7 ms·

Persuade xor Discover

148 points by fallentimes 17y ago

shimon 17y ago
An exercise from the essay: ...And present union leaders probably would rise to the occasion if necessary. People tend to; I'm skeptical about the idea of "the greatest generation." [2] Footnote: [2] Oops, offended another constituency. Exercise for the reader: rephrase that thought to please the same people the first version would offend. Please submit your solutions below.
- sachinag 17y ago
  I'm skeptical that some groups of people are inherently braver, smarter, or harder working than others.
  - ewjordan 17y ago
    Too imprecise. The claim was that a segmentation by birth year would not be expected to correlate with bravery, smarts, or hard work, not that there's no segmentation that correlates with any of those qualities. Your proposed version is quite PC, to be sure, and I'm sure most humanities majors would defend it tooth and nail (cheap dig, I know :) ), but that in itself suggests to me that it's not what pg had in mind... For one, I'd expect a lot of people here, including pg, to believe that startup founders excel in all of those categories, even if it's simply selection bias that causes it.
    - sachinag 17y ago
      Actually, that's what makes it better. The argument against Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation isn't that those WWII heroes were so special; it's that no one generation could be. I could have been more precise with a modifying phrase such as "by accident of birth", but that was too unwieldy. The upvoted comments are specific to the GG argument, which are suboptimal, because they don't work as good writing unless you've seen PG's original. (Yeah, I'm a part-time writer/editor to pay the beer bills, and I can get defensive about my writing. Sue me. You're better at design/coding/picking up chicks than I.)
      - rms 17y ago
        Yours may be "good writing" but you completely changed the meaning of the statement. In my opinion, it's important to mention WW2 -- it's easy to make the statement not offensive to The Greatest Generation by completely removing the reference.
- deleted 17y ago
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- rms 17y ago
  And present union leaders probably would rise to the occasion if necessary. People tend to; all generations have the potential to be as great as the (Greatest Generation, GI Generation) when faced with sufficient external challenges.
  - deleted 17y ago
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- cperciva 17y ago
  '... I'm skeptical about the idea that the current generation is in any way inferior to past generations.'
- rms 17y ago
  A first step to this exercise is the expand the statement to make sure that your rephrasing is expressing all the original ideas. Idea #1: skepticism about the idea that one generation is inherently better or worse than another generation, specifically with regards to the WW2 generation Idea #2: People have a tendency to rise to meet external challenges as it becomes necessary. So if Generation Y had a challenge as great as WW2, we would rise to meet it, and if the present day union leaders had a challenge as great as the historical labor movement, they would rise to meet it. What else?
tsally 17y ago
I've never met Arrington, so whether he's nice or not doesn't really apply to me. I also don't own a startup, so there's no conflict there. My personal beef is that TechCrunch is a 'serious journalistic entity' when they get documents leaked to them, but the second people start trying to hold them to the standard of real journalism suddenly it a blog. It's difficult to pinpoint, but there's something two-faced about TechCrunch that I don't like. It's some combination of the sensationalism, exaggeration, and in some cases outright fabrication that really get to me. Since Arrington is the founder and figurehead of TechCrunch, my feelings about the blog naturally extend to him. The fact that page views and advertising revenue are the ultimate goals is fine. I applaud TechCrunch and Arrington for being successful. That doesn't mean I have to like their methods. Google was successful through technical merit. They never did anything flashy and eventually won because they were better. I'd like to see a startup blog succeed because of journalistic merit, instead of link-bait headlines and baseless speculation. TechCrunch has its gems to be sure, but there's too much garbage there for me. An example for your consideration: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/22/the-secret-strategies-behind-many-viral-videos http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/22/the-secret-strategies-b... For those too lazy to read, it's an article about making viral videos. Some choice advice: "Content is NOT King, Make it short, Make it shocking, Use fake headlines, Appeal to sex". It also goes on to tell you how to spam yourself to the Most Viewed page on Youtube. Arrington is the founder and an editor, so either himself or someone he appointed approved this article for publication. That's why I don't like Arrington. Perhaps the reason why people don't hate Paul like they hate Arrington is because Paul has produced things of value? Hell, having the PDF of On Lisp online available for free is more valuable than the aggregate of TechCrunch's entire publication history. EDIT: Hate is a strong word. If you hate anyone over the internet for any reason, that's pretty stupid. Dislike is what I was getting at.
- buugs 17y ago
  I get a very similar feeling with techcrunch, it is as if techcrunch is the tabloid of the upcoming web culture. Rather than real journalism it is often lacking in value but techcrunch thinks it can make up for that by being first without verifying sources or even thinking about the content they are producing.
dfranke 17y ago
I'm fairly sure it's the comment thread that I started (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=831461 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=831461) which set off this essay, so I guess I'm the archetype of "ordinarily calm people who go berserk when [Arrington's] name comes up in comment threads". But if your explanation of my psychology is correct, then why don't I go berserk at you as well? I've disagreed with a few of your essays, and by and large pointed out those disagreements in these comment threads, but I've never disagreed violently with any of them. My beef with Arrington is that he writes a gossip tabloid. Nothing more, nothing less.
- iamwil 17y ago
  The essay is less about arrington berserkers than it is about why pg writes the way he does, even though the discovery started off as a question about arrington berserkers.
  - babyshake 17y ago
    I agree. One of the common traits of a 'discovery' essay is you don't end up answering the question you asked. And I should mention that the reason I don't like Mike involves a very poor way he treated someone I know.
mrshoe 17y ago
