[graeme]

This then that makes the argument very hard to respond to.

"No I didn't mean this [virtuous example]. I meant the vast majority of [unnamed nefarious actors] which I don't need to elaborate about as their existence is obvious."

Once you say it's just hyperbole and you don't mean it literally, then the only way to prove it is a statistical argument.

"The overwhelmingly share of company founders and companies are bad and don't earn their money." is a big claim that requires more than vibes.

[thomassmith65]

Would anyone take literally the claim that it is impossible to attain a billion dollars without 'doing something bad' or 'cheating'? Someone with $100 billion, who wanted to disprove it, could do so in five minutes, by cutting a $1 billion bonus check to his nanny.

[graeme]

Sure but then what is the point of such a statement other than vibes? You're withdrawing from all argument of the underlying claim.

[thomassmith65]

I notice your reply is not so far removed from original point:

  What counts as 'doing something bad' and 'cheating' clearly is subjective. I suspect Graham's opinion on the behaviour of a Zuckerberg or a Musk would be a little more flattering than mine.

Paul Graham feels the sorts of decisions one must make to wind up with a billion dollars are morally unobjectionable - but that's a 'vibes' issue, not an empirical matter. This is because any two people can judge the morality of business and product decisions differently.

I see large companies selling things they ought not sell (eg: Meta glasses, Tesla FSD) and making malevolent decisions (eg: Google deprioritising search content, Amazon hijacking product searches). Those things probably bother Graham too, but I reckon I consider them more evil than he, since I have less reverence for the 'invisible hand of the market'

[eltrain]

A classic Motte-and-bailey argument

[thomassmith65]

It Alice tells Bob "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse", Bob challenges her actually to eat one, and Alice says she wasn't being literal, a reasonable person would not consider Alice to have made a motte-and-bailey argument.

Whether my comments constitute a motte-and-bailey depends on whether a reasonable person would assume the "impossible to earn a billion dollars" statement to be hyperbole.