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Comment by keithwhor | Hacker News Reader

The biggest problem I have with Paul’s writing on these topics is the misanthropic undertones. The classification of folks as “conventional minded” mirrors other socially reductive language like referring to people as “simps,” “NPCs,” and more. Paul believes he is partly responsible for engaging a social immune response to the intolerance he perceives — forgetting that immune responses are inflammatory by nature and often destroy large amounts of healthy tissue and in some cases, entire organisms.

I don’t think his assertions are wrong but I don’t think castigating people as “aggressively conventional minded” is the right approach. In creating an us-vs-them mentality I think Paul may inadvertently be adding to the actual biggest problem in civilized discourse these days — weaponized victimization and othering. It’s not enough to have an opinion, there has to be a bad guy or an evil group of people intent on destroying society.

I’m not sure how to solve this problem — open to suggestions and brainstorming, it’s just something that’s been on my mind a lot recently.

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Well put. I don't think this is new for him; there's always been a vein in his writing of someone scarred, late into life, by bad experiences in high school. Maybe it's not deliberate, but it is a vibe he sometimes manages to give off.

When he writes about Lisp, or (for the most part) about startups, or about being a dad, he seems happy and well-adjusted (I'm looking for a better term but let's roll with that). When he writes about cancel culture, or maybe really culture of any sort: different story.

He should take a break from this stuff and write about teaching his kids Lisp.

> When he writes about cancel culture, or maybe really culture of any sort: different story.

Is there anyone at all who writes "happily" about cancel culture? Even SJW's themselves can only give an impression of being perpetually angry and frustrated; they try to present their inner frustration wrt. the world at large as some sort of zeal for superior justice and universal social liberation, but don't quite manage to convince anyone.

It's not that his writing is unhappy. It's that when he writes about it, he seems like an unhappy person. I don't know if that's the case for "SJWs"; I mostly steer clear of the "cancel culture" discourse.

Is your core concern here the fact that when Paul Graham writes about things he likes, his posts have a positive tone, and when he writes about things he dislikes, his posts have a negative tone?

When he writes about things he dislikes, his writing gets less interesting --- not in the sense that criticism and negativity is uninteresting; I enjoy a zero-star Ebert review as much as the next person, but in the sense that his actual prose style gets less interesting --- and, as the comment upthread noted, markedly more misanthropic. He doesn't seem to be having a good time writing it. I can point to things he's written where it reads like he's really enjoying himself. Maybe he's just not good at cultural criticism?

Don't let me sound like I'm psychoanalyzing the guy. I'm sure he's fine, probably saner than I am. I'm just talking about the writing.

I think it's more “when he is consciously lying to advance political propaganda and needs to avoid engaging at anything more than a general level to avoid immediately giving the game away, his prose becomes less interesting.“

His classic piece “The Submarine” is negative on its subject, but it's quite engaging and not evasive the way this piece is. And there is a reason for that.

We probably agree on the substance of the piece, but that aside: there are people who write bad takes on this stuff that clearly enjoy the writing (Matt Taibbi is a classic example). Paul Graham isn't one of them. I wonder why he bothers: he's exactly the least persuasive kind of person to take the "cancel culture is a problem" side of the argument, and the process doesn't seem pleasant for him.

This would be a convincing argument if it was extended with links to people who have written about "cancel culture", "wokeness" or whatever in a genuinely pleasant way, even and perhaps especially to criticize it. Maybe "Scott Alexander" of Slate Star Codex got closest, but even he reportedly regrets much of that writing - i.e. it does make him unhappy, which I think speaks volumes. I don't think it's realistic or fair to demand this feat from Paul Graham.

I'd look for someone writing from the perspective of "all humans are innately predisposed to prejudice and must work to overcome it", which avoids dividing up the world into "x-ist people / not-x-ist people".

I don't hold out hope that this perspective will ever become mainstream, but because it's an alternative to "us-vs-them", there's more opportunity for redemption, communion, and joy.

> all humans are innately predisposed to prejudice and must work to overcome it

Much of "Scott Alexander"'s following came from the readership of a blog named literally 'Overcoming Bias', that's devoted to descriptions of how all humans are often remarkably petty and prejudicial in obscure and counterintuitive ways. It's definitely not taking a mainstream perspective, and the 'redemption' in it is quite subdued, but it does seem to avoid that particular pitfall.

