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You're right, there is a lot to admire! It seems a key issue is that he often speaks in terms of what others should or should not do, rather than inviting othe
by warent 4y ago
You're right, there is a lot to admire!
It seems a key issue is that he often speaks in terms of what others should or should not do, rather than inviting others to see what has worked for him. Objectivity versus subjectivity. What makes it less palatable is that it appears carefully selected wording is used to (thinly) veil it to sound like something it isn't.
Ultimately it means the writing can come across as very self-indulgent. It does not often strike me as coming from a place of feeling genuine, authentic passion about sharing with other humans.
- dang 4y agoI don't think he's really telling others what to do; I think he's writing about what he's figured out for himself, and then stripping it down to a minimal expression. The minimalism—a kind of intellectual optimization—matters more to him than how people react. The "sharing with other humans" aspects is an interesting point though, because the way that pg strips things down to minimal expression involves stripping out the signals that make people feel they're being shared with. I wrote about this point 15 years ago (a horrible thing to say, but I'll link to it nonetheless): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=143575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=143575.
- warent 4y agoYes, seeing now that he does have a lot of self-awareness around this which helps provide context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=143606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=143606 It's very insightful to get to share different perspectives in these ways. Thanks for being so open