This may be good advice for an instruction manual or children's books, but I think good prose is something of an art in and of itself. Some of the most successful writers do the opposite. Look at the articles that go viral ..you see that the prose is varied and even complicated, not just simple.
The best prose is that which conveys the intended message for the intended audience in the best way possible. I think it's also a revealed vs stated preferences problem. People state they want/like simple writing but revealed preferences show otherwise.
I think the reason why so many business authors give this advice is confusing cause and effect. Writing simply does not make you successful or persuasive, but that people who are involved in business write that way naturally, but success at one does not follow from the other. Just like Bill Gates did not get rich by being good at bridge.
"Write simply" is given as advice because, well, it's good advice. Too many writers try to ball before they crawl.
A memorable critique, from an English professor, of my writing: "stop trying to sound smart". He meant that I should stop trying to use big words and stop trying to construct complex sentences.
>People state they want/like simple writing but revealed preferences show otherwise.
Simplicity isn't what you think it is. The simplicity people want is sentences that flow regardless of complexity. You say complicated, I say clunky. An author might use a complex sentence to coalesce several ideas, but if that complexity, because the construction interrupts the flow, requires the audience to reread the sentence, the author has failed.
That's how we arrive at simplicity. I find it easier to pepper diversity into my prose ex post facto than try during first draft. Connecting two simple sentences is less work than unwinding a complicated sentence.
The advice isn't really to leave your writing simple, it's to start simple. At some point, you will be required to use a complex sentence to connect ideas.
Reminds me of a recent exchange during which someone sent me an email with the word anachronistic but then explained it with “updated in the past” later in the sentence.
Laughed at the use of extra words to explain a big word rather than just saying something like “out of date”
I think we are confusing two concepts: clear prose and ordinary words. It's right in the first sentence:
> I try to write using ordinary words and simple sentences.
They don't go hand in hand. Quite the contrary, I'm arguing they are in conflict.
Drawing from a larger vocabulary allows greater precision, results in shorter sentences and enables the writer to express complex ideas concisely.
Ironically, artificially restricting what words one can use puts a far greater cognitive burden on the reader. It's superfluous to quote the relevant xkcd.
There's no cure for unclear prose: it's the necessary consequence of unclear thoughts.
Of late, I'm reading diverse authors, and I noticed that I get drawn to more aesthetically pleasant writings. So I'm beginning to pay more weightage and attention to the aesthetics of writing than before. Good content and pleasing aesthetics go together. It means the writer made an effort to make the writing beautiful besides bringing forth insightful points.
It could also be about appreciating subtler aspects of life as I grow older. Regardless, the net result is my impressions about "write simply" suggestions are exactly what you stated.
Good writers can use big words well. Someone who has been writing for 20 years is able to reach for a precise word in the right situation, to get the right effect. 99% of the people are not good writers, and when they try to do that, it comes across unreadable in the best case and self-important in the average case.
Just say what you mean. Text is beautiful because it flows, the sentence might evoke the thing it's describing by its sounds or rhythm or structure. It's not beautiful because it uses big words.
"Why use many word, when few word do trick." ~Kevin Malone, The Office.
I agree with you.The point of language is to get an idea from my head into your head with as little loss-of-signal as possible. That is much more challenging than it might sound. Note: an idea might be an emotion.
If I were to write that as simply as possible, I might say: "Yes. Talk is communication. That is hard", or even more simply "Talk hard!!!"
Too much simplification is reductionist, and something is lost. Excessive verboseness is too high a noise-to-signal ratio, and something is lost. There is a balance to be had, and that balance is a moving target, depending on the complexity and importance of the idea and your audience. If I'm trying to convey deep-technical knowledge to a fellow engineer, then I'll be precise and "jargony" - it won't be "simple"; if I'm trying to show that I'm having a good time to my inlaws with whom I don't share a common verbal language, then a beaming smile may be all that's needed.
Let's make a simple, boring clothing analogy: "Why use a broken suit with an elegant combination of fabrics and colors when a simple, ill-fitting T-shirt and a pair of chinos would allow you to cover your body?"
Let's make yet another analogy with the body: "Why spend time in the gym working with barbells and dumbbells to achieve a shape and tone that would make you look like a Bronze of Riace instead of doing "just" 10k steps a day?"
Perhaps a dress can be too flowery or stiff; appropriate for a wedding, inappropriate for a day in the woods. A body may be too muscular for a marathon, not enough for a bodybuilding competition.
