well, a lot of people view Feynman mostly as a ‘rebel’ and a free spirit who, oh yeah, also did some physics and stuff because he was that smart.
for instance, the Amazon sales rank of “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” is #2,332 while the Feynman Lectures boxed set has #18,332. this isn’t entirely a fair comparison, but i think you get my point.
What about collapsing the myriads of arbitrary, capricious behaviors and unreadable weak signals into a few, concise rules? Some clear signalling, perhaps, for change? It is difficult to mine reasonable data from a limited number of encounters with vastly different persons with vastly different signalling habits. And in case of rejections, spelling out the reason should be a part of common courtesy. Even simple HTTP does not have just one “transaction declined, guess why” code.
Do this (and adhere to it) and most problems (as most problems in this context are communication-related) just disappear, without breeding a sub-generation of people embittered after fruitless groping through the overcomplicated social landscape.
Let’s say there was a problem in your community with people of certain races getting lynched. Would your immediate reaction be:
social interactions are vague because peoples’ intentions are vague, even to them. if socialization had some kind of mandatory clarity rule, people would probably just sit at home brooding all day and night until they snapped.
Well, that’s one way of looking at it, another is that the Adams was insecure in his writing craft, which is not something that has to be held against him. (And some male writers are attacked by some critics for not writing women well or for writing women as “men with breasts” rightly or wrongly it’s something a writer may have to think about if they care what critics say)
Yeah, I don’t imagine that going well in real life.
Q: Would you like to come back to my place?
A: No, because I find your (weight/height/body type/appearance/odor) sexually unattractive.
Yeah - but I got Firefly on DVD!
Actually, no, I’m not sure I do get you point. You’re probably correct
that Feynman is more widely known as an eccentric free thinker than as a
physicist. If anything, that reinforces my point that no one should be
surprised that he was essentially clueless about women, or think less of
him for what he was good at because of it.
Mod note: As stated at the start of this thread:
Period.
I for one would love it. This provides hard data for iterative improvements; whether becoming aware of a problem that can be corrected next time, or knowing the issue is just a body-type preference incompatibility that may not be present with somebody else.
I for one can imagine it working pretty well.
I suspect a reasonable person might try to do both. It’s not an either or sort of thing is it? Which is why I asked:
Until the problem is resolved, it seems kind of odd to simply say ‘this should not happen’ and not take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.
When a serial killer is on the loose, the police go looking for them. They also ask that people in the area be careful and avoid certain situations. Relying on one or the other doesn’t work very well.
EDIT:
I wasn’t denying what was mainstream, just rephrasing the description of what it means for something to be mainstream and maintain mainstream status in order to highlight the dark side of popular culture. What’s on TV is not always equal to what everyone is ok with…
No posts were take down by me or anyone else @dacree
And it is victim blaming to say:
I will also note, that you refer to men and then strangers, so you do mention men first, strangers doesn’t become gender neutral
You said: “Feynman was an extraordinary scientist, and an utterly ordinary man. Should we condemn his faults more severely just because he won a Nobel?”
Well… since these people think of him as an “inspiring free-spirit”, rather than as a scientist, they are condemning him for failing to live up to the current socially-acceptable standards for inspiration. It’s not an entirely fair standard, of course, for many reasons. The point is that they couldn’t give a rat’s ass about that silly statue except as proof of Feynman’s exceptionality, and they certainly wouldn’t get very far trying to understand quantum chromodynamics.
It is? That question I asked got an excellent and informative reply from Humbabella and Amadaden replied with how he sees it ties in to modern courtship. Discussion happened.
It seems risky, so as a man, I am honestly curious why anyone accepts drinks from strangers. As a father, I advice my daughter to never do anything of the sort. Since I can’t change the world, my best bet is to try to keep those I love safe and to try to learn why this happens.
" if we live in a society where a non-trivial percentage of men think buying things like drinks for women will result in or entitles them to the woman having sex with them and women are aware of this attitude and are opposed to it, why do some women still accept drinks from strangers?"
Because it isn’t the women’s responsibility to avoid being victimized. It’s the victimizer’s responsibility not to do it.
Consider:
‘‘if men think women dressed a certain way entitles them to the woman having sex with them, why do some women still dress that way?’’
‘‘if men think women looking at them a certain way entitles them to the woman having sex with them, why do some women still look at men that way?’’
This way of thinking, which boils down to If women don’t want to be raped, they shouldn’t … is exactly the sort of bog-standard misogynist driving trollies I didn’t want to end up reading here.
Agreed. So why do the police suggest that people not jog in the park after dark when there has been attacks? Are the police victim blaming or are they trying to keep people safe?
EDIT: I had a previous post taken down because Falcor thinks it's victim blaming to advise people not to accept drinks from strangers while also asking how we can solve the problem.
Aaaand time for a break.
As long as we’re being pedantic, you’re wrong. “Fount” (fountain) and “font” (baptismal bowl) are both accepted formations, and the metaphor is clear in either case.
I realize this has already been mentioned, but so we really do have our time frames in perspective: This story takes place after Los Alamos and Feynman’s wife’s death. It’s during a summer break while he was lecturing at Cornell in 1964. Feynman was 46, and freshly recovering from a truly bad depression.
He was also in the Madmen era. It was the early 1960s when pill-form birth control first became widely available. There was a lot of aggression because women finally were free to control when they would choose to have a child, and that meant major changes for society. This type of behavior toward women was (regrettably) commonplace on entering the '60s, and the decade was rough for the sexes. The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. The Feminine Mystique was published the same year. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes prohibition against discrimination based on sex (included there in lieu of an ERA).
Here’s a link to a clip from the Cornell lectures, to let you know who it is we’re talking about. At this time, Feynman was a man in his prime with far too little social experience. The same link will get you to all those lectures (if you have Silverlight).