I think a lot of hackers, myself included, have a hard time with persuasion. I've found that my first instinct is often to respond to a coworker's proposal with something like, "Here are 10 reasons why that's a horrible idea." That ends up being counter-productive, so I'm trying to learn how to suppress that instinct. Unfortunately, people's egos get hurt easily. You can't tell them what you think. You can't disagree with them blatantly. You have to slowly and carefully guide them from a place where they're 100% correct to a new place where they're still 100% correct even though they now think completely differently about the problem. It's not easy, and the hacker in me always considers it a huge waste of time and effort. Why can't people just accept that their first idea was wrong and move on? One method I've found effective is to just link to a few articles on the subject. The hope is that 1) the author of the articles is better at persuasion than I am, and 2) my peer's ego is more open to taking advice from an expert than from me. If you're Steve Jobs (or Mike Arrington or pg), then you are fortunate enough to have little need for this persuasive cruft in your life. If the rest of us want any chance of influencing people higher in the pecking order, however, we need to cradle their fragile egos.
- vinutheraj 17y ago
  "Learn how to tell them to go to hell in such a way they'll want to go." - heard in the 61st Emmy Awards, forgot who said it though !
  - thaumaturgy 17y ago
    I've done this, and it's fun. It was also a bit of business judo -- I recommended an exceptionally difficult client to one of my competitors. Gave 'em the phone number and everything.
alex_c 17y ago
I could write that way if I had to [...] It makes the same point [...] But written this way it seems like a defense of present-day union organizers rather than an attack on early ones. [...] If I believe everything I said in the second version, why didn't I write it that way? Why offend people needlessly? I disagree that it makes the same point. I'm sure it's intended to make the same point, but it doesn't - "written this way it seems like" == "it makes a different point", as far as I'm concerned. The code example isn't a perfect parallel: you can cut down code but still have it perform the exact same functionality - it either follows a certain execution path or it doesn't. That's not so easy to do with writing, since there is no "hypothetical perfectly unbiased reader". I don't think it's about offending people or not, it's about whether or not the reader walks away with the point you're actually trying to make. It should usually be possible to avoid both "offensive" and "fawning", and settle on "neutral". Of course, the problem is that "neutral" is often the most boring to read.
heuristix 17y ago
This is a strawman defence. PG is defending Arrington's curtness when you meet him in person and accepting the facts as presented (since I have no personal knowledge), the defense sounds reasonable. However, as many others mention below, most people dislike Arrington because Techcrunch has no journalistic scruples. The way they attacked Last.fm without even bothering to properly check into facts was yet another example of this.
- mrshoe 17y ago
  That's probably why the title of the essay is "Persuade xor Discover". pg started out thinking about Arrington, but, since he was writing to discover, he explored other ideas. Those ideas became the main point of the essay.
  - heuristix 17y ago
    The fact that the essay is mostly about the other ideas and titled as such does not discount the fact that the argument therein that most people dislike Arrington simply because he is curt is flawed. pg cites his own curt/succint approach to writing as a reason people dislike him and speculates that people dislike Arrington for the same reason, thus using Arrington as an example for part of his argument. While pg's central thesis in the essay stands, the Arrington example does not.
- deleted 17y ago
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  - heuristix 17y ago
    > Can an essay whose explicit purpose is not to persuade even make a straw man defense? Yes, it can (and does) make a flawed argument, which to most people would seem to be a defense of Arrington even if not intended as such. What you take away from an essay is obviously up to you.
- pg 17y ago
  When people dislike something intensely, the reason is not always what they claim, or even believe themselves. Try this thought experiment: if Arrington seemed like the nicest, most self-deprecating guy in the world-- like Father Mulcahy, for anyone who remembers MASH-- would people be so angry about his supposed lack of journalistic scruples?
paul 17y ago
This is a very interesting observation. It might be amusing if PG rewrote some of his more controversial essays in the second style, then made both versions available. Think of it as "skinning". Since the discovery version was written before the persuasive version, the persuasion needn't interfere with the discovery.
- pg 17y ago
  Intriguing idea, at least as a sort of practical joke. The problem is, it would change the ideas. For example, when I rewrote the paragraph about labor unions, I had to ditch the point about fallen civilizations overrating past eras; though I didn't make the link explicitly, the comparison to medieval history would be obvious to anyone who'd studied much of it. (People in medieval Europe felt inferior to the ancients long after it ceased to be true.) I didn't like tossing this point, but there was no convenient way to get it into the new version.
  - gregwebs 17y ago
    How about a program to re-write for persuasion once you have written for discovery. I bet it wouldn't be to hard to program one that could make an essay sound more timid and nice. That is a fairly simple process that I usually go through before communicating electronically. However, as you stated you would still have to add the extra content.
auston 17y ago
I've met Michael Arrington once & talked to him on several occasions. He was never short or rude, only seemingly, endlessly occupied. In fact, all of the staff @ TechCrunch seem to be nice, people of the few I've met.
ivankirigin 17y ago
Do you think there might be another category of writing, that fits in an essay: story telling? Some of the most compelling talks I've been to are stories winding through a narrative. Conciseness doesn't really fit it, and it is certainly designed for discovery more than persuasion. But it's a bit of both, characterized perhaps by discovery of the audience - though not necessarily of an intended idea, which would make it persuasion.
thunk 17y ago
There's another reason people "dislike" Arrington: they love participatory righteous indignation, and Arrington is willing to play sink to it. The ability to bear that, and even revel in it, is something many great people share, and makes me think TC isn't the biggest thing he'll accomplish.
dpapathanasiou 17y ago
Reading this reminded me of Ellis and Harper's concept of Core Irrational Beliefs, from their book "A Guide to Rational Living" (http://books.google.com/books?id=3JB9sLEV-SoC&dq=isbn:0879800429 http://books.google.com/books?id=3JB9sLEV-SoC&dq=isbn:08...): "Everyone I meet must treat me just the way I like; otherwise, they are completely worthless!" The key, of course, is to recognize when you're reacting to those kinds of mental triggers and change your attitude and manner accordingly (which is easier said than done).
dschobel 17y ago
Good piece but it neglects another category of writing to its own detriment, that on the opposite end of the spectrum of "pleasing everyone", namely, writing which exists for no other reason than to provoke a response (aka the Ann Coulter school of writing). My personal experience is that this sort of writing is far more common than the ingratiating kind when you get out of the school/professional environment.
trunnell 17y ago
