[andrewcooke]

it's very good writing, by an award winning writer, in one of the top lit magazines.

but i don't expect people on google buses, or hn, to know that, even less recognise it.

[edit: and... the entire post has been flagged off the front page (59 points, 2 hours ago, page 2). because anything critical is clearly irrelevant, as well as poorly written, and clearly not understanding what it's really like. la la la. what a pile of shit this place is at times.]

[tomkarlo]

Good writing isn't the same as good journalism. If you have one without the other, it has very different implications for the impact of a piece.

[taligent]

The large, bold heading "Diary" would imply this was an opinion piece. No ?

[tomkarlo]

Fair enough, although this comment thread was about its quality as journalism. Ultimately, this is a site about news "hence 'hacker news'", so you have to expect that a piece posted will be judged on its factual quality, and by proxy, its journalism, rather than the literary quality of its writing.

[scarmig]

For the record, plenty of people at Google read magazines like LRB or NYRB. Significantly more than the general population, probably even the population of people with undergraduate or graduate degrees.

Some people here being, charitably, more focused on the tech side of the brain than other parts doesn't change that, though it can give misleading impressions.

[mturmon]

I don't disagree with you that highly-educated groups, like at Google, probably read LRB, NYRB, n+1, and other magazines with cultural influence at a much higher rate than the population at large, and more than non-techies might suspect.

But, there is certainly touchiness on hn when authors with, say, a "humanist" perspective critique the tech sphere.

There's a tendency to say these writers are not being sufficiently rational, that they are using incorrect terminology, and other things that seem like evasions on the part of much of the hn readership.

Another approach is to assume that the writer has a point, and to try to appreciate the piece for what insight it can provide. Or as a wise man said, "Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost."