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There is so much truth in this: "Quote the specific passages you disagree with. This forces you to calibrate your mental model of what someone said with what t

There is so much truth in this: "Quote the specific passages you disagree with. This forces you to calibrate your mental model of what someone said with what they actually said."

bjterry 11y ago
That's good advice to not to misunderstand other people, but it's much harder to figure out how to not have it done TO you.
dangnabbit 11y ago
I did that while criticizing pg's original essay. dang still deleted me as a troll, because god forbid somebody be moderately brusque towards the almighty always perfect pg. god forbid somebody even get near his bubble. to me the worst part of pg's essay is that he never actually provided ANY evidence that startups increase income inequality. He noted that founders get rich, but he didn't go through who else wins and loses because of those startups. He didn't note that they shift power from the old guard. The whole thing was just pg going 'oh god people hate rich people and i'm rich, FUCK THEM' It was dumb.
digbyloftus 11y ago
I'm glad he's brought this up and in a way sort of made it a challenge. I find PG's essays to be very precise in scope and to then try to back that point up with arguments. It's good writing. Seeing people "reply" to him and effectively just make a grand standing post against poverty with the occasional "and this rich guy thinks..." thrown in is imo disgusting. There's no way people have missed that he doesn't think economic inequality and poverty are synonymous (I kind of feel sorry for him because he sort of has to give them the benefit of the doubt and keep going as if they're just mistaken), it's a core point in his original argument, which means they're apparently fine taking him and effectively throwing him under the bus by making it sound like he's pro poverty. I'd love to see a reply to him that's intellectually honest and stays on point. Rebuts his arguments, doesn't put words in to his mouth, and acknowledges those that have already come out of it. Sadly amongst the pile I've read, none seem to have tried to do that and instead seem to just be aiming for audience approval with emotional statements.
gammarator 11y ago
I disagree. Much of rhetoric is about framing--choosing what to present, and how. An essay can be wrong because of what it omits or wrongly emphasizes. Everyone is quoting pg's passage "So you could for example have no poverty and perfect social mobility, and still have great economic inequality." That's true, in the abstract--but it's so far from the reality of US society today that it makes the whole essay tone deaf: "let them eat cake." pg could have written an essay saying "poverty and poor social mobility are the real scourges, here's how we could fix them." Instead he wrote a defense of inequality, and wonders why there's blowback. pg has a bit of a blind spot about this "quote a specific passage" business. idlewords wrote a brutal evisceration of "Hackers and Painters" called "Dabblers and Blowhards": http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm And here is pg, 8 years ago, demanding someone point out which specific passage was refuted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=238325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=238325
- deleted 11y ago
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There is so much truth in this: "Quote the specific passages you disagree with. This forces you to calibrate your mental model of what someone said with what they actually said."

bjterry 11y ago

That's good advice to not to misunderstand other people, but it's much harder to figure out how to not have it done TO you.

dangnabbit 11y ago

I did that while criticizing pg's original essay. dang still deleted me as a troll, because god forbid somebody be moderately brusque towards the almighty always perfect pg. god forbid somebody even get near his bubble. to me the worst part of pg's essay is that he never actually provided ANY evidence that startups increase income inequality. He noted that founders get rich, but he didn't go through who else wins and loses because of those startups. He didn't note that they shift power from the old guard. The whole thing was just pg going 'oh god people hate rich people and i'm rich, FUCK THEM' It was dumb.

digbyloftus 11y ago

I'm glad he's brought this up and in a way sort of made it a challenge. I find PG's essays to be very precise in scope and to then try to back that point up with arguments. It's good writing. Seeing people "reply" to him and effectively just make a grand standing post against poverty with the occasional "and this rich guy thinks..." thrown in is imo disgusting. There's no way people have missed that he doesn't think economic inequality and poverty are synonymous (I kind of feel sorry for him because he sort of has to give them the benefit of the doubt and keep going as if they're just mistaken), it's a core point in his original argument, which means they're apparently fine taking him and effectively throwing him under the bus by making it sound like he's pro poverty. I'd love to see a reply to him that's intellectually honest and stays on point. Rebuts his arguments, doesn't put words in to his mouth, and acknowledges those that have already come out of it. Sadly amongst the pile I've read, none seem to have tried to do that and instead seem to just be aiming for audience approval with emotional statements.

gammarator 11y ago

I disagree. Much of rhetoric is about framing--choosing what to present, and how. An essay can be wrong because of what it omits or wrongly emphasizes. Everyone is quoting pg's passage "So you could for example have no poverty and perfect social mobility, and still have great economic inequality." That's true, in the abstract--but it's so far from the reality of US society today that it makes the whole essay tone deaf: "let them eat cake." pg could have written an essay saying "poverty and poor social mobility are the real scourges, here's how we could fix them." Instead he wrote a defense of inequality, and wonders why there's blowback. pg has a bit of a blind spot about this "quote a specific passage" business. idlewords wrote a brutal evisceration of "Hackers and Painters" called "Dabblers and Blowhards": http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm And here is pg, 8 years ago, demanding someone point out which specific passage was refuted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=238325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=238325

deleted 11y ago
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