An interview with Paul Graham on writing
writingroutines.com
writingroutines.com
- Most productive time is in the morning, right after waking up + optional coffee/breakfast.
- The time slot dedicated to writing lasts 4-6 continuous hours and that's it for the day, as far as for the pure creative process goes.
- No distraction when writing, so it is not weird to see people writing by hand or typewriter.
- Same starting/finishing time every day.
- Many writers like to go for a walk or nap after finishing the main daily task.
All those things are pretty much aligned what the current research says about productivity so I dont think is just a coincidence.
TPR interviews some rather strange and obscure writers, and overall they don't seem to be particularly anomalous. The overwhelming majority of writers, whether fiction or nonfiction, do seem to write in the morning, although it seems that younger and nonfiction types may be somewhat more likely to prefer later starts or writing in the evening.
(Samuel R. Delany, for example, whose interview I read the day before yesterday, reported in 2011 that he always gets up at 5AM to do his writing now, but as a young man he started later in the morning - similar to other reports by elderly writers contrasting their youthful later-timed writing to their present early-morning writing, describing themselves as no longer having the energy to write all day, which makes sense given the lifetime shifts in chronotypes from owl to lark and the difficulty of the elderly in sleep. And shades of OP, a decent number of afternoon/evening writers say something along the lines of 'I would write in the morning-afternoon while the kids were at school, but now that they're grown, I can write later in the day.')
Let's take a recent example (from [1]):
> Though no doubt correct, such statements tell the reader
> nothing. Useful writing makes claims that are as strong as
> they can be made without becoming false.
> For example, it's more useful to say that Pike's Peak is
> near the middle of Colorado than merely somewhere in
> Colorado. But if I say it's in the exact middle of
> Colorado, I've now gone too far, because it's a bit east
> of the middle.
It's a very unfair comparison, but if you want to read amazing technical writing, try reading "Everything and more: A compact history of Infinity" by David Foster Wallace. Or contrast PG's essay with Umberto Eco's "How to write a Thesis"[2].
It's hard to escape the conclusion that PG's writing would not survive a double-blind test where someone didn't see his name attached.
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/useful.html
[2] It's a whole book but is excerpted here in a format that bears comparison to PG's essay https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/umberto-eco-how-to-write-...
> if you want to read amazing technical writing
I haven't been reading PG's recent writing (only so much time in the day) but the quote you gave is a good example of how to teach a concept. It's dead simple, even obvious, when you read it. The key is that you know exactly what his point was when he wrote that. The quote you provided is not technical writing in the sense of On Lisp.
If you look at the popular blog posts that make the front page of HN, many of them are at this same level - and that's okay, because it's apparently what many people want to read these days.
(I am not saying the critique of postmodernism is right or wrong, but simply that it is insightful and relevant.)
"Useful writing tells people something true and important that they didn't already know, and tells them as unequivocally as possible."
Plainly stated; thought-provoking and useful as a tool for assessing prose.
I am more inclined to read essays with PG's name attached, but that's because they reliably provide an interesting perspective on their subject matter.
The fallacy here is that statement assumes that what you're saying is a priori true and important, regardless of what the reader might think. As if that thought already existed out there, being true and important in its own right and you were the first to merely stumble across it.
"Useful writing" presumes that the reader will agree with the usefulness of your writing and accept whatever you've written at face value. Whereas the entire point of publishing an essay is to push your thoughts out into the world, out of your control, where others might de-construct and criticize what you're bringing to their doorstep.
Useful writing is basically a take on Positivism. And while that works in certain areas of scientific endeavor, there's a long philosophical tradition that argues against taking this too far. Especially in social and sociological sciences.
In other words: famous people who give bad advice (e.g., "I won the lottery, and so can you!") seems much more deserving of criticism than famous people who give unoriginal and yet still under-utilized advice. Indeed, if you are a famous person with legions of fans asking for your advice, and you've already written down your best non-trivial ideas for experts, it seems praiseworthy to help non-experts by telling them boring useful stuff.