It is a matter of taste, of situation. Terse writing may fit here and not there; flowery writing may work here and not there. Prescription always depend on the context and the goals.
That joke spoils itself by adding "trick". But if it didn't, then it wouldn't work, since "Why use many words when few will do" is perfectly grammatical.
If you are aiming for virality, you need to use the lowest common denominator. A fast thinker will understand someone that speaks slow, a slow thinker will not grasp everything a person who speaks fast says.
Even his own article about writing simply used the word “expend” in the third sentence. Maybe I’m an indian hillybilly but that sounds quite non-simple to me lol.
I've been thinking about writing and about how people can learn to write well in a time of non-writing.
I have a service to use AI together with expertise in guiding beginner authors, writers for whom English is not the primary language, and for experienced casual writers. There are many heuristics that can be shown to writers to make the message clear, more impactful, in essay writing, short fiction, poetry, etc.
If anyone's willing to beta test the service, contact me on reddit /u/goldfeld.
I get that this guy is like rich and famous and founded this website or something so people always post his stuff here but his writing always has this weird veneer of pseudo intellectual philosophy that I find very off putting.
If that's true, please count me as pseudo intellectual also, because pg is one of the smartest people I've met and I continue to be in awe of how his mind works. I know it's silly to post such a thing, as the bias/conflict of interest is obvious and it will inevitably come across wrong—but I've thought and said this long before I met pg or had any connection to YC, so if there's a causal arrow it goes the other way.
People have had this kind of reaction to his writing for 20 years now and I've been puzzling about why for a long time, because even though I often don't agree with him (sometimes I disagree, more often I have no opinion), I wish I could write like him and know of few other writers who come close.
My current take: I think pg's unusual quality is that he thinks for himself. It used to be a truism that one should "think for oneself" (and even "question authority"!)—not so much anymore—but although we all tell ourselves we do that, mostly we don't. We mostly repeat things we've cobbled from other sources, usually sources tagged as authorities in our minds (and usually also in the culture at large). If you cobble from enough sources and have a bit of taste, that's the sweet spot for getting a good reception. You'll come across as clever and creative, but not weird, because you haven't left the tribe.
When encountering someone who actually does think for himself, the reaction is often a WTF. How dare he do that! Where are the citations?! Thinking-for-self stands out, not in a good way—and in pg's case the ruthless editing makes it stand out starkly. It's off-putting. The reaction isn't "hey, what would it be like if I thought for myself?" It's "hey, you can't do that."
The "rich and famous" aspect is a red herring because pg was this way long before he got rich and famous (except Lisp-famous), and it was by this quality that he got rich... that plus a lot of energy. But the rich-and-famous aspect intensifies the WTF reaction. It's no longer just "how dare you", it's "how dare that rich motherfucker" - which again, gets the causality the wrong way.
I know this sounds harsh about the cobbler type but I know these things by tracking them in myself—I'm no different. The funny thing is that one can notice such things and still feel perfectly sure about "thinking for yourself" or whatever else it is.
I don't really buy this idea of "thinking for yourself". We are nothing more than the product of our experiences: there are no axioms at the root of at any of our beliefs; fundamentally everything that goes through our heads is cobbled together from other sources that's cobbled together from other sources before that. And that's good! Because if we were attempting to derive everything from axioms that would be 1) impossible and 2) a total waste of time, because you're throwing away the collective knowledge of everyone who came before you.
I think what you are getting at, though, is not so much "thinking for yourself" as pg is unafraid to say unpopular things that are on his mind. And I don't mean this in a derogatory way: it's good to have people who aren't just posting sycophantic opinions following the zeitgeist. But I don't think that's what causes my reaction to pg's writings. I think he gives advice that is overly universalizing from his position as a wealthy VC: for example, his "The Two Kinds of Moderate" post strikes me as very much the kind of thing that is really only taking his own experiences into account.
It seems a key issue is that he often speaks in terms of what others should or should not do, rather than inviting others to see what has worked for him. Objectivity versus subjectivity. What makes it less palatable is that it appears carefully selected wording is used to (thinly) veil it to sound like something it isn't.
Ultimately it means the writing can come across as very self-indulgent. It does not often strike me as coming from a place of feeling genuine, authentic passion about sharing with other humans.
