You weren't meant to program computers either... ... nor, I daresay, were any of us meant for great wealth; which, as Graham may yet demonstrate, is just a muc

You weren't meant to program computers either... ... nor, I daresay, were any of us meant for great wealth; which, as Graham may yet demonstrate, is just a much a corruptor of character and insight as poverty (if not more so...) Just as large corporations tend to stifle, indeed put a halt to, the generation of ideas, so to does the imposition of large sums of money. If that were not true, then the startups trajectory wouldn't bend towards acquisition... (or, despite Grahams elisions, shall we call it 'surrender'? ) The whole point of evolution is to adapt and mutate and so there is no such thing as 'normal' or 'meant to.' An interesting aspect of evolution is that we get to thumb our noses at the very idea of 'normal' and that we get to shrug off the very idea of 'meant to'. Paul Graham has argued eloquently and succinctly this very line of reasoning heretofore. It comes, thus, as a shock to read this essay, coming, as it does, from the programmer who advocates bottom up design in opposition to top down mandates. Of course, the point of evolution often contrasts harshly with the point of cynicism: which is simply to justify any childishly satisfying, but nonetheless, foul mood or thought. Or, as Mencken put it, ``The cynic is the man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.'' So much of this essay strikes me as the worst form of 'sophistry at a distance' that I scarce can credit Graham as the author. Surely some philosophy undergrad, still pink and slightly damp behind the ears, has stolen into Graham's study and slyly substituted his/her unfinished term paper for some valuable slice of Graham wisdom. Perhaps a wily hacker is having sport of Graham, and us, by subtly crafting an HTML parser that cleverly distorts, ever so slightly, essays fed to it... The world waits, with held breath, for the un-masking of the villain.