Haters (2020)
Preface: I like Paul Graham’s work generally, not amazing but good (in particular his Lisp books). He has a gift of writing in an inspirational style, which I believe many enjoyed when reading his essays. He and his colleagues had a brilliant idea and execution when it came to ycombinator, and anybody who’s successful has done a lot more work behind the scenes that we would be aware of (in true HN fashion, we would say we could code up Viaweb in a day and it was right time, right place; but it’s hardly that simple and a huge disservice to their intelligence and hard work).<p>That is to say, I’m not a <i>hater</i> by any regards.<p>But there is little of substance in this article. It’s not an exaggeration that the whole article could be summarized by one line: “Haters, like fanboys, are likely to be obsessive and should be ignored”. And given it’s been reviewed by the following, it seems like they all are so detached from reality that they cannot objectively provide meaningful feedback to the article.<p>&gt; Thanks to Austen Allred, Trevor Blackwell, Patrick Collison, Christine Ford, Daniel Gackle, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, Elon Musk, Harj Taggar, and Peter Thiel for reading drafts of this.<p>In my own analysis side, perhaps the article, being devoid of meaningful content, is more telling of the author and his peers - the use of third person, the constant mentions of fame and celebrity status and perhaps the preoccupation with haters (why else write an article) may be an indication that they are becoming caught in their own celebrity worship.<p>It seems a celebrity worship culture continues to accelerate within mainstream conscious (Elon Musk’s tweets moving market prices for example), perhaps amplified by the scale offered by technology and the explosion of digital communication in the last 20-30 years.<p>There will always be inequality, but I believe from basic scientific principles, the differences between so called “visionaries” and “leaders” is not that much vs the broader population and that more equality, more “biodiversity” or spreading of opportunities for intellectual and practical contributions vs. a top down “here’s what’s good for you” approach is undeniably good sense and one we should actively aim for. I.e. less attention &#x2F; admiration of those at the top and more mutual respect and community building. Fight for more decentralization and peer to peer solutions - the best voice is everybody’s voice!