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Honestly, nothing makes me want to write essays like reading Paul Graham. Someone needs to argue with him, since it's clear he's not going to do it.



I admired Paul Graham's blog posts.. when I was an impressionable college sophomore.

Then I guess after I went to grad school and actually read a lot and tried to do some science and research. I find this kind of popular writing superficial, flawed, inefficient, and even conceited. That's just my subjective experience. But it seems some young people in tech just lap it up, he functions as a kind of thought leader for the industry.


I think if you've ever read self help books, the content is quite similar. It is the kind of writing that seems insightful at first glance because it restates somewhat obvious things in new ways.

I'm not saying that his arguments are 'wrong' persay, it's just that it's not particularly original or interesting.


>It is the kind of writing that seems insightful at first glance because it restates somewhat obvious things in new ways. I'm not saying that his arguments are 'wrong' persay, it's just that it's not particularly original or interesting.

You're spot on. Looking to this very comment section, you have people calling this line out as being enlightening:

>While breadth comes from reading and talking and seeing, depth comes from doing.

I would hope this is self evident to anyone who has ever tried _anything_.




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