...but this actually is a succinct account of startup culture proselytizing?
“The Danish philosopher’s day was dominated by two pursuits: writing and walking. Typically, he wrote in the morning, set off on a long walk through Copenhagen at noon, and then returned to his writing for the rest of the day and into the evening. The walks were where he had his best ideas, and sometimes he would be in such a hurry to get them down that, returning home, he would write standing up before his desk, still wearing his hat and gripping his walking stick or umbrella.
Kierkegaard kept up his energy with coffee, usually taken after supper and a glass of sherry. Israel Levin, his secretary from 1844 until 1850, recalled that Kierkegaard owned “at least fifty sets of cups and saucers, but only one of each sort”—and that, before coffee could be served, Levin had to select which cup and saucer he preferred that day, and then, bizarrely, justify his choice to Kierkegaard. And this was not the end of the strange ritual. The biographer Joakim Garff writes:
“Kierkegaard had his own quite peculiar way of having coffee: Delightedly he seized hold of the bag containing the sugar and poured sugar into the coffee cup until it was piled up above the rim. Next came the incredibly strong, black coffee, which slowly dissolved the white pyramid. The process was scarcely finished before the syrupy stimulant disappeared into the magister’s stomach, where it mingled with the sherry to produce additional energy that percolated up into his seething and bubbling brain—which in any case had already been so productive all day that in the half-light Levin could still notice the tingling and throbbing in the overworked fingers when they grasped the slender handle of the cup.”
https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/030...
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/05/daily-ritual...
Had a scroll through those interviews. Lord, what a hack fest. A conga line of cringe, meh, and OKAY.
Seriously: in comparison to, say, Scott Alexander, I don't see a single novel idea in Graham's Oeuvre. Mix any current text generator with the opinions of some 1980s teen just discovering Ayn Rand-style libertarianism, and it will fill as many pages as you want with the expected drivel, only in superior prose.
> There is no bigger achievement than waking up before 6PM every day. That's why it's important that we get up early & get things done earlier than 6PM, otherwise we'll fall into routines that make us miserable & unhappy.
https://twitter.com/real_human_vc/status/1231451118430904320
Personally, I've never been a fan. His writings are far too verbose for my liking. He uses 6 paragraphs for what could be one sentence, and I don't think that most of the content is that insightful either. But some people really like him shrug.
Verbose: "In an egregious attempt to elevate his self-worth, he injects his exchanges with an innumerable avalanche of superfluous idioms and turns of phrase to explain what otherwise would be simple statements capable of understanding by even groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise."
Actually, I used to think that in order for a weblog post to be worth it, it has to be "of substance", and thus "of length". Clearly those are not the same, but luckily I have corrected my thinking in this regard :-)
What is it called when someone demands evidence for a counter position when the original position has never been supported?
Here's some classic critique of PG's buffoonery [2]. It's simple: When anybody puts words to the page, they are trying to tell you something. All PG seems to be trying to communicate is how deep and thoughtful he is; I certainly don't feel like I'm drawing any other lessons from his writing, and it seems like I'm not alone.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Alder#Newton's_flaming_la...
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[2] https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm
What claims? Why is such a basic deflection on this site so readily accepted by supposedly intelligent and inquisitive people? This type of discourse and rhetoric is pretty shameful and embarrassing.
What claims do I have that I need to support?
I don't see Paul Graham or SSC expounding novel ideas. I enjoy SSC more too, mainly because it's funnier and I'm interested in the same kind of stuff as Scott whereas I don't find business, startups, and programming that interesting.
