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The genius of John von Neumann

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Re: The genius of John von Neumann

#41

Post by systemvoltage »

creata wrote: post #33
systemvoltage wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this. We are trying to look at the worst of someone that did so much for the world. People on HN are trying to cancel Feynman as well. I have nothing but feelings of disdain for you. Even if they did something wrong, I’d rather focus on their positive sides. Please stop this onslaught of taking down the history for some axe to grind.

> People on HN are trying to cancel Feynman as well. What does the word "cancel" mean to you? Feynman can't be deplatformed since he's dead , and no one can deny his fundamental contributions to physics. > Please stop this onslaught of taking down the history for some axe to grind. You know, if someone told me to stop saying something about a historical figure because they'd "rather focus on their positive sides", I…

> You know, if someone told me to stop saying something about a historical figure because they'd "rather focus on their positive sides"

This is the most fragile strawman I've seen in a while. That's not what I said at all. I did not say we should stop talking about bad parts of the history. That would be literally be a totalitarian state.

Re: The genius of John von Neumann

#42

Post by [deleted] »

badRNG wrote: post #9

Bizarre that the second to top comment (on the linked page) immediately turned the conversation into one about the commenter's view on racial/sexual supremacy and goes on to say "correspondingly, there are also ethnicities that are less intelligent" (I'm assuming they are implying supremacy of their own group.) It's quite jarring the frequency one comes across white supremacist/misogynist talking points when one trie…

[deleted]

Re: The genius of John von Neumann

#43

Post by user982 »

sugarpile wrote: post #31
user982 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"World domination through genocide is good, actually."

Well that's a strawman. That is not a belief I hold and no where did I claim or imply I did. There's nothing in my comment, or in von Neuman's stance that I'm aware of that, that endorses world domination. I also don't see any reason to evoke the emotions associated with the word genocide either... What I believe is that preventing development and possession of nuclear weapons by other nations would very likely lead…

You are advocating for a United States hegemony via a monopoly on nuclear weapons, maintained by nuclear first strikes on the population centers of any other nation which might develop them. Is that an inaccurate summary?

Re: The genius of John von Neumann

#44

Post by [deleted] »

badRNG wrote: post #9

Bizarre that the second to top comment (on the linked page) immediately turned the conversation into one about the commenter's view on racial/sexual supremacy and goes on to say "correspondingly, there are also ethnicities that are less intelligent" (I'm assuming they are implying supremacy of their own group.) It's quite jarring the frequency one comes across white supremacist/misogynist talking points when one trie…

[deleted]

Re: The genius of John von Neumann

#45

Post by tuesdayrain »

badRNG wrote: post #9

Bizarre that the second to top comment (on the linked page) immediately turned the conversation into one about the commenter's view on racial/sexual supremacy and goes on to say "correspondingly, there are also ethnicities that are less intelligent" (I'm assuming they are implying supremacy of their own group.) It's quite jarring the frequency one comes across white supremacist/misogynist talking points when one trie…

All he said is that some ethnicities are less intelligent than others. What is the statistical likelihood that 100% of ethnicities, which have evolved in drastically different environments across the world, have all developed perfectly identical intelligence on average? It's just not how evolution realistically works. People shouldn't close their eyes to how the world actually is whenever it doesn't match up with how they think it should be.

Re: The genius of John von Neumann

#46

Post by watwut »

leesec wrote: post #6
photochemsyn wrote: post #5

You could write another article entitled 'the lunacy of John von Neumann' over his endless pushes for destroying every major city in the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons, too. A brilliant scientist, yes, but also an unhinged lunatic. Not an unusual situation, see Cantor etc. What's curious is how many hagiographies have been written about this individual - some people seem bent on rehabilitating this figure by erasi…

A man who didn't want a perceived enemy to get nuclear capabilities. Wow, what a lunatic.

[flagged]

Re: The genius of John von Neumann

#47

Post by Herodotus38 »

A little pedantic but I want to fix something. I noticed in the first sentence that he states Von Nuemann died of bone cancer. This is incorrect. His cancer was first found in his collarbone, and it was a metastatic lesion. They biopsied it and various sources I've read have stated the primary cancer was pancreatic or prostate. This means that it would have been an undifferentiated adenocarcinoma. This means the cancer has evolved to the point where you can recognize some aspects of it, but it has shed a lot of the characteristics of its cell of origin. It could also have been a cholangiocarcinoma or possible gastric cancer, hepatic, etc...

The term bone cancer refers to things like osteosarcomas, these usually occur in children.

Not trying to say the rest of the article is bad, but when I see something like this I want to point it out.

Previous biographies I've read have always reported pancreatic cancer, which is what I was going to originally type, but according to wikipedia there are some different sources listed.

Re: The genius of John von Neumann

#48

Post by watwut »

sugarpile wrote: post #31
user982 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"World domination through genocide is good, actually."

Well that's a strawman. That is not a belief I hold and no where did I claim or imply I did. There's nothing in my comment, or in von Neuman's stance that I'm aware of that, that endorses world domination. I also don't see any reason to evoke the emotions associated with the word genocide either... What I believe is that preventing development and possession of nuclear weapons by other nations would very likely lead…

"Genocide is good actually, even if you don't aim for world domination." And it is genocide, no different then any other genocide in history.

Re: The genius of John von Neumann

#49

Post by jandrese »

eyeundersand wrote: post #38
metalliqaz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feynman??? wtf

Surely you're joking... (sorry, couldn't resist) I'm out of the loop on this one too. Anyone care to explain?

If you read his autobiography he includes a fair bit of Red Pill style advice to the reader. Stuff like how to neg women to get them to sleep with you. He also includes anecdotes about how he was the least sexist guy in the room on other occasions. This is the danger of filtering past culture through a modern lens.

Re: The genius of John von Neumann

#50

Post by nwah1 »

hh3k0 wrote: post #32
leesec wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A man who didn't want a perceived enemy to get nuclear capabilities. Wow, what a lunatic.

Stopping a perceived enemy from researching what you've already successfully researched by using pre-emptive nuclear strikes is lunacy, yes.

In a true zero sum situation it would be a sad reality, but not lunacy.

How many slight deviations in the space of possibility would've caused global thermonuclear war during the Cold War?

Could you guarantee ahead of time that it would not occur? You have the benefit of hindsight now.

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