You can see my comment here on his pseud-osity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6988150 to save repeating myself.

You don't get insights into these by getting a degree from some university on the subject. You get insights into those things by studying them, practical experience, and more importantly thinking.

If anything, the most clueless people in those areas I know are tenured professors.

And REAL thinkers, the kind that leave a mark in history, from Socrates to Sartre and from Kierkegaard to Popper and Wittgenstein to leave it to philosophy, are full of scorn for academia in general and professors in particular, and even if they sometimes happen to be working as such themselves, they are greatly atypical to their "churn papers" colleagues.

Not that pg is on that level, but critisizing him because "none of his achievements as an entrepreneur give him insights into philosophy, political economy or anything else he writes on" is bullshit.

Your a priori abstract attack that he lacks insights has no meat at all behind it. You could just as well have said that "he has tons of insight into what he writes" -- and it would be exactly the same.

If you want to provide something worthwhile, do a SPECIFIC critique of what he wrote somewhere, and tell us what is wrong with it by providing counter-arguments and rebuttals.

Not about the subjects they research. That is the purpose of research.

> are full of scorn for academia in general

All of those people are academics par execellance. I'm not talking about business-ified institutional academica. I'm talking about spending a long time on a topic, researching it and thinking deeply, clearly on it before you offer your opinion as though it were valuable.

> do a SPECIFIC critique of what he wrote somewhere

I have on one of his essays, but I took it seriously to write that critique.

The audience I would be targeting in a critique of the man (via a critique of his under-informed rants) are those who equate money with success and "money-making" with intelligence. I value my time too much to spend the amount required undoing that confusion.

All of those people are academics par execellance. I'm not talking about business-ified institutional academica. I'm talking about spending a long time on a topic, researching it and thinking deeply, clearly on it before you offer your opinion as though it were valuable.

pg spent weeks on each of his early essays. He spent a solid month writing What You Can't Say. He spent at least a couple days writing this one. They aren't opinion pieces.

Stephenie Meyer spent years writing the Twilight books. Time spent on a work is in no way indicative on the quality of that work.

Reaction from literary critics? Reaction from the target audience? Financial success?

It seems to me that by two of those standards Stephenie Meyer knocked the ball out of the park. It is not clear to me why we should care about the other standard of quality.

Personally, I agree with some of his essays, but on some others he's way off the mark. For instance, his writings on anything Hollywood or copyright-related betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what artists sell. Yet those essays were extremely popular simply because they confirmed people's biases (hence "pop philosophy"). However, if you check the so-called "blogosphere", you can find many others who have posted well-reasoned criticisms of those (and other) essays.

>>Not about the subjects they research. That is the purpose of research.

They are cluless _especially_ about the subjects they research.

Most philosophy, political economy etc academics are beyond mediocre -- not only in advancing their field, but even in understanding the greats who contributed to it and rightfully presenting their knowledge.

Most real development comes from outsiders to this system -- people incombatible with academic life, even if they happen to work as professors (like Adorno or Wittgenstein did for example). And that was true already in the '40s and '50s, were academic discourse and research freedom in those fields was extremelly better compared to (market driven, low quality, paper churn) today's reality.

>The audience I would be targeting in a critique of the man (via a critique of his under-informed rants) are those who equate money with success and "money-making" with intelligence.

Oh, those poor fools. Because there are other, proven, definitions of success that everybody should ascribe to, right?

>I value my time too much to spend the amount required undoing that confusion

Yep, I expected this part.

The purpose of research is to farm grant money and citations. Any actual learning that happens during the process is beside the point.

Why would you do that?

And furthermore, how can you possibly feel you survive your own critique of "pseudo-intellectuals"? This is you [0] spouting amateur social science:

> Umm... how about in a capitalist society money is the vehicle of positive freedom... to increase ones ability to do something on has to have more money. Therefore under capitalism there is always a fundamental tie between money and power.

Which, by the way, I have no problem with. A well-regarded logical fallacy is "appeal to authority", the contrapositive of which implies that we should judge arguments on their merit regardless of where they come from. So if people find some writing illuminating, attack the logic, not the writer, and not the readers.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6988150

> Why would you do that?

I'm responding to the questions raised in the most convenient way. I'm not going to give a serious critique of the many essays which require it to make a small point about his blase approach to serious academic topics. Far too much effort to spend on a crowd whose faith in pg's intellectual status is based on his money-making ability.

