For those complaining about the "quality" of this piece - that somehow it degrades his past essays - its a response like others here: http://paulgraham.com/kedrosky.html Where even in past he usually explains when he thinks he is being misunderstood.

For that matter, I think this was more of a response too: http://paulgraham.com/speak.html (written when suddenly the whole world seemed to be worried about pg saying um a lot). I think this article did calm those people a bit.