4 ms·

Paul Graham does a good job outlining the different forms a disagreement can take and evaluating their effectiveness. I agree with his analysis. I'm going to ex

Paul Graham does a good job outlining the different forms a disagreement can take and evaluating their effectiveness. I agree with his analysis. I'm going to expand on it. It seems this piece was written in response to the various criticisms he received because for his "You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss" essay. In addition to objecting to the form these criticisms took, I think he could also have talked about one of the fundamental causes of most disagreements on the internet - lack of charitable interpretation. Many interpreted his essay as an attack on big-company programmers - using as evidence the analogies he used, the frankness of his writing style, etc. - and reached the conclusion that he had an elitist attitude about his profession. Now, this may or may not be true (having met him, my opinion is a firm "not true"). But the point is that it doesn't matter. If we interpret charitably, we remain agnostic on what his argument implies about him (thus abstaining from DH1 and DH2 attacks) and instead focus on the actual argument. Some critics managed to do that. But many didn't. And the worst part is that the lack of charitable interpretation obscured their actual disagreements, so now we've wasted time talking about "how to disagree" instead of "what are the correlations/effects of company type on programmer happiness/ability/prospects". Of course, an author should be careful to frame his arguments in a way that minimizes the danger from misinterpretation. In other words, an author should try to write well.

rtf 19y ago
Many times people will enter a passionate debate if they feel their lifestyle or livelihood is at stake. It's the same reason news media have long focused on crime, sex, and scandal - BAD THINGS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! But in forming an actual dialogue, such all-or-nothing viewpoints make people defensive. The behavior of monopolies that have been obsoleted by technology is little different from that of the Luddites - they try to stop the change, even when it's irrational to try. "Irrational self-interest" is a pretty neat term to sum it up. "You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss" strikes keenly and precisely at the employed, because it primarily lists benefits of startup life, presenting an unbalanced picture. The title certainly doesn't help matters. That PG's arguments are pretty strong, and he has some established weight in online communities, makes him hard to dismiss out of hand, which further increases the tension. Internet discussion tends to stay low on the hierarchy because the people replying are mostly stuck in defensive mode. Pragmatic, nuanced thinking doesn't seem to come naturally to humans.
gregwebs 19y ago
"an author should be careful to frame his arguments in a way that minimizes the danger from misinterpretation" I find this takes more effort than any other part of writing. There is a point where this doesn't necessarily make the text better because it becomes less succinct since the author must clarify against every possible non-charitable interpretation.

rtf 19y ago

Many times people will enter a passionate debate if they feel their lifestyle or livelihood is at stake. It's the same reason news media have long focused on crime, sex, and scandal - BAD THINGS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! But in forming an actual dialogue, such all-or-nothing viewpoints make people defensive. The behavior of monopolies that have been obsoleted by technology is little different from that of the Luddites - they try to stop the change, even when it's irrational to try. "Irrational self-interest" is a pretty neat term to sum it up. "You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss" strikes keenly and precisely at the employed, because it primarily lists benefits of startup life, presenting an unbalanced picture. The title certainly doesn't help matters. That PG's arguments are pretty strong, and he has some established weight in online communities, makes him hard to dismiss out of hand, which further increases the tension. Internet discussion tends to stay low on the hierarchy because the people replying are mostly stuck in defensive mode. Pragmatic, nuanced thinking doesn't seem to come naturally to humans.

gregwebs 19y ago

"an author should be careful to frame his arguments in a way that minimizes the danger from misinterpretation" I find this takes more effort than any other part of writing. There is a point where this doesn't necessarily make the text better because it becomes less succinct since the author must clarify against every possible non-charitable interpretation.