[HN Gopher] The genius of John von Neumann
___________________________________________________________________
The genius of John von Neumann
Author : conductor
Score : 102 points
Date : 2021-11-16 20:48 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (unherd.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (unherd.com)
| photochemsyn wrote:
| 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 erasing
| uncomfortable history.
|
| In any case, hero-worship of scientists is very silly. The Nobel
| Prize bears a lot of the blame for this - but in reality, the
| vast majority of fundamental scientific discoveries are the
| result of dozens if not hundreds of researchers working over
| decades. The invention of the electronic computer is a good
| example of this, as is the invention of the nuclear bomb, as is
| the discovery and characterization of DNA's role in the cell.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| 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.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| Feynman??? wtf
| eyeundersand wrote:
| Surely you're joking... (sorry, couldn't resist)
|
| I'm out of the loop on this one too. Anyone care to
| explain?
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Apparently he was a highly sexualized person and he
| partook in debauchery, got grabby with women in general
| and took advantage of naive science groupies when the
| opportunity presented itself and other things that are
| probably worse than that.
|
| https://galileospendulum.org/2014/07/13/the-problem-of-
| richa...
| jandrese wrote:
| 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.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Actually, I think the history of Feynmann and von Neumann is
| sort of illustrative. This quote in particular:
|
| > "Richard Feynman quote: [John] von Neumann gave me an
| interesting idea: that you don't have to be responsible for
| the world that you're in. So I have developed a very powerful
| sense of social irresponsibility as a result of von Neumann's
| advice. It's made me a very happy man ever since. But it was
| von Neumann who put the seed in that grew into my active
| irresponsibility!"
|
| This is sort of an argument for perpetual childhood... and
| children with nuclear weapons, playing with matches, well
| what could go wrong?
|
| P.S. It looks like this:
| https://www.henrirousseau.net/images/famous/war.jpg
|
| Feynmann's lecture on physics are invaluable though and
| Caltech made them all available online recently, including
| the audio, so I don't see him getting 'cancelled' any time
| soon, even if the 1964 class was basically all-white-male,
| and Caltech didn't allow women students until the 1970s.
| creata wrote:
| > 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 might call that "taking down the history".
| systemvoltage wrote:
| > 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.
| [deleted]
| Kranar wrote:
| How else would you interpret this sentence?
|
| "Please stop this onslaught of taking down the history
| for some axe to grind."
|
| To me that sounds precisely like telling someone to "stop
| saying something about a historical figure because they'd
| "rather focus on their positive sides""
|
| And yet you claim that isn't at all what you said.
|
| Quite an unusual claim.
| tubby12345 wrote:
| Maybe some people are tired of sycophantic hero worship (in
| science and elsewhere).
|
| >We are trying to look at the worst of someone that did so
| much for the world.
|
| Have you ever considered that maybe hagiography is a
| disservice to these people? I know that if I were to do
| something extraordinary, I would be ashamed if other people
| used it as a smokescreen for my shortcomings.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| trying to get a balanced perspective on people who did a lot
| for the world is not cancel culture. Winston Churchill saved
| Britain from the Nazis, but he was also pretty racist. That
| doesn't reduce the meaning of his positive accomplishments,
| but it does give his character more dimensionality.
| esfandia wrote:
| I don't have data to back this up, but it seems to me most
| people were racist back then and there, but most people
| didn't save Britain from the Nazis, so from a PCA
| perspective one dimension is more significant than the
| other.
| da39a3ee wrote:
| He's much more than a brilliant scientist! Some people think
| he's the greatest mathematicians of the 20th Century, _in
| addition_ to his seminal applied contributions to game theory,
| computing, economics etc.
|
| So it's not about "rehabilitating" or "hagiography". The
| discussion isn't about his political views or his personality
| or any of that. This person is an, perhaps the, outstanding
| genius of human history.
|
| In mathematics and theoretical science, the major breakthroughs
| have often been the work of one person. I'm sure you know this.
| In general your comment is going wrong by discussing Von
| Neumann as if he were an applied scientist: he was a
| theoretician.
| [deleted]
| hyperbovine wrote:
| > In any case, hero-worship of scientists is very silly.
|
| Compared to, say, people who use sticks to roll balls into
| holes? [https://www.theonion.com/man-who-used-stick-to-roll-
| ball-int...] I'll take scientist worship any day compared to
| all the other idiots and charlatans our culture chooses to
| worship.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Maybe this is too radical but how about don't worship
| anything at all?
| sugarpile wrote:
| I fail to see how pushing for a strategy that, from a game
| theory point of view, was sound makes him a lunatic.