There are so many people who "think from first principles" (EDIT: meant "think for themselves" via first principles. Comments are not condusive to rewrites).
The reality is that many people are treading various intellectual ideas, and the idea that _you_ are the one with the new and innovative idea nobody else has thought of is... well.
I think what happens a lot of times though is that people will get to an idea that others dismiss, and then keep on going for whatever reason. Most of the time this leads to nowhere. Sometimes it leads somewhere interesting/valuable. But this is probably the most straightforward example of survivor bias out there. People with success will probably have done something counterintuitive or explored thoughts other people didn't have, but so many others waddle around endlessly in their search for having the unique idea.
If you want to get scientific with it, the way to prove if his ideas were valuable still would be to publish them anonymously. I'm a nobody and I have had things I post here get traffic. Some of pg's essays would also inspire some good conversations. But... this? I don't know.
What is exactly that moves people to venerate, defend, and even battle for venture capital multimillionaires who wouldn’t take a minute to expend y’all as necessary casualties, if that would push their agenda and their wealth forward?
I’m not dismissing their cultural relevance, I’m just constantly baffled at the fideism, and it honestly scares me a bit, as if people were prey to a global hallucination making them believe that by appreciating and praising such figures then one day, maybe, they could be like them?
I don't really buy this, I haven't read any "pg article" which contains something novel that I didn't read some version of sometime before pg ever wrote it. Even "write simply" was first expressed probably 100+ years ago by Strunk and White.
Basically, all of pg's writings are also just cobbled together from other sources and only become notable because he's a rich, successful person.
dang, I think you should write like Paul - meaning, you should write a few essays, and see if you like writing them, and then if people like reading them. I can happily offer to read your drafts.
Also, I am sure PG is really smart, but do not underestimate the effect on your brain of spending hours a day on HN, for many years. That's what makes me curious to read your stuff, in addition to Paul's.
Ah, I believe the simple main reason why people criticize Paul is... envy.
He doesn't need to be right all the time. He writes things that are provocative, and often make me/us think a lot about the topic. That's a success, in my view. Some people take it like that, others can't wait to criticize it to sound smart. And even if they're right, there are many ways to contribute to the conversation, instead of just bashing his writing as many often do.
I think you're right. This essay, like so many of PG's, has the exact hallmarks of a smart person thinking for themselves about a topic.
If you "think for yourself" when confronted with a problem like this (a problem at least three millennia old! People have been arguing about effective writing for a long time), you'll inevitably retrace some steps—good steps—of smart thinkers that have gone before you. But you won't be able to think deeply! PG, like some many smart people who embark on criticism, don't imagine the responses-to-their-response (which are, historically, also by clever and independent thinkers), and the third order responses, and so on.
This essay is shallow because it has no reference to, and no argument against, the generations of writers who thought "perhaps complexity or even obscurity has an essential and unavoidable place in our writing" and wrote persuasively to advocate for the need complexity in writing.
This (like so many of PG's essays about things that aren't programming), is armchair philosophy about a contentious and deep topic that doesn't consider the very real problems of writing. PG (by virtue of his position) doesn't have to, and therefore cannot, steelman his arguments. While you're right that this essay isn't in any way "dumb", unfortunately the comment you're responding to was right! This is pseudo-intellectualism.
For what it’s worth, I really loved this relaxed style of writing. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen you seem to enjoy yourself.
> It used to be a truism that one should "think for oneself" (and even "question authority"!)—not so much anymore—but although we all tell ourselves we do that, most of us don't.
We get beaten up when we do. The part that people envy isn’t his money, it’s his freedom.
Incidentally, if you really want an answer to your question, you can see this phenomenon in yourself. Run a thought experiment. If pg said X was a good idea, are you more or less likely to believe it than if I’d said it?
You could say this isn’t a fair comparison, since you have a lot of data about pg, so you’re using different priors. Still, even when he was Lisp-famous —- an era I miss —- he had the freedom to say whatever he wanted. He didn’t need to care whether you care what he thinks.
His recent rebellion against Twitter was especially notable. That’s what happens when you think for yourself. He can do that. The rest of us have to pick our battles.
So, the answer to your question of “Why are people dismissive of pg?” is undoubtedly related to the think-for-yourself aspect. It’s an aspect forced out of most of us, either by our parents or by authority. And that lack of freedom seems to be the underlying emotion.