So if that's how far you have to reach to find someone better, he may be pretty decent :)
I'm also open to be told what other great such writers I've missed out on, Cunningham's Law stye :)
The irony to me is that a lot of Scott Alexander's writing seems to build on singular concepts that have been around for a while in sociology or philosphy, or studied, just not by exactly that name. Other times, the concepts aren't novel at all, but there's a fun AI/tech spin to the story which doesn't really add much. A continuing ignorance of established work in the field (particularly when the Internet lets you get away with it, in "soft subjects" like philosophy, sociology, political theory and critical theory[3]) is par for the course in both PG and Scott's writings. If it's not published in a blog post or a trendy book written within the past 15 years, chances are that they'll think the concept is novel.
Sometimes reading Scott's articles I feel a strong sense of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: an article I know a little something on, and he's only done minimal background reading, to the point where any serious scholar would laugh at his authoritative tone. In another comment, continuing in the Scott-PG-rationalsphere tradition, I invented a term of my own, "the hacker blogger mindset"[0].
Valuable work to introduce people to an opinionated version of one concept or another (without any pointers so you can learn more about similar work)? Sure. Valuable work for someone willing to spend twenty minutes on Google Scholar or having already read primary literature? Not really.
A recent example, from one of Scott's posts on meritocracy[1]:
>The intuition behind meritocracy is this: if your life depends on a difficult surgery, would you prefer the hospital hire a surgeon who aced medical school, or a surgeon who had to complete remedial training to barely scrape by with a C-? If you prefer the former, you’re a meritocrat with respect to surgeons. Generalize a little, and you have the argument for being a meritocrat everywhere else.
It's amazing how much this misses the point of the conversation on meritocracy - that critics of meritocracy do not have a problem with merit itself, but rather (1) how merit can be measured in more abstract ways, (2) the degree to which meritocracy can exist with current social relations, (3) the degree to which meritocracy really does exist, with respect to claims that it does (in a just-world hypothesis kind of way). A similar problem was pointed out in the comments[2]. And yet... in support of the position Scott is attacking, he cites one recent pop-phil book, and two blog posts. Where are the published journals? Where are the essays? What have domain experts (i.e. philosophers, political theorists, economists, and sociologists) said about meritocracy? Who knows.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22101989
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/24/targeting-meritocracy/
[2] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/24/targeting-meritocracy/...
[3] The fact is that when you state a technically incorrect opinion relating to computer science, engineering, physics, biology, etc. you'll have a hundred Internet users responding with citations and research. When you do the same with the other subjects, usually the people who would prove you wrong are either disinterested in another silly Interent debate that will hinge on ideological terms, or they think they can ignore it because it's not published in a popular journal. Whether that's wise or not remains to be seen.
Sadly, this applies to pretty much every "public intellectual" these days. It's embarrassing to watch how ignorant Sam Harris is when talking about religion, Neil deGrasse Tyson's dismissal of philosophy, or Steven Pinker's opinion (or lack thereof) of Nietzsche. They clearly have zero education on or knowledge of the subject, and yet...they continue to be taken as authoritative figures.
I eagerly await the day when we have real public intellectuals again. Hell, people like Steven Pinker make past pseudo-intellectual figures like William F. Buckley look like genius savants.
> If he doesn't cite critical theory, it's more because he doesn't find critical theory authoritative. (Neither do I.)
That's fine. I don't think it's "authoritative" (whatever this means in the context of considering different viewpoints and teasing out the value of intellectual work) either, though it's a little rich that a blogger is so dismissive of a whole mode of investigative thought that has pretty strong support in post-war philosophy. Even then, why not consider their opinions (which are popular, rightly or not), and criticize them?
>Also, not to put a too fine point on it, but you're a Marxist.
I think this is the real "what the hell". My ideological position, or lack of one, has nothing to do with the validity of my criticism. Nothing in my post specifically relates to Marx at all, and my criticism would be the same even if he hadn't written an article on Marx via Singer. "You're a Marxist, and Scott has been attacked by Marxists" is a pretty poor attempt at hiding an ad-hominem. Not to put too much of a fine point on it.