|
| Plenty of people don't view the preservation of life as the be
| all end all and if that strategy had been followed and it had
| led to a world where only the United States had ever been
| allowed to develop nuclear weapons I see a very easy argument
| for it being the more long-term humane option.
|
| Edit: who's more of a lunatic: the man who presses a button
| that kills a million people and saves a billion or the man that
| doesn't? I'd argue the latter.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| It's a lunatic position. Consider the die-hard environmental
| activist who decides the best way to save the planet is to
| create a collection of deadly infectious pathogens,
| distribute them to every major city on the planet, and so
| reduce the human population by 75%, creating a glorious
| utopia for everyone to enjoy.
|
| Several books and movies have employed this plot, 'Cobra
| Event' comes to mind.
|
| Consider the psychology of the megalomaniacal individual who
| knows what's best for everyone based on their own personal
| views and experiences, who takes no input from anyone else,
| because everyone else in the room is an idiot who doesn't
| understand the genius of their position...
|
| This might lead to arguments like "who's more of a lunatic,
| the woman who releases the virus that ends the insane human
| population explosion on Planet Earth, or the woman who
| doesn't? I'd argue the latter."
|
| To quote William Gibson, roughly: "It's like they're all
| running around with luminous messages scrawled on the inside
| of their foreheads."
| stevemadere wrote:
| Is there a Kickstarter for that project? Asking for a
| friend.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I imagine once we start seeing serious migration levels
| due to global warming, some idiot genius will come up
| with something.
|
| On some days, I look up at the stars and think "You know
| it's shit like this, why we don't have alien visitors.
| Intelligence is apparently a dead-end evolutionary tree."
|
| I hope I'm wrong about that.
| sugarpile wrote:
| If your goal is preservation of Earth and not the human
| species then yes, that may be a sound action.
|
| > who knows what's best for everyone based on their own
| personal views and experiences, who takes no input from
| anyone else, because everyone else in the room is an idiot
| who doesn't understand the genius of their position...
|
| We're talking about von Neuman here. If I was to find
| myself in conflict with an assessment of his I would
| default to assuming I was likely wrong. From a statistical
| point of view anyone who wouldn't do the same is wrong to
| do so and ego, personality, or some other "thing" is likely
| getting in their way. It's not a big deal to cede to him
| imo.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| To summarize my point, being a brilliant physicist and
| mathematician in no way qualifies one as a brilliant
| diplomat or foreign policy strategist. Would you want
| John von Neumann to do brain surgery on you, for example?
| DantesKite wrote:
| There's a great analytical paper explaining why game theory
| fails: It's because humans aren't perfectly rational agents.
|
| https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/5/1/53/htm
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Edit: who's more of a lunatic: the man who presses a button
| that kills a million people and saves a billion or the man
| that doesn't? I'd argue the latter.
|
| Hitler, Stalin, and Mao would agree
| Smoofer wrote:
| Good thing we were able to avoid billions of deaths without
| nuking every major USSR city?
| sugarpile wrote:
| And should nuclear war ever occur? ~70 years is a
| relatively short time frame. Check back with me in another
| 200 and let me know if your comment still holds.
| khafra wrote:
| Is your theory that nuking the USSR would have completely
| prevented nuclear proliferation for at least two
| centuries? That no other nation would have developed
| nukes in secret, or stolen some from the USA? Or is your
| theory that nuking China, India, Pakistan, France,
| Israel, etc., as soon as they started to get nuclear
| weapons would _still_ be worth it?
|
| If you're saying global thermonuclear war is a bigger
| risk than we tend to think, e.g. because of anthropic
| shadow effects, I agree. But I still don't think there's
| positive expected value in a pre-emptive all-out nuclear
| attack.
| solveit wrote:
| Yes. But it was a goddamned miracle. You can't read about
| Petrov and Arkhipov and tell me von Neumann was wrong.
| user982 wrote:
| "World domination through genocide is good, actually."
| sugarpile wrote:
| 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 to less deaths over time than nuking Russia
| would have. Are you really not concerned that we as a
| species may eventually wipe ourselves out? I am.
| juanani wrote:
| In this case of action, and I can't believe Neumann
| didn't let you in on the sillyness of his plan(if he was
| even aware at all), the first nation with nukes would
| have done everyone else a favor and minimized future
| 'wipe outs' by nuking themselves off. Sadly, he fooled
| you, or didn't see his hypocracy. Doesn't sound too
| bright imo. 2ez to idolize celebrities though.
| watwut wrote:
| "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.
| user982 wrote:
| 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?
| paulpauper wrote:
| Yes research is collective, but , still, individuals prove key
| insights.
| DantesKite wrote:
| An intellectual-yet-idiot who placed too much hope and emphasis
| on game theory, despite the fact that it only works when agents
| are perfectly rational.