I agree; I am saying that this is a mode where Graham doesn't write well, not that it is impossible to write engaging badly-detached-from-facts propaganda.

Though Taibbi writes for a different audience that probably makes that easier.

"not evasive the way this piece is"

I presume you refer to the avoidance of examples in the article. Your comment suggest he was correct to do so. Some people will be desperate to disprove that modern heresy exists, and highlighting forbidden opinions would help negate the entire article.

and not evasive the way this piece is

It's a piece about identifying 'PR hits' that misidentified something as a 'PR hit'. There's a microscopic 'correction' at the bottom but the fact the correction undermines the premise of the piece - that you too can learn to identify 'PR hits' from Paul Graham - is just ignored.

The reason is covered in the article:

> I've deliberately avoided mentioning any specific heresies here. Partly because one of the universal tactics of heretic hunters, now as in the past, is to accuse those who disapprove of the way in which they suppress ideas of being heretics themselves. Indeed, this tactic is so consistent that you could use it as a way of detecting witch hunts in any era

Talking about PR[1] isn't wrought with intellectually-dishonest landmines in the manner that it is for talking about what Graham terms "heresy-hunters". This is also obvious to even anyone who's paying a mild amount of attention to the cultural changes he's describing.

[1] the topic of "The Submarine", for those who are unfamiliar

I wrote a comment here about how the term "heresy hunter" is a good example of what I'm talking about, bad writing because "heresy hunting" is a clunky made-up term, and there are much better, more vivid words to use instead. But, it turns out, there is a lot of writing about "heresy hunting" out on the Internet --- in Evangelical Christian theology. Maybe that's what happened? Maybe Graham is born again?

I chose that term carefully, and put it in quotes, to avoid derailment about my choice of words. I wanted to make it clear I'm referring without judgment to the types of people he is talking about, and was willing to make my short comment clunkier in the name of keeping it precise.

But the clunkiness you're saying is in my comment, not his essay. The essay includes the words "heretic hunters", but it's only used once:

Personally, this single usage and less-clunky grammar doesn't strike me as especially bad writing.

You're hinting that most accusations of heresy come from the right (evangelical christians), rather than the left. This almost seems absurd to me, as someone who consumes a wide range of news media every day.

Not really. I'm saying "heretic hunter" is clunky, bad writing.

Well, I came to the same sort of conclusion. This in particular:

>There are always some heresies — some opinions you'd be punished for expressing. But there are a lot more now than there were a few decades ago, and even those who are happy about this would have to agree that it's so.

Not only bears no resemblance to actual lived reality, because the penalties for speaking out against orthodoxy (or even just being trans or gay or a bi-racial couple) were far worse than simply being kicked off twitter, and virtually none of those had any impact on anyone else in the same way that refusing to mask up or get vaccinated does today. They'd have fired their asses in 1918 too.

We just asked forgiveness because our governments fired their gay employees on the spot in the 60s and 70s.

It's so frustrating when a cis white male pretends there are more risks associated with opinions these days. There aren't!

Yep, also there are still rules at many businesses and schools that specifically target black hairstyles as unfit to be in public settings.

We could just point out that they're not really concerned about people getting "cancelled" as much as who is doing the cancelling and who's getting cancelled. Somehow it was a good thing when governments and corporations were able to cancel people based on race, gender, vaccination status, and sexual orientation... but now that they're being cancelled on the basis of being racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and... well, at least vaccination statuses have remained consistent... suddenly there's a problem. Suddenly the all-knowing overlords of business that people trust with their retirement accounts and their political landscape are WRONG. LOL.

And usually the cancellation doesn't even have anything to do with a job. It's freaking social media for crying out loud.

Your comment would make sense if women, gays or black people would be immune from “cancellation”.

> It's that when he writes about it, he seems like an unhappy person.

I did not get that impression

Could just be me.

I think it is you that is doing gymnastics to think he is unhappy because you disagree with his opinion

> Is there anyone at all who writes "happily" about cancel culture?

It is something that, like the Devil, exists primarily in the minds of people for whom it is a central part of the opposition in their mythological construction of the world, so no.

Cancel Culture has become one of the defining aspects of modern culture. Arguing it doesn't exist is going to be difficult when the elephant is clearly sitting here in the room with us.