I have never heard of that Wiki, or anywhere else that criticizes Scott, on Reddit or elsewhere. I'm not involved in any online drama of the sort, and I don't associate with people who are, to be honest. If that's what they're doing to Scott, then I condemn their actions - especially doxxing and messaging his friends. Regardless of my ideological position, that's unacceptable.
>So you, a Marxist
Let's get this straight. Your only reason to claim I'm a Marxist is because I have an interest in Marx's work. I do not consider myself a Marxist in the strictest sense of the word[0], though I do find his work more valuable than some others may. But I could say the same thing about a host of other philosophers and economists I listen to. It's absurd that a comment about Scott has provoked such a reaction that you've decided to start making a big deal about a critical comment.
I'm sorry if my comment seemed in poor taste, or I just go around the 'net criticizing Scott. I don't, and I actually like some of his essays, in a roundabout way. My only intention was to expand on GP's point about Scott in comparison to PG.
[0] About a third of academic sociologists consider themselves Marxsits. Marxism is one of the most popular heterodox schools in economics. It's a dominant current in contemprorary political economy.
They really aren't popular in any real sense. I would go so far as to say that anyone who thinks they're popular isn't part of Scott's audience.
Not being part of Scott's audience (and therefore he should have no concern with mentioning their work which is often highly relevant to the topics he writes about) seems to just speak in favour of an echo chamber rather than considering and criticizing ideas that are already out there and hold sway with people informed on the topics.
From what I've seen of the conversation on meritocracy, you could read through tweet after tweet after tweet (because let's get real, that's where the conversation is happening), without a critic once even acknowledging the idea that it's better to have do things better than to do them worse. It mostly gets lost in the noise of whether meritorious people "deserve" prestigious jobs that pay good money.
He very frequently cites philosophers, economists and papers. You've chosen a quote where he is arguing against the popular perception and then blaming him for quoting related sources.
I was getting at the idea that Scott likes to invent concepts that already have some standing, if in a slightly different form and terminology, already present in the literature. He does not build upon that work, or cite it. I'm never one to argue against novelty, but for a reader introduced to these concepts, some due diligence should be made to see what already exists out there. Arguing against a "popular view", as if it is the forefront of debate on the topic (which he does, if he discusses the topic in the formal sense), is just as silly as an amateur physicist who believes the scientific community is localized entirely in pop-sci books and Twitter.
There's plenty of criticism of "merit itself". What is "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" if not a criticism of merit?
Have you ever read Eros and Civilization? Herbert Marcuse identifies the "performance principle" as the concept underlying capitalism. Per Marcuse, our reality principle is the performance principle, which can be summarized as "to each according to his ability". Marcuse argues that this was necessary in times of scarcity but now, in 1955, we have solved the problem of scarcity and the performance principle is obsolete. It's hard to identify more relevant leftist writings in the 50s-70s than Eros and Civilization and One Dimensional Man. They're definitely criticizing merit, or at least that merit should be rewarded (which is the definition of meritocracy).
It's quite refreshing to read Marcuse today because, unlike today's leftists, he's not afraid to admit that (1) capitalism was necessary to get this far and (2) to attack the idea of rewarding people based on their performance head-on. I think he's completely wrong but at least you can figure out what he's saying.
It is not a criticism of merit, it is a criticism of the structuring of society on the basis of merit - i.e. meritocracy. Marx isn't the only one to notice thing; philosophers as diverse as Rawls and Habermas have recognized it too. Nevertheless, the conversation was always focused around the reward due to innate capabilities that differ from person to person. Even then, there are opposing points, which can't be reduced to slogans picked out here and there[0].
> Per Marcuse, our reality principle is the performance principle, which can be summarized as "to each according to his ability".
This is not the case. The performance principle specifically concerns the pursuit of profit and growth, despite having enough (non-surplus) labour and machinery in modern society to sustain life without repression (restriction of the libido). It does not make any comment on a possible allocation of resources according to the principle that he who labours more deserves more. The whole point was that "to each according to his ability" is not how society functions - according to Marcuse, just as Marx, this fact is clearly not manifested in the existence of a class system in which some own MoP and others do not. The only way this could be conflated as a criticism of merit would be the view that the system he is criticizing rewards merit (and this component of it would not exist under a future system). The criticism of a wage system rewarding as if "merit" is being counted neatly fits into my (1) point.