| Reuzel wrote:
| I am not going to correct this statement, just please ask you
| not to use the word "intellectual-yet-idiot" to describe
| other people ever again. IYI is a great and new concept, and
| can be enlightening when correctly applied. Let us
| intellectuals cherish that value.
|
| EDIT: https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/09/intellectual-yet-idiot/
| to add something interesting for others.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| John Von Neumann: the first redditor
| friedman23 wrote:
| If you are executing the nash equilibrium strategy, if your
| opponent deviates from the strategy you win by default.
| Imnimo wrote:
| Consider the following game matrix, in which you pick a row
| and your opponent picks a column, and you receive the first
| payoff and your opponent receives the second.
|
| (100,100) (-100,99)
|
| (99,99) (98,98)
|
| The Nash equilibrium strategy is that you pick row 1 and
| your opponent picks column 1, each receiving 100 points.
| Once in this state, neither of you can improve by
| unilaterally changing your strategy. However, if your
| opponent irrationally deviates and takes column 2,
| receiving 99 instead of 100, you will get the catastrophic
| -100 payoff.
| [deleted]
| rileymat2 wrote:
| I don't think this is quite right, it requires the opponent
| to use the optimal strategy.
| glitcher wrote:
| > In any case, hero-worship of scientists is very silly. The
| Nobel Prize bears a lot of the blame for this
|
| I think it's more that it gets indoctrinated in the process of
| learning math and science, where every historic formula,
| theory, hypotheses, and law, is named after someone. It's easy
| to overlook that all those someones were complex, flawed human
| beings. And as you allude to, many great discoveries are the
| work of many. But when learning science, I feel like the
| history often gets glossed over and tends to overlook the less
| famous contributors to great ideas.
| user982 wrote:
| _> A brilliant scientist, yes, but also an unhinged lunatic.
| Not an unusual situation, see Cantor etc._
|
| What made Cantor unhinged? I skimmed his Wikipedia page
| (assuming you mean Georg) and the worst seemed to be a couple
| of sanatorium stays for depression.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Okay that's perhaps an unfair comparison. But would you want
| Cantor in a depressed state running something important?
|
| The concept of the 'universal genius' or the 'universal
| manager' and so on seems nonsensical, and yet we see those
| themes pumped out constantly. Expertise in one area does not
| magically create expertise in one area, and the mental skills
| involved in complex higher math don't make one an expert is
| human behavior or international relations. That's what I was
| trying to get at, perhaps poorly.
| bryan0 wrote:
| Imagine if every time a story came up about a once-in-a-
| generation brilliant innovator, the top comments were all about
| highlighting their flaws and mistakes and minimizing their
| accomplishments. What a depressing way to live.
| dandanua wrote:
| > hero-worship of scientists is very silly
|
| About what they should think when developing a weapon of
| ultimate mass destruction? Rainbow unicorns?
|
| You can't be a pacifist and simultaneously fight for "peace",
| that's nonsense. You can only fight for your survival, and for
| your people, your culture, your principles and values.
| diplodocusaur wrote:
| so, tribalism?
| leesec wrote:
| A man who didn't want a perceived enemy to get nuclear
| capabilities. Wow, what a lunatic.
| DSingularity wrote:
| And willing to kill tens of millions of innocents to achieve
| this. Yeah man a lunatic who in his detachment from the
| common man became less than in some of the most important
| dimensions of all: empathy, humanity.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Easy to say now, looking back on history and seeing that
| there wasn't a civilization ending nuclear war.
|
| I wonder what the odds were of that happening? Did we get
| lucky and eke by that period with 1% odds? Or was there
| only ever a very very small chance of a nuclear holocaust,
| and people were worried about nothing? The answer to that
| question is what I would need to know about whether it is
| reasonable to nuke 10M people.
| GDC7 wrote:
| Every potential enemy is also a potential friend or a
| potential neutral. By definition.
|
| Besides you don't get to wipe 1B people off the planet (which
| way back then represented 35% of the global population), and
| have as only consequence the fact that you "won" the
| prisoner's dilemma.
|
| Such "victories" emerge as such after centuries when
| scientists would be studying the DNA remains and see who
| survived and who perished. But such great filter doesn't
| produce anything good for those living through it. Even the
| "winners"
|
| There was no quality of life to be gained by the US and USSR
| in nuking each other, still there isn't today between US and
| Russia.Russia and the US can only be baited into nuking each
| other. And that's the danger we must be really careful about.
|
| Thank god "normal" people like JFK and Kruschev who enjoyed
| the pleasures of life like cigars, alcohol and women were at
| the helm and not some guy who was paranoid about "winning" a
| game.
