He didn't need to right that article. He is already rich. So why did he do it?
Everyday hn is full of articles where people have some some amazingly complex thing, entirely for fun. Then they have written a blog about it entirely for fun.
Then we get one of the familiar detachments from reality
> In preindustrial times most people's jobs made them strong. Now if you want to be strong, you work out. So there are still strong people, but only those who choose to be.
Except for all of the people whose jobs still make them strong. Scaffolders, tree surgeons, bricklayers, carpenters, et al.
I need to write a document next week. I have begun to analyse a complex system that chatgpt will not be aware of. I need to apply my specialism to it, to decide what to do with lots of steps. Writing it will test my understanding of the system, and encourage completeness. It will allow others to know what they are expected to do. It will allow a constructive discussion of the choices and reasons. ChatGPT wont help me, except perhaps in layout, rephrasing a sentence, something like that. My job will keep my writing muscles strong. Paul Graham has lost touch with reality.
Why read a book when we can have an idea distilled in a quick infographic, a shortform video, or a pithy tweet? I love a deep dive book that lets you immerse yourself in idea and study it from multiple angles, done masterfully in Dune or Thinking, Fast and Slow.
But are we losing that chance to really contemplate given the speed at which more information is being thrown at us across every form factor?
“It's not surprising that conventional-minded people would dislike inequality if independent-mindedness is one of the biggest drivers of it. But it's not simply that they don't want anyone to have what they can't. The conventional-minded literally can't imagine what it's like to have novel ideas. So the whole phenomenon of great variation in performance seems unnatural to them, and when they encounter it they assume it must be due to cheating or to some malign external influence.” - https://paulgraham.com/superlinear.html#f12n
There you have it folks. The genius Paul Graham is one of a select few people with the ability to have ideas, something which those who disagree with him are simply incapable of comprehending.
My takeaway: people that know how to write, that have trained that muscle, are better at thinking in a structured way and articulating their thoughts. The number of people that know how to write is declining, at least in part due to the advent of GenAI. The number of people who know how to write is still non zero and is not limited to only Paul Graham.
But there are a lot of others which never liked to write, they do not need this for their job and why should not use this GPT as a tool like the promised land of AI / robots.
Same will happen with cooking: people who like to cook will cook traditionally even after our incoming household robots will be able to.
> Instead of good writers, ok writers, and people who can't write, there will just be good writers and people who can't write.
> writing is thinking. In fact there's a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing
> So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too.
PG states, clear as day, that he expects the world to be divided into people who can think (him) and people who can't (almost everyone else). When I say Paul Graham imagines only he can think, this is hyperbole. I'm sure there's a small group of people with views very similar to his to whom he would also attribute the ability of thought. I am commenting on the clear and undeniable pattern of PG writing that huge swathes of the population are incapable of thinking.
https://xkcd.com/610/ about sums up my views on his attitude.
Tf
I would say that it's quite the opposite! The most prestigious the job, the more likely the person will have one or many assistants to help them write.
Think of presidents, governors and CEOs. They must *read* much more than they write. Their response can fit in a post-it attached to the paperwork.
The next level also reads more than they write. Instead of a post-it, they will probably come up with bullet points which will be fleshed out by people below them.
The people who *really* have to write stuff is the people at the *bottom* of the hierarchy.
Writing well could be a way to go up the ladder. But it is definitely not required at the top.
What will change, in the future, is that *everyone* will have assistants.
But the real issue is people that are not already engaged and knowledgeable about what one another are doing, the key moment when a non-tech needs to discuss a tech need with someone from the tech developer sphere: can they even communicate, and I'm not talking through a salesperson, but actually discuss what one needs and what one provides without resorting to empty jargon? Real communications needs no jargon and does not use jargon, it modifies itself to be understood by the audience, using the audience's terms.
This is critical in the coming decades: learn to communicate, professionally communicate, and I'm not talking about being a media talking head, I'm talking about learning how to speak to anyone anywhere from any stature. It's a critical skill and it is damn well needed now as well as tenfold in our fast approaching future.