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"Ditto for essayists. An essay that told people things they already knew would be boring. You have to tell them something new." How come I know exactly where t

• MetalGuru 6y ago
  Nowhere in the essay does he argue that the three qualities of independent thinkers are exclusive to startup founders. You clearly feel some type of way about Paul Graham.
  • hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    While I may not necessarily be as harsh as the commenter you are responding do, I will say that I am starting to feel a certain way about pg, and it's much less positive than it was 5-10 years ago. I feel like a common thread in his most recent essays has been separating people into, for lack of a better term, "desirables" vs. "undesirables". True, he doesn't use those terms, and he often couches the language he uses about the undesirables in sort of a "they can't really help it, they're just born that way" phrasing, but the distain is barely hidden. And I find all of this somewhat ironic, given that as high as pg values curiosity, I don't really see a lot of self-introspection (at least as communicated in his essays) about why he seems to be much more interested in recent years in writing about how one group of people is intrinsically special and the other basically just exists to be led. I will specifically contrast this with Sam Harris. While they talk about different subjects, I find Sam Harris to be much more interested in thinking about "why do I think the way I do." More importantly, after listening to a Harris podcast I often find myself thinking about things in a very different way, where lately with pg's essays I find myself thinking "not this shit again."
    • aerovistae 6y ago
      100%. I've gotten that impression about everything him and his protege Sam say since the first time I read anything they wrote. It's like their mantra. It's so tiring. "Surround yourself with smart people, cut out anyone who doesn't inspire you to move fast and break things." What about my fucking parents? What about the friends I grew up with who have ordinary jobs that aren't pushing the boundaries of human innovation? Should I ditch them all because they didn't found Airbnb? The pretentiousness of it is really tiring, and it's the one aspect of the hacker news community that I dislike: this constant Kool-Aid drinking that unless you've somehow impacted the system we all live in, you aren't really worthwhile.
      • tartoran 6y ago
        I think this is a misreading of PG’s essay and although I agree with some criticism of sorts that PG’s recent essays are lacking in what his early essays did for us, I really didn’t get that he was insinuating what you think. It was more of choose the career and surround yourself with the type of people that are good for your type.. But again, some criticism here is spot on for different resons while other is quite unfounded. But it seems to me that mr PG hasn’t changed much, his essays stayed pretty much the same while the whole landscape has transformed quite a bit since his early essays. If one of his vhehement critics is to read an old PG essay thinking it is recent they’d probably have the same reaction.
    • closeparen 6y ago
      I don’t think “desirable” follows from “useful to capitalism and science.” Those are pretty controversial activities, to put it mildly. If PG can write an essay about Contrarianism Is Good and not inspire this reaction in anyone, then he’s not really talking about contrarianism, is he?
  • mcguire 6y ago
    He picks out scientists, investors, essayists, and startup founders. (Hm. I wonder if he feels some particular closeness with those, specifically?) While I know he is read by some number of the first three, I believe his primary audience is the last.
• kanox 6y ago
  Hackernews is a garbage community.
  • 93po 6y ago
    It's as garage as capitalism in general in my opinion.
    • kreeben 6y ago
      Capitalism certainly isn't garage but HN is just that, i.e. start small, dream big.
      • henrypaper48 6y ago
        ie Open door, put car in
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • inopinatus 6y ago
      Where I live, dubstep has mostly supplanted garage.
• briefcomment 6y ago
  There's a lot of mind-reading in this essay, and basically no humility.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • shadowfox 6y ago
    PG"s essays are not exactly known for the latter.
• daleharvey 6y ago
  Its hard to think of a more homogenous industry / group of individuals than the HN / SV startup founder clique. The length that people will go to to pretend that it isnt another rich boys club that leans somewhat conservative (sorry "libertarian") is interesting in itself.
  • coolgod 6y ago
    You mean more homogenous right?
    • tuatoru 6y ago
      Yeah, nah. Homogenous = "from the same origin" Root word: genesis. Homogeneous = "of the same kind". Root word: the Latin gens, clan.
