6 ms·

Only Paul Graham and the more fanatic acolytes believe Paul Graham is a good writer ("...and Paul Graham is having second thoughts", the joke usually goes on. B

Only Paul Graham and the more fanatic acolytes believe Paul Graham is a good writer ("...and Paul Graham is having second thoughts", the joke usually goes on. But PG has only ever had one thought, and LISP isn't that great). Seriously: in comparison to, say, Scott Alexander, I don't see a single novel idea in Graham's Oeuvre. Mix any current text generator with the opinions of some 1980s teen just discovering Ayn Rand-style libertarianism, and it will fill as many pages as you want with the expected drivel, only in superior prose.

BurningFrog 7y ago
Scott Alexander is the best writer (in this "field", whatever you'd call it) in his generation. So if that's how far you have to reach to find someone better, he may be pretty decent :) I'm also open to be told what other great such writers I've missed out on, Cunningham's Law stye :)
woozyolliew 7y ago
Someone had a similar thought https://twitter.com/real_human_vc?s=20 https://twitter.com/real_human_vc?s=20
- gexla 7y ago
  Seems relevant to the discussion... > There is no bigger achievement than waking up before 6PM every day. That's why it's important that we get up early & get things done earlier than 6PM, otherwise we'll fall into routines that make us miserable & unhappy. https://twitter.com/real_human_vc/status/1231451118430904320 https://twitter.com/real_human_vc/status/1231451118430904320
mdonahoe 7y ago
Who is Scott Alexander?
- Carpetsmoker 7y ago
  He writes the "Star Slate Codex": https://slatestarcodex.com/ https://slatestarcodex.com/ Personally, I've never been a fan. His writings are far too verbose for my liking. He uses 6 paragraphs for what could be one sentence, and I don't think that most of the content is that insightful either. But some people really like him shrug.
  - jcims 7y ago
    All you have to do is look at the verbosity of some of the comments in here to understand why.
    - Carpetsmoker 7y ago
      I have no idea what you mean with that?
      - pyb 7y ago
        He probably marvels (so do I) at the ability of some commenters on here to write walls of text. I presume that these reach only a very narrow audience. I wonder how many people actually, properly read those long comments.
      - ryanmercer 7y ago
        Not verbose: "The guy uses lots of words to sound smart" Verbose: "In an egregious attempt to elevate his self-worth, he injects his exchanges with an innumerable avalanche of superfluous idioms and turns of phrase to explain what otherwise would be simple statements capable of understanding by even groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise."
        Carpetsmoker 7y ago
        Oh yeah, sometimes people confuse length with ... all sorts of things. Actually, I used to think that in order for a weblog post to be worth it, it has to be "of substance", and thus "of length". Clearly those are not the same, but luckily I have corrected my thinking in this regard :-)
sjg007 7y ago
Maybe some more substance would help your argument. You could post a series of critiques to PG's essays for example. I am sure they would be read. I understand that substantive comments on hacker news get lost in the noise so hearing some actual criticisms in essay form would be interesting!
- pgsbathhouse2 7y ago
  >Maybe some more substance would help your argument. What is it called when someone demands evidence for a counter position when the original position has never been supported?
  - sjg007 7y ago
    You should write an essay substantiating your claims. I would read it.
    - lidHanteyk 7y ago
      It's called "Newton's flaming laser sword" [0]. You should try harder to support the claims of others on this site; it's in the rules [1]. Here's some classic critique of PG's buffoonery [2]. It's simple: When anybody puts words to the page, they are trying to tell you something. All PG seems to be trying to communicate is how deep and thoughtful he is; I certainly don't feel like I'm drawing any other lessons from his writing, and it seems like I'm not alone. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Alder#Newton's_flaming_laser_sword https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Alder#Newton's_flaming_la... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html [2] https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm
    - pgsbathhouse2 7y ago
      >You should write an essay substantiating your claims. What claims? Why is such a basic deflection on this site so readily accepted by supposedly intelligent and inquisitive people? This type of discourse and rhetoric is pretty shameful and embarrassing. What claims do I have that I need to support?
leftyted 7y ago
His writing is fine. It ain't Speak, Memory but it's pleasantly spare and there's no awkwardness. I don't see Paul Graham or SSC expounding novel ideas. I enjoy SSC more too, mainly because it's funnier and I'm interested in the same kind of stuff as Scott whereas I don't find business, startups, and programming that interesting.
claudiawerner 7y ago
>Seriously: in comparison to, say, Scott Alexander, I don't see a single novel idea in Graham's Oeuvre. The irony to me is that a lot of Scott Alexander's writing seems to build on singular concepts that have been around for a while in sociology or philosphy, or studied, just not by exactly that name. Other times, the concepts aren't novel at all, but there's a fun AI/tech spin to the story which doesn't really add much. A continuing ignorance of established work in the field (particularly when the Internet lets you get away with it, in "soft subjects" like philosophy, sociology, political theory and critical theory[3]) is par for the course in both PG and Scott's writings. If it's not published in a blog post or a trendy book written within the past 15 years, chances are that they'll think the concept is novel. Sometimes reading Scott's articles I feel a strong sense of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: an article I know a little something on, and he's only done minimal background reading, to the point where any serious scholar would laugh at his authoritative tone. In another comment, continuing in the Scott-PG-rationalsphere tradition, I invented a term of my own, "the hacker blogger mindset"[0]. Valuable work to introduce people to an opinionated version of one concept or another (without any pointers so you can learn more about similar work)? Sure. Valuable work for someone willing to spend twenty minutes on Google Scholar or having already read primary literature? Not really. A recent example, from one of Scott's posts on meritocracy[1]: >The intuition behind meritocracy is this: if your life depends on a difficult surgery, would you prefer the hospital hire a surgeon who aced medical school, or a surgeon who had to complete remedial training to barely scrape by with a C-? If you prefer the former, you’re a meritocrat with respect to surgeons. Generalize a little, and you have the argument for being a meritocrat everywhere else. It's amazing how much this misses the point of the conversation on meritocracy - that critics of meritocracy do not have a problem with merit itself, but rather (1) how merit can be measured in more abstract ways, (2) the degree to which meritocracy can exist with current social relations, (3) the degree to which meritocracy really does exist, with respect to claims that it does (in a just-world hypothesis kind of way). A similar problem was pointed out in the comments[2]. And yet... in support of the position Scott is attacking, he cites one recent pop-phil book, and two blog posts. Where are the published journals? Where are the essays? What have domain experts (i.e. philosophers, political theorists, economists, and sociologists) said about meritocracy? Who knows. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22101989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22101989 [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/24/targeting-meritocracy/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/24/targeting-meritocracy/ [2] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/24/targeting-meritocracy/#comment-526449 https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/24/targeting-meritocracy/... [3] The fact is that when you state a technically incorrect opinion relating to computer science, engineering, physics, biology, etc. you'll have a hundred Internet users responding with citations and research. When you do the same with the other subjects, usually the people who would prove you wrong are either disinterested in another silly Interent debate that will hinge on ideological terms, or they think they can ignore it because it's not published in a popular journal. Whether that's wise or not remains to be seen.