Interestingly, you seem to imply that any of us can be like pg. Just think for ourselves, have good ideas, and don’t say dumb things. But when people actually try to do that, they risk far more than someone in pg’s position. So the “rich motherfucker” aspect is merely an extension of the same reaction that always tended to pop up. It’s a bit like a prisoner watching someone talk openly about how wonderful it is to walk outside whenever you want; of course they’d be jealous.
The psuedo-intellectualism is more than just a veneer, I'm afraid, it's the real tooth of many of these pieces.
pg has some decent takes on programming and one day decided that he might also have takes on things he knows far less about. These latter takes don't tend to be very good, which is unfortunate because he does actually manage to influence people.
That's a good story, but you didn't provide any evidence for it, so an anecdote like "I read his essay about [X] on which I'm an expert and it was wrong" would have more value.
His writings from back in the days when he was operating are insightful. But now that he's semi-retired his posts' signal to noise ratio has plummeted.
If PG's writing is "pseudo intellectual philosophy" I wonder what true intellectual philosophy looks like.
Looking at other comments in this thread, I get the impression that people have this ideal of an essay that looks like an academic paper, that starts with a literature review.
But that is not how writing and thought naturally flows.
People write like this to suck up to the right people who might help them get a job as an assistant professor somewhere, or tenure or maybe just cite their own papers in return.
Not every thought one decides to collect on their personal website has to be peer-reviewed and well-researched, you know?
It is hilariously dismissive to label someone's own ideas as pseudo intellectual because you don't agree with them, and they aren't coming with a bibliography.
Its not only limited to pg, either. There are lots of big-name programmers that look at their programming skills and think it means they're good to speak on other, totally unrelated topics as if they're super geniuses.
Kind of ironic he starts off with "I try to write using ordinary words and simple sentences" then dedicates an entire paragraph to making up an Italian word that really doesn't add anything to his point.
I figured that was to quickly drive the point home. Maybe I'm giving more credit to PG than is due, but that paragraph seemed tongue-in-cheek. I feel it would be hard for anyone to miss the irony.
"it's more considerate to write simply. When you write in a fancy way to impress people"
"When I write a sentence that seems too complicated, or that uses unnecessarily intellectual words, it doesn't seem fancy to me. It seems clumsy."
So apparently the dimensions are writing simply ⮂ writing fancy, which actually gets reduced to writing simply ⮂ writing clumsy. This implies that any writing which is not clumsy is written simply, therefore the best samples of simply writing is something akin to Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Heidegger's Being and Time, or Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, for they are the pinnacle of non-clumsy word strings, no sign in those texts is extraneous, however they also are the pinnacle of extremely dense ideas, requiring multiple library shelves to be understood. Something does not follow.
Although, granted, if Kant indeed gave us a specification for artificial intelligence [1] in the form of a post-medieval, transitory Latin to German compendium, a vade mecum if you will, 150+ years prior to the invention of the Turing machine, well, I suppose he couldn't write simply-er than he did.
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is simple, easy to read, doesn't have any references except in the introduction and epigraph and was also written by a rich guy.
One of the great small book I read about writing is: Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (https://www.amazon.com/Style-Lessons-Clarity-Grace-12th/dp/0...) It is very different from Strunk&White book in that it does not address things like whether you should place a comma or not, it teaches you about how to present you idea clear and easy to understand. In short write less like Friedrich Hayek and more like Ray Dailo. The former uses much more beautiful long sentences, but the latter's essays are more easy to read, and clearer in delivering the author's ideas.
“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”
I enjoy Paul Graham essays, because even if I don't always agree with the conclusions that he has drawn, the observations made are often thought provoking and insightful. I don't personally understand the anti-intellectualism and complaints that his essays often provoke in the comment sections of this website.
For example, in this essay I agreed with the main thrust and laughed at the irony of his Italian food example (which is certainly not a universal experience). Simple writing is good. Often. That's it right? There are contexts where we should strive to write more simply, and there are contexts in which we should encourage others to write simply. Does it make sense to qualify these contexts in his essay, or would the essay be any better for it? It would certainly be longer. More accurate perhaps, but better? Surely it would not be any more thought provoking to try and list all of the contexts under which a "write simply" rule ought to apply.
If a reader interprets any argument to follow a general rule such as this as literal an absolutist they're doing both the author and themselves a disservice.
Personally, I like to use a long word where a short word will do because it's fun. But when I write for the broadest audience it's better to follow this advice.
