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Posted by npalli 3/29/2025

What to Do(paulgraham.com)
274 points | 252 commentspage 8
brody_hamer 3/29/2025|
What more can a person do than eat, drink, and take joy in their work?
euvin 3/30/2025||
That raises the question of what work they should pursue.
thrance 3/30/2025||
[flagged]
dang 3/30/2025||
"Don't be snarky."

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

thrance 3/30/2025||
Forgive me, but I feel like these guidelines are enforced very selectively. Paul Graham's last post against "wokeness" staying on the front page for two days left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. Why should his political crusades not only be allowed on here but also promoted?

Similarly, why are some DOGE posts allowed to pass through the flag-filter but not others?

I'll take your comment as a hint to take a break from HN. But please, do consider further detailing what kind of political content is acceptable or not.

dang 3/30/2025||
Your reply would make more sense to me if I had mentioned the HN guideline against using the site for political battle, but I didn't. The guidelines I listed your comment as breaking don't have anything to do with that.

But here's a response anyhow—if you look at the past explanations here:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

you'll find exhaustive explanations of how we approach politics on HN. If you read some of that and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.

I should add, though, that it's too much to expect moderation to be consistent. The principles by which we moderate HN are consistent, but it's not possible to apply them consistently to all the content. There's far too much content for us to read it all, and randomness is a major factor in sevreral different ways.

giardini 3/30/2025||
A good idea and one that Elon Musk tries to do. But he chose to go into politics too. Now his every move (even every past move) seems to be under scrutiny and politicized. Of course, this isn't the first time this has happened, but it is unfortunate that human behavior today is so.
dachworker 3/30/2025|
I think people are being a bit too negative and maybe that is because they are not used to pg's style of slogans in baby talk. I think the gist of what pg is saying is that you should have some agency and initiative and not spend your whole life being the side character in other people's stories. This serves two purposes. First of all, it maximizes your chances of gaining wealth, power and influence. And secondly if you care to make the world a better place, it also increases your chances of having an impact.

The novelty is important, because, tautologically, if your are just copying others, you are still a side character in their story. However, I do not think this should be read as, "create the next unicorn startup". I think it is rather a principle to live by. Like for example, if you have three job offers, go for the one that allows you to build something new, rather than the one where your task is to manage a legacy product. Or for example, let's say you move to a new city and you are a bit disappointed with the activities that are available for your kids. You can either try to convince your kids to attend the available activities or you can try to organize a new after school club.