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Comment by Karellen | Hacker News Reader

That's a review? There's almost no criticism, or even considered discussion, of the book at all. He's just copied and pasted sections that he thinks are important or interesting, and called it a day.

Not that there's anything wrong with quoting sections of a work that you think are worthy of spreading to a wider audience (assuming proper attribution), but IMNSHO it's a bit disingenuous to call QFTing a "review".

(FWIW, I thought the book was both excellent and terrifying, and that you should read it. That's also not a review, just an opinion. :-p )

Edit: downvotes? Am I really being unfair? Can you explain what it is you think the author of the review has added here?

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Greenspun did a good job of characterizing (even summarizing) the information that you can find in the book. I learned new things from reading his review. Since I didn't read the book, this was more valuable to me than a "discussion".

Ah, OK. Thanks for that. But in that case, you might find the book's Wikipedia article even more valuable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma

How do you know he did a good job if you didn't read the book?

You know better than to bring logic to HN. Someone is having a rant; don't cloud the issue with facts.

Is a review the same as a critique? I'm not so sure, but I do kind of agree with you, it did feel a little thin on the ground. That said, I'm now going to read this book, so it "reviewed" it enough to help me the reader make a decision.

I don't think the purpose was really to review it. I think he was using this as an opportunity to publicize the book and the issues it raises. People generally do that when they agree with the contents.

No, he writes what he thinks; as a longtime reader of PG's blog I've not noticed any agenda. He's also been reading Piketty's Capital and tearing P's thesis to bits.

I very much doubt anyone can tear Piketty to bits. At all.

Not without a book of comparable size and research time invested.

Try reading his blog then. He's not rebutting it word for word, of course, but he makes it fairly obvious there are some rather large and often fundamental holes in Piketty's arguments:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2014/06/17/book-review-pi...

No I am good thanks. I will just discount it. I don't consider a blog post a suitable way to analyse the magnum opus of an economist of the stature of Piketty.

EDIT : Curiousity got the better of me. I read the review of Capital.

I stopped at this line -

"Here are some ideas, some taken from my 2009 economic recovery plan for the U.S."

The author is a supremely talented electrical engineer. Stick to that instead of whining "No one listened to my economics ideas."

Last time I checked, economists don't post blogs claiming no one is listening to their ideas about microprocessors or front end development.

As an analysis it's a little all over the place.

The first half says "this is why Piketty is (probably) wrong about there being a problem" and the second half saying "and he's wrong about what we should do about it, here's what we should do instead".

Surely if there is no problem, the there is nothing which needs to be done about it?

His tl;dr of it is "Piketty is jealous".

The best tl;dr I have ever read. You are totally accurate. That is exactly what Greenspun is claiming. :-)

As comment goes that sounds suspiciously like an ad-hominem attack rather than an actual criticism of the substance of the argument.

What argument? WTF are you talking about? Who is arguing?

Piketty's argument - the one he puts forward over 700 pages in the book - as distinct from Piketty himself.

Saying Piketty is jealous may or may not be true, but it says nothing about whether what he says in his book is correct or not (and if not in what way he is incorrect).

If someone disagrees with what he says then saying things about Piketty himself is really rather by-the-by as it's his analysis that needs to be critiqued. He may be an idiot speaking truth or a genius speaking nonsense, but the truth or nonsense (rather than the idiot or genius) is the significant matter.

EDIT: I've not read either Piketty (life is too short - at least mine is) or Greenspun's analysis of it (would be rather pointless as I've not read what he's talking about).

I'm only saying that if something can be genuinely summarised as "Piketty is jealous" then that sounds like an attack on the author rather than the work.

Greenspun def attacks Piketty as an individual and has done numerous times it appears.

RSJW is right on the money with his TL;DR

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