BurningFrog 7y ago

Scott Alexander is the best writer (in this "field", whatever you'd call it) in his generation. So if that's how far you have to reach to find someone better, he may be pretty decent :) I'm also open to be told what other great such writers I've missed out on, Cunningham's Law stye :)

woozyolliew 7y ago

Someone had a similar thought https://twitter.com/real_human_vc?s=20 https://twitter.com/real_human_vc?s=20

gexla 7y ago
Seems relevant to the discussion... > There is no bigger achievement than waking up before 6PM every day. That's why it's important that we get up early & get things done earlier than 6PM, otherwise we'll fall into routines that make us miserable & unhappy. https://twitter.com/real_human_vc/status/1231451118430904320 https://twitter.com/real_human_vc/status/1231451118430904320

mdonahoe 7y ago

Who is Scott Alexander?

Carpetsmoker 7y ago
He writes the "Star Slate Codex": https://slatestarcodex.com/ https://slatestarcodex.com/ Personally, I've never been a fan. His writings are far too verbose for my liking. He uses 6 paragraphs for what could be one sentence, and I don't think that most of the content is that insightful either. But some people really like him shrug.
- jcims 7y ago
  All you have to do is look at the verbosity of some of the comments in here to understand why.
  - Carpetsmoker 7y ago
    I have no idea what you mean with that?
    - pyb 7y ago
      He probably marvels (so do I) at the ability of some commenters on here to write walls of text. I presume that these reach only a very narrow audience. I wonder how many people actually, properly read those long comments.
    - ryanmercer 7y ago
      Not verbose: "The guy uses lots of words to sound smart" Verbose: "In an egregious attempt to elevate his self-worth, he injects his exchanges with an innumerable avalanche of superfluous idioms and turns of phrase to explain what otherwise would be simple statements capable of understanding by even groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise."
      - Carpetsmoker 7y ago
        Oh yeah, sometimes people confuse length with ... all sorts of things. Actually, I used to think that in order for a weblog post to be worth it, it has to be "of substance", and thus "of length". Clearly those are not the same, but luckily I have corrected my thinking in this regard :-)

sjg007 7y ago

Maybe some more substance would help your argument. You could post a series of critiques to PG's essays for example. I am sure they would be read. I understand that substantive comments on hacker news get lost in the noise so hearing some actual criticisms in essay form would be interesting!