I disagree on the orthogonality of being ingratiating and discovering things. Sometimes discovery must be done collaboratively. When this is the case, it can be more effective to mind one's social graces. Otherwise, productivity relies on other people ignoring negative social cues. I wouldn't take that bet.
- deleted 17y ago
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- billswift 17y ago
  Discovery like creation is the act of a single mind; the discovery or creation often needs to be fleshed out to be really useful, which is often done collaboratively. But without that initial lonely insight collaboration is worthless.
adrianwaj 17y ago
I like Michael Arrington because he's pro-Israel and sees the evil in Holocaust deniers, and calls them out on it. That takes balls and brains, especially if you're not Jewish. -discovery version edit: I'd better tack on my favourite quote from the essay: "I'd rather offend people needlessly than use needless words"
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barrkel 17y ago
I dislike Arrington primarily because of his attitude and verbal tactics I've heard when he's been on various podcasts - largely Gillmor Gang, IIRC. He reminded me strongly of a salesman, in that he used simple yet insidious verbal tricks to "wind people up", as we say in these parts, though less self-serving - more in an idly sadistic and demeaning way. He was a negative and arrogant force in the conversations, and they improved when he left. Techcrunch just seals the deal - it's not a site I have in my reader, I just see it occasionally here or other links.
run4yourlives 17y ago
"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." -- Eleanor Roosevelt That neatly explains my personal affinity towards pg, and my disinterest towards Arrington and many other "journalists" out there today. Techcrunch is the Entertainment Tonight of Silicon Valley, and I don't find the gossip produced by either medium adds a lot to my life. That isn't to judge him, and certainly not to "hate" the man, but it is to say that the content is not appealing.
abstractbill 17y ago
I'd rather offend people needlessly than use needless words Just out of curiosity, have you ever discovered something that you thought would offend enough of your audience that there was no point publishing it?
- pg 17y ago
  Yes, whole essays.
  - rms 17y ago
    Is that what lead to "What You Can't Say"? Can you hint at some of those ideas?
- bootload 17y ago
  "... Just out of curiosity, have you ever discovered something that you thought would offend enough of your audience that there was no point publishing it? ..." read about "the conformist test" ~ http://paulgraham.com/say.html http://paulgraham.com/say.html I've written a few things that on reflection after reading "can't say" I've thrown out.
shiro 17y ago
Interesting read, but somehow I sensed there's a touch of persuasion in this a lot more than other pg's essays. Maybe persuasion isn't the thing... explanation? It sounded like pg's trying to explain really hard why his essay was in that style, rendering the outcome slightly verbose than his usual essays. Maybe this is just a false impression. But it may indicate that it is more difficult to talk about oneself than about something/someone else. [EDIT]: I found why I felt it verbose. The latter part, about pg's essays' attitude to mention facts plainly and succinctly, hence they tended to offend some people, was obvious. So I felt it was unnecessary explanation. Probably it is necessary for different audience.
throwawayac 17y ago
I've met him. Plus a bunch more Valley personalities. I've been underwhelmed by their openness to non-fawning unknowns. Which is amusing me. A couple of years ago I sold my unknown european startup in a private (and NDA'd) transaction for around 45m dollars. After the handcuffs expired I moved to silicon valley last year and since then I've been lurking in the community. I've been talking to everyone and not playing up my background. The arrogance and name-dropping is hilarious. The importance of being in the right circles. I actually have a day job working on a fun project so that I could meet and work with people. Immerse myself in the culture so to speak. I find it there as well. Newly minted Stanford PhDs sure are full of "confidence" shall we say :-) I'm small fry - don't get me wrong - but the 'personalities' certainly want you to do the running and love the attention. I'm actually pondering starting my next company somewhere else because, frankly, I'm not convinced that the valley echo chamber is the best place to be (unless you are flipping fad companies of dubious long term value). Let the flames begin ;-)
- pclark 17y ago
  come to Cambridge, UK. Nice city, people and startups.
  - throwawayac 17y ago
    Nice place and people but awful weather IMHO. I'm rather partial to the warmer climes. I've heard the traffic is a hassle there? Can you comment?
    - andeka 17y ago
      What other US cities have you considered? Boston? NYC? Seattle? Austin? Climate would lock you out of most of those places minus Austin.
      - throwawayac 17y ago
        I know all of those cities. I'm hoping to make it to austin city limits next month if my schedule cooperates. I've lived in NYC and visited Boston and and Seattle many times. NYC is fun for a while. I could live there again. Seattle felt a bit small and depressed last time I was there. Austin just has hot and drunken live music memories. I need to visit in a more serious mood some time.
GavinB 17y ago
People who think the labor movement was the creation of heroic union organizers have a problem to explain This is a standard formulation that implies that you disagree with the statement "the labor movement was the creation of heroic union organizers." That isn't the statement with which you want to disagree. You want to disagree with the person who thinks that we could return to the old days, if we were only more heroic. Try something like this: Some people think that the reason for the loss of the high-paying union job is a lack of moral courage in the modern age. Our ancestors were giants, and if we were more like them we could return to the golden age. In fact the truth is simpler than the "fallen civilization" explanation . . .
allenbrunson 17y ago
Well, this is a turning point. I'm pretty sure I've read all of pg's essays, and this is the first one that I unambiguously disagree with. I think he has completely overlooked the real reasons Arrington is unpopular, and taken the topic off into the weeds. I guess it's good to have some evidence that I am capable of thinking for myself after all. (Heh.)
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netsp 17y ago
