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Nope, I came to the same conclusion as your parent, when I wondered why every one of these threads for the last several years has been full of dismissal and cri
by psyc 6y ago
Nope, I came to the same conclusion as your parent, when I wondered why every one of these threads for the last several years has been full of dismissal and criticism, and why the phrase "out of touch" gets flogged like a dead horse. I've been reading pg for 17 years, so I know who he is, what he's done, where he's coming from, his writing style... I can take his essays for what they are with all that context. Of course his opinions and perspective are what they are, because it's literally his life's work to identify potentially successful founders before they're successful.
Also, I don't suffer from that HN thing where nobody can simply consider an article, or do follow-up research themselves, without measurability, studies and citations, as if they're petrified they might become epistemically infected and be wrong about something that probably doesn't even impact their life in the slightest.
- jelliclesfarm 6y agoI have read PG essays for the last 4-5 something years. YC was never under my radar before that. The first time I saw ‘PG essays’, I was excited because I thought they meant PG Wodehouse who is my favourite author ever and I was excited that YC reads Wodehouse together. Alas..that wasn’t the case. But I don’t regret the PG essays and have come to appreciate them over the years. I think it’s because I didn’t have any expectation about this person’s writing or prior knowledge about PG. But not knowing who Paul Graham was and reading them for the first time, I couldn’t figure out the enthusiasm around it. Maybe it was my disappointment that they weren’t by my PG. But over time, I have come to appreciate it. These are what I call ‘through my lens’ writings. The words derive weight from the cult of personality. And the lens they see the world through..