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This post opens by stuffing words in Paul Graham's mouth: "I wrote a LiveJournal post so preposterous that even Hacker News didn’t swallow it. I’m painting thi

This post opens by stuffing words in Paul Graham's mouth: "I wrote a LiveJournal post so preposterous that even Hacker News didn’t swallow it. I’m painting this as ‘controversial’, which only makes sense if you accept that I am roughly as important as the entire rest of the Internet. Rather than step back and wonder if I might be wrong, I wrote this patronizing Playskool edition, to give the unwashed masses a second chance at appreciating my brilliance. Please admire my generosity." Oh come on. This is just a better-spelled version of "ur a fag!!!!!!". Reminds me of Scott Alexander's post about micronations: "I think everyone should have the media perform a hatchet job on them at least once. It’s this really scary feeling when you know you’re trying to be honest and do the right thing, and yet you see how easy it is for a hostile writer to cast every single thing you do as corrupt and destructive. And how quick everyone is to believe them. And how attempts to set the record straight get met with outraged “how dare you give one of those typical sputtering non-apologies!”. It reminds me of those computer games where “ACCUSE” is just a button you press, and it doesn’t even matter what the accusation is or whether it makes sense." - http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/15/things-i-learned-by-spending-five-thousand-years-in-an-alternate-universe/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/15/things-i-learned-by-spe...

foolrush 11y ago
Maybe the brutal terseness, toilet language and straw manning is apparently holding traction against his blogging? It seems the longer, more eloquent, and extremely well researched works that shame PG's ridiculous lower-than-high-school-sociological waxing _do not_. I know it is often viewed as a grand cop-out to withdraw from an a debate until someone has read XXX, however I can't help but feel that this is the case with PG. Go take some sociology classes. Go study the humanities. Go learn in that place you constantly tell people to drop out from. Except he won't. He doesn't need to. His privilege buys him a platform, ears, and a ridiculous following that actually defends his pompous soap boxing. Worse, again, is that it simply isn't bringing anything to the table. At all. So while I am not a huge fan of the language or attack posturing, I also feel better knowing that there is a wave rising up against the derivative pablum PG peddles. The hubris it takes to actually forward thoughts as his and _believe_ they are novel, valuable, or even remotely insightful is... Frightening.
- argonaut 11y ago
  Uh... I'm not saying this legitimizes his arguments in any way, but to interpret your comment literally, he did study the liberal arts - both of them: Paul Graham has a BA in Philosophy from Cornell "and studied painting at RISD and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence." http://www.paulgraham.com/bio.html http://www.paulgraham.com/bio.html
  - foolrush 11y ago
    I suppose I should have been more explicit with “humanities”, but alas. Have a bump for your accurate correction.

foolrush 11y ago

Maybe the brutal terseness, toilet language and straw manning is apparently holding traction against his blogging? It seems the longer, more eloquent, and extremely well researched works that shame PG's ridiculous lower-than-high-school-sociological waxing _do not_. I know it is often viewed as a grand cop-out to withdraw from an a debate until someone has read XXX, however I can't help but feel that this is the case with PG. Go take some sociology classes. Go study the humanities. Go learn in that place you constantly tell people to drop out from. Except he won't. He doesn't need to. His privilege buys him a platform, ears, and a ridiculous following that actually defends his pompous soap boxing. Worse, again, is that it simply isn't bringing anything to the table. At all. So while I am not a huge fan of the language or attack posturing, I also feel better knowing that there is a wave rising up against the derivative pablum PG peddles. The hubris it takes to actually forward thoughts as his and _believe_ they are novel, valuable, or even remotely insightful is... Frightening.

argonaut 11y ago
Uh... I'm not saying this legitimizes his arguments in any way, but to interpret your comment literally, he did study the liberal arts - both of them: Paul Graham has a BA in Philosophy from Cornell "and studied painting at RISD and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence." http://www.paulgraham.com/bio.html http://www.paulgraham.com/bio.html
- foolrush 11y ago
  I suppose I should have been more explicit with “humanities”, but alas. Have a bump for your accurate correction.