      • coolgod 6y ago
        Thanks for the etymology lesson, I didn't even know they were two different words.
    • inopinatus 6y ago
      If they meant undifferentiated, then it’s homogeneous.
  • kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
    Did you mean to say "more homogenous"
    • daleharvey 6y ago
      I did thanks, editing mistake
• thimkerbell 6y ago
  From what I see online, it appears that the social zeitgeist has swung toward factionalism - I perceive this, and this pressure - and I think what pg is doing in the essay, is largely pointing out that there's value in and a need for independent thinking.
• Ntrails 6y ago
  > You see this especially among political extremists. They think themselves nonconformists, but actually they're niche conformists. Their opinions may be different from the average person's, but they are often more influenced by their peers' opinions than the average person's are. This reminds me of my arguments (many many years ago) about the alleged "non-conformist" credentials of the "Goth" kids. I'm sure, of course, that PG has captured some insight or subtlety that my socially maladjusted insular teenaged self missed...
  • hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    > This reminds me of my arguments (many many years ago) about the alleged "non-conformist" credentials of the "Goth" kids. South Park did it first.
• brlewis 6y ago
  > How come I know exactly where this essay is going? This is the question I've been thinking as I've checked back in on comments here a few times this morning. Why do so many people "know" that this essay is all about aggrandizing pg's own intellect or that of startup founders, when it's almost entirely composed of two parts: (1) discussion on when independent thinking is and isn't valuable, and (2) advice on cultivating independent thinking? Where does this impression come from? There's always some negativity toward any widely-read essay, but there seems to be a higher quantity with this one, making me think there's something actually wrong with it. My hypothesis is that its presentation is too neatly wrapped. This essay espouses curiosity, but does not model it. It comes across as having all the answers. This is especially true of the brief part that confidently explains the lack of negative reaction to another essay, with no details of how such confidence was arrived at. This is too bad. I'd like for this essay to have engendered more discussion on cultivating independent thinking, and less discussion about pg's mindset.
  • wpietri 6y ago
    Part of why I'm sure is that I was prone to thinking like this as a teen. I was a smart kid from a family that valued smartness trying to get by in a world that generally didn't, and certainly didn't value the kid of weirdness that in retrospect made me well suited for what turned out to be hot career. I made it to an environment better suited to me (SF, tech industry) and eventually got the fuck over myself. I used my newfound material and emotional safety to do the necessary work of self-examination that let me get a better handle on my self-justifying bullshit. To spot and manage my desire to be right, to be smart, to be without intellectual flaw. To write bombastic essay like this. So yes, I think you have part of it. It is hypocritical. It doesn't model what it's talking about. But for me it's worse than that. One, it presenting an at-best-incomplete approach as the final word from on high, it's going to create a sad sort of blinded conformism of its own. Doing a tech startup has long become a cargo cult of its own, and this won't help. Second, in his amateur psychologizing, I think he makes some elementary mistakes. E.g., valorizing the performative anti-caring about what people think. To me that's a sign of insecurity and/or a trauma reaction to some past person who was overbearing. For me, true independent thinking comes from listening to others without judgment and choosing for myself. Positive attachment and negative attachment are both attachment. Third, this reads to me like it's a part of the political kick he's been on in recent years, where he's shitting on the US left. E.g., the footnote about how politics is boring because it's subject to intellectual fashion. He complains here about people who "think themselves nonconformists, but actually they're niche conformists". When honestly his opinions, which I once found fresh and interesting, seem to be the tiresome conventional wisdom in his niche, and easily predicted by his financial interests and social position. I get that he's gone through a hard change. He used to be an underdog and would still like to see himself that way. But in reality, he's rich and powerful, a kingmaker in what has been the hottest segment of American industry for a generation. One that in my opinion has been vastly overfunded for the last decade or so. That is a challenge to anybody's self image. You can't be a genius underdog and at the top of the status quo. But given his money and his smarts, he's not doing a good job at all of meeting that challenge.