How Intellectuals Talk | Hacker News Reader

How Intellectuals Talk

mattmaroon.com

10 pointscwan6 comments

I agree with that sentiment for a lot of topics (especially the more "soup-du-jour" ones), but I do find that people do still contribute positively to topics related to the "Silicon Valley hacker" lifestyle, be it entrepreneurial tips, or just where to get good tea.

To be honest, I don't think I've ever felt that HN was a place to have intellectual discussions about various topics, as he puts it. I'd imagine that a community needs to have a certain level of expertise on a topic to have a meaningful discussion on it, and it seems a bit disingenuous to think that HN somehow has that level of expertise for everything under the "intellectual" sun.

For that sort of discussion, I find that commenting on good ol' blogs from field experts (when they're talking about their fields) is usually more productive.

An 'expert' and an 'intellectual' are different things. As a gathering of experts on startup and tech-related topics, HN is unmatched; people are very nice and volunteer lots of information. This is perhaps the upside of "nerdy" that Matt did not mention in his article. But I agree with him that HN is not intellectual. When the topic of discussion is beyond the expertise of almost anyone, the only way to make progress is to apply a certain amount of intellectualism -- to be tentative, questioning, critical, contemplative, nuanced. For a definition of intellect, I have always relied on Richard Hofstadter's formula, in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life:

Intellect [...] is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of mind. Whereas intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, adjust, intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes, imagines. Intelligence will seize the immediate meaning in a situation and evaluate it. Intellect evaluates evaluations, and looks for the meanings of situations as a whole. Intelligence can be praised as a quality in animals; intellect, being a unique manifestation of human dignity, is both praised and assailed as a quality in men. (Chapter 2, Section 1)

>> As a gathering of experts on startup and tech-related topics, HN is unmatched

Agreed. When people say co-founding is like a marriage, I think it's not much of a stretch to say that start-ups and hacking in general are a way of life. That's why I worded it as "lifestyle discussions".

One could say that intellectuals are similar to hackers in that both take interest in nuances of complex things, but imo, hacker culture is more individualistic ("let me do my thing") whereas intellectualism is more of conversational ("hey, here's another thing to ponder").

Point taken. Hackers are nuanced when it comes to their expertise, so nuance is not really the difference between hackers and intellectuals. If pressed I'd say that the hacking trait is biased toward exploiting knowledge, whereas the intellectual trait is biased toward understanding (or integrating knowledge, if you will). The ideal hacker is also an intellectual generalist, but really all you need to be a hacker is some expertise. Outside of that expertise, the typical hacker either avoids having opinions, or has prefabbed ones -- they aren't very different than the general population.

I have noticed that the influx of new users around each YC application deadline coincides with a slew of less intellectual topics. I have assumed this is b/c not all founders (or aspiring founders) are particularly intellectual.

Sometimes intellectual pursuits in a business context lead to excessive yak shaving. Some of the most capable entrepreneurs I know don't have a stomach for the kind of intellectual banter that Matt idealizes (and I very much enjoy).

In the lulls between YC application deadlines, HN shines. Everyone is busy working on their project and people are more likely to speak from passion, insight, etc., than out of the competitive, aspirational mindset that they feel after getting accepted or rejected from YC (or dreading/awaiting one of the two).

An indepth intellectual discussion may be rare offline and its even rarer on forums. The very nature of message board conversation tends to make you partisan and cut out the niceties and "I agree but.." and "but what do you think about.." like phrases. What makes forums different from face2face conversation is that it makes us assertive rather than perceptive, but as a side effect, a purpose does get served . that of increasing variety and diversity of thought rather than depth.

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