Pics or it didn't happen.

>I didnt because HN comment boxes are not vehicles of long essays. (...) Far too much effort to spend on a crowd whose faith in pg's intellectual status is based on his money-making ability.

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

So, it isn't backtracking if you pre-emptively declare that you are backtracking. Right.

>It isnt "backtracking" to criticize a person for one thing while you are doing another. Jon Stewart criticizes news programs whilst his program isnt a very good news program. Fortunately he's in the comedy business.

Unfortunately the similarity doesn't hold, because Jon Stewart doesn't also say "I can do a much better news program than them", whereas you did said that you could write a respectable "5k word essay on this very small point" (and then didn't).

>Equally, my off-hand comment isnt a very good essay but fortunately I didnt post it to an Essays section of a website and then go and read it to a conference audience

As if the section of website where something is published matters one iota. It's not like having an essays section necessitates that you only put George Steiner quality material in it. Heck, Zed Shaw has an essays section on his website.

Also, you keep mentioning this conference audience a lot -- Sounds like sour grapes to me.

As if Defcon is some elite philosophical conference, and Paul Graham failed to keep to the level of previous speakers, like Plato or Heidegger.

You have to put what im saying in the context of how his work is read (as some kind of obviously briliant religious text).

It isnt "backtracking" to criticize a person for one thing while you are doing another. Jon Stewart criticizes news programs whilst his program isnt a very good news program. Fortunately he's in the comedy business.

Equally, my off-hand comment isnt a very good essay but fortunately I didnt post it to an Essays section of a website and then go and read it to a conference audience.

Absolutely not the case; here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6987798, the relevant comment that sparked this discussion), you are simply taking the conversation into new territory and insulting people.

> But jesus,

>> pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see.

>What's with the almost cult-like reverence for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur?

They're childish research-lite versions of a 50s-style classical liberalism. It is much the same as Ayn Rand another amateur philosopher who knew very little on the topics she was writing about.

I dislike the "talking head" approach to serious topics. I dont think "giving your opinion" excuses a lack of serious research. Half-baked, under-informed opinion isnt truth or even the attempt to reach it; regardless of whether it is phrased with feigned objectivity. I wouldnt be too annoyed if he wasnt glorified by other $-eye'd idiots.

pg writes candidly (but respectfully) from the perspective of someone who has been very successful in some areas, and has opinions on other areas. His world view shines through clearly and he doesn't seem to claim authority (or not too often, anyways) on the issues. In fact, I started enjoying his articles long before I was even aware of HN or of who he was. He just seemed like a bright dude with interesting articles to me.

I find everything he writes fascinating, and the closer to his expertise, the more 'value' I ascribe to his writing. But he isn't, nor does he seem to want to be, some kind of guru on all matters of life. He seems pretty honest.

The fact that he has a relatively small group of starry-eyed followers exhibiting cult-like behavior is not really his fault, but just a natural consequence of his fame/success. I don't think it warrants mjburgess' response.

But maybe I'm missing something or underestimating the degree of cult-like following going on?

I mean if he wrote an article about race and Cornell West wrote a critique, you'd have hundreds of people coming to defend pg on the back of the cultish Bay Area mentality.

The tech world is meritocratic, politically concentrating on wealth disparity over wealth creation is nonsense, Silicon Valley's problems are minor look elsewhere, etc. etc.

It's a very Panglossian outlook meant to make you feel good about yourself, generally.

I don't know if PG is the right about everything he says or even most of what he says but he has inspired a lot of people to do things (largely for the good of society). A philosopher could hope for little more I suspect (not even suggesting PG would self-ascribe that term but I would ascribe it to him).

Similar to your unsubstantiated comment about Ayn Rand?

This is why Nozick and others are taught in political philosophy and not ayn rand. You can listen to a somewhat detailed introductory treatment by people well-read in philosophy here: http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2013/07/01/ep78-ayn-ran....

One of her greatest sins is her perpetually trashing people like Kant whilst having no idea what theyve said - because she makes many of the very same points. pg does this too.

So I don't see the force of your critique: pg and you can both be right. Wealthy people can have more ability to do things even if there are systems in place to prevent them from corrupting particular processes that are considered worthy of such protection.

To be honest I found your comment shallow and mean spirited. You didn't present a true criticism of the article. You simply alleged that it was lame.

