What sense is that?
‘Fount of [whatever]’ gives the image of a fountain of [whatever] gushing forth- what’s ‘font of [whatever]’? A baptismal font? A typeface? Neither seem particularly appropriate.
He was a brilliant asshole.
I wish I could go back in time and talk to him, then hit him with a chair when he disrespected a woman that way.
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Yes, violence is the best way to deal with someone who is being disrespectful.
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ENGLISHBOT SPAKE.
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I was with the linked article up until the very last sentence:
Sadly, in both these cases, he never considered the possibility that a woman’s sexual consent and worth should not be monetized in the first place.
Spot on about the self-worth aspect, but if Feynman had simply said “I’ll buy you sandwiches if you’ll have sex with me” and the woman was agreeable to that, I’m not sure why that should be objectionable.
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But what if you feel that violence is disrespectful? Or does that simply explain all of human history?
The entire book is all about using things and people as a means to an end. Whether they’re clipboard wielding functionaries of a system Feynmann wants to hack for his own purposes, or, well, women he wants to bed, or fellow fratboys whose antics he wants steered towards his amusement rather than his annoyance.
It’s a good book to read once for entertainment, and then again, later, much later, as a warning.
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Citation needed. Just because there is a category doesn’t mean it is equally filled by men and women. It could be 50%, or not, but there is no reason to assume the distribution is equal. “Nerd” is a social category as much, if not more so, than one based on education or ability.
Einstein’s treatment of women has also been documented as highly questionable, if anyone is seeking further reading on the subject.
[quote=“IRMO, post:28, topic:36535”]The entire book is all about using things and people as a means to an end. Whether they’re clipboard wielding functionaries of a system Feynmann wants to hack for his own purposes, or, well, women he wants to bed, or fellow fratboys whose antics he wants steered towards his amusement rather than his annoyance.
[/quote]I never really thought of it that way before. Maybe it’s because he seems so genial and self-deprecating.
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Whether your statement is true or not, it does not necessarily invalidate the original supposition.
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… and?
We are all products of people of that generation. The idea that women owe sex in exchange for drinks or gift is still prevalent and still disheartening for women to encounter, regardless of the “culture” of the time.
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I had hear this story before reading a lot about Feynman, so I had the reverse happen: I initially thought he was a horrible douchebag. Then when I learned more about his life and ways, it got more nuanced. I got the impression that he had a tendency to treat all people like accessories for experiments at times and toy with them to see the result. The ‘dating game’ experiment didn’t seem so terribly different than when he would enthusiastically speak gibberish to foreign speakers and note that they often would not realize he wasn’t speaking their language; or when he started messing with everyone’s safes at Los Alamos. He was definitely a trolley. That said, his faith in his sister’s scientific abilities (despite their own mother discouraging her) and his lectures to Alix Mautner gave me a bit of hope that he wouldn’t dismiss women outright as lesser-than.
I think the biggest thing about why this bothers me is that it’s a reminder of why I don’t actually want a time machine to go back and visit my heroes. I’ve just run across too many stories, like this one, that tell me that the people I respect professionally and think I would like to have a conversation with didn’t really see me as an equal human being. And that’s depressing.
I’ve had this exact feeling when reading about how Douglas Adams felt that women were so utterly mysterious in motives and personality that he didn’t like writing female characters. It was very bitter to realize that he could more easily flesh out a two-headed alien than a female. The fact that such a hugely creative and nimble mind could navigate the world without understanding that women are just like regular humans filled me with sadness for the kind of world we had fashioned for ourselves.
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Are all women potential prostitutes then?
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So Feynman was a Redpill before there was even such a thing…
I think this is just another good reminder that people aren’t simply black or white (in a moral sense, of course), but mixtures of various hues of black, white, and gray.
While I loathe the whole PUA and redpill movement, I’m reminded again that while condemning actions and attitudes I find reprehensible, I should not be so hasty to condemn people.
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Well, you see, the label of “nerd” carries a profound and weighty responsibility, not properly understood by the general public. Every year, millions of neophytes submit their applications (exclusively in machine code), to be reviewed by a secret cabal of the world’s most established uber-nerds. After a lengthy deliberation involving animal sacrifice (and likened only to the review of an NSF grant proposal), the cabal informs each candidate whether he or she is allowed to use the sacred title: “Nerd”. Drunken revelry or lamentation follows.
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Yes, Einstein’s treatment of his first wife was hardly a good role model. About all you can say in his favor is that at least he wasn’t a dead-beat - he provided for the support of her and their children when he divorced her.
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Really Smart People are very often socially inept, particularly with the opposite sex. It should not be at all surprising that someone who’s life was dedicated to rational observation and experimentation should be utterly mystified by sexual dynamics.
What’s interesting is the extent to which we demand that “heroes” be flawless. We all do it, but why? Feynman was an extraordinary scientist, and an utterly ordinary man. Should we condemn his faults more severely just because he won a Nobel?
http://www.chem.fsu.edu/chemlab/isc3523c/feyn_surely.pdf
There’s the full book in PDF form, the story in question is on page 72. Though I’d recommend reading the rest of the book.
It is very difficult to avoid judging people from the past by current social standards, but it’s a skill we should all try to cultivate. Every generation thinks that their society’s moral standards are the ones that are universally true for all time and the succeeding generations always disagree. Feynman was a man of his time and it’s unrealistic to expect him to have held views towards women that would be acceptable to modern 21st century feminists.
As a experiment consider the following: are you for or against any of the following: abortion, homosexual rights, drug prohibition, free speech, religious freedom, or environmentalism? I can guarantee that no matter how progressive you are, no matter how hard you try to make the morally correct choice on each of these issues, that 50 years from now society’s attitudes will have changed on at least some of them and people will condemn you for the views you held.
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It depends what you mean by “dismiss.” While Feynmann may have been sexist I’m not sure what I can do with that information about a person who has been dead for twenty-five years. To say someone’s sexist attitudes were a product of the times they live in doesn’t seem dismissive to me, it just acknowledges that we don’t have time machines. Reading Feynmann it makes more sense to observe his attitude towards women as a history lesson than it does to worry too much about the fact that Feynmann is a dead jerk.
It is also pretty different with scientists than it is with authors. A novel is a reflection of the person who wrote it. A scientific theory is just as valid whether discovered by one person or another. Card thinks homosexuality is deviant and while it may be the case that his novels don’t really convey that idea directly, it’s baked in in some way. I can, on the hand, understand every scientific discovery Feynmann ever made (well, I probably can’t, but that’s beside the point) without importing even a sliver of his attitude towards women.
That actually seems like a pretty easy list to me, so I’m willing to put my $5 down on my progressive views working for 50 years. I don’t think it is actually possible to be more progressive on any of those things than the current progressives are, just like I don’t think we’ll ever really outdo “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” as a benchmark for progressiveness on racism. In the future we’ll all be bigots, but we’ll be bigots on issues that we haven’t quite thought of yet or that still seem extremely fringe. I’m sure I’ll be stupid when I’m old, but it’s a little upsetting to think of people not having a view of homosexual rights that will stand the test of time right now - even though I know a huge number of people don’t.
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