Einstein was no lone genius
nature.com
Einstein was no lone genius
1–10 of 64 posts
Re: Einstein was no lone genius
#2I wonder how many geniuses there have been in the world that never had the opportunity to expand their natural skills because they were to busy just surviving.
Re: Einstein was no lone genius
#3To some I might seem like Captain Obvious, but to me this article gave me a big insight. I mean I know social capital is important. I know it really well.
Nevertheless, I didn't know that social capital is that important. Even Einstein needed it. I had no idea. I only thought he stood on the theories of others, but a lot of other people also helped him?! I never knew.
How about Stephen Hawking? Did he receive significant help from fellow physicists as well? Are all popular scientists not lone geniuses? Are they all, for lack of a better term, group geniuses?
Re: Einstein was no lone genius
#4The artist Damien Hirst does not make any of his own work, he has a team that do all that for him. Nonetheless, everything out his studio is 'by Damien Hirst' as in the artist, not one of his 'artworker' collaborators or business managers.
I wonder if one could work as a scientist or an inventor like that? Which inventors, e.g.Edison, actually did?
The art movement of the 'Blair era' could be described with only the names of half a dozen Hirst type artists mentioned, yet all those names have teams of helpers. Maybe the invention scene a hundred years ago was like that to a certain extent?
Re: Einstein was no lone genius
#5I wonder how many geniuses there have been in the world that never had the opportunity to expand their natural skills because they were to busy just surviving.
that's why awhile ago I proposed the high-IQ basic income. It's like a government Mensa that pays its members. But it would also be very un-egalitarian
Re: Einstein was no lone genius
#6I wonder how many geniuses there have been in the world that never had the opportunity to expand their natural skills because they were to busy just surviving.
Billions. IQ is normally distributed, so it's easy math. Lots of cynics think people are dumb or we don't have enough smart ones, but the truth is that we quite literally have more brains than we know what to do with. We are a species of bored underachievers trapped in a gravity well with nothing much to do and no future, so we spend our time fighting and drugging and making pointless doodads as townies trapped in some nowheresville often do.
Re: Einstein was no lone genius
#7I wonder how many geniuses there have been in the world that never had the opportunity to expand their natural skills because they were to busy just surviving.
Or not even geniuses, just talented individuals. A very small percentage of people have the luxury to do 1) what they enjoy and are motivated by or 2) what they are good at. We are all, as a society, worse off when we keep massive swaths of people living on the margin.
Re: Einstein was no lone genius
#8Einstein's big year was 1905, not 1915, and the four (five?) papers he produced during that year (one of which won him a Nobel) could easily be described as the work of a "lone genius."
He did most of work of that year while working, of course as we all know, as a patent clerk.
Obviously, no one lives in a vacuum, and all legendary geniuses stand on the shoulders of other giants, but I can't help but think this article somewhat misrepresents the reality of Einstein's world-changing contributions.
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Re: Einstein was no lone genius
#9I wonder how many geniuses there have been in the world that never had the opportunity to expand their natural skills because they were to busy just surviving.
Billions. IQ is normally distributed, so it's easy math. Lots of cynics think people are dumb or we don't have enough smart ones, but the truth is that we quite literally have more brains than we know what to do with. We are a species of bored underachievers trapped in a gravity well with nothing much to do and no future, so we spend our time fighting and drugging and making pointless doodads as townies trapped in so…
Humanity is ~7B, and "billons" implies >= 2B which is >= 30% of humanity.
I'd define "great" to be the top 1% of minds, which is ~70 million people. So, yes, tens of millions of great minds are certainly wasted, but not billions. (Not that that's much consolation).
Re: Einstein was no lone genius
#10Einstein's big year was 1905, not 1915, and the four (five?) papers he produced during that year (one of which won him a Nobel) could easily be described as the work of a "lone genius." He did most of work of that year while working, of course as we all know, as a patent clerk. Obviously, no one lives in a vacuum, and all legendary geniuses stand on the shoulders of other giants, but I can't help but think this artic…
It's part of a larger push toward revisionist history in general. It's no longer correct to imagine that great people moved history through inspiration and force. Now, everything is cooperative, gradual, social, and voluntary. Today's archaeologist might find the remains of a burned city littered with arrowheads and skulls and say, "There was no invasion! This was clearly just theater!" You might see an entire civilization wiped out, a language made extinct, a change in religious idols, and a sudden decrease in the sophistication and production of pottery, and the conclusion has to be "Oh! The people of this region voluntarily absorbed the language and practice of their neighbors" and not the fucking obvious conclusion "They were wiped out and replaced." And now, there are no inventory, no inspired people, just groups and systems that at some place and time happened to squirt out relativity.