[gist]

My thought is that Paul should view his essays at least as seriously as someone who is writing an important college application essay given who the audience is (college admissions in that case; HN readers in this case among others). Or maybe someone writing an opinion piece for a newspaper that is widely read and taken as significant.

Imagine as an extreme (and not what PG is doing) if someone writing an 'essay' were to express objectionable stereotypes about people (women, minorities, certain women). [1] The point is if you have a following I think you need to take what you write (essay or not) more seriously. After all PG for whatever reason with his essays typically has several people review before posting which appears to not be consistent in a small way with the fact that an essay (by what you are saying) is about non-expertise. If that is the case why do you need others expertise to vet it before posting?

[1] If it's someone's point of view why does it bother people so much when it's expressed if they are stating it as their impression and not fact?

[dang]

If anyone is taking pg's essays as what they they ought to think rather than as what he happens to think, that's their problem, not pg's. I don't think anybody is taking them that way, though; people are just conjuring this up for some strange reason. Some even suggested that HN has this response!

Actually, I think I know the reason. pg writes to maximize brevity and directness. He's always interested in the shortest logical path from A to B. When language is optimized that way, it has a force that can sound like an implicit claim to authority. So his essays land that way with some readers, and then they react with a sort of protest: who is this guy and why does he get to act like an authority? But he isn't—what he's doing is stripping out everything extraneous, and that includes the soft touches that normally soothe the reader—"this is what I think", "your mileage may vary", that kind of thing. He's not stripping them out because he wants to provoke or thinks he's an expert or anything like that. Rather, it's a matter of taste. He likes to make things minimal. The same impulse is behind Bel, or the design of HN's front page. This is someone who might spend weeks getting rid of a single line of code if he was convinced the program could be shorter.

Before I met pg I thought it was impossible for someone to talk the way that he writes. But he does. He's always going for the shortest way to put things. What's clearer in spoken language than in writing is why he does this. It's for pleasure. In person it's infectious, because he clearly does it for its own sake and for fun. It's also essentially the thought process of an essayist: someone on the hunt for just the turn of phrase that makes a point in just the right way, and then moves on.

> If that is the case why do you need others expertise to vet it before posting?

They might think of something you missed or find parts that are unclear. But I don't think he's looking for experts so much as good readers.

[gist]

Actually very good reply to my reply. But I think there is another reason PG is this way. He has a math and a programmers brain. As such he would be more likely not to wrap his writing in superfluous wording and he would be more direct in how he makes his point. I am sure many of us have ran into people like this (I know that I have).

> He's always interested in the shortest logical path from A to B. When language is optimized that way, it has a force that can sound like an implicit claim to authority.

Agree which is why someone should take that into account when they write (they don't have to of course they (and PG) can do what they want that makes them happy).

I make money writing. And I do really mean 'make money writing'. I am not an author or a professional writer (what people think that means) but I earn a really good living and I do so by writing. And for the purpose of my comment here it's not important what it is that I do to earn that money. But it's considerable let's say. One thing that I do is always take into account what tone or mood I am trying to achieve to get what it is I want when I write. I don't obviously put the same effort into HN comments as I would when I am writing to make money or if I was writing something that many people would read of any importance (that I might be broadly judged on). So I guess this is my judgement on what PG has written and the way he writes. Fwiw I was not an english major, didn't study philosophy or the classics, didn't do particularly well in English class, didn't know even what you first said about essays either. My point is to me (in order to earn a living) the audience is super important.

[juped]

Anyone can be direct. Fewer can be direct while having a lot of money. I'd bet the latter is on more people's minds.

[dang]

That's probably a huge and mostly hidden factor. Another is the ambivalent reactions people have to influential personalities, which pg has been in this community.