Ironically, whilst you may be correct that being an entrepreneur will not give a person insights into philosophy, he happens to have a degree in philosophy so perhaps that gives him some insight. More specifically, he has a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Cornell University.

As for his achievements not giving him insight into 'anything else he writes on' that appears to me to be patently silly. A good deal of what he writes on is about entrepreneurship.

All in your criticism smacks to me of small minded jealousy. It's a familiar pattern - small petty people trying to boost their flagging self esteem by trying to tear down those who have achieved.

> if you have any serious reading on the last two hundred years of economic, political and sociological critiques of capitalism, wealth and power

It seems like you're calling Paul Graham a pseudo-intellectual not because he's posturing, but because you disagree with him. You don't address any of the actual claims in the article, but you do call them "silly".

Here's the problem with your response to that one quote you took out of context:

>"The problem here is not wealth, but corruption. So why not go after corruption? We don't need to prevent people from being rich if we can prevent wealth from translating into power."

>Umm... how about in a capitalist society money is the vehicle of positive freedom... to increase ones ability to do something on has to have more money. Therefore under capitalism there is always a fundamental tie between money and power.

It's a matter of degree. Many countries which rank low on various measures of corruption are nonetheless capitalist (New Zealand, Sweden, etc). Many countries which are socialist nonetheless suffer nepotism of the form Graham described in his previous example (Argentina, Zimbabwe, etc). Sure, it's a "small off-hand point", but it's the only part of your comment which isn't simply an insult without any backing.

>One's ability to make money - to have one's skills suit the market; or to be lucky - has nothing to do with the value of your opinions or how frequently/prominently they should be offered to the rest of us.

This is not related to the essay you had claimed to respond to. It apparently represents drawback of inequality, but it is left up to the reader to magically grasp your intuition that this drawback exceeds the benefits Paul Graham claims may be derived by rewarding those who are successful in business endeavors.

One way to phrase this comment in a mature, reasonable way would be the following:

"I think that the lacuna between the abilities of rich and poor to communicate to a large audience makes the level of inequality Graham advocates in society unacceptable."

I might respond as follows: since people can only consume a finite amount of information, there will always be a situation where only a tiny minority have the ability to broadcast their views effectively. It is not clear to anyone how to identify in an objective manner who is most deserving of a wide audience, and so no society which has attempted to restrict this has ever succeeded in improving the quality of media reporting (but please provide examples!). In fact, essentially all societies which replace "communication by the rich" with "communication by the community-endowed-communicators" have even less reliable media than capitalist countries, consider e.g. Pravda. Thus your claim about inequality does not really provide much basis for an alternative, nor is it a problem specific to monetary inequality per se.

>None of his achievements as an entrepreneur give him insights into philosophy, political economy or anything else he writes on.

Actually, a great deal of the essay Inequality and Risk focuses on the motivations of entrepreneurs, which, considering that he has worked with dozens of them, one would expect him to be in a uniquely important position to address. He usually does a pretty good job sticking to what he does know in this and many other essays.

I downvoted you. In this and your subsequent comments you show little willingness to contribute to the discussion in any but a superficial way, and you provide little substantial argument or evidence to back up your repeated insults. Since you have been commenting on this thread (we can see your timestamps) for over an hour, one would expect it to be worth your time to write a comment that is worth reading.

> It's a matter of degree.

It has nothing to do with "degree". "Corruption" has nothing to do with the mixture of wealth and power: in extremely capitalist societies the Law codifies wealth as power (eg. Citizens United) and in extremely Socialist societies it codifies the opposite. "Corruption" is perceived to be prevalent in societies (eg. italy) in which the public and private sphere are blended and the Law tracks this lack of clarity.

This is why its not sufficient to say "abuse of wealth" is corruption and we need to fix corruption. Because "corruption" is defined by and against the norms of particular societies and does not measure how much wealth distorts the political landscape. Americans do not see owning many news outlets as "corruption" for example, but it is arguably an abuse of wealth to gain political power and influence.

To treat his articles seriously and engage with them (I have written about his essay on Philosophy before) is to give them too much credit. If i wanted to contribute substantively to this debate I would go and find someone informed on the matter and reply to a essay they have written. To reply to pg is to educate him.