Those feminists are so angry when they write about feminism. They seem happier when they write about other topics. Clearly, then, we know what to advise them to write about.

You see how that works?

I don't understand. What do "feminists" have to do with this? There are a zillion different kinds of feminists. Did I miss something about this post, is it subtly anti-feminist?

To spell it out: just because someone seems unhappy writing about something, doesn't make them wrong, and it doesn't mean that they should stop writing about it.

I selected "feminists" as an "across-the-aisle" example.

Why are feminists "across the aisle" from this piece?

I think you already know that. You could try speculating a bit. It just sounds like you're playing dumb to try to catch me out on something at this point.

I literally don't understand what you're trying to say, which is why I asked the question.

You are fixating on the "feminists" when I just mentioned that they are an example. You can look up and see that I have said that. You know who Matt Taibbi is, so ... it just looks like you are playing dumb.

Instead of trying to explain things to you, I am going to ask questions and you can try to answer them.

1) Have you ever heard the phrase "across the aisle?" Consider this in the Congressional sense.

2) On what side or in what political party would you say that most of the feminists, despite their myriad combinations, would reside?

3) What side are the people who are against "cancel culture" on, generally? Again: as a trend.

4) Combining the answers to the first three, can you diagram out where the aisle is, where #2 is, and where #3 is?

5) What is the purpose of selecting an example from "the other side," generally?

Who are you speaking for here? I'm well aware of the political valence of feminism. I'm wondering why you seem to think Paul Graham is the anti-feminist side of this aisle. It's a simple question, I don't know why you're dancing around it.

Again you fixate on the feminism. Repeat after me: Feminism is one of many potential examples. It was selected at random.

And you didn't answer a single one of my questions.

"He should..."

As my great aunt (born circa 1899) said, "Sometimes the 'You shoulds are the shits.'"

I'd like to see more on topics of enduring interest from Paul than on the ever-evanescent fluff of tech. That his concern lies with teaching his kids not to be social gangsters rather than teaching them some current tech meets with my approval.

> When he writes about Lisp, or (for the most part) about startups, or about being a dad, he seems happy and well-adjusted

I could imagine that even unhappy or poorly-adjusted people might sometimes have worthwhile things to say.

> He should take a break from this stuff and write about teaching his kids Lisp.

What would be the main benefit from doing so?

It's a big question, I guess: "why write anything?" I don't know! Certainly, neither pleasure nor persuasion could be the objective behind a piece like this. What are the other reasons? Venting? I'm interested in what you think.

> In creating an us-vs-them mentality I think Paul may inadvertently be adding to the actual biggest problem in civilized discourse these days — weaponized victimization and othering.

It's just plain old tribalist hypocrisy: people Graham agrees with are encouraged to weaponize their victimization, while people he disagrees with are denied. First-degree intolerance (including but not limited to "x-ism") is acceptable in any amount, second-degree intolerance (intolerance of intolerance) is verboten.

> people Graham agrees with are encouraged to weaponize their victimization, while people he disagrees with are denied.

Where do you get that from the original post? I am not seeing it.

People Graham agrees with who are encouraged to weaponize their victimization: those supposedly accused of "heresy" for their "x-ist" utterances.

People Graham disagrees with who are denied: those who speak out about "x-ist" utterances, whom he characterizes as "heretic hunters".

I think it's the part where a promotion of weaponization is claimed. I'm not seeing that either.

Is it weaponization of victimhood to disagree, and warn others of the hallmarks of a problematic position?

I don't think anyone was confused about who the 'us' and 'them' are. Every group casts a shadow, so it's hard to talk about a 'they' without there being an 'us'.

The weaponized victimhood is used browbeat critics and to ensure that whatever "x-ist" phenomenon someone may be speaking out persists unchallenged. "Xs are the real x-ists, and truth-telling heretics are the heros".

> People Graham agrees with who are encouraged to weaponize their victimization

Just not seeing what you are seeing. Thank you though.

Do you mean "victimization" or "victimhood"?

The degrees are more a matter of perspective than fact, though.

Christians consider Satanists the intolerant ones and vice-versa. Both can be claimed to be voluntary association, but if one isn't a choice, then neither is the other.