It rubs me the wrong way when people make this sort claim about why others criticise them. Sort of a sophisticated version of a 13 year old girl's mother telling her that the other girls are mean to her because they're jealous. Richard Dawkins makes the same claim when he is confornted: "I realise that I might convince more people by being more strategic or diplomatic. I accept that criticism." (paraphrased) I don't really believe that. I don't really believe pg when he writes: "I'd rather offend people needlessly than use needless words, and you have to choose one or the other" or ". If you want to please people who are mistaken, you can't simply tell the truth." Actually, it's not that I totally disbelieve him but I think its rationalising in a way that is not entirely intellectually honest. Maybe he rationally agrees with the former. The latter is probably true. But the reasons that we choose our words, our "style" is a lot less rational. In any case, claiming that 'my style is the honest one while the anaemic version that "everyone else" uses and want me to use would be the right one from a persuasion or self promotion perspective,' that is bogus. PG, Arrington & Dawkins have all been successful with their styles. It is doubtful they would have been with the style they describe. Perhaps it is because of the abrasiveness, perhaps not. That's up to discussion. I understand pg is not defending himself, but he does seem to be defending Arrington in solidarity. edit:* Something has been bothering me about this comment. I don't disagree with the premise of this essay. I agree with it. Arrington is disliked for reasons unarticulated and possibly unknown to his haters. I'm not even absolutely convinced that this conclusion is wrong. I would be very surprised if the effect it is describing explains everything. A few other explanations seem more likely to me. I am just suspicious of the class of argument put forward in the same way pg is suspicious of the 'heroic generation' arguments.
zackattack 17y ago
If we want to nit-pick about semantics, I don't think it's a true dichotomy, because discovery persuades rationalist readers. In fact, in psychology this is called the Central Route of Persuasion. Also, your essay reminded me of the caterpillar from alice in wonderland. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgbntWU7pG8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgbntWU7pG8 - 47 seconds in). What's the isness in yo bizness!
skmurphy 17y ago
Because I'd rather offend people needlessly than use needless words, and you have to choose one or the other. Reminds me of a quote from Robert Heinlein "Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as 'empty,' 'meaningless,' or 'dishonest,' and scorn to use them. No matter how pure their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best."
richcollins 17y ago
This doesn't help either: http://www.blogpi.net/wp-content/uploads/arrington-cigar.jpg http://www.blogpi.net/wp-content/uploads/arrington-cigar.jpg
adamc 17y ago
I was glad to read this, as it addresses questions I've had for some time. There is nothing wrong with writing to figure things out, so long as you don't expect it to persuade or interest many others (although hacker news is obviously a congenial audience for many of them).
10ren 17y ago
I am charming; you are respectful; he is ingratiating. It's a loaded term, not a neutral one befitting the dispassionate pursuit of truth, aka discovery. I found the second example of unions (the "ingratiating" one) easier to understand, because it was concrete, and therefore allowed me into the author's point of view, and had redundancy so I could easily confirm what I thought he meant. Also, the fact that he admires courage makes me think we have similar values, and therefore, he is worth listening to. There exist extremely intelligent people who lack compassion and wisdom, i.e. foolish villains. I don't think their advice is going to be very helpful. But the conventional behavior when meeting someone new is to act extra friendly And now I show what sort of person I am: I read the above line and thought.. ohhhhhh... that's what I've been doing wrong (no, not sarcastic). I've also thought that people who act extra friendly on first meeting are really insincere. But sounds like it's standard communication protocol, and communication is improved by speaking a common language, so I really should start doing this. Thanks pg!
pg 17y ago
I wrote a new version that addresses the problem embodied in the comments here: http://paulgraham.com/pxdremix.html http://paulgraham.com/pxdremix.html
- btilly 17y ago
  Reading the article the biggest thing that hit me is that the two versions of the union paragraph are not equivalent at all. The first one says that the labor movement was not founded by heros. It insinuates that anyone who claims otherwise must despise current labor unions by contrast. And it leaves open the possibility that you're setting the reader up for a sudden about face where you come up with some non-obvious reasoning for why labor unions were founded by heros after all. The second eulogizes the heros who founded labor unions. Then makes it clear that there is no reason to think that current union leaders would be capable of less if asked. And concludes that the shrinking of unions must be due to external circumstances. With that in mind I can draw up version 3 that says what version 2 does but not at length. "Why are labor unions shrinking today? Some say that we have lesser leaders today. Admittedly today's leaders do not regularly face hired thugs, etc like their predecessors did. But there is no reason to believe that they would be any less capable of heroism at need. The cause must be external." I made the same major points as #3, without causing offense, with fewer words than your short version. The secret is to avoid offense by figuring out what could be offensive and not saying it, rather than figuring out what could be offensive and elaborating on how you're not trying to offend.
  - pg 17y ago
    You know, as I was cutting out the stuff about Arrington, I was thinking to myself, what is the second biggest bicycle shed? What controversial but peripheral issue are people going to seize on now? Labor unions, probably. Ugh. After spending so much of yesterday arguing about whether people's dislike of Arrington was due purely to their high standards for journalistic integrity, or whether (this being the whole point of a disarming manner) they were also influenced by his manner, I just can't face the prospect of spending any of today arguing about labor unions. I did not say that the labor movement wasn't founded by heroes, but that is the last I have to say about it.
matthewjbright 17y ago
I really like th idea of writing to discover. Learning by discovery and exploration has been my education. It is also the way that I write - to explore, not to convince. I hadn't been able to articulate this to myself coherently until I came across this on the Khosla Ventures site (complete with Vinod Khosla's notes such as "this is commie horse shit" and "MBA bullshit" (!). http://www.khoslaventures.com/presentations/What_makes_entrepreneurs_entrepreneurial.pdf http://www.khoslaventures.com/presentations/What_makes_entre...
messel 17y ago
"Most writers do. Most writers write to persuade, if only out of habit or politeness. But I don't write to persuade; I write to figure out. I write to persuade a hypothetical perfectly unbiased reader." This is one of those pearls that makes reading Paul very satisfying. This inside view is vital when it comes to understanding people. Why we write is essential to crafting the best version of a post/essay/article. I write for the most biased observer, myself. If I can respect the point and style of one of my posts, it gets published and the yardstick I measure content by does fluctuate daily. When I cover a topic well, I can easily link back to that thought process within other posts to convey my ideas in a well thought out manner. Modularized web commenting if you like the concept allows for more rapid responses of higher quality to ongoing discussions. The great part is, I can go back and update older concepts with a fresh perspective by writing follow on posts.

