe…

The highest risk of suicide for trans people is how the surrounding people treat them. Additionally, regret of transitions is lower than for most surgeries. There is no real reason that allowing trans people to live their lives as they please causes any harm to them, it's only moral panic.

https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equali... and https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equali...

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#698

Post by [deleted] »

nathan_compton wrote: post #691
sbarre wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno man.. When someone advocates for treating another person as "not human" or wants to deny them basic human rights, that's universally wrong in my book.

I think talking about whether it is universally wrong or not is a distraction. It is sufficient to simply _not like it_ without having to get the universe (which almost certainly doesn't care, at least not enough to step in and do something about it) involved. Personally, I am a moral skeptic - I don't really believe that moral truths exist in the same way that physical truths exist. For me, the only questions are wh…

[deleted]

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#699

Post by sillyfluke »

ivraatiems wrote: post #629

I really appreciate and am impressed by how thoughtful and genuine the responses here - including those not in support of the OP - are in general. I don't see nearly anyone giving the author crap for not blindly loving PG, I don't see nearly anyone purposefully using the wrong pronouns as an insult (and the few who are are mostly getting flagged). Even folks who clearly disagree are praising the author and being resp…

I, too, found it refreshing.

>It seems clear that we as a community don't support, encourage, or permit people to throw slurs, insults, and harassment at others. Why are we okay with much larger and more powerful communities doing it in the name of these "freedoms"

Because the community uses the same freedoms to police those that throw slurs and does not feel it requires--that is the hope anyway--any other mandatory enforcement?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#700

Post by imperfect_blue »

kristianc wrote: post #18

Can't help but OP might have been better engaging with PG's Wokeness article itself (it's full of holes, and probably one of the weakest he's written), than talking about what they think the article said made them feel. Ironically the Wokeness article does what most people accuse "wokeness" of doing, predetermining its conclusion, and then shoehorning in a bunch of loosely connected facts and phenomena to support tha…

OP wrote:

> A few days ago, Paul Graham published an essay on “Wokeness”. I skimmed it. I couldn’t finish reading it, it made me too upset...I’ve been feeling quite anxious ever since. It feels like the world is crumbling around me.

...as if this sort of mental fragility is something normal. This is the sort of mentality I've come to associate with woke and prig culture.

In my experience, the more "woke" a community is, the more these sort of hysterics are accepted, normalized, even celebrated - to the point of caricature. Part of it is that in those communities, the more "oppressed" you are, the higher status you are accorded, and the subconscious status-seeking primate part of your brain notices this, and molds your thoughts and feelings accordingly. While those on the right also play up their victimhood, it's not held in high status in their communities. You'd get outrage and compassion playing up victimhood in right-leaning communities, but in left-leaning communities you also get more moral weight when you're upset.

The result, I think, is that the American left is genuinely less happy with the world, and more likely to echo doomer sentiments.

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