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I used to really like his writing, especially the series of articles he wrote about The Office. But these days I find him too insufferable to read. It has jumpe

I used to really like his writing, especially the series of articles he wrote about The Office. But these days I find him too insufferable to read. It has jumped the shark where everything is now how to be meta about being meta. At the same time I still continue to enjoy reading essays written by Paul Graham since his words are backed by real experience derived from practice, rather than philosophizing for just the sake of it.

hackaflocka 10y ago
Am guessing he just turned 40. Cue the paeans to turning old!
nostrademons 10y ago
"40 > 40: Has-been"
ddt_Osprey 10y ago
Oh man, is THAT who the author is? Yeah, the Gervais Principle is brilliant writing. He didn't provide any empirical evidence with this article. He's just proselytizing about... whatever. This article sucks. I guess he must be a has-been now. Does that count as empirical evidence? Studies with a sample size of N=1 don't really count. Oh well, can't win 'em all.
chillingeffect 10y ago
I enjoyed Tempo very much. Haven't read much else by him, but this article is almost ironically self-unaware in its sweeping generalizations. For a guy who once wrote that simple 2nd order systems should be considered as weather systems (coincidentally I was pondering these words all day today!), his "banded" view on age vis-a-vis "society" is unnuanced. Surely he realizes that society, including the culture industry, is comprised of people interlocking at all levels and ages, but this reads like someone who just realized that older people have capital to invest and younger people have time to burn. V.R. must surely have put that together earlier? It's as if to comprehend this essay, your definition of "culture" must be constrained to "pop music." If he doesn't believe that people >=40 have meanings manufactured for them, just pick up the NYT for example... The same with sports cars, fancy homes. Perhaps he's simply out of touch with "stuff people over 40 like." The entirety of child-raising, college-funding etc. is all part of culture...

hackaflocka 10y ago

Am guessing he just turned 40. Cue the paeans to turning old!

nostrademons 10y ago

"40 > 40: Has-been"

ddt_Osprey 10y ago

Oh man, is THAT who the author is? Yeah, the Gervais Principle is brilliant writing. He didn't provide any empirical evidence with this article. He's just proselytizing about... whatever. This article sucks. I guess he must be a has-been now. Does that count as empirical evidence? Studies with a sample size of N=1 don't really count. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

chillingeffect 10y ago

I enjoyed Tempo very much. Haven't read much else by him, but this article is almost ironically self-unaware in its sweeping generalizations. For a guy who once wrote that simple 2nd order systems should be considered as weather systems (coincidentally I was pondering these words all day today!), his "banded" view on age vis-a-vis "society" is unnuanced. Surely he realizes that society, including the culture industry, is comprised of people interlocking at all levels and ages, but this reads like someone who just realized that older people have capital to invest and younger people have time to burn. V.R. must surely have put that together earlier? It's as if to comprehend this essay, your definition of "culture" must be constrained to "pop music." If he doesn't believe that people >=40 have meanings manufactured for them, just pick up the NYT for example... The same with sports cars, fancy homes. Perhaps he's simply out of touch with "stuff people over 40 like." The entirety of child-raising, college-funding etc. is all part of culture...