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Why do you focus about who is interviewed rather than what the questions and the answers are? If the answers are still interesting, it doesn't matter what the p

Why do you focus about who is interviewed rather than what the questions and the answers are? If the answers are still interesting, it doesn't matter what the person has done before or is doing now. Instead of bragging about the person who is interviewed, point out answers you don't like or agree with and post your point of view.

braythwayt 7y ago
Here’s a thought experiment: Repost the exact same interview, but substitute your name and experience for his. Give the same opinions and life advice. If it makes it to the front page of HN, then we have some evidence that this community cares more about what is said than with who says it. On the other hand, if this community ignores it, than we have some evidence that this community values who gives the advice as much as the advice itself. Now, if the latter is the case, if ”who gives the advice” matters for some reason, then it seems relevant to discuss who gives the advice, and whether their life experience lends weight to their advice.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  Oddly enough this is part of what made 4chan enticing in the earlier years I went on it. Everyone is forced into anonymity to strip them of this sort of bias. Since nobody knows anybody's identity for certain, whatever you post must speak for itself to hold any merit. Also, 4chan is more than just their 'random' board.
- AlchemistCamp 7y ago
  The next question is, how did pg become pg? His essays are how I learned of both HN and YC and from founders I've spoken with the very same essays played a critical role in getting YC off the ground in the early days. Of course he was already a (relatively minor) entrepreneurial success through Viaweb, which gave the essays a boost. But when starting Viaweb, he was just a smart 30-ish guy who had published a couple of books on a niche programming language. It's easy to see how this would feel like a lucky chain of events and that a random person could have jumped in at any given point and done as well, but I'm very skeptical of that hypothesis.
  - braythwayt 7y ago
    I’m not saying that he got lucky, or that he is one of those rare polymaths who has tremendous insights into nearly everything. I was just trying to suggest that it's quite clear that HN takes his identity and experience into account when choosing to upvote his work, and therefore it seems reasonable to discuss his identity and experience when evaluating his work. Without taking a side, when we admire someone and give their words extra credence, it seems very reasonable to be on our guard against “false positives,” situations where someone we otherwise admire releases a clunker.
s_kilk 7y ago
> rather than what the questions and the answers are? The answers are utterly trivial, which is par for the course with PG.

braythwayt 7y ago

Here’s a thought experiment: Repost the exact same interview, but substitute your name and experience for his. Give the same opinions and life advice. If it makes it to the front page of HN, then we have some evidence that this community cares more about what is said than with who says it. On the other hand, if this community ignores it, than we have some evidence that this community values who gives the advice as much as the advice itself. Now, if the latter is the case, if ”who gives the advice” matters for some reason, then it seems relevant to discuss who gives the advice, and whether their life experience lends weight to their advice.

giancarlostoro 7y ago
Oddly enough this is part of what made 4chan enticing in the earlier years I went on it. Everyone is forced into anonymity to strip them of this sort of bias. Since nobody knows anybody's identity for certain, whatever you post must speak for itself to hold any merit. Also, 4chan is more than just their 'random' board.
AlchemistCamp 7y ago
The next question is, how did pg become pg? His essays are how I learned of both HN and YC and from founders I've spoken with the very same essays played a critical role in getting YC off the ground in the early days. Of course he was already a (relatively minor) entrepreneurial success through Viaweb, which gave the essays a boost. But when starting Viaweb, he was just a smart 30-ish guy who had published a couple of books on a niche programming language. It's easy to see how this would feel like a lucky chain of events and that a random person could have jumped in at any given point and done as well, but I'm very skeptical of that hypothesis.
- braythwayt 7y ago
  I’m not saying that he got lucky, or that he is one of those rare polymaths who has tremendous insights into nearly everything. I was just trying to suggest that it's quite clear that HN takes his identity and experience into account when choosing to upvote his work, and therefore it seems reasonable to discuss his identity and experience when evaluating his work. Without taking a side, when we admire someone and give their words extra credence, it seems very reasonable to be on our guard against “false positives,” situations where someone we otherwise admire releases a clunker.

s_kilk 7y ago

> rather than what the questions and the answers are? The answers are utterly trivial, which is par for the course with PG.