[wellpast]

I haven't followed PG much either of late but it was recently brought to my attention by a coworker that he is now on the side of the 'bad guys'.

I'm all for substantial criticism and discussion, and am always desperately looking for it, but this (unequivocally political) essay unfortunately has all of the distinct hallmarks of the simplistic contemporary political discourse.

It takes a great many words to offer no substantial criticism of any of PG's recent thinking but rather hopes to indict his whole person (as an "unserious intellectual") based on a protracted and exhausting discussion of his naive ideas about programming from 20 years ago.

Who is a serious intellectual? What does that even mean? One thing I know is that serious thinking involves going through many ideas, many of them at risk of being naive or flawed, to sort out how to think about the world.

If an "unserious intellectual" is one that puts substantive ideas out into the aether, however flawed, however self-aggrandizing and, well, human, the messenger might be, then I'll take that over whatever you would call this essay. Everybody is wrong about everything, in part.

I propose a heuristic: if you're reading (or writing) anything whose thesis is "X is a bad person" (or "X is a ____", for that matter), perhaps you're participating in a religious game rather than a thinking game. There's no dialectic available after an essay like this, no opportunity for growth. There is just a like or upvote button -- with only the thought that if you press it you might just be on the right side of 'good'.

[lilactown]

I don't see any point in the article where the author says that PG is a _bad person_. Just that perhaps we shouldn't take him seriously as an intellectual, which is perfectly okay. You can be a good person and but "unserious" w.r.t. being an intellectual - I mostly am!

The only way this is can be seen as a personal attack is if PG (and his followers) identify with being a "serious intellectual." At that point it makes sense that it would seem like an attack to point out that no, he is not a "serious intellectual." Someone's character is only tarred if they insist that they are while being demonstrably not.

[wellpast]

I don’t understand the motivation for categorizing someone like PG as a un/serious intellectual.

Are we to ‘believe’ all ‘serious intellectuals’ and disregard the ‘unserious’ ones. There’s a clear attempt at this weird kind of classification here—at best it’s a weird kind of paternalized way of thinking about people with ideas; at worst, its a poor rhetoric for classifying PG into the category of ‘wrongthinker’.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

I think you're projecting a lot onto this. All the author of the OP is pointing out is that PG's political writing is often very naive, in a way that makes it clear he doesn't do even the most basic research on the topic before pontificating. This is something worth calling out because PG is offering himself as an authority on these subjects. He's also a skillful writer, so his plausible off the cuff impressions sound reasonably smart if you don't do any research yourself.

None of these observations on PG's blogging are particularly new, and I've had the same criticism of much of his startup specific advice as it essentially attributed success to nebulous concepts like "pattern matching skill."

[lilactown]

It feels like you're the one trying classify what the essay's saying in a weird way. Someone can critique a person without condemning them. One can say that PG's opinions shouldn't be taken seriously without saying that he's a 'wrongthinker.'

The internet gives a mouthpiece to many, many people; not everyone's opinion should be considered with equal weight. The essay's author uses the example, "EARTH HAS 4 CORNER SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY TIME CUBE." It is content that someone put a lot of time and effort into. How should I use the ideas and world view found in the timecube website to forge my own?

Probably not much. That's what I equivalate with "taking seriously," and a "serious public intellectual" is someone whose opinions I would probably consider when forming my own.

I don't think the author is tearing PG down to try and oust him from his material wealth; just saying, maybe what he writes in his essays shouldn't be taken as seriously as some of us thought.

[wellpast]

I'd be more inclined to take your point if the lede wasn't PG's current political essays, and the meat wasn't an extensive berate of his naive ideas about programming from 20 years ago.

Anyone that needs to be 'told' that EARTH HAS 4 CORNERS is silly thinking isn't going to hear you - so that's a terrible analogy right there.

When it comes to politics and essays like this that so indirectly (by 20 years! and subject matters miles apart!) try to make their case against a whole person's intellectual status - we are in weird territory.

[ashtonkem]

> Anyone that needs to be 'told' that EARTH HAS 4 CORNERS is silly thinking isn't going to hear you - so that's a terrible analogy right there.

Maybe you just didn't understand the analogy?

The point was that valuing being "aggressively independent-minded" above trying to be right can lead you to being a crank. One should value a process and rigor that leads you in the right direction, rather than valuing thinking different for the sake of thinking different.

[santoshalper]

In this case you can't really separate the political, not that you probably ever can. Also, here's a good question, why is it always conservatives that seem to want "politics" to be separated from "real life"? A question for another time.

Back to this article. PG's entire worldview centers around an assumption that wealthy, powerful people are inherently good and a benefit to society. I don't think he believes all of them are, but that generally they are. Except for the ones he doesn't like or got lucky.

This is, of course, obvious retroactive defensiveness of his own wealth and influence and once you know to look for it, you see it in many of his essays. In PG's worldview, successful founders (Himself included ofc) just have "it", some kind of natural talent and ability for creating wealth and value, and we (everyone else) should get out of their way and let them fix things. "It", by the way, can be anything from resourcefulness to intelligence, to determination, depending on what PG feels like writing about.

Whenever one of these great men runs into adversity and is unsuccessful (Arc for example), then it is clearly the fault of others who simply Do Not Get It. Perhaps they are stupid, perhaps he has simply failed to make them see. He isn't sure yet. But he is sure it is definitely not his fault. It cannot be, because he has "It".

In spite of having worked with hundreds or thousands of startups, there is no curiosity in his worldview. No desire to dig deep into the data and understand why some people succeed and others do not. No analysis on the opportunities some have that others do not (what a remarkable privilege it is to be able to take several years off to start a company in your 20s and have the resources to do it). There are so many interesting things he could try to learn from the data he has.

But there is no need. Great founders just have "It" and the world is definitely a better place for them. Nuff said.

[zemo]

> Who is a serious intellectual? What does that even mean?

a serious intellectual is one that poses falsifiable arguments that other intellectuals attempt, and fail, to falsify. PG does no such thing.

[ardy42]

> a serious intellectual is one that poses falsifiable arguments that other intellectuals attempt, and fail, to falsify. PG does no such thing.

Not really, a serious intellectual is one that does their research and does it competently, and from that foundation skillfully tries to articulate the truth. It's not a requirement that they do that within a Popper-approved framework.

[zemo]

a serious intellectual, when confronted with evidence that their arguments are wrong, does not simply label their critics as "haters" at every turn as PG does. The notion that someone engage criticism of their viewpoints in earnest is not restricted to the sciences and does not require specific formalities.