Readit News
The best prose is that which conveys the intended message for the intended audience in the best way possible. I think it's also a revealed vs stated preferences problem. People state they want/like simple writing but revealed preferences show otherwise.
I think the reason why so many business authors give this advice is confusing cause and effect. Writing simply does not make you successful or persuasive, but that people who are involved in business write that way naturally, but success at one does not follow from the other. Just like Bill Gates did not get rich by being good at bridge.
A memorable critique, from an English professor, of my writing: "stop trying to sound smart". He meant that I should stop trying to use big words and stop trying to construct complex sentences.
>People state they want/like simple writing but revealed preferences show otherwise.
Simplicity isn't what you think it is. The simplicity people want is sentences that flow regardless of complexity. You say complicated, I say clunky. An author might use a complex sentence to coalesce several ideas, but if that complexity, because the construction interrupts the flow, requires the audience to reread the sentence, the author has failed.
That's how we arrive at simplicity. I find it easier to pepper diversity into my prose ex post facto than try during first draft. Connecting two simple sentences is less work than unwinding a complicated sentence.
The advice isn't really to leave your writing simple, it's to start simple. At some point, you will be required to use a complex sentence to connect ideas.
Laughed at the use of extra words to explain a big word rather than just saying something like “out of date”
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> I try to write using ordinary words and simple sentences.
They don't go hand in hand. Quite the contrary, I'm arguing they are in conflict.
Drawing from a larger vocabulary allows greater precision, results in shorter sentences and enables the writer to express complex ideas concisely.
Ironically, artificially restricting what words one can use puts a far greater cognitive burden on the reader. It's superfluous to quote the relevant xkcd.
There's no cure for unclear prose: it's the necessary consequence of unclear thoughts.
It could also be about appreciating subtler aspects of life as I grow older. Regardless, the net result is my impressions about "write simply" suggestions are exactly what you stated.
He has written excellent technical books that are both deep and a pleasure to read.
He is not in the business of writing the next War and Peace, i.e. aesthetics is secondary to his goals.
Just say what you mean. Text is beautiful because it flows, the sentence might evoke the thing it's describing by its sounds or rhythm or structure. It's not beautiful because it uses big words.
I agree with you.The point of language is to get an idea from my head into your head with as little loss-of-signal as possible. That is much more challenging than it might sound. Note: an idea might be an emotion.
If I were to write that as simply as possible, I might say: "Yes. Talk is communication. That is hard", or even more simply "Talk hard!!!"
Too much simplification is reductionist, and something is lost. Excessive verboseness is too high a noise-to-signal ratio, and something is lost. There is a balance to be had, and that balance is a moving target, depending on the complexity and importance of the idea and your audience. If I'm trying to convey deep-technical knowledge to a fellow engineer, then I'll be precise and "jargony" - it won't be "simple"; if I'm trying to show that I'm having a good time to my inlaws with whom I don't share a common verbal language, then a beaming smile may be all that's needed.
Let's make yet another analogy with the body: "Why spend time in the gym working with barbells and dumbbells to achieve a shape and tone that would make you look like a Bronze of Riace instead of doing "just" 10k steps a day?"
Perhaps a dress can be too flowery or stiff; appropriate for a wedding, inappropriate for a day in the woods. A body may be too muscular for a marathon, not enough for a bodybuilding competition.
It is a matter of taste, of situation. Terse writing may fit here and not there; flowery writing may work here and not there. Prescription always depend on the context and the goals.
It's nice to decorate, but not nice to encrypt.
- https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-dropped-acid-and-saw-into-th...
- https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...
- https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf
- https://aphyr.com/posts/341-hexing-the-technical-interview
- https://mango.pdf.zone/finding-former-australian-prime-minis...
Deleted Comment
I have a service to use AI together with expertise in guiding beginner authors, writers for whom English is not the primary language, and for experienced casual writers. There are many heuristics that can be shown to writers to make the message clear, more impactful, in essay writing, short fiction, poetry, etc. If anyone's willing to beta test the service, contact me on reddit /u/goldfeld.
Deleted Comment
People have had this kind of reaction to his writing for 20 years now and I've been puzzling about why for a long time, because even though I often don't agree with him (sometimes I disagree, more often I have no opinion), I wish I could write like him and know of few other writers who come close.
