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Good writing advice says that each sentence has a single goal. The goal is to draw the reader in, and convince them to read the next sentence. This article doe
by koliber 3y ago
Good writing advice says that each sentence has a single goal. The goal is to draw the reader in, and convince them to read the next sentence.
This article does it masterfully. The title drew me in. The opening sentence finished the job. Well done.
- mgaunard 3y agoMyself I closed the tab at the second sentence, so I can't attest to that.
- squidbeak 3y agoYou missed a great joke about provoking God to laughter.
- compiler-devel 3y ago[flagged]
- the_mitsuhiko 3y agoAnd yet that first sentence was reason enough for you to leave a reply. In a way it did evoke something in you that probably most texts don’t do.
- mgaunard 3y agoI think it's more hacker news that I'm interested in, and how the article was representative of the crowd that gathers here. Start-up founders are often of the age to start having children I guess. Even if having a child and a start-up at the same time is most definitely not a good idea.
- op00to 3y ago[flagged]
- koliber 3y agoIn this case, the hook effect was so strong that I immediately thought about that writing advice. It's one of the best examples of that working on me that I can remember.
- jeffrallen 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoIt's a factual and verifiable statement though, no need for an ad-hominem based on... what exactly?
- _gabe_ 3y agoBecause the second sentence mentions the Bible? Or some other reason? If it’s the former, I’m a Christian but I don’t just close out articles if they’re written by Richard Dawkins or quickly proclaim that they’re an atheist. There’s still a very real chance that they have some wisdom to share. Just because people share a different religious view than me doesn’t mean I can’t learn from them.
- yohannparis 3y agoI stopped when they grouped the NYT journalists with murderers and drug-dealers. Clearly someone biais, that also use the bible to make their points. No thank you.
- Amorymeltzer 3y agoI don't agree with the grouping, but he is making a very specific, personal reference: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Star_Codex#New_York_Times_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Star_Codex#New_York_Time...>. It's referenced elsewhere as well, as noted in this comment here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38734207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38734207>
- CoffeeOnWrite 3y agoThat's a half-joke, for what it's worth.
- LeifCarrotson 3y agoIt's because in Scott's recent past, an NYT journalist lied about wanting to write a positive article about him and being OK with using his pseudonym, then instead wrote a very negative article and doxxed him instead. The author is a psychiatrist with some unstable patients, and a blogger with some controversial opinions. It's a whole thing, I read that and chuckled at the tongue-in-cheek humor.
- ptaffs 3y agoAs an atheist, mention or quotes from the bible are interesting to me because they help explain our current culture. I'm just challenging your proposal that (all) atheists are not curious.
- adamlgerber 3y agoScott Alexander is not for everyone (as I've learned by unsuccessfully foisting him on friends for years) but for people who are even remotely interested he is probably the greatest internet writer alive. I'd love to hear alternative GOATs.
- eszed 3y agoGoing back a bit: Hilzoy, from Obsidian Wings, springs to my mind. I'm still sad that she stopped writing (at least publicly, under that name). But Scott's also great, etc etc.
- carrozo 3y agoFor me, Sam Kriss takes that title by a large margin: https://samkriss.substack.com/ https://samkriss.substack.com/
- apsurd 3y agothank you thank you! i clicked in and gave it a read. he's a curmudgeon with love in his heart. and style. i'm laughing my head off. love it, thanks!
- skybrian 3y agoI read a couple of articles and he seems to blur line between truth and fiction. I couldn't tell when he's making things up. Did he really write about Taylor Swift for four months? Is anything he wrote about Swift true? Did he actually go to a protest where they started chanting "from the river to the sea?" (Soon after, it’s obviously fiction.) When I have to read something else to find out what actually happened, I think the writer is being too clever and too obscure for me. Then again, there are people here who clearly don't get Scott Alexander and it's clear to me when he's joking, probably because I'm a long-time reader. So I guess it's all context-dependent.
- jeffrallen 3y agoRob Beschizza.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
- glitchc 3y agoI closed the tab at "cognitive engines." Overwrought balderdash masquerading as prose.
- this_user 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gwern 3y agoIt is not 'balderdash', it is a reference to Scott's longstanding interest in Karl Friston & predictive processing paradigms in neuroscience & psychiatry. If you don't get the allusions, that's your problem, not his.
- rolisz 3y agoOh, it is Scott's problem. I got the references and I still found them to be too much.
- CoffeeOnWrite 3y agoThere's a segment on HN that comes out of the woodwork to poo poo artful writing. Parent commenter was not going to appreciate this article. I'd say it's a testament to the author's writing ability that they were able to pull parent commenter in a couple hundred words before they recognized it was "balderdash"!
- glitchc 3y agoWhen the writing sounds like something you'd hear on an episode of Frasier, it's overwritten. Reading Strunk and White would greatly benefit the author.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thefaux 3y agoI always feel like the goal of every Scott Alexander sentence is to show how he is smarter and/or more rational than other people.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoIt might, but does it come off as pretentious or genuine? It doesn't read like he keeps a thesaurus next to him to sound smarter. Keep in mind he's been doing this for a very long time as well. Also he's well-versed on the subject of rationality, so I would argue that he's probably more rational than most people.
- CoffeeOnWrite 3y agoI am not familiar with the author, and read it as genuine, examples where they exhibit humorous self-awareness and humility: "If your brains are still too small to process such esoteric terms" "It’s a crazy thing to try, when even your own local predictions are so far from perfect accuracy." "I cannot quite remember why I thought this would be a good idea. I blame the pronatalist influencer conspiracy."
- zozbot234 3y agoI just feel like a genuinely smart and rational person would not want to describe his newborn kids as "engines" or robot AI's in training as OP does here. That's just ridiculously out of touch, it reads like satire of what some AI-obsessed founder or VC might post here to pitch their new startup. And OP has even written satire of his own about SV social attitudes, how could he possibly fail to see this?
- jpm_sd 3y agoIt is, of course, intentionally satire, with a "maybe it's actually true?" cog-sci perspective. I found this piece very funny and charming.
- hindsightbias 3y agoHe's the Mike Judge of Rationalists.
- theSuda 3y agoI saw the scrollbar and hit CTRL+W. Sleep deprived by an autistic 3 year old who can't speak but only cry all night. I have no energy to do anything. I am surprised I typed this long a response. I also just wrote a subquery as a column instead of inner join or something. Dunno it might be right. It worked though.
- koliber 3y agoI hope you find some time to rest soon.