3 ms·

> "I wonder how many people would be pleased if PG..." Nothing PG could say would stop this: "...anyone with half a brain would realize..." "...pretty offens

by jlgreco 13y ago

> "I wonder how many people would be pleased if PG..." Nothing PG could say would stop this: "...anyone with half a brain would realize..." "...pretty offensive to people who had lobotomies..." These are people that have turned "being offended" into a sport. Being pleased with any sort of apology, clarification, or rebuttal would be admitting defeat. Winning entails remaining offended at all costs. (And for anyone trying to puzzle out how the author of the article could be so daft, I am fairly certain they meant "hemispherectomy", not "lobotomy". It would be pretty damn foolish to say that victims of lobotomies typically live normal lives following the 'procedure'. Hemispherectomies are rare though, the author was probably actually thinking of corpus callosotomies, though those result in split-brains, not half-brains.)

dasil003 13y ago
Sure there will always be angry people ready to be offended at the drop of a hat, but the author doesn't seem to be offended at all so I'm not sure what your point was. He was quoting this line from pg: "anyone with half a brain would realize you’re going to be more successful if you speak idiomatic English, so [the entrepreneurs] must just be clueless if they haven’t gotten rid of their strong accent" Now first of all, that line while technically innocuous could have been spoken 100 other ways to convey the same meaning in a less offensive manner. But more importantly, it also belies an ignorance about how language works and makes me suspect pg has never learned a second language. Conflating "idiomatic English" with "strong accent" is not something that someone with knowledge of language learning would do. pg is a strong essayist and thinker, but that's not a substitute for actual domain knowledge, and his off-the-cuff theorizing works best when its about things which he has deep experience. Listening to the accents of a bunch of founders and then judging their prospects based on how they performed and how their accent came across to him is just not going to provide any level of insight approaching that of his other essays. It's sort of like Alchemy vs Chemistry. You can make all sorts of prognostications from surface observations, but if you don't understand the inner workings at all then you're just pissing in the wind.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Yeah, I read the article (and found it entirely unconvincing, incidentally. fingerprinter's reply upthread covers that well enough, no need to rehash it here.) When the author threw in the side-jab at the use of the term "half a brain" it became clear what sort of mentality they buy into. Constructed offense on the behalf of theoretical others is something that you use if you really have no interest in letting yourself appear satisfied.

by jlgreco 13y ago

dasil003 13y ago

Sure there will always be angry people ready to be offended at the drop of a hat, but the author doesn't seem to be offended at all so I'm not sure what your point was. He was quoting this line from pg: "anyone with half a brain would realize you’re going to be more successful if you speak idiomatic English, so [the entrepreneurs] must just be clueless if they haven’t gotten rid of their strong accent" Now first of all, that line while technically innocuous could have been spoken 100 other ways to convey the same meaning in a less offensive manner. But more importantly, it also belies an ignorance about how language works and makes me suspect pg has never learned a second language. Conflating "idiomatic English" with "strong accent" is not something that someone with knowledge of language learning would do. pg is a strong essayist and thinker, but that's not a substitute for actual domain knowledge, and his off-the-cuff theorizing works best when its about things which he has deep experience. Listening to the accents of a bunch of founders and then judging their prospects based on how they performed and how their accent came across to him is just not going to provide any level of insight approaching that of his other essays. It's sort of like Alchemy vs Chemistry. You can make all sorts of prognostications from surface observations, but if you don't understand the inner workings at all then you're just pissing in the wind.

jlgreco 13y ago
Yeah, I read the article (and found it entirely unconvincing, incidentally. fingerprinter's reply upthread covers that well enough, no need to rehash it here.) When the author threw in the side-jab at the use of the term "half a brain" it became clear what sort of mentality they buy into. Constructed offense on the behalf of theoretical others is something that you use if you really have no interest in letting yourself appear satisfied.