My current take: I think pg's unusual quality is that he thinks for himself. It used to be a truism that one should "think for oneself" (and even "question authority"!)—not so much anymore—but although we all tell ourselves we do that, mostly we don't. We mostly repeat things we've cobbled from other sources, usually sources tagged as authorities in our minds (and usually also in the culture at large). If you cobble from enough sources and have a bit of taste, that's the sweet spot for getting a good reception. You'll come across as clever and creative, but not weird, because you haven't left the tribe.
When encountering someone who actually does think for himself, the reaction is often a WTF. How dare he do that! Where are the citations?! Thinking-for-self stands out, not in a good way—and in pg's case the ruthless editing makes it stand out starkly. It's off-putting. The reaction isn't "hey, what would it be like if I thought for myself?" It's "hey, you can't do that."
The "rich and famous" aspect is a red herring because pg was this way long before he got rich and famous (except Lisp-famous), and it was by this quality that he got rich... that plus a lot of energy. But the rich-and-famous aspect intensifies the WTF reaction. It's no longer just "how dare you", it's "how dare that rich motherfucker" - which again, gets the causality the wrong way.
I know this sounds harsh about the cobbler type but I know these things by tracking them in myself—I'm no different. The funny thing is that one can notice such things and still feel perfectly sure about "thinking for yourself" or whatever else it is.
I think what you are getting at, though, is not so much "thinking for yourself" as pg is unafraid to say unpopular things that are on his mind. And I don't mean this in a derogatory way: it's good to have people who aren't just posting sycophantic opinions following the zeitgeist. But I don't think that's what causes my reaction to pg's writings. I think he gives advice that is overly universalizing from his position as a wealthy VC: for example, his "The Two Kinds of Moderate" post strikes me as very much the kind of thing that is really only taking his own experiences into account.
It seems a key issue is that he often speaks in terms of what others should or should not do, rather than inviting others to see what has worked for him. Objectivity versus subjectivity. What makes it less palatable is that it appears carefully selected wording is used to (thinly) veil it to sound like something it isn't.
Ultimately it means the writing can come across as very self-indulgent. It does not often strike me as coming from a place of feeling genuine, authentic passion about sharing with other humans.
The reality is that many people are treading various intellectual ideas, and the idea that _you_ are the one with the new and innovative idea nobody else has thought of is... well.
I think what happens a lot of times though is that people will get to an idea that others dismiss, and then keep on going for whatever reason. Most of the time this leads to nowhere. Sometimes it leads somewhere interesting/valuable. But this is probably the most straightforward example of survivor bias out there. People with success will probably have done something counterintuitive or explored thoughts other people didn't have, but so many others waddle around endlessly in their search for having the unique idea.
If you want to get scientific with it, the way to prove if his ideas were valuable still would be to publish them anonymously. I'm a nobody and I have had things I post here get traffic. Some of pg's essays would also inspire some good conversations. But... this? I don't know.
I’m not dismissing their cultural relevance, I’m just constantly baffled at the fideism, and it honestly scares me a bit, as if people were prey to a global hallucination making them believe that by appreciating and praising such figures then one day, maybe, they could be like them?
Basically, all of pg's writings are also just cobbled together from other sources and only become notable because he's a rich, successful person.
Also, I am sure PG is really smart, but do not underestimate the effect on your brain of spending hours a day on HN, for many years. That's what makes me curious to read your stuff, in addition to Paul's.
Ah, I believe the simple main reason why people criticize Paul is... envy.
He doesn't need to be right all the time. He writes things that are provocative, and often make me/us think a lot about the topic. That's a success, in my view. Some people take it like that, others can't wait to criticize it to sound smart. And even if they're right, there are many ways to contribute to the conversation, instead of just bashing his writing as many often do.
If you "think for yourself" when confronted with a problem like this (a problem at least three millennia old! People have been arguing about effective writing for a long time), you'll inevitably retrace some steps—good steps—of smart thinkers that have gone before you. But you won't be able to think deeply! PG, like some many smart people who embark on criticism, don't imagine the responses-to-their-response (which are, historically, also by clever and independent thinkers), and the third order responses, and so on.
This essay is shallow because it has no reference to, and no argument against, the generations of writers who thought "perhaps complexity or even obscurity has an essential and unavoidable place in our writing" and wrote persuasively to advocate for the need complexity in writing.
