[billy_beef]

I have to disagree here. The article is criticizing his work, his history of participation in a field, and his current commentary on politics. Yes, it discusses him as a subject, but not as a piece of gossip and strung-together ad hominem's. It is definitely critical of him, but mostly in his capacity as a commentor and his history of being incorrect. It's not second-rate tabloid stuff because of what dimension of him it's mostly considering.

[DoreenMichele]

Racism, sexism, personal attacks in intellectual circles -- such things all tend to work more or less the same way. Attack them in a way that has plausible deniability and is socially acceptable for some reason.

But if you look at the overall pattern of behavior, the real point is to attack or exclude a particular person or particular group of people.

Among other things I've had a college class in Social Psychology. I object to a gossipy piece of garbage getting so many upvotes on HN while bringing down the quality of discussion here.

If you find something meaty in his analysis of pg's work, then why don't you comment on that instead of arguing with me?

If my comments here are so off the mark, why do they have so much attention? This piece is failing to generate meaty discussion. It's mostly generating hot takes about Paul Graham and not commentary on the criticism of his work because the framing of the piece doesn't really fit with the idea that it's about criticizing his work.

If it were really about criticizing his work, what we should see here is debate about whether or not that criticism holds water. And I'm not really seeing that.

[lkrubner]

Your comments are drawing my attention because you’ve previously written a great deal on Hacker News that I agreed with and so I’m surprised that you have such a negative view of such an excellent essay.

[DoreenMichele]

It's not the essay I dislike. It's the level of conversation here on HN. It's mostly drama and my personal opinion is that the reason for that is primarily because of the style of the writing.

I've proposed a remedy: That someone -- anyone -- more knowledgeable than me about programming should leave a top level comment engaging with the actual meat of the article. There's no reason it can't be you.

Engaging further with my comments is not a remedy for what I feel the issue is. And engaging with my comments specifically because they are mine is just adding to the problem.

I commented on the matter because I've studied social phenomenon and I see a negative social pattern here and because I value HN for its high quality discussion. This article is mostly failing to foster good quality discussion. The primary focus has been on Paul Graham and not on something more substantive, like his writing, his ideas or his work.

After I left my remarks, people began leaving remarks that deny that this is an ad hominem attack on Paul Graham. That's problematic because it means the focus remains on Paul Graham. In discussing whether or not it is an ad hominem, the focus remains on pg, not on something more substantive.

It's a little like when I used to argue with someone and say "All you do is talk about you and I am not even a part of this discussion" and the reply was "I'm sorry. I'm a dirt bag. I'm a terrible person. I'm a lousy excuse for a human being." Like, I wasn't asking the person to attack themselves. I was asking them to include me in the discussion. Going from "Me. Me. Me." to "Negative things about me, me, me." doesn't fundamentally change the fact the topic is still "me."

It really shouldn't matter to you too much that it's me saying this -- unless it helps you figure out what my point really is. If you look at my comments and think to yourself "She has studied social phenomenon a lot more than she has studied programming and her observation is about quality of discussion here and I can see that" -- cool. Other than using what you know about me to help you understand my point, it shouldn't matter that I'm the author of the comment.

If you think that the substance of the article should be discussed, then go discuss it. If you think it's basically an ad hominem on Paul Graham, the best thing to do is ignore it.

I'm trying to step away from this discussion. Me being here is only deepening the issue that I dislike. It's not remedying it.