pgsbathhouse2 7y ago
>Maybe some more substance would help your argument. What is it called when someone demands evidence for a counter position when the original position has never been supported?
- sjg007 7y ago
  You should write an essay substantiating your claims. I would read it.
  - lidHanteyk 7y ago
    It's called "Newton's flaming laser sword" [0]. You should try harder to support the claims of others on this site; it's in the rules [1]. Here's some classic critique of PG's buffoonery [2]. It's simple: When anybody puts words to the page, they are trying to tell you something. All PG seems to be trying to communicate is how deep and thoughtful he is; I certainly don't feel like I'm drawing any other lessons from his writing, and it seems like I'm not alone. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Alder#Newton's_flaming_laser_sword https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Alder#Newton's_flaming_la... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html [2] https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm
  - pgsbathhouse2 7y ago
    >You should write an essay substantiating your claims. What claims? Why is such a basic deflection on this site so readily accepted by supposedly intelligent and inquisitive people? This type of discourse and rhetoric is pretty shameful and embarrassing. What claims do I have that I need to support?

leftyted 7y ago

His writing is fine. It ain't Speak, Memory but it's pleasantly spare and there's no awkwardness. I don't see Paul Graham or SSC expounding novel ideas. I enjoy SSC more too, mainly because it's funnier and I'm interested in the same kind of stuff as Scott whereas I don't find business, startups, and programming that interesting.

claudiawerner 7y ago

>Seriously: in comparison to, say, Scott Alexander, I don't see a single novel idea in Graham's Oeuvre. The irony to me is that a lot of Scott Alexander's writing seems to build on singular concepts that have been around for a while in sociology or philosphy, or studied, just not by exactly that name. Other times, the concepts aren't novel at all, but there's a fun AI/tech spin to the story which doesn't really add much. A continuing ignorance of established work in the field (particularly when the Internet lets you get away with it, in "soft subjects" like philosophy, sociology, political theory and critical theory[3]) is par for the course in both PG and Scott's writings. If it's not published in a blog post or a trendy book written within the past 15 years, chances are that they'll think the concept is novel. Sometimes reading Scott's articles I feel a strong sense of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: an article I know a little something on, and he's only done minimal background reading, to the point where any serious scholar would laugh at his authoritative tone. In another comment, continuing in the Scott-PG-rationalsphere tradition, I invented a term of my own, "the hacker blogger mindset"[0]. Valuable work to introduce people to an opinionated version of one concept or another (without any pointers so you can learn more about similar work)? Sure. Valuable work for someone willing to spend twenty minutes on Google Scholar or having already read primary literature? Not really. A recent example, from one of Scott's posts on meritocracy[1]: >The intuition behind meritocracy is this: if your life depends on a difficult surgery, would you prefer the hospital hire a surgeon who aced medical school, or a surgeon who had to complete remedial training to barely scrape by with a C-? If you prefer the former, you’re a meritocrat with respect to surgeons. Generalize a little, and you have the argument for being a meritocrat everywhere else. It's amazing how much this misses the point of the conversation on meritocracy - that critics of meritocracy do not have a problem with merit itself, but rather (1) how merit can be measured in more abstract ways, (2) the degree to which meritocracy can exist with current social relations, (3) the degree to which meritocracy really does exist, with respect to claims that it does (in a just-world hypothesis kind of way). A similar problem was pointed out in the comments[2]. And yet... in support of the position Scott is attacking, he cites one recent pop-phil book, and two blog posts. Where are the published journals? Where are the essays? What have domain experts (i.e. philosophers, political theorists, economists, and sociologists) said about meritocracy? Who knows. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22101989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22101989 [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/24/targeting-meritocracy/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/24/targeting-meritocracy/ [2] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/24/targeting-meritocracy/#comment-526449 https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/24/targeting-meritocracy/... [3] The fact is that when you state a technically incorrect opinion relating to computer science, engineering, physics, biology, etc. you'll have a hundred Internet users responding with citations and research. When you do the same with the other subjects, usually the people who would prove you wrong are either disinterested in another silly Interent debate that will hinge on ideological terms, or they think they can ignore it because it's not published in a popular journal. Whether that's wise or not remains to be seen.