He's always written about conformism and wealth. See "Why Nerds Are Unpopular" (2003) [1], "What You Can't Say" (2004) [2], and a lengthy discussion of what wealth is and what it means for society in "How to Make Wealth" (2004) [3]. All of these are featured in his book, "Hackers and Painters".

[1] http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html [2] http://paulgraham.com/say.html [3] http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

Yep, I liked those too.

I think it was harder to narrowly categorize those as in-group vs. out-group than the newer ones though.

Maybe it's because people are more polarized now and there's less room for talking about interesting points that don't clearly fit into an existing political group? Maybe if those were written today people would find them similarly 'disconnected'?

I don't know, but I agree his new stuff isn't that different from the kinds of topics he's historically written about.

Bingo. The world is more polarized now, and PG’s classic essays would get the same treatment if published today.

Those who don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to the politics they seem to imply, aren’t as loud as those who have to disagree.

I admit that politics is mixed into my opinions here.

It's just that based on current political climate, I think it's hard to keep politics aside.

My thoughts about pg have essentially gone through this flow: - Start reading some of the old essays in college, agree with most of the points - Start working, the essays slowed down. I read old ones once in a while, still mostly agree - Start following pg on twitter. There's some stuff I don't agree with but it's alright. - See a lot of stuff that I don't agree with [1]

(in between somewhere, I got convinced that keeping politics on sidelines is not an options)

Then I see the essay on wealth tax. My read is that main argument is that the tax compounds. But I don't see any alternative arguments. So I see his position as against the transfer of wealth and societal equality and I don't agree with that.

Maybe I'm being too opinionated or not reading deep enough, but that was my line of thought.

https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1130241349935149056

> So I see his position as against the transfer of wealth

That would be consistent with his previous writings on the topic. He doesn't necessarily seem to be against all taxation that results in some transfer of wealth away from the rich, especially, I suspect through inheritance. Someone who believes founding startups are an important way humanity's wealth increases is likely to be hesitant about anything that might put the brakes on that process; a wealth tax would diminish the incentive for smart people to go all-in on high-risk high-reward ideas.

A sibling comment points to two essays from "back in the day" which are broadly about conformism: "What you can't say" and "Why nerds are unpopular".

If you went back and reread them, would you say they're "highfalutin pseudo-psychologizing"?

Both you and pg have changed in the intervening decade-and-change; I think you're over-weighting his changes, and under-weighting your own.

Which is natural, but I'm curious what you think of those essays in that light.

Thanks for the reply - I might have read motivated reasoning into your comment that wasn't there.

I think it's fair to point out that there are fewer actionable startup advice essays recently, but 'highfalutin pseudo-psychologizing' is just dismissive without talking about any of the ideas, and he did have well-liked essays like What you Can't Say and Why Nerds Are Unpopular that were of a similar type - so that kind of thing was something he's always written about (though he also wrote about more actionable advice alongside it too).