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Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

My read from dvt and ishansharma is that they're just being political.

Basically when PG was writing about stuff they considered part of their in-group then it was great and wonderful.

When he writes about stuff that's no longer aligns with their existing political in-group's beliefs (his arguments against the wealth tax [0], his essay about conformism [1], his essay about economic inequality [2]) - suddenly he's 'disconnected' and they're 'disappointed' in the essays.

I thought those essays were great and the points were interesting/well argued. I liked his old essays too.

I find the tribal responses to them (and the comments here) to be lame.

[0]: http://paulgraham.com/wtax.html

[1]: http://paulgraham.com/conformism.html

[2]: http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html

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He's always written about conformism and wealth. See "Why Nerds Are Unpopular" (2003) [1], "What You Can't Say" (2004) [2], and a lengthy discussion of what wealth is and what it means for society in "How to Make Wealth" (2004) [3]. All of these are featured in his book, "Hackers and Painters".

[1] http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html [2] http://paulgraham.com/say.html [3] http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

Yep, I liked those too.

I think it was harder to narrowly categorize those as in-group vs. out-group than the newer ones though.

Maybe it's because people are more polarized now and there's less room for talking about interesting points that don't clearly fit into an existing political group? Maybe if those were written today people would find them similarly 'disconnected'?

I don't know, but I agree his new stuff isn't that different from the kinds of topics he's historically written about.

Bingo. The world is more polarized now, and PG’s classic essays would get the same treatment if published today.

Those who don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to the politics they seem to imply, aren’t as loud as those who have to disagree.

I admit that politics is mixed into my opinions here.

It's just that based on current political climate, I think it's hard to keep politics aside.

My thoughts about pg have essentially gone through this flow: - Start reading some of the old essays in college, agree with most of the points - Start working, the essays slowed down. I read old ones once in a while, still mostly agree - Start following pg on twitter. There's some stuff I don't agree with but it's alright. - See a lot of stuff that I don't agree with [1]

(in between somewhere, I got convinced that keeping politics on sidelines is not an options)

Then I see the essay on wealth tax. My read is that main argument is that the tax compounds. But I don't see any alternative arguments. So I see his position as against the transfer of wealth and societal equality and I don't agree with that.

Maybe I'm being too opinionated or not reading deep enough, but that was my line of thought.

https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1130241349935149056

> I don't see any alternative arguments

There aren't any arguments in that essay at all. It just describes, with numbers, the consequences of a wealth tax for startup founders.

> I see his position as against the transfer of wealth and societal equality

The essay states no position whatever. Not every essay has to state a position. Some essays are just about stating some facts.

> So I see his position as against the transfer of wealth

That would be consistent with his previous writings on the topic. He doesn't necessarily seem to be against all taxation that results in some transfer of wealth away from the rich, especially, I suspect through inheritance. Someone who believes founding startups are an important way humanity's wealth increases is likely to be hesitant about anything that might put the brakes on that process; a wealth tax would diminish the incentive for smart people to go all-in on high-risk high-reward ideas.

> My read from dvt and ishansharma is that they're just being political.

I think this is unfair. For example, I don't really relate to building a multi-million-dollar startup in my 20s, so the wealth tax article is simply not relevant. The article on Conformism is just highfalutin pseudo-psychologizing. Compare these to classics like "What We Look for in Founders" or "Ramen Profitable" and we have a pretty clear shift in focus. This takes nothing away from pg being a bonafide genius, it's just that his focus is no longer actionable and insightful advice to founders.

Thanks for the reply - I might have read motivated reasoning into your comment that wasn't there.

I think it's fair to point out that there are fewer actionable startup advice essays recently, but 'highfalutin pseudo-psychologizing' is just dismissive without talking about any of the ideas, and he did have well-liked essays like What you Can't Say and Why Nerds Are Unpopular that were of a similar type - so that kind of thing was something he's always written about (though he also wrote about more actionable advice alongside it too).

A sibling comment points to two essays from "back in the day" which are broadly about conformism: "What you can't say" and "Why nerds are unpopular".

If you went back and reread them, would you say they're "highfalutin pseudo-psychologizing"?

Both you and pg have changed in the intervening decade-and-change; I think you're over-weighting his changes, and under-weighting your own.

Which is natural, but I'm curious what you think of those essays in that light.

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