It's fine because everyone makes mistakes. This is a life lesson that he needs to internalize.
Imagine a world where everyone thinks the world is flat and somebody comes out saying it isn't. Now imagine what the folks believing in a flat world are thinking. Outrageous? Writing skills not good enough? Bad taste in the mouth? Crazy scientist surrounded by yes-people?
:)
or, possibly, their listening/comprehension skills were not good enough. Communication requires solid effort and methodology by both the speaker and the listener. Either or both sides can be responsible for a breakdown.
If communication fails, then it's a loss for both side. You can blame another side but that doesn't make things better...
It's interesting that pg has already written how difficult a nonconventional idea to be heard. This can be another instance. It might take 10 more essays. Not the direct rebuttal like this, but tackling the issue from different angle and/or different abstraction level; e.g. ok, how could we attack wealth influencing politics?
I think it's impossible to write a bulletproof article, even something longer form, unless it says something trivial like "the sky is blue on some days". Even then, someone form Beijing would argue ;)
PG chose a really difficult subject, tried like a developer to break it down into constituent parts, and got criticized as if he was saying the problem didn't exist, rather than it is more than one thing. I think that is criticism that he can build dialogue on (a positive), rather than a flaw in the original article.
Thus, this has nothing to do with pg's actual words. This is all based on the current groupthink about inequality.
Example:
> [PG] thinks that those concerned with income inequality want communist style income equality.
Nope - none of what PG said in his essay comes anywhere close to making that characterization of his opposition, and yet many people have attacked PG as if his view was this view, and other equally outlandish, baseless interpretations of what he actually said. They've said things like, "PG is blaming the poor for being lazy", which is not anything remotely like what he said.
The people who wish to criticize PG's essay or otherwise respond to it would do well to simply quote his words directly and respond to the quote. What's actually happening is that people are projecting emotionally charged beliefs onto PG, and claiming that he said things or believes things he doesn't and that weren't in the essay, and then attacking those made up, straw-man ideas instead. It's really disappointing and frustrating for me to watch.
I didn't even agree with pg in the above post. Instead, I made an abstract point -- that communication breakdowns can be the fault of either party, and that they're not necessarily related to someone being "dumb" but can be due to problems in effort or methodology.