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I guess the fact that Paul Graham felt the urge to write and publish this in 2020 is indicative of the toxic relationship that was developing between silicon va

I guess the fact that Paul Graham felt the urge to write and publish this in 2020 is indicative of the toxic relationship that was developing between silicon valley and the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this essay exhibits the hallmark lack of empathy and self-awareness that perpetuate the toxic dynamic. Sure, there are "haters", but the mirror effect is equal: powerful people often end up inside of bubbles that shield them from negative criticism, and often become blind to the legitimate criticisms people have of them. These decisionmakers often have to make difficult decisions with powerful tradeoffs. It's more comfortable to cast those with values differences or who are on the wrong end of that decisionmaker's tradeoffs as "haters".

goatlover 2mo ago
Similar to how Trump and his supporters use "Trump Derangement Syndrome" to dismiss any criticism of him.
drdaeman 2mo ago
I don’t think it’s about powerful people or personality cults. The same dynamic surely can be observed in any communities (interest groups, even families), where people take sides based on personalities rather than facts about events alone. It’s just less prominent, but same overall phenomena - the bias exists, and there are cases where it becomes severe and nearly unconditional. It’s easy to dismiss PG with “SV techbros are nuts”, but that could be (or could be not, but there’s a risk) the same identity over substance bias manifestation. To de-bias, we should look where the class/status/social-circle identity becomes unimportant. There’s a theory that our reasoning had evolved not for truth-seeking purposes but for a social cohesion, but I haven’t yet read well about it (“The enigma of reason” is on my reading list) to form an informed opinion.
zahlman 2mo ago
> hallmark lack of empathy and self-awareness You'd have to spell out for me how this is exhibited, but I'm also not clear on how it's supposed to be relevant in the first place. > Sure, there are "haters", but the mirror effect is equal The post starts out with a description of mirrored observers ("fanboys") and extensively discusses the mirror nature. > It's more comfortable to cast those with values differences Most of the time that I see criticism of the various big names in tech, it's either failing to exhibit those value differences or failing to establish their relevance. (Which is to say: when we get "person X's actions are objectionable to me because they desecrate value Y", there is not good evidence that this actually happens, at least on anywhere near the scale alleged; the desecration is essentially a meme among detractors.) From TFA: > When you have a dispute with someone, it's usually a good idea to try to understand why they're upset and then fix things if you can. Disputes are distracting. But it's a false analogy to think of a hater as someone you have a dispute with. It's an understandable mistake, if you've never encountered haters before. But when you realize that you're dealing with a hater, and what a hater is, it's clear that it's a waste of time even to think about them. In reading HN submissions that have the name of someone important in tech in the title, it's become abundantly clear to me that the bulk of "negative criticism" of those people comes from people in the latter category. The same when the focus is on nations or on governments. When the focus is on the technology itself (and when there isn't a clear agenda of trying to make someone responsible for some particular fault), the discourse noticeably improves. The commenting guidelines have the right of it: > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
overgard 2mo ago
I think the biggest problem we have right now is our billionaires essentially live in a completely different society from the rest of us. Some of these guys are building doomsday bunkers! From their perspective, if things get really really bad, they'll just use their infinite money glitch to go somewhere safe. The problem is these guys lack "skin in the game". They make decisions that affect people that they never even hear from or speak to -- on purpose. They don't want to speak to the commoners. Like Paul Graham, apparently, they think we're losers because we didn't chase money. IMO, things don't get better until we abolish citizens united and invoke some pretty hefty progressive taxes. There's absolutely no societal value to allowing someone to become a trillionaire, or even a centi-billionaire. Thats way too much power for a very disconnected group of people to have.
ThrowawayR2 2mo ago
The bubble comes because of the haters. Any decision that is made will piss off someone even if it's for stupid reasons (classic example: https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/) and powerful people make decisions that affect many people. When any choice they make aggravates people and even choosing to do nothing aggravates some people, they quite sensibly stop listening to public opinion entirely.

goatlover 2mo ago

Similar to how Trump and his supporters use "Trump Derangement Syndrome" to dismiss any criticism of him.

drdaeman 2mo ago

I don’t think it’s about powerful people or personality cults. The same dynamic surely can be observed in any communities (interest groups, even families), where people take sides based on personalities rather than facts about events alone. It’s just less prominent, but same overall phenomena - the bias exists, and there are cases where it becomes severe and nearly unconditional. It’s easy to dismiss PG with “SV techbros are nuts”, but that could be (or could be not, but there’s a risk) the same identity over substance bias manifestation. To de-bias, we should look where the class/status/social-circle identity becomes unimportant. There’s a theory that our reasoning had evolved not for truth-seeking purposes but for a social cohesion, but I haven’t yet read well about it (“The enigma of reason” is on my reading list) to form an informed opinion.

zahlman 2mo ago

> hallmark lack of empathy and self-awareness You'd have to spell out for me how this is exhibited, but I'm also not clear on how it's supposed to be relevant in the first place. > Sure, there are "haters", but the mirror effect is equal The post starts out with a description of mirrored observers ("fanboys") and extensively discusses the mirror nature. > It's more comfortable to cast those with values differences Most of the time that I see criticism of the various big names in tech, it's either failing to exhibit those value differences or failing to establish their relevance. (Which is to say: when we get "person X's actions are objectionable to me because they desecrate value Y", there is not good evidence that this actually happens, at least on anywhere near the scale alleged; the desecration is essentially a meme among detractors.) From TFA: > When you have a dispute with someone, it's usually a good idea to try to understand why they're upset and then fix things if you can. Disputes are distracting. But it's a false analogy to think of a hater as someone you have a dispute with. It's an understandable mistake, if you've never encountered haters before. But when you realize that you're dealing with a hater, and what a hater is, it's clear that it's a waste of time even to think about them. In reading HN submissions that have the name of someone important in tech in the title, it's become abundantly clear to me that the bulk of "negative criticism" of those people comes from people in the latter category. The same when the focus is on nations or on governments. When the focus is on the technology itself (and when there isn't a clear agenda of trying to make someone responsible for some particular fault), the discourse noticeably improves. The commenting guidelines have the right of it: > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

overgard 2mo ago

I think the biggest problem we have right now is our billionaires essentially live in a completely different society from the rest of us. Some of these guys are building doomsday bunkers! From their perspective, if things get really really bad, they'll just use their infinite money glitch to go somewhere safe. The problem is these guys lack "skin in the game". They make decisions that affect people that they never even hear from or speak to -- on purpose. They don't want to speak to the commoners. Like Paul Graham, apparently, they think we're losers because we didn't chase money. IMO, things don't get better until we abolish citizens united and invoke some pretty hefty progressive taxes. There's absolutely no societal value to allowing someone to become a trillionaire, or even a centi-billionaire. Thats way too much power for a very disconnected group of people to have.

ThrowawayR2 2mo ago

The bubble comes because of the haters. Any decision that is made will piss off someone even if it's for stupid reasons (classic example: https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/) and powerful people make decisions that affect many people. When any choice they make aggravates people and even choosing to do nothing aggravates some people, they quite sensibly stop listening to public opinion entirely.