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Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

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Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#161

Post by e40 »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #126
jacquesm wrote: post #87

Lots of judgments in this thread. Don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. And keep in mind that we're looking at all this from almost a century later and that society has moved on quite a bit. Things that my grandparents would have considered perfectly a-ok would look ridiculous to you and me. Context is everything. In plenty of places in the world this would be an 'amicable arrangement' even today…

Since I seem to be the target of this comment I'll respond. Einstein was human. The purpose of using the phrases "womanizer" and "demanding jerk" was emotional -- we think of our heroes in pure terms. To associate them with negative judgmental phrases (such that we might easily use with anybody else in the world we meet) causes us distress. And from what I understand, Einstein chased women all his life, even during h…

Look around at all the exceptional people of our time. Jobs. Ellison. Every gifted, and I mean truly gifted, person I know or know about had a bizarre upbringing or background, and the vast majority of them are complete jerks. To rise above what is normal, it really helps if you are not given normal upbringing and stimuli early in life. And, when that is the case, you will likely step outside the bounds of what normal society views as acceptable behavior. Jobs is the best example from our time. By his own authorized biography, he was a complete asshole, but he did amazing things.

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#162

Post by mladenkovacevic »

klepra wrote: post #102
mladenkovacevic wrote: post #33

As the resident Serb here I should point out a Wikipedia page on Mileva Maric who was a brilliant scientific mind in her own right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mileva_Maric There are even some theories that she helped him early on in his career although there is no strong evidence to support that theory. As part of the divorce agreement Einstein made with Mileva, his Nobel Prize money was transferred to her and in t…

Why are Serbs always pointing out their nationality?

I've posted hundreds of comments here on HN but I believe this is the first time I have voluntarily proclaimed my "Serb-ness" so perhaps I am not the typical Serb that is always pointing out their nationality (and I only did it this time because it was the reason I know about Mileva Maric). But I have a few theories as to why you may think we are always pointing our nationality or at least seem to:

1) It is a immigrant thing. When you feel that you are being identified as the "other" you get the urge to preemptively "come out of the closet" as an immigrant in a show of good will towards your native hosts and try to fit in. It's a way of saying "Hey guys, I know I am this scary foreigner, but really I'm just like you so can we be friends?" I've experienced this with people of many other nationalities and ethnicities where the conversation will inevitably turn into them telling me about their country of origin.. which I don't mind since I enjoy learning about different cultures.

2) Maybe you encounter a disproportionate number of Serbian people in your daily life so point #1 is magnified, or perhaps because of your own background or personal reasons you are overly sensitive to the idea of Serbian identity.

3) Serbs do tend to be sensitive about their ethnic identity because many of us feel that we have been misrepresented and not entirely fairly villainized in the media, while at the same time also being victims of long standing ethnic hatred in our native countries, so insecurity borne out of that treatment motivates an exaggerated sense of nationalism in some of us.

Hopefully one of those, or a combination of them, explains why "Serbs are always pointing out their nationality".

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#163

Post by Tipzntrix »

Tichy wrote: post #96
pfortuny wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah there are a lot of children accepting labour conditions in the East of Asia with which we get scandalized and the. this is ok: she accepted! come on....

It must have been really hard to clean up the room and prepare three meals a day. I wonder how the women of the time did manage at all? Clearly the asian child laborers should let themselves be inspired by their example. I don't really understand the fuss. At the time it was a normal arrangement in marriage for women to take care of the house. That arrangement in itself is not belittling to women, it is simply divisi…

That is what he is saying, in a sarcastic manner

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#164

Post by mattacular »

This comes as a huge shock... developers on HN defending obviously misogynistic behavior with an ample dose of cognitive dissonance and mansplaining.

Also since when does staying together in a terrible relationship benefit the children? That is a specious argument at best.

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#165

Post by dalke »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #157
dalke wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'm saying that the view should be "if my girlfriend doesn't help maintain the relationship, then I'm leaving, and if I'm too demanding in what I need from the relationship then she leaves." This only works if there's no stigma associated with breaking up, which is the modern view. (Not only that, but I support nationalized health care in part so that each person in a relationship can leave without being dependen…

You seem to be inserting a lot of hypotheticals here. I don't remember the GGP saying anything about "chores will be distributed inversely proportional to % of household income provided". Since we have no reason to believe that the poster was rich enough to hire somebody to do all the chores and that neither him nor his spouse had a disability that would prevent them from performing chores we can assume that he simpl…

Of course I am. I don't like the "Even in a modern context". That statement papers over all the details that show why the statement is useless as a means to understand the modern context. My hypotheticals are examples of how that view cannot be applied to many modern contexts.

