about web writers, techies, and philosophical discussions.

sometimes i really like reading this one writer, paul graham. he may be embedded in the real world of money and companies and building the internet and whatnot, but he writes as if he is a techie and understands techies. [1]

i might have written this before, but one of my reasons for liking his essays is that he's willing to take a chance on philosophy. never mind if he's right or not; he's giving it a shot.

as for why i'm writing this, he has a new essay up, called "how to disagree." here is how it begins:

The result is there's a lot more disagreeing going on, especially measured by the word. That doesn't mean people are getting angrier. The structural change in the way we communicate is enough to account for it. But though it's not anger that's driving the increase in disagreement, there's a danger that the increase in disagreement will make people angrier. Particularly online, where it's easy to say things you'd never say face to face.

If we're all going to be disagreeing more, we should be careful to do it well. What does it mean to disagree well? Most readers can tell the difference between mere name-calling and a carefully reasoned refutation, but I think it would help to put names on the intermediate stages. So here's an attempt at a disagreement hierarchy:

perhaps there is not much new in this, and perhaps other web writers have written such things already. also, it's short.

perhaps i should stop here, in my attempts to explain why i like this or that. these discussions go the way most philosophical arguments tend to go:

after a while, the words you use don't mean anything. they're used colloquially and not rigorously. if your company is persistent enough, then this might reduce to a first-order logic problem. then your discussion becomes a standard exercise.

more often than not, it will also lose most of its original feeling and humanness, though you can't really explain why.

this is the curse of arguing with mathematicians and techies; everything must be well-defined.

in other words, humanity is often sacrificed for the sake of rigor.

[1] i didn't make up the word "techie," but having tried several times before, i won't define it here. the term is too vague, but let me give an example or two:

if you've ever done any programming in your spare time, you're a techie;

if you've talked math at a bar before because it was natural to do so (and not because you intended to annoy someone) then you're a techie;

if you played with legos as a child, still like playing legos with your little cousins, but are careful not to build too extravagantly (so that you won't be found out), then you're a techie.