148 points by fallentimes 17y ago

An exercise from the essay: ...And present union leaders probably would rise to the occasion if necessary. People tend to; I'm skeptical about the idea of "the greatest generation." [2] Footnote: [2] Oops, offended another constituency. Exercise for the reader: rephrase that thought to please the same people the first version would offend. Please submit your solutions below.

sachinag 17y ago
I'm skeptical that some groups of people are inherently braver, smarter, or harder working than others.
- ewjordan 17y ago
  Too imprecise. The claim was that a segmentation by birth year would not be expected to correlate with bravery, smarts, or hard work, not that there's no segmentation that correlates with any of those qualities. Your proposed version is quite PC, to be sure, and I'm sure most humanities majors would defend it tooth and nail (cheap dig, I know :) ), but that in itself suggests to me that it's not what pg had in mind... For one, I'd expect a lot of people here, including pg, to believe that startup founders excel in all of those categories, even if it's simply selection bias that causes it.
  - sachinag 17y ago
    Actually, that's what makes it better. The argument against Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation isn't that those WWII heroes were so special; it's that no one generation could be. I could have been more precise with a modifying phrase such as "by accident of birth", but that was too unwieldy. The upvoted comments are specific to the GG argument, which are suboptimal, because they don't work as good writing unless you've seen PG's original. (Yeah, I'm a part-time writer/editor to pay the beer bills, and I can get defensive about my writing. Sue me. You're better at design/coding/picking up chicks than I.)
    - rms 17y ago
      Yours may be "good writing" but you completely changed the meaning of the statement. In my opinion, it's important to mention WW2 -- it's easy to make the statement not offensive to The Greatest Generation by completely removing the reference.
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rms 17y ago
And present union leaders probably would rise to the occasion if necessary. People tend to; all generations have the potential to be as great as the (Greatest Generation, GI Generation) when faced with sufficient external challenges.
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cperciva 17y ago
'... I'm skeptical about the idea that the current generation is in any way inferior to past generations.'
rms 17y ago
A first step to this exercise is the expand the statement to make sure that your rephrasing is expressing all the original ideas. Idea #1: skepticism about the idea that one generation is inherently better or worse than another generation, specifically with regards to the WW2 generation Idea #2: People have a tendency to rise to meet external challenges as it becomes necessary. So if Generation Y had a challenge as great as WW2, we would rise to meet it, and if the present day union leaders had a challenge as great as the historical labor movement, they would rise to meet it. What else?

tsally 17y ago

I've never met Arrington, so whether he's nice or not doesn't really apply to me. I also don't own a startup, so there's no conflict there. My personal beef is that TechCrunch is a 'serious journalistic entity' when they get documents leaked to them, but the second people start trying to hold them to the standard of real journalism suddenly it a blog. It's difficult to pinpoint, but there's something two-faced about TechCrunch that I don't like. It's some combination of the sensationalism, exaggeration, and in some cases outright fabrication that really get to me. Since Arrington is the founder and figurehead of TechCrunch, my feelings about the blog naturally extend to him. The fact that page views and advertising revenue are the ultimate goals is fine. I applaud TechCrunch and Arrington for being successful. That doesn't mean I have to like their methods. Google was successful through technical merit. They never did anything flashy and eventually won because they were better. I'd like to see a startup blog succeed because of journalistic merit, instead of link-bait headlines and baseless speculation. TechCrunch has its gems to be sure, but there's too much garbage there for me. An example for your consideration: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/22/the-secret-strategies-behind-many-viral-videos http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/22/the-secret-strategies-b... For those too lazy to read, it's an article about making viral videos. Some choice advice: "Content is NOT King, Make it short, Make it shocking, Use fake headlines, Appeal to sex". It also goes on to tell you how to spam yourself to the Most Viewed page on Youtube. Arrington is the founder and an editor, so either himself or someone he appointed approved this article for publication. That's why I don't like Arrington. Perhaps the reason why people don't hate Paul like they hate Arrington is because Paul has produced things of value? Hell, having the PDF of On Lisp online available for free is more valuable than the aggregate of TechCrunch's entire publication history. EDIT: Hate is a strong word. If you hate anyone over the internet for any reason, that's pretty stupid. Dislike is what I was getting at.

buugs 17y ago
I get a very similar feeling with techcrunch, it is as if techcrunch is the tabloid of the upcoming web culture. Rather than real journalism it is often lacking in value but techcrunch thinks it can make up for that by being first without verifying sources or even thinking about the content they are producing.

dfranke 17y ago

I'm fairly sure it's the comment thread that I started (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=831461 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=831461) which set off this essay, so I guess I'm the archetype of "ordinarily calm people who go berserk when [Arrington's] name comes up in comment threads". But if your explanation of my psychology is correct, then why don't I go berserk at you as well? I've disagreed with a few of your essays, and by and large pointed out those disagreements in these comment threads, but I've never disagreed violently with any of them. My beef with Arrington is that he writes a gossip tabloid. Nothing more, nothing less.

iamwil 17y ago
The essay is less about arrington berserkers than it is about why pg writes the way he does, even though the discovery started off as a question about arrington berserkers.
- babyshake 17y ago
  I agree. One of the common traits of a 'discovery' essay is you don't end up answering the question you asked. And I should mention that the reason I don't like Mike involves a very poor way he treated someone I know.

