3 ms·

I never understood why people were doing that. Many Reddit comments about your essays were extremely vicious.

rokhayakebe 18y ago
Human nature. They will love you first. Hate you second. And when you are gone, they will love you again, claiming that all those things you wrote/said were prophecies, visions.
pg 18y ago
I think the fundamental problem is that writing essays seems presumptuous to a lot of people. They're used to the old print media model in which the only people who got to publish essays were credentialled experts in whatever they were about. That restriction is now gone. Online anyone can publish whatever they want. But I think it still seems to a lot of people that anyone using the essay form is implicitly claiming some kind of authority. The right approach, obviously, is to judge an essay by what it says instead of who wrote it. I think things will tend to move in that direction. But not too far, because it's more work.
- kirubakaran 18y ago
  Yes, you mentioned that in http://www.paulgraham.com/newthings.html http://www.paulgraham.com/newthings.html That explains the dismissive comments. The angry and really mean ones can be explained perhaps as people feeling threatened for whatever reason?
  - SwellJoe 18y ago
    When in doubt, Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad theory probably applies: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
    - kirubakaran 18y ago
      I agree, but why do they do that?
      - SwellJoe 18y ago
        I dunno. I figured I'd done my job in providing a link to a funny picture on the Internet. If you ask me any more hard questions, you're gonna get a picture of a cat fixing a computer. I don't think either of us really wants that to happen.
- trapper 18y ago
  You should try publishing under a different name next time and see what the response is. It would be an interesting experiment.
  - kirubakaran 18y ago
    If he doesn't put a lot of effort into hiding his writing style, it should be pretty easy to tell.
    - trapper 18y ago
      I'd like to think I could tell as well, but only a trial would let us test your hypothesis.
- marcell 18y ago
  Sometimes, an article is boring enough and the writer is interesting enough that the only logical thing to comment on is the writer.

Human nature. They will love you first. Hate you second. And when you are gone, they will love you again, claiming that all those things you wrote/said were prophecies, visions.

pg 18y ago

I think the fundamental problem is that writing essays seems presumptuous to a lot of people. They're used to the old print media model in which the only people who got to publish essays were credentialled experts in whatever they were about. That restriction is now gone. Online anyone can publish whatever they want. But I think it still seems to a lot of people that anyone using the essay form is implicitly claiming some kind of authority. The right approach, obviously, is to judge an essay by what it says instead of who wrote it. I think things will tend to move in that direction. But not too far, because it's more work.

kirubakaran 18y ago
Yes, you mentioned that in http://www.paulgraham.com/newthings.html http://www.paulgraham.com/newthings.html That explains the dismissive comments. The angry and really mean ones can be explained perhaps as people feeling threatened for whatever reason?
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  When in doubt, Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad theory probably applies: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
  - kirubakaran 18y ago
    I agree, but why do they do that?
    - SwellJoe 18y ago
      I dunno. I figured I'd done my job in providing a link to a funny picture on the Internet. If you ask me any more hard questions, you're gonna get a picture of a cat fixing a computer. I don't think either of us really wants that to happen.
trapper 18y ago
You should try publishing under a different name next time and see what the response is. It would be an interesting experiment.
- kirubakaran 18y ago
  If he doesn't put a lot of effort into hiding his writing style, it should be pretty easy to tell.
  - trapper 18y ago
    I'd like to think I could tell as well, but only a trial would let us test your hypothesis.
marcell 18y ago
Sometimes, an article is boring enough and the writer is interesting enough that the only logical thing to comment on is the writer.