It is easy to dismiss PG's entire article -- from its foundation to conclusions about transparency -- if you've already concluded that democracy does not exist; that votes do not translate to power in any meaningful way; that capitalism has become the real foundation on which political power is merely a simulacrum. In doing this we've hit philosophical bedrock with the shovel of pessimism, and the discussion ceases to be productive.

The law only codifies what the people, through their votes, decide to codify within it. Capitalism does not a priori codify wealth as political power. The law merely aids the confluence of capitalism: money, a signifier -- to represent resources: the signified. Capitalism is contained within the theater of democratically held political power -- until it corrupts that containment. PG's mention of secrecy in a democracy is a useful one: secrecy subverts the power of the informed voter, it is a breach of that containment. It allows the potential for capital to slip out into the realm of realpolitik -- which is reserved for the people alone through their vote.

I think if you review what PG is saying about corruption through the prism of philosophy without the distortions of politics itself (and all its frustrations) you might not consider it unsubstantiated idealism or what have you.

Head: explode.

1: http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

It's pretty creepy calling people "intellectuals" if they babble on about "political economy".

I am disinclined to acquiesce to your assertion.

Listing accomplishments is okay. Listing accomplishments paired with fawning and idolatry is cultish.

Oh dear.

But anyway, given that I actually pointed out I disagree with him in some aspects, how is that fawning?

The guy's got a history that reads better than any of us here could probably hope for and he writes some amazingly well thought out and well reasoned essays.

I'm don't idolize him, I think he's more intelligent than me.

Which I say about very, very few people.

I think it's absurd to call him a pseudo-intellectual.

Going by your personality as demonstrated here it seems you idolize intellect so when you "think he's more intelligent than" you you're going to put him on a pedastle. This may seem natural to you, but it comes across as fawning and misplaced.

To dig into word choice here a bit. You attack someone for placing a value on "intellect", but criticize pg for being a "pseudo-intellectual". One interpretation of this is that you regard an "intellectual" to be something other than person who effectively used their intellect. Instead, you seem to regard an intellectual as a person who expresses conformity with the majority view of American academia (i.e., a modern liberal who isn't fond of markets.)

Your argument does not make any sense at all. It's a string of words ordered to seems to mean something rational, while it is in fact complete gibberish. Listing accomplishments paired with fawning and idolatry is ... exactly that. Reverence, not cultism.

> That he started the seed funding movement?

Um, people were doing seed rounds before YC. For like, decades. They weren't blogging about it, because there was no HTTP and HTML and always-on broadband, but crikey, how the hell do you think half of silicon valley started?

> That he was blogging about hacking startups before people even really realised you could hack startups?

I don't even know what this means. Every true startup is fundamentally a hack; it's probing at the boundary of the risk frontier. (I'm not talking about those VC dice rolls on the flavor du jour, manifest as a bunch of brogrammers with zero understanding of the time value of their own risk profile.)

For "hack startups <v.>" to make sense, one would have to infer a new usage of the word "startups", namely, to refer to the pattern-matching herd mentality of tech VC dealmaking and The Great Game of Deal Flow. Partially driven by real opportunity and partially driven by the wealthy exodus from equity markets in a post-HFT world, the modern funding bubble has led to a difficult climate for seed-stage companies, and Paul & YC are merely taking advantage of that impedance mismatch between them and traditional VCs. But to imply that there is some fundamental new structure that Paul discovered with YC is absurd. Incubators & incubation is a decades-old concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_incubator

> Before lean startup existed?

The term "lean startup" started being popularized in 2011 by Eric Ries. This is less than three years ago. There are innumerable things older than this. Actually, there are few truly noteworthy things in the technology space that cannot be described as existing "before lean startup".

> That he's written his own dialect of LISP?

I think many LISPers have done this. Isn't the whole point of LISP to write your own dialect of it for each problem?

Anyways, I just wanted to point out that your list is not very impressive at all, and the fact that they impress you doesn't really reflect well on you.

2. He has mentored a great many startups. Granted, he gets his pound of equity for cheap cheap but nonetheless this devotion so the cause of helping other geeks start companies is very admirable. Note that this is not the same thing as what the parent poster claimed: "hacking startups" and "starting the seed funding movement".

Also, building HackerNews is a very cool badge of honor but frankly it is nowhere near as sophisticated as Reddit (c'mon, "Unknown or Expired link" and hellbanning?). The fact that there is a driving function behind pageviews to it makes it a go-to place in the tech world, but the technology and codebase of HN itself is not anything terribly impressive.