mrshoe 17y ago

I think a lot of hackers, myself included, have a hard time with persuasion. I've found that my first instinct is often to respond to a coworker's proposal with something like, "Here are 10 reasons why that's a horrible idea." That ends up being counter-productive, so I'm trying to learn how to suppress that instinct. Unfortunately, people's egos get hurt easily. You can't tell them what you think. You can't disagree with them blatantly. You have to slowly and carefully guide them from a place where they're 100% correct to a new place where they're still 100% correct even though they now think completely differently about the problem. It's not easy, and the hacker in me always considers it a huge waste of time and effort. Why can't people just accept that their first idea was wrong and move on? One method I've found effective is to just link to a few articles on the subject. The hope is that 1) the author of the articles is better at persuasion than I am, and 2) my peer's ego is more open to taking advice from an expert than from me. If you're Steve Jobs (or Mike Arrington or pg), then you are fortunate enough to have little need for this persuasive cruft in your life. If the rest of us want any chance of influencing people higher in the pecking order, however, we need to cradle their fragile egos.

vinutheraj 17y ago
"Learn how to tell them to go to hell in such a way they'll want to go." - heard in the 61st Emmy Awards, forgot who said it though !
- thaumaturgy 17y ago
  I've done this, and it's fun. It was also a bit of business judo -- I recommended an exceptionally difficult client to one of my competitors. Gave 'em the phone number and everything.

alex_c 17y ago

I could write that way if I had to [...] It makes the same point [...] But written this way it seems like a defense of present-day union organizers rather than an attack on early ones. [...] If I believe everything I said in the second version, why didn't I write it that way? Why offend people needlessly? I disagree that it makes the same point. I'm sure it's intended to make the same point, but it doesn't - "written this way it seems like" == "it makes a different point", as far as I'm concerned. The code example isn't a perfect parallel: you can cut down code but still have it perform the exact same functionality - it either follows a certain execution path or it doesn't. That's not so easy to do with writing, since there is no "hypothetical perfectly unbiased reader". I don't think it's about offending people or not, it's about whether or not the reader walks away with the point you're actually trying to make. It should usually be possible to avoid both "offensive" and "fawning", and settle on "neutral". Of course, the problem is that "neutral" is often the most boring to read.

heuristix 17y ago

This is a strawman defence. PG is defending Arrington's curtness when you meet him in person and accepting the facts as presented (since I have no personal knowledge), the defense sounds reasonable. However, as many others mention below, most people dislike Arrington because Techcrunch has no journalistic scruples. The way they attacked Last.fm without even bothering to properly check into facts was yet another example of this.

mrshoe 17y ago
That's probably why the title of the essay is "Persuade xor Discover". pg started out thinking about Arrington, but, since he was writing to discover, he explored other ideas. Those ideas became the main point of the essay.
- heuristix 17y ago
  The fact that the essay is mostly about the other ideas and titled as such does not discount the fact that the argument therein that most people dislike Arrington simply because he is curt is flawed. pg cites his own curt/succint approach to writing as a reason people dislike him and speculates that people dislike Arrington for the same reason, thus using Arrington as an example for part of his argument. While pg's central thesis in the essay stands, the Arrington example does not.
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- heuristix 17y ago
  > Can an essay whose explicit purpose is not to persuade even make a straw man defense? Yes, it can (and does) make a flawed argument, which to most people would seem to be a defense of Arrington even if not intended as such. What you take away from an essay is obviously up to you.
pg 17y ago
When people dislike something intensely, the reason is not always what they claim, or even believe themselves. Try this thought experiment: if Arrington seemed like the nicest, most self-deprecating guy in the world-- like Father Mulcahy, for anyone who remembers MASH-- would people be so angry about his supposed lack of journalistic scruples?

paul 17y ago

This is a very interesting observation. It might be amusing if PG rewrote some of his more controversial essays in the second style, then made both versions available. Think of it as "skinning". Since the discovery version was written before the persuasive version, the persuasion needn't interfere with the discovery.

pg 17y ago
Intriguing idea, at least as a sort of practical joke. The problem is, it would change the ideas. For example, when I rewrote the paragraph about labor unions, I had to ditch the point about fallen civilizations overrating past eras; though I didn't make the link explicitly, the comparison to medieval history would be obvious to anyone who'd studied much of it. (People in medieval Europe felt inferior to the ancients long after it ceased to be true.) I didn't like tossing this point, but there was no convenient way to get it into the new version.
- gregwebs 17y ago
  How about a program to re-write for persuasion once you have written for discovery. I bet it wouldn't be to hard to program one that could make an essay sound more timid and nice. That is a fairly simple process that I usually go through before communicating electronically. However, as you stated you would still have to add the extra content.

auston 17y ago

I've met Michael Arrington once & talked to him on several occasions. He was never short or rude, only seemingly, endlessly occupied. In fact, all of the staff @ TechCrunch seem to be nice, people of the few I've met.

ivankirigin 17y ago

Do you think there might be another category of writing, that fits in an essay: story telling? Some of the most compelling talks I've been to are stories winding through a narrative. Conciseness doesn't really fit it, and it is certainly designed for discovery more than persuasion. But it's a bit of both, characterized perhaps by discovery of the audience - though not necessarily of an intended idea, which would make it persuasion.

thunk 17y ago

There's another reason people "dislike" Arrington: they love participatory righteous indignation, and Arrington is willing to play sink to it. The ability to bear that, and even revel in it, is something many great people share, and makes me think TC isn't the biggest thing he'll accomplish.

dpapathanasiou 17y ago

Reading this reminded me of Ellis and Harper's concept of Core Irrational Beliefs, from their book "A Guide to Rational Living" (http://books.google.com/books?id=3JB9sLEV-SoC&dq=isbn:0879800429 http://books.google.com/books?id=3JB9sLEV-SoC&dq=isbn:08...): "Everyone I meet must treat me just the way I like; otherwise, they are completely worthless!" The key, of course, is to recognize when you're reacting to those kinds of mental triggers and change your attitude and manner accordingly (which is easier said than done).

dschobel 17y ago

Good piece but it neglects another category of writing to its own detriment, that on the opposite end of the spectrum of "pleasing everyone", namely, writing which exists for no other reason than to provoke a response (aka the Ann Coulter school of writing). My personal experience is that this sort of writing is far more common than the ingratiating kind when you get out of the school/professional environment.

trunnell 17y ago

I disagree on the orthogonality of being ingratiating and discovering things. Sometimes discovery must be done collaboratively. When this is the case, it can be more effective to mind one's social graces. Otherwise, productivity relies on other people ignoring negative social cues. I wouldn't take that bet.

