Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now • Hacker News Board

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#831

Post by ssnistfajen » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #581

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #2

It's interesting to see these tech influencers and their lag time on giving Elon the benefit of the doubt before they've had enough. Will Elon ever have a "coming to jesus moment" and realize that he's alienated so many of his peers that he is, in fact, in the wrong? Or is he so delusional that he really does believe he has the answers?

Everyone shrugged off the "pedo guy" episode as a lapse of judgment and not a glimpse into his real personality.

Musk did publicly apologize to the diver and the courts ruled that Musk was not liable, so lots of people considered it a settled matter. I considered Musk a cool tech person before that event, then a weird tech person after that. Since 2020 though he has turned into just an awful tech person.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#832

Post by TwiceCubed » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 10:50 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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#833

Post by AbpSch » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #498

baxtr wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. Would be great to see you being more active on HN again!

Thanks, but as I learned when I was running HN, being a regular user of a forum (which the moderator necessarily is) and writing essays are fundamentally incompatible. If you're known to be a regular user of a forum, then when someone says something about you and you don't reply, it reads as a tacit admission that they're correct. And when you write essays people say all kinds of things about you. The combination is…

You should check out Radiopaper (radiopaper.com), which was designed to address this dynamic: when someone sends you a message or comments on something you wrote, their comment is only visible to you and remains unpublished until/unless you reply.

HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31210680

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#834

Post by olzn » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 10:51 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…

Check out Lens Protocol if you’re looking for a viable decentralised alternative, Paul.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#835

Post by topaz0 » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 10:51 PM UTC

lreeves wrote: post #693

topaz0 wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is society collectively, by allowing those .1% of people have enough money to be able to fund such things on a whim.

Allowing is doing a lot of work in this sentence when in North America pretty much all political parties I can vote for (that have a chance of winning) support the status quo in power.

Very true. That too is a feature of our society.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#836

Post by fallingknife » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #725

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…

"Villain" isn't the word I'd use, but he has been increasingly indulging in gleeful cruelty and childish nonsense, both of which are very off putting. I also admire his car and rocket businesses, but he seems to have gotten sucked deeply into the very online culture war grievance trap in the past few years, to the point that it now seems to be taking up essentially all of his time now. It's really a shame to see.

Gleeful cruelty? Really? That's quite an overstatement for a bit of social media drama.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#837

Post by ehsankia » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

_cenw wrote: post #599

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…

SpaceX has talented people working there despite Elon, not because of him. They supposedly have an entire handbook on "managing Elon" for deflecting his weird requests and framing things in a way that doesn't provoke his ire. They put up with it because they only have so many opportunities to work on space. Twitter has people dependent on their H-1B and very few true believers that are unfit to serve in their role. E…

Right, Twitter is absolutely nothing like SpaceX or Tesla. Twitter's problems aren't engineering issues, they're political and related to moderation. Content moderation is one of the hardest problems current which no company has managed to solve. Especially when you have the user-creator-advertiser triangle. It was clear from the very start Elon has no clue what he was walking into.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#838

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

panarky wrote: post #821

jacquesm wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rule #1 of any forum is don't moderate the forum that you are active on. Musk is finding out the hard way why this is the case. Happy to see your post here though! Edit: and while we have you here briefly, Happy Holidays!

pg will almost certainly be reinstated because he's a high-profile supporter. But just because the new owner makes exceptions to his ridiculous anti-free-speech policy for high-profile supporters doesn't make it better. In fact, selective enforcement of batshit policies makes it all much worse.

Yes, but it would be folly to continue to invest into a forum that is run in such a capricious way.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#839

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #744

jacquesm wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not just you, I see the same thing.

I feel terrible for Paul — imagine having a decade of work wiped out overnight. Hopefully it’s not permanent.

Maybe he had a download. Let's hope for that.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#840

Post by ssnistfajen » Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

LegitShady wrote: post #800

ssnistfajen wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon is so incredibly thin-skinned that he's burning bridges with anyone who dares to not agree with him even once. First Bari Weiss, now Paul Graham. Paul clearly stated here & on Mastodon that he still believes in Elon Musk. This is classic self-sabotage of a deranged dictator.

What do you think the odds are that elon did it or even knew about it?

My own personal sense tells me no employee/subordinate would carry out such abrupt and drastic actions without explicit approval from above, no matter how much they want to please their boss. I could be wrong though.

Unfollowing Bari Weiss and suspending Paul Graham over very minor disagreements they voiced seems like a very personal & impulsive decision that I don't see why anyone besides Elon himself decided on it.