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As with so many things Paul Graham: there is a good, important idea here (omit needless words!) but he overshoots the mark, descending into venomous overgenera

As with so many things Paul Graham: there is a good, important idea here (omit needless words!) but he overshoots the mark, descending into venomous overgeneralizations. The truth is more nuanced: speaking and writing are both important vectors for communication (obviously?), but they are different (delightfully so!) -- with different strengths and weaknesses. Great writing is tight: it crackles. If a word serves that end, it should be used -- knowing that if someone like Graham wants to decry the word choice as "fancy", it reveals more about the critic than the writing.

louison11 4y ago
And that, sir or madam, was a beautiful comment. I don’t know if you speak like that - and it doesn’t matter.
- owenpalmer 4y ago
  That right there was Bryan Cantrill himself, one of the greatest speakers on software in my opinion
- rongopo 4y ago
  Perfectly stated.
civilized 4y ago
> venomous overgeneralizations Sorry, but this illustrates Graham's point even better than the "mercurial Spaniard" thing. Reaching for a fancy word that doesn't quite make sense in context. Overgeneralizations could be absurd. They could even be dangerous, perhaps - although Graham's alleged overgeneralization really doesn't seem to be, even if wrong. They're not venomous, at least not without an argument. You can't just throw it out there for effect. That's grandstanding. The slower, less urgent pace of writing allows us to overthink things and make odd communication mistakes we wouldn't make in conversation. Graham's advice is good for avoiding this.
- GeneralMayhem 4y ago
  The venomous, dangerous, overgeneralized part is - I assume intentionally - snuck in under the radar. Did you follow the link on the word "bogus", and notice what keywords PG thinks are indicative of bogosity? A warning against overwrought language is one thing, but it's carried through to an attack on any complexity in written language (with no acknowledgement that sometimes that complexity is necessary or preferable except for nefarious reasons), and from there to an attack on the caricature of the liberal arts that STEM-lords love to mock without understanding. You start out nodding along to the idea that "mercurial Spaniard" is a bit much, and by the end you're nodding along to the idea that liberal-arts academia is a conspiracy.
  - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
    That "bogus" link is also cheating. I can't hyperlink with my voice, so hyperlinks aren't spoken language.
  - civilized 4y ago
    Graham didn't say that liberal-arts academia is a conspiracy. He said that the part of the humanities that makes heavy use of words like transgression/narrative/postmodern/gender constitutes "the more bogus end of the humanities". I won't 100% support that, since I don't have a deep understanding of these areas. But I think it's in a valid range of opinion, given things like the Sokal affair [1]. All sorts of people are reasonably suspicious of the hard-to-understand output of the "Theory" and "Studies" fields, not just "STEM-lords". The suspicion isn't restricted to the humanities either. We all know that business schools and social science departments are having their own problems right now with trendy findings that don't hold up. There's legitimate controversy over whether work in string theory represents meaningful scientific progress. Etc. Some areas of academia have more problems with bogosity than others. It seems hard to dispute. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
- rfrey 4y ago
  >Sorry, but this illustrates Graham's point even better than the "mercurial Spaniard" thing Funny, I thought it refuted Graham's point, very effectively.

louison11 4y ago

And that, sir or madam, was a beautiful comment. I don’t know if you speak like that - and it doesn’t matter.

owenpalmer 4y ago
That right there was Bryan Cantrill himself, one of the greatest speakers on software in my opinion
rongopo 4y ago
Perfectly stated.

civilized 4y ago

> venomous overgeneralizations Sorry, but this illustrates Graham's point even better than the "mercurial Spaniard" thing. Reaching for a fancy word that doesn't quite make sense in context. Overgeneralizations could be absurd. They could even be dangerous, perhaps - although Graham's alleged overgeneralization really doesn't seem to be, even if wrong. They're not venomous, at least not without an argument. You can't just throw it out there for effect. That's grandstanding. The slower, less urgent pace of writing allows us to overthink things and make odd communication mistakes we wouldn't make in conversation. Graham's advice is good for avoiding this.

GeneralMayhem 4y ago
The venomous, dangerous, overgeneralized part is - I assume intentionally - snuck in under the radar. Did you follow the link on the word "bogus", and notice what keywords PG thinks are indicative of bogosity? A warning against overwrought language is one thing, but it's carried through to an attack on any complexity in written language (with no acknowledgement that sometimes that complexity is necessary or preferable except for nefarious reasons), and from there to an attack on the caricature of the liberal arts that STEM-lords love to mock without understanding. You start out nodding along to the idea that "mercurial Spaniard" is a bit much, and by the end you're nodding along to the idea that liberal-arts academia is a conspiracy.
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
  That "bogus" link is also cheating. I can't hyperlink with my voice, so hyperlinks aren't spoken language.
- civilized 4y ago
  Graham didn't say that liberal-arts academia is a conspiracy. He said that the part of the humanities that makes heavy use of words like transgression/narrative/postmodern/gender constitutes "the more bogus end of the humanities". I won't 100% support that, since I don't have a deep understanding of these areas. But I think it's in a valid range of opinion, given things like the Sokal affair [1]. All sorts of people are reasonably suspicious of the hard-to-understand output of the "Theory" and "Studies" fields, not just "STEM-lords". The suspicion isn't restricted to the humanities either. We all know that business schools and social science departments are having their own problems right now with trendy findings that don't hold up. There's legitimate controversy over whether work in string theory represents meaningful scientific progress. Etc. Some areas of academia have more problems with bogosity than others. It seems hard to dispute. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
rfrey 4y ago
>Sorry, but this illustrates Graham's point even better than the "mercurial Spaniard" thing Funny, I thought it refuted Graham's point, very effectively.