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billswift 17y ago
Discovery like creation is the act of a single mind; the discovery or creation often needs to be fleshed out to be really useful, which is often done collaboratively. But without that initial lonely insight collaboration is worthless.

adrianwaj 17y ago

I like Michael Arrington because he's pro-Israel and sees the evil in Holocaust deniers, and calls them out on it. That takes balls and brains, especially if you're not Jewish. -discovery version edit: I'd better tack on my favourite quote from the essay: "I'd rather offend people needlessly than use needless words"

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barrkel 17y ago

I dislike Arrington primarily because of his attitude and verbal tactics I've heard when he's been on various podcasts - largely Gillmor Gang, IIRC. He reminded me strongly of a salesman, in that he used simple yet insidious verbal tricks to "wind people up", as we say in these parts, though less self-serving - more in an idly sadistic and demeaning way. He was a negative and arrogant force in the conversations, and they improved when he left. Techcrunch just seals the deal - it's not a site I have in my reader, I just see it occasionally here or other links.

run4yourlives 17y ago

"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." -- Eleanor Roosevelt That neatly explains my personal affinity towards pg, and my disinterest towards Arrington and many other "journalists" out there today. Techcrunch is the Entertainment Tonight of Silicon Valley, and I don't find the gossip produced by either medium adds a lot to my life. That isn't to judge him, and certainly not to "hate" the man, but it is to say that the content is not appealing.

abstractbill 17y ago

I'd rather offend people needlessly than use needless words Just out of curiosity, have you ever discovered something that you thought would offend enough of your audience that there was no point publishing it?

pg 17y ago
Yes, whole essays.
- rms 17y ago
  Is that what lead to "What You Can't Say"? Can you hint at some of those ideas?
bootload 17y ago
"... Just out of curiosity, have you ever discovered something that you thought would offend enough of your audience that there was no point publishing it? ..." read about "the conformist test" ~ http://paulgraham.com/say.html http://paulgraham.com/say.html I've written a few things that on reflection after reading "can't say" I've thrown out.

shiro 17y ago

Interesting read, but somehow I sensed there's a touch of persuasion in this a lot more than other pg's essays. Maybe persuasion isn't the thing... explanation? It sounded like pg's trying to explain really hard why his essay was in that style, rendering the outcome slightly verbose than his usual essays. Maybe this is just a false impression. But it may indicate that it is more difficult to talk about oneself than about something/someone else. [EDIT]: I found why I felt it verbose. The latter part, about pg's essays' attitude to mention facts plainly and succinctly, hence they tended to offend some people, was obvious. So I felt it was unnecessary explanation. Probably it is necessary for different audience.

throwawayac 17y ago

I've met him. Plus a bunch more Valley personalities. I've been underwhelmed by their openness to non-fawning unknowns. Which is amusing me. A couple of years ago I sold my unknown european startup in a private (and NDA'd) transaction for around 45m dollars. After the handcuffs expired I moved to silicon valley last year and since then I've been lurking in the community. I've been talking to everyone and not playing up my background. The arrogance and name-dropping is hilarious. The importance of being in the right circles. I actually have a day job working on a fun project so that I could meet and work with people. Immerse myself in the culture so to speak. I find it there as well. Newly minted Stanford PhDs sure are full of "confidence" shall we say :-) I'm small fry - don't get me wrong - but the 'personalities' certainly want you to do the running and love the attention. I'm actually pondering starting my next company somewhere else because, frankly, I'm not convinced that the valley echo chamber is the best place to be (unless you are flipping fad companies of dubious long term value). Let the flames begin ;-)

pclark 17y ago
come to Cambridge, UK. Nice city, people and startups.
- throwawayac 17y ago
  Nice place and people but awful weather IMHO. I'm rather partial to the warmer climes. I've heard the traffic is a hassle there? Can you comment?
  - andeka 17y ago
    What other US cities have you considered? Boston? NYC? Seattle? Austin? Climate would lock you out of most of those places minus Austin.
    - throwawayac 17y ago
      I know all of those cities. I'm hoping to make it to austin city limits next month if my schedule cooperates. I've lived in NYC and visited Boston and and Seattle many times. NYC is fun for a while. I could live there again. Seattle felt a bit small and depressed last time I was there. Austin just has hot and drunken live music memories. I need to visit in a more serious mood some time.

GavinB 17y ago

People who think the labor movement was the creation of heroic union organizers have a problem to explain This is a standard formulation that implies that you disagree with the statement "the labor movement was the creation of heroic union organizers." That isn't the statement with which you want to disagree. You want to disagree with the person who thinks that we could return to the old days, if we were only more heroic. Try something like this: Some people think that the reason for the loss of the high-paying union job is a lack of moral courage in the modern age. Our ancestors were giants, and if we were more like them we could return to the golden age. In fact the truth is simpler than the "fallen civilization" explanation . . .

allenbrunson 17y ago

Well, this is a turning point. I'm pretty sure I've read all of pg's essays, and this is the first one that I unambiguously disagree with. I think he has completely overlooked the real reasons Arrington is unpopular, and taken the topic off into the weeds. I guess it's good to have some evidence that I am capable of thinking for myself after all. (Heh.)