>unlike today's leftists, he's not afraid to admit that (1) capitalism was necessary to get this far
I'm curious as to who (speaking in terms of "leftist" philosophers) actually denies this, "leftist" or not. Simply saying that capitalism has had and can have disastrous effects does not at all entail the denial of its necessity in history, or what it has produced.
>(2) to attack the idea of rewarding people based on their performance head-on
If this is true (which, owing to the "communist labour-voucher debate" it may not be), it's curious that Scott didn't address any of this critique. I could have read more, and Scott could have read more. Anyway, here's a secondary source on Marcuse's support for meritocracy, at least in education[1].
Even if what you said were entirely true, nowhere would it imply a criticism of the generic "merit" of the qualified surgeon versus a street sweeper when you need an operation, which is the strawman Scott was attacking. No amount of Marx or Marcuse will get that concept validated by Scott's criticism.
[0] "Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only – for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth." (CotGP)
[1] "However, it seems equally obvious that Marcuse’s notion of intellectual-elite education would also serve to adjust and confine the limits of free choice, thought, and experience. Exhibiting an uncommon disrespect for human diversity, Marcuse justifies his elitism on the ground that his university system would select “from the school and college population as a whole, a selection solely according to merit, that is to say, according to the inclination and ability for theoretical thought.” In a word, Marcuse wholly accepts the basic assumptions and premises of meritocracy. He also has a quick, if not readily attainable, answer for the query, “What knowledge is of most worth?” Beyond Aristotle and heading toward a revival of Plato, Marcuse reveres a contemplative wisdom which would border the power of the divine" (https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/booksabout/70s/DeVitis1974Ma...)
Fair enough, but you said that meritocracies are criticized from a perspective of "(1) how merit can be measured in more abstract ways, (2) the degree to which meritocracy can exist with current social relations, (3) the degree to which meritocracy really does exist". None of those covers "criticism of the structuring of society on the basis of merit".
> This is not the case. The performance principle specifically concerns the pursuit of profit and growth, despite having enough (non-surplus) labour and machinery in modern society to sustain life without repression (restriction of the libido).
The performance principle precedes "surplus repression" so it can't depend on it. According to Marcuse, it is only due to the performance principle that we've reached a point where surplus repression exists.
> It does not make any comment on a possible allocation of resources according to the principle that he who labours more deserves more.
Yes it does. Marcuse distinguishes between two phases of the performance principle: "domination" (too much surplus repression) and "rational exercise of authority" (acceptable amount of surplus repression). According to Marcuse, the latter is associated with "societal division of labor derived from knowledge and confined to the administration of functions and arrangements necessary for the advancement of the whole." I.e. social status is decided by productivity. In the past, in the presence of great scarcity, this arrangement was acceptable or even necessary. But, today, due to the elimination of scarcity, it is no longer acceptable. Marcuse asks: in a world without scarcity, why would you reward people based on their productivity? To me, that seems like a fairly direct criticism of meritocracy (though perhaps not merit itself, as you pointed out).
> The whole point was that "to each according to his ability" is not how society functions - according to Marcuse, just as Marx, this fact is clearly not manifested in the existence of a class system in which some own MoP and others do not. The only way this could be conflated as a criticism of merit would be the view that the system he is criticizing rewards merit (and this component of it would not exist under a future system). The criticism of a wage system rewarding as if "merit" is being counted neatly fits into my (1) point.
I don't think this is true for Marcuse (I've only read Eros and Civilization and One-Dimensional Man). There's hardly anything in Eros and Civilization about class or the means of production and One-Dimensional Man is more about brainwashing. Marcuse replaces Marx's view of history with Freud's view of history (though with his own spin) and more mainstream Marxists have criticized him for that.
