What I see here as a huge problem is (and not only in this article) that the word hater is used to disqualify a genuine and true criticism with good fundamental basis. Haters gonna hate, right?
In todays society pop culture is what is mainstream: think positive, smile, listen songs that dont mean anything but are also not hurting anyone, be happy, even if something is negative concentrate on positive (X company is adding toxic chemicals to their food but they have such a lovely packaging), but bottom line, pretend that everything is nice and fine and you will die with a smile on your face.
The problem is that the society is going into endless circle of self soothing minds, that are not only ignoring the hell of a lot of things that needs to be fixed (from society, environment, companys... products) but are also satisfied by someone selling them intelectual or physical product that is a junk but offers them a dream that there is nothing wrong with their lifestyle/thinking/... and are furious protecting that illusion from anyone daring to criticize it. This was a funboy a decade ago. I am observing with horror that now it has become mainstream.
Once the options to contradict logically are gone, as a last scream of mind defending their ego is an etiquette "you are a hater".
In that moment everything seems fine again.
"It is not me.", "It is not the product I love.", "It is you.", "I can go back to my illusion now.".
So Graham. Smile. Be happy. Be positive. Dont be a hater to haters. As maybe... they are not haters after all.
I think you missed the point. Graham is explicitly not using hater to disqualify genuine criticism but to identify people whose hate is irrational, who can't be reasoned with. Obviously it's a risk that someone can dismiss genuine criticism as hate (and people do this all the time), but that's not what Graham's advocating here.
Who decides what is "genuine criticism" and what is "hate"?
To the person receiving criticism, everything is hate. Look at pg's twitter on Tesla: doesn't understand the hate. Has he read the criticism and refuted it? No, he dismisses it.
> To the person receiving criticism, everything is hate.
That's some immature criticism-receiver that you are describing here. You have just implied that it is impossible to receive criticism without thinking of it as hate, which I find to be false.
I agree, it's immature. But I'm not the one who wrote an article calling critics haters and losers.
I mean, the article literally says the calling card of a hater is the use of the word "fraud". Meanwhile, we see actual fraud in Silicon Valley (and beyond, of course) all the time. God forbid it gets called out.
I'm old enough to remember the flak people took on these very forums for calling Theranos a fraud: thoughtful people obviously did due diligence on the company, critics (losers?) couldn't stand seeing a woman be so successful.
It’s often a hard call, and we should certainly not uncritically accept a claim that everyone who disagrees with me is a hater. But I don’t think that’s what he’s doing here. More importantly, it’s a call we have to be willing to make, because some people really are just bullies setting out to drag others down.
In todays society pop culture is what is mainstream: think positive, smile, listen songs that dont mean anything but are also not hurting anyone, be happy, even if something is negative concentrate on positive (X company is adding toxic chemicals to their food but they have such a lovely packaging), but bottom line, pretend that everything is nice and fine and you will die with a smile on your face.
The problem is that the society is going into endless circle of self soothing minds, that are not only ignoring the hell of a lot of things that needs to be fixed (from society, environment, companys... products) but are also satisfied by someone selling them intelectual or physical product that is a junk but offers them a dream that there is nothing wrong with their lifestyle/thinking/... and are furious protecting that illusion from anyone daring to criticize it. This was a funboy a decade ago. I am observing with horror that now it has become mainstream.
Once the options to contradict logically are gone, as a last scream of mind defending their ego is an etiquette "you are a hater".
In that moment everything seems fine again.
"It is not me.", "It is not the product I love.", "It is you.", "I can go back to my illusion now.".
So Graham. Smile. Be happy. Be positive. Dont be a hater to haters. As maybe... they are not haters after all.