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netsp 17y ago

It rubs me the wrong way when people make this sort claim about why others criticise them. Sort of a sophisticated version of a 13 year old girl's mother telling her that the other girls are mean to her because they're jealous. Richard Dawkins makes the same claim when he is confornted: "I realise that I might convince more people by being more strategic or diplomatic. I accept that criticism." (paraphrased) I don't really believe that. I don't really believe pg when he writes: "I'd rather offend people needlessly than use needless words, and you have to choose one or the other" or ". If you want to please people who are mistaken, you can't simply tell the truth." Actually, it's not that I totally disbelieve him but I think its rationalising in a way that is not entirely intellectually honest. Maybe he rationally agrees with the former. The latter is probably true. But the reasons that we choose our words, our "style" is a lot less rational. In any case, claiming that 'my style is the honest one while the anaemic version that "everyone else" uses and want me to use would be the right one from a persuasion or self promotion perspective,' that is bogus. PG, Arrington & Dawkins have all been successful with their styles. It is doubtful they would have been with the style they describe. Perhaps it is because of the abrasiveness, perhaps not. That's up to discussion. I understand pg is not defending himself, but he does seem to be defending Arrington in solidarity. edit:* Something has been bothering me about this comment. I don't disagree with the premise of this essay. I agree with it. Arrington is disliked for reasons unarticulated and possibly unknown to his haters. I'm not even absolutely convinced that this conclusion is wrong. I would be very surprised if the effect it is describing explains everything. A few other explanations seem more likely to me. I am just suspicious of the class of argument put forward in the same way pg is suspicious of the 'heroic generation' arguments.

zackattack 17y ago

If we want to nit-pick about semantics, I don't think it's a true dichotomy, because discovery persuades rationalist readers. In fact, in psychology this is called the Central Route of Persuasion. Also, your essay reminded me of the caterpillar from alice in wonderland. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgbntWU7pG8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgbntWU7pG8 - 47 seconds in). What's the isness in yo bizness!

skmurphy 17y ago

Because I'd rather offend people needlessly than use needless words, and you have to choose one or the other. Reminds me of a quote from Robert Heinlein "Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as 'empty,' 'meaningless,' or 'dishonest,' and scorn to use them. No matter how pure their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best."

richcollins 17y ago

This doesn't help either: http://www.blogpi.net/wp-content/uploads/arrington-cigar.jpg http://www.blogpi.net/wp-content/uploads/arrington-cigar.jpg

adamc 17y ago

I was glad to read this, as it addresses questions I've had for some time. There is nothing wrong with writing to figure things out, so long as you don't expect it to persuade or interest many others (although hacker news is obviously a congenial audience for many of them).

10ren 17y ago

I am charming; you are respectful; he is ingratiating. It's a loaded term, not a neutral one befitting the dispassionate pursuit of truth, aka discovery. I found the second example of unions (the "ingratiating" one) easier to understand, because it was concrete, and therefore allowed me into the author's point of view, and had redundancy so I could easily confirm what I thought he meant. Also, the fact that he admires courage makes me think we have similar values, and therefore, he is worth listening to. There exist extremely intelligent people who lack compassion and wisdom, i.e. foolish villains. I don't think their advice is going to be very helpful. But the conventional behavior when meeting someone new is to act extra friendly And now I show what sort of person I am: I read the above line and thought.. ohhhhhh... that's what I've been doing wrong (no, not sarcastic). I've also thought that people who act extra friendly on first meeting are really insincere. But sounds like it's standard communication protocol, and communication is improved by speaking a common language, so I really should start doing this. Thanks pg!

pg 17y ago

I wrote a new version that addresses the problem embodied in the comments here: http://paulgraham.com/pxdremix.html http://paulgraham.com/pxdremix.html

btilly 17y ago
Reading the article the biggest thing that hit me is that the two versions of the union paragraph are not equivalent at all. The first one says that the labor movement was not founded by heros. It insinuates that anyone who claims otherwise must despise current labor unions by contrast. And it leaves open the possibility that you're setting the reader up for a sudden about face where you come up with some non-obvious reasoning for why labor unions were founded by heros after all. The second eulogizes the heros who founded labor unions. Then makes it clear that there is no reason to think that current union leaders would be capable of less if asked. And concludes that the shrinking of unions must be due to external circumstances. With that in mind I can draw up version 3 that says what version 2 does but not at length. "Why are labor unions shrinking today? Some say that we have lesser leaders today. Admittedly today's leaders do not regularly face hired thugs, etc like their predecessors did. But there is no reason to believe that they would be any less capable of heroism at need. The cause must be external." I made the same major points as #3, without causing offense, with fewer words than your short version. The secret is to avoid offense by figuring out what could be offensive and not saying it, rather than figuring out what could be offensive and elaborating on how you're not trying to offend.
- pg 17y ago
  You know, as I was cutting out the stuff about Arrington, I was thinking to myself, what is the second biggest bicycle shed? What controversial but peripheral issue are people going to seize on now? Labor unions, probably. Ugh. After spending so much of yesterday arguing about whether people's dislike of Arrington was due purely to their high standards for journalistic integrity, or whether (this being the whole point of a disarming manner) they were also influenced by his manner, I just can't face the prospect of spending any of today arguing about labor unions. I did not say that the labor movement wasn't founded by heroes, but that is the last I have to say about it.

matthewjbright 17y ago

I really like th idea of writing to discover. Learning by discovery and exploration has been my education. It is also the way that I write - to explore, not to convince. I hadn't been able to articulate this to myself coherently until I came across this on the Khosla Ventures site (complete with Vinod Khosla's notes such as "this is commie horse shit" and "MBA bullshit" (!). http://www.khoslaventures.com/presentations/What_makes_entrepreneurs_entrepreneurial.pdf http://www.khoslaventures.com/presentations/What_makes_entre...

messel 17y ago

"Most writers do. Most writers write to persuade, if only out of habit or politeness. But I don't write to persuade; I write to figure out. I write to persuade a hypothetical perfectly unbiased reader." This is one of those pearls that makes reading Paul very satisfying. This inside view is vital when it comes to understanding people. Why we write is essential to crafting the best version of a post/essay/article. I write for the most biased observer, myself. If I can respect the point and style of one of my posts, it gets published and the yardstick I measure content by does fluctuate daily. When I cover a topic well, I can easily link back to that thought process within other posts to convey my ideas in a well thought out manner. Modularized web commenting if you like the concept allows for more rapid responses of higher quality to ongoing discussions. The great part is, I can go back and update older concepts with a fresh perspective by writing follow on posts.