This (like so many of PG's essays about things that aren't programming), is armchair philosophy about a contentious and deep topic that doesn't consider the very real problems of writing. PG (by virtue of his position) doesn't have to, and therefore cannot, steelman his arguments. While you're right that this essay isn't in any way "dumb", unfortunately the comment you're responding to was right! This is pseudo-intellectualism.
> It used to be a truism that one should "think for oneself" (and even "question authority"!)—not so much anymore—but although we all tell ourselves we do that, most of us don't.
We get beaten up when we do. The part that people envy isn’t his money, it’s his freedom.
Incidentally, if you really want an answer to your question, you can see this phenomenon in yourself. Run a thought experiment. If pg said X was a good idea, are you more or less likely to believe it than if I’d said it?
You could say this isn’t a fair comparison, since you have a lot of data about pg, so you’re using different priors. Still, even when he was Lisp-famous —- an era I miss —- he had the freedom to say whatever he wanted. He didn’t need to care whether you care what he thinks.
His recent rebellion against Twitter was especially notable. That’s what happens when you think for yourself. He can do that. The rest of us have to pick our battles.
So, the answer to your question of “Why are people dismissive of pg?” is undoubtedly related to the think-for-yourself aspect. It’s an aspect forced out of most of us, either by our parents or by authority. And that lack of freedom seems to be the underlying emotion.
Interestingly, you seem to imply that any of us can be like pg. Just think for ourselves, have good ideas, and don’t say dumb things. But when people actually try to do that, they risk far more than someone in pg’s position. So the “rich motherfucker” aspect is merely an extension of the same reaction that always tended to pop up. It’s a bit like a prisoner watching someone talk openly about how wonderful it is to walk outside whenever you want; of course they’d be jealous.
Dead Comment
pg has some decent takes on programming and one day decided that he might also have takes on things he knows far less about. These latter takes don't tend to be very good, which is unfortunate because he does actually manage to influence people.
He makes a point and talks about it. There doesn't appear to be an attempt to come off smarter than he is.
Looking at other comments in this thread, I get the impression that people have this ideal of an essay that looks like an academic paper, that starts with a literature review.
But that is not how writing and thought naturally flows.
People write like this to suck up to the right people who might help them get a job as an assistant professor somewhere, or tenure or maybe just cite their own papers in return.
I find it repulsive.
He's a keen observer and a good writer.
It is hilariously dismissive to label someone's own ideas as pseudo intellectual because you don't agree with them, and they aren't coming with a bibliography.
I haven't recognised this in his writing. Can you quote some of the pseudo intellectual philosophy-veneered sections?
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> dedicates an entire paragraph
You're technically right, but this entire paragraph consists of two sentences.
"When I write a sentence that seems too complicated, or that uses unnecessarily intellectual words, it doesn't seem fancy to me. It seems clumsy."
So apparently the dimensions are writing simply ⮂ writing fancy, which actually gets reduced to writing simply ⮂ writing clumsy. This implies that any writing which is not clumsy is written simply, therefore the best samples of simply writing is something akin to Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Heidegger's Being and Time, or Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, for they are the pinnacle of non-clumsy word strings, no sign in those texts is extraneous, however they also are the pinnacle of extremely dense ideas, requiring multiple library shelves to be understood. Something does not follow.
Although, granted, if Kant indeed gave us a specification for artificial intelligence [1] in the form of a post-medieval, transitory Latin to German compendium, a vade mecum if you will, 150+ years prior to the invention of the Turing machine, well, I suppose he couldn't write simply-er than he did.
[1] https://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~re14/Evans-R-2020-PhD-Thesis.pdf
I find long paragraphs a lot harder to read in most written forms, and often 'go to the next line' only to have started that line over again.
For the most part, this article was written that way, whether intentional or not.
― Ernest Hemingway
For example, in this essay I agreed with the main thrust and laughed at the irony of his Italian food example (which is certainly not a universal experience). Simple writing is good. Often. That's it right? There are contexts where we should strive to write more simply, and there are contexts in which we should encourage others to write simply. Does it make sense to qualify these contexts in his essay, or would the essay be any better for it? It would certainly be longer. More accurate perhaps, but better? Surely it would not be any more thought provoking to try and list all of the contexts under which a "write simply" rule ought to apply.
If a reader interprets any argument to follow a general rule such as this as literal an absolutist they're doing both the author and themselves a disservice.
Personally, I like to use a long word where a short word will do because it's fun. But when I write for the broadest audience it's better to follow this advice.