If I thought that pg was capable of hearing my argument, I'd make it far more carefully.
I think that it is 100% useless to attempt to persuade him away from his rediscovery of social darwinism.
The man thinks that those concerned with income inequality want communist style income equality. He's detached from reality. There aren't words that will fix that sort of broken. This has become a situation where you can't reason a man out of a situation that he arrived to unreasonably.
He has beliefs that... aren't reasonable, that aren't related to reality... he is surrounded by rich people who share those beliefs. I'm just some poor whose net worth is only in the single digit millions and who only makes a couple hundred K per year. I'm nobody to him.
so y'know... why try? Why not just make a throwaway account, and engage in angry honesty? Sure, it's not polite... but it's deeply honest.
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edit: and to be clear, I don't think pg is like, some bad dude. I've met him, I think he really loves helping people, and I don't mind that he got rich. But that essay... that essay showed that he's become disconnected in a dangerous and fundamental way and it makes me sad and angry and disappointed.... it's horrible to see somebody who used to use their skills and knowledge to generate such good start using them to lobby for social darwinistic bullshit. it's awful, and painful, and sad... and I know that nothing I say will make him change. Nobody who goes down the road he's on comes back reformed a better man. He's just going to become a bigger piece of shit as he gets more powerful, more financial successful, as more people will line up to tell him how right he is. And that's incredibly sad.
> The man thinks that those concerned with income inequality want communist style income equality.
pg's essay did not say that. I think you've misunderstood what he said, and are attributing views to him that are quite far away from reality. My best guess is that you've read his words with emotion and projected false beliefs onto his writing.
If you genuinely care about this issue, then I advise you to go back and read the essay again with a critical, logical mind. Read the words he wrote, and consider simply those words, not what you imagine or extrapolate might be the views of the person who wrote them. Consider the actual words. PG's words do not characterize the opposition argument in this debate as being in favor of communism and "100% social equality", whatever that means.
If you were to read the essay again, and attempt to connect the views you're claiming PG holds with actual words in the essay, you'd fail. PG does not characterize the opposition view as anything like how you describe.
If he characterizes the opposition, it's simply as people who argue that "social inequality is bad" without stopping to think about it in more detail, and without realizing that some inequality is fair because some people are more productive than others. The other observation in his essay is that technology amplifies this difference in productivity.
I think that it is 100% useless to attempt to persuade him away from his rediscovery of social darwinism.
The man thinks that those concerned with income inequality want communist style income equality. He's detached from reality. There aren't words that will fix that sort of broken. This has become a situation where you can't reason a man out of a situation that he arrived to unreasonably.
He has beliefs that... aren't reasonable, that aren't related to reality... he is surrounded by rich people who share those beliefs. I'm just some poor whose net worth is only in the single digit millions and who only makes a couple hundred K per year. I'm nobody to him.
so y'know... why try? Why not just make a throwaway account, and engage in angry honesty? Sure, it's not polite... but it's deeply honest.
---
edit: and to be clear, I don't think pg is like, some bad dude. I've met him, I think he really loves helping people, and I don't mind that he got rich. But that essay... that essay showed that he's become disconnected in a dangerous and fundamental way and it makes me sad and angry and disappointed.... it's horrible to see somebody who used to use their skills and knowledge to generate such good start using them to lobby for social darwinistic bullshit. it's awful, and painful, and sad... and I know that nothing I say will make him change. Nobody who goes down the road he's on comes back reformed a better man. He's just going to become a bigger piece of shit as he gets more powerful, more financial successful, as more people will line up to tell him how right he is. And that's incredibly sad.