Wait, I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make here. Is it that I commented about Paul Graham's writing style in response to a PG essay on writing style? Is that "making up concerns before even engaging with the author's ideas"? The whole point of the essay we're discussing is writing style, and in particular a set of suggestions he has based on his own work.
It's valid to criticize someone for not giving a piece of writing a charitable read before criticising the author's style, but that does not seem to apply when the topic of the essay is the author's style. Writing style is largely about figuring out how to direct the reader to your ideas, so it seems axiomatic that any piece of writing that needs a high-effort charitable read is poorly written (this, by the way, is in TFA).
As to your original point, being too vague also doesn't increase signal to noise ratio. It just lets you write as though a lot of noise is signal.
> Is that "making up concerns before even engaging with the author's ideas"?
I am responding to the point that pg’s writing is too reductionist. Comments on these articles often include “what about [obvious exception that distract from the main idea]”.
These comments indicate they are trying to dismiss rather than understand (the author didn’t even consider my idea!)
As an example, “San Francisco is wealthier than Bakersfield”. Almost certainly a bad reader will complain that this does not apply to every resident. But we all know what is meant.
So my general takeaway is that making broad statements without qualification can be a strength, because you filter out bad readers who aren’t interested in big ideas. And catering to them (who cannot be satisfied) only worsens the experience for your interested audience.
This itself is of course a broad statement with exception.
PG's writing is often so reductionist it muddies his points and HN commenters are often pedants about meaningless issues. Both can be true.
I don't blame PG for the pedantry over the minutiae. That's on the readers, and people on HN specifically are prone to this kind of pedantry. I do blame him for weakening his points by using bad language to express them.
TFA isn't about how to read, though. It's about writing.
It's valid to criticize someone for not giving a piece of writing a charitable read before criticising the author's style, but that does not seem to apply when the topic of the essay is the author's style. Writing style is largely about figuring out how to direct the reader to your ideas, so it seems axiomatic that any piece of writing that needs a high-effort charitable read is poorly written (this, by the way, is in TFA).
As to your original point, being too vague also doesn't increase signal to noise ratio. It just lets you write as though a lot of noise is signal.