Paul Graham,
We met once in March 2007, and I’m sure you don’t remember me. You seemed like a nice guy but I wasn’t very impressed, and I’m sure I made even less of an impression on you.
I’m writing because of the insults that you, through your organization, have tried to lob at me. First, there were the annoying “moderations” (to use Dan Gackle’s term) imposed on my account on Hacker News: slowban (causing the site to become astronomically slower when I was logged in) and rankban (causing my comments to fall to the bottom, regardless of their value).
There’s no doubt that you know who I am, as you’ve blocked me on Twitter, although I have no idea what for, so I don’t need to introduce myself.
Earlier this month, Dan Gackle took my use of a humorous archaic word out of context and used it as an excuse to ban me from the site. Fine. Hacker News has been in decline for at least five years and a vacation from that cesspool would do me good. Then we have the unprofessional behavior of Paul Buchheit, who saw fit to attack me on Quora (on a now-deleted thread).
It seems that you’re not good at keeping your dogs on a leash.
As I see it, there are three options. I’ll leave the ball in your court.
- You formally reprimand Paul Buchheit and Dan Gackel, reinstate my account on Hacker News, and issue a formal apology, that is featured on your website as prominently as your other essays.
- We have it out in a rap duel in October 2015, place and time at shared convenience. Let’s see if your rhymes can stack up against mine. We can work out the details later (I’m sure that there are plenty of people who’d love to officiate this) but I’ll need a response by September 1.
- Or: you accept this moment, in August of 2015, as the point where you were shown up, in front of the whole world, by Michael O. Church.
I know that passive aggression is the normal way of handling things in Silicon Valley, but I’m a fan of actually resolving conflicts and then letting shit go. So, let’s do this. Personally, my preference is for the rap battle.
However, if I haven’t heard a definitive response by September 1, however, I’ll assume that you’ve taken the coward’s way out.
What’s it gonna be, Paul?