I didn't pick up on any "misanthropic" undertones in his essay but I echo your sentiment regarding the labels not for the same moralistic reasons you cited but for their weak construction; I'd have opted for "collectivist vs individualist" instead of "conventional vs independent" and "militant vs casual" instead of "aggressive vs passive" but the premise of his thesis remains intact which is that we need to counter the pervasive influence of these elements not to ruin the public discourse for all of us.

Aha. Great observation; what you interpret as anti-collectivist / pro-individualist I interpret as misanthropic.

Admittedly this is probably cultural on my part; growing up in a working class Canadian family bestows different social ideologies. It’s a complaint I have about Canadian culture (not individualistic enough) but I do think a problem with American discourse is it can err so far on the side of individualism as to become misanthropic: the extreme being the sentiment, “I, and people like me, are the only group that matters.”

That’s not what Paul is saying here at all. I just think discourse about “social heresy” might be more productively framed as — what do we all agree on, how can we focus on channeling that energy productively, and how can we accommodate the people who disagree? Generally speaking capitalism can be a force for good here if you pick big, juicy problems everyone is excited to solve. Climate, energy, etc. And I think Paul is funding some of those companies!

I know it's futile to persuade a Canadian not to apologize reflexively anytime they get the chance to but your pro-collectivist explanation is totally fine with me :)

Here's my counter backstory, I grew up and live in a very collectivist society and I'm a very individualist minded person by nature, and it's like hell on earth for me, and to spare you the sob story and to get straight to the point, when I come across pieces like the ones authored by PG in defense of individualism and critical of collectivism, it always hits home and I experience a momentary feeling of relief knowing I am not alone in all of this, and when I see how the militant collectivist crowd is wreaking havoc in the West and making people's life a living hell, it really upsets me and I feel helpless reminding me of my own personal circumstances, and that's why I have strong reactions regarding this issue, and why I feel that something must be done to counter this destructive force and stop it in its tracks.

PS: I don't view every collectivist movement negatively, that would be extremely absurd and I believe that some currents of collectivism can be very beneficial for society and the entire world but I'm still a staunch defender of individualism and will ever be.

I think you're both a little wrong. The ideology isn't collectivist, it's pseudo-collectivist. For example, as a foreigner who finds ethnic "identity politics" rather natural, I'm completely befuddled by what passes for "identity politics" in America. It's not collectivism where everyone all the Muslim kids line up in their tribe and follow what the patriarchs and matriarchs say. It's a hyper-individualistic cosplay of collectivism. "Proud Muslim Americans" wear their identity on their sleeve and complain about "white people" and "Islamophobia," but their beliefs and causes align with those of their white progressive friends, not other Muslims.

This, incidentally, makes the movement seem much bigger than it is.

The immune response example is instructive, but supports Graham's position, not yours. Immune responses often are destructive--but we've evolved to have them anyway because the consequences are potentially far worse. There's some really important principles of our society--not just free speech, but meritocracy, color blindness, etc.--that are under attack right now by a novel ideology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Successor_ideology.

It's not an ideology that's widely embraced, but has outsize influence in key institutions (kind of like Scientology). And it manipulatively invokes large groups of faceless minorities to paper over the fact that it's being advanced by a small, affluent, relatively homogenous minority: https://hiddentribes.us/profiles/

I'd never heard of this "Successor Ideology" before today. Turns out it's a straw man crafted by its originator, Wesley Yang, for the sake of tearing down: he opposes it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Yang

> Yang coined the term "successor ideology" in 2019 to describe an emerging ideology among left-wing movements in the United States centered around identity politics. Yang opposes this ideology and believes it may replace traditional liberal values.

Never mind "outsize influence", it has no influence at all — nobody follows "Successor Ideology", not even the person who made it up.

It’s like “trickle down economics.” It’s a phrase coined by its opponents to describe a real ideological trend. Obviously the people advancing that collection of ideas and policies don’t embrace the label and would describe their views differently. That doesn’t mean the label doesn’t describe a real thing. See also: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/please-just-fucking-tel... (“Please Just Fucking Tell Me What Term I Am Allowed to Use for the Sweeping Social and Political Changes You Demand”)

Like there are lots of people demanding to end the SAT because it’s racist against “Latinx.” What do we call those people?

"Wrong"?