You complain about hypotheticals. This whole tangent started with the hypothetical "if she would otherwise be idle" so it isn't like I started it. But you'll see that I also gave a non-hypothetical. My wife doesn't work. I do. She goes to school full-time and gets disability money from the army. Should she do all of the household chores because I'm the one who is earning the money? Maybe. If she wants to. But it's not predicated on that I'm the one making the money and she isn't.

The disagreement between me and others here seems to be because there are two issues at play: one is the personal view of the commenter, regarding what that commenter expects from a relationship, and the other the extension of that view to others.

The former I find somewhat crude and distasteful but acceptable because breaking up or getting a divorce has much less of a stigma than 100 years ago. It's the expansion of that view as a generally acceptable cultural goal or justification that I'm complaining about.

I mentioned "chores will be distributed inversely proportional to % of household income provided" as an example how the commenter's view is not a useful guideline. The view is absolute: if the girlfriend doesn't work then she should spend not more than 20 hours a week doing chores. My question - meant to highlight the useless of that guideline - is: if the girlfriend works for 1 hour a month, does that mean she doesn't need to do any chores? Almost certainly not. But the guideline says nothing about how to handle that case, which means it's a rather overly specific guideline.

(Now excuse me. I need to put the next load of wash on the line. It's my turn to do laundry. :) )

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#166

Post by graeham »

markokocic wrote: post #86
graeham wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad I searched before posting something similar. General Relatively is one of the greatest individual efforts in the history of science. I do think there is something noble about the self-isolation and dedication to his work that Einstein is reported to have had. While the list demonstrates somewhat anti-social behavior, espessially by today's standards, its unfortunate that the context is missing from the artic…

Whether it is an individual effort or joint effort that Einstein took all the credits fro later, it is still not 100% sure. See the page[1] about Mileva Marić. It wouldn't be the first time in the history of science that one man was recognized for something just because he was louder in self promotion (see Tesla vs Edison). I don't claim that Mileva Marić is of Tesla caliber, but treating woman that is as educated as…

I agree that his Special Relativity work was probably worked on with some contribution of Marić, but I think his later work was more individual. Others may deserve credit for some of it though http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute

History has a way of attributing contributions to the foremost scientist of the era. For example, "Newtonian" physics implies and is often taught to have all been first discribed by Newton, when in reality it was a joint effort of him, Galileo, Kepler, Descarte, Hooke, Leibniz, and others.

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#167

Post by bitwize »

klepra wrote: post #102
mladenkovacevic wrote: post #33

As the resident Serb here I should point out a Wikipedia page on Mileva Maric who was a brilliant scientific mind in her own right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mileva_Maric There are even some theories that she helped him early on in his career although there is no strong evidence to support that theory. As part of the divorce agreement Einstein made with Mileva, his Nobel Prize money was transferred to her and in t…

Why are Serbs always pointing out their nationality?

They want to be known for something besides being involved in that war Clinton intervened in during the 90s.

If you're from a place that doesn't get a lot of international press, it's natural to feel pride when a person from that place is met with acclaim. My high school teachers probably still talk about the fact that most of them also taught a writer for The Simpsons.

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#168

Post by bitwize »

toufka wrote: post #35
mylittlepony wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, he only helped to build the most destructive weapon ever.

No he didn't. He understood the science - and wrote a highly-public letter to the president arguing it would be better for the US to build one than to have it dropped on them by the Germans - already at work. But he had no hand in building it. Keep in mind, Einstein would have been in his mid-60s during the war, and a German at that.

We'd call him a German. The Germans of the day, indubitably, would have called him a Jew.

There's a reason why he moved to America...

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#170

Post by illuminate »

unreal37 wrote: post #69
illuminate wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"more so, because his wife accepted it" That people cope with emotional abuse in different ways does not justify emotional abuse. As plenty of people mentioned in the thread, this was a different time when women had less possibilities and support systems for themselves.

We have no way of knowing WHO was the emotional abuser, or even if any emotional abuse was going on. That's quite a leap from what we know.

Well, aside from the infidelity, sure.

I was saying that because someone agreed to a set of conditions, it doesn't make the conditions necessarily okay or reasonable.

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