> I'm curious as to who (speaking in terms of "leftist" philosophers) actually denies this, "leftist" or not. Simply saying that capitalism has had and can have disastrous effects does not at all entail the denial of its necessity in history, or what it has produced.
I didn't say "leftist philosophers," I said "leftists". Leftists tend to speak about capitalism as if it was an ideology. Whatever is wrong with capitalism, it's not an ideology. No one planned it.
> If this is true (which, owing to the "communist labour-voucher debate" it may not be), it's curious that Scott didn't address any of this critique. I could have read more, and Scott could have read more.
I think Scott does an admirable job reading books and synthesizing them with his own perspective.
Maybe we're talking past each other, but I don't see it that way at all, and it's hard for me to tell if Marcuse is speaking positively or negatively about the latter "rational exercise of authority", when contrasted with domination. If he speaks positively of it, which I think he does (I may be wrong, feel free to correct me) then although the distribution of goods would not follow a meritocratic order, the distribution of power (as a rational exercise of authority) might. My own disagreements with Marcuse aside, I accept you're correct on the point of his rejection of meritocracy considered as allocation of goods. Coming full circle, I found your comments twice as helpful and informative to me as ten of Scott's blog posts.
>hardly anything about class and means of production
"For the vast majority of the population, the scope and mode of satisfaction are determined by their own labor; but their labor is work for an apparatus which they do not control, which operates as an independent power to which individuals must submit if they want to live. And it becomes the more alien the more specialized the division of labor becomes. Men do not live their own lives but perform pre-established functions. While they work, they do not fulfill their own needs and faculties but work in alienation." might be a sentence pulled right out of Capital, if it weren't in Eros.
>Whatever is wrong with capitalism, it's not an ideology. No one planned it.
Capitalism is at the very least based on several ideological factors which must be constantly reproduced within society, namely the ideology of rights, bourgeois democracy, and double freedom of the worker (free to sell his labour, free from the product of the production process). But just like the idea of communism wasn't invented by one guy, the development of capitalism wasn't led by one guy either. The state and our own internalization of the value-form reproduces this ideology.
I mean, his essays are decent but this was a snooze-fest of an interview. And recent Paul Graham blog posts that have shown up here have been obvious nonsense.
I think we need to stop encouraging personality cults. This is a guy who’s a decent writer and also happened to ride the dot com boom to wealth. There’s nothing really admirable about it. You can’t gain any magical advice from someone like this because they stumbled into success. All the self-help style advice offered is basically either already obvious or impossible to replicate.
All you gotta do is make a product that Yahoo! will buy off you for millions of dollars and you too can spend most of your time writing essays and starting venture capital funds.
If I ran my own venture that had a community forum I’d probably be creeped out by people talking about me like I’m a savant of advice all the time...
Maybe he isn't the best writer, I dunno. I have no one to compare it to really. But I read his stuff and got tremendous value from it. I feel lucky to have read his stuff when I did and I recommend it to people at least as a first step.
Because I tend to think he has a lot of great ideas. Is that the beginning of a personality cult?
This new psychology of thinking that someone who is successful is nothing but lucky is very dangerous. Obviously the opposite is dangerous too--that luck plays no part.
If that's "all you gotta do" what are you waiting for?
Some articles are on the front page to be read on their own or maybe even just to look at the pictures. Some are effective just for being a jumping off point for the discussion. Since what he writes about is so closely aligned with the readers here his articles almost always qualify for the latter, and occasionally for the former.
The following of a personality in this way can lead to crappy groupthink.
..why not just comment on posts you want to read, and have thoughts on.
I don't know what you mean by "obvious nonsense". Here's my dissection of one recent essay, which seemed generally true and useful: https://en.howtruthful.com/o/essays_that_endeavor_to_be_pers...
In that breakdown, what part do you think is obvious nonsense?