I think, in your second paragraph, you kind of contradicted yourself. If "weaponized victimization and othering" are the problem, well, victimization doesn't weaponize itself. Somebody is doing those things. So now we're at "a group of people are causing these problems".

That means that, yes, we kind of do arrive at an us-vs-them mentality - even you do, if you think a step or two further.

Now, you could be pleading for the Christian "love the sinner, hate the sin" idea - people are doing these things, but we need to not "other" the people. And that may be a real point - if "othering" is what they are doing, and we think it's wrong, then we need to be careful not to "other" them. At the same time, while we try to figure out how to help them not destroy society, we still need to keep them from destroying society.

Honestly it reads a lot like something one would write who had lousy childhood/schooling experiences. I say that because I had one, and recognize a lot of the points as things I idly fantasize about in a "revenge of the nerds" rubric.

He's a thinker.

Just not a deep one.

He addresses topics just enough to scratch the itch he wants to scratch without putting any meaningful thought into them, which is why his essays are so easy to discard. Sure, they work for like-minded people who want to drink from the tap of the successful businessman stereotype, but they're usually not useful whenever he strays from talking about business.

It’s shallow with a purpose; the evasive on details is necessary to use the vague platitudes as a vehicle for validating right-wing propaganda points without making it clear that that is what he is doing.

PG is capable of at least somewhat greater depth, and has displayed it on occasion, but it suits his purpose to avoid that here.

I don't see it as anything other than a useful label in his writing personally. If you want to talk about something, you need a name for it, and I don't think there is one more apt yet bland one can ascribe to a group of people who take an arbitrary set of conventions to an agressive extreme.

I don't think it's immutable for a given person, but I think it is a sad fact of life that a lot of people are simply unable to have these kinds of discussions - even if they're motivated, which is even more rare.

COVID has changed a lot because it brought into public debate how to evaluate deeply held beliefs about predicting the future. The discussion is high-strung because it covers a life-or-death topic, and it’s so diverse (e.g. science vs region vs conspiracy vs liberty etc) that it forced the quantization of opinions. Once you swap an opinion for a symbol, game theory takes over the conversation.

What could help solve this? Real reconciliation of the different perspectives. There’s a common overlap: we all want to live, and we all have nonzero ignorance.

The tragedy is that the inordinately rich like paulg continue to divide with these self-serving essays instead of helping other to grapple with the K-shaped recovery we’re in now. The place to innovate now is not in blue-sky futurism but to innovate the recovery of those who COVID hit the hardest.

Paul posted this because people are getting fired from their jobs now (directly or indirectly).

See his words: "Nowadays, in civilized countries, heretics only get fired in the metaphorical sense, by losing their jobs. ... You could have spent the last ten years saving children's lives, but if you express certain opinions, you're automatically fired."

People on the political right have moderate discussions and they are banded aggressively. Here are two examples:

* James Woods had 137,000 subscribers removed in two days, by twitter admins

* Ron Pauls' entire YouTube channel was censored and removed.

This is the "Heretic hunting" point Paul Graham is making.

The political left using this "heretic" tactic is relatively new, and if it's effective it's because the political right honed it for decades against women, LGBT, foreigners, non-Christians, and any other group they didn't want buying property next to them.

You're omitting the detail that Ron Pauls' channel was removed by error and reinstated, and James Woods' acct is ok too.

> I think Paul may inadvertently be adding to the actual biggest problem in civilized discourse these days — weaponized victimization and othering.

Would you mind giving me quotes from the post to back up these assertions?

Simply categorizing human beings as conventional vs unconventional and passive vs aggressive, and then establishing an enemy in one quadrant is an example. Unconventional people are the victims, aggressively conventional people are the others.

I think the thing Paul really has a problem with is social brigading and mobs attacking people unfairly. Which is fine; but you can make that argument without painting yourself or people like you as a victim. Otherwise you’re just using the same tactic mobs use.

We’re all guilty of this to different degrees because social media algorithms are finely-tuned to propagate outrage and we’re being conditioned to respond to and generate said outrage. I think the way out of the loop is to recognize this pattern and try to break it.

How would you explain an assailant-victim relationship without describing both the assailant and the victim though?

So no quotes

> aggressively conventional minded

An aside:

One thing I love about VCs is the perfectly fitting, memorable terms they coin. This is a perfect example, I can't stop laughing.

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