|
| As far as predictive capabilities on this matter...Tom Clancy
| > John Von Neumann
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Tom Clancy eventually turned into the worst kind of paint
| by numbers right wing kook. I have no doubt he'd be
| slavishly and unquestioningly supporting Trump if he were
| still alive.
| philwelch wrote:
| Von Neumann's advocacy of a preemptive strike, to my
| knowledge, took place in the 1950's, when the Soviet Union
| was still under the rule of Stalin and did not yet have the
| ability to effectively strike back at the US. It was far
| from a guarantee that the Soviets would moderate after
| Stalin's death--it was sort of like hoping that, if Germany
| won WWII, that the Nazis would moderate after Hitler's
| death.
|
| Behold your "potential friend":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
| GDC7 wrote:
| > It was far from a guarantee that the Soviets would
| moderate after Stalin's death
|
| That is the same of saying that there was no reason to
| suspect that the US would moderate after FDR's death.
|
| Getting involved in a conflict on the other side of the
| world is not exactly something a moderate would do.
|
| Germany had a spirit of revenge after WW1. What did the
| US have to do on the other side of the world...once
| again?
|
| No matter the other side of the world argument, countries
| which decided to be moderate were never involved even as
| they were right there where the disaster went down:
| Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Greece, Norway...
|
| If you adjust for education, quality of life and also
| hunger, then the US didn't look so moderate after all.
| philwelch wrote:
| > That is the same of saying that there was no reason to
| suspect that the US would moderate after FDR's death.
|
| No, it isn't. FDR didn't have tens of millions of people
| murdered in cold blood.
| GDC7 wrote:
| But he had camps for immigrants. Let's talk about Indian
| Americans?
|
| Again.....adjust for wealth , education, quality of life,
| etc.
|
| The US was really not that moderate if you adjust for the
| aforementioned conditions.
|
| Switch cultures and systems between the US and the
| USSR...also switch standards of living etc. and the USSR
| would have been just as "moderate". Perhaps a tad harsher
| or a tad softer.
|
| But humans are humans, their aggressivene/moderate
| behavior is modulated by standards of living, age, sex,
| male to female ratio...and not much else.
|
| For sure it's not capitalism vs. communism which are
| essentially the same thing.
|
| Modern day religions propagated by the church of the
| state with the head of state as Pope.
|
| Make people believe you have found a system to turn a 300
| tons oil tanker into a cruise liner (and/or viceversa),
| and convince them to elevate you socially to implement
| (or conserve) such system.
|
| At the end of the day that social elevation is the only
| thing that's real and the ship...well nobody really knows
| what happens to it, except for some BS metrics such as
| GDP which aren't metrics anymore, they became the
| objective.
|
| When a metric becomes the objective..it ceases to be a
| good metric.
| philwelch wrote:
| That's a lot of bullshit to make a moral equivalence
| between murdering tens of millions of people in cold
| blood and not murdering tens of millions of people in
| cold blood.
| GDC7 wrote:
| I don't believe the US are special. I believe the
| circumstances that led to the US birth and growth are
| special.
|
| Had the same circumstances happened in USSR, then the
| USSR would have gotten the same praise of moderation that
| you are reserving for the US.
|
| Same goes for East Germany or Greece or Malta or even
| Macedonia
|
| And so for every instance, you have to adjust for those
| special circumstances
| hh3k0 wrote:
| Stopping a perceived enemy from researching what you've
| already successfully researched by using pre-emptive nuclear
| strikes is lunacy, yes.
| nwah1 wrote:
| 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.
| watwut wrote:
| It would made him more murderous then Stalin and Hitler. So,
| yes.
| Myrmornis wrote:
| I think this article is mischaracterizing him as an applied
| mathematician with contributions to economics, game theory,
| computing etc -- it gives almost no weight to his real
| mathematical work. I wonder why - it seems inconceivable that the
| biography being reviewed makes the same mistake.
| paulpauper wrote:
| >He was not an economist, but he developed the use of fixed-point
| theorems in economics in a paper which the historian Roy
| Weintraub calls "the single most important article in
| mathematical economics", and which inspired "half a dozen" Nobel
| laureates.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer_fixed-point_theorem
|
| no mention of him. I don't think he conceived of the idea.
| dash2 wrote:
| He didn't invent the fixed-point theorem, he developed their
| use in economics.
| [deleted]
| dhanna wrote:
| I don't need another biography/blog post fawning about John von
| Neumann, I need this goddamn series reprinted
| https://www.amazon.com/John-Von-Neumann-Collected-Works/dp/0....
| bavent wrote:
| At this point we need a weekly John von Neumann thread.
| paulpauper wrote:
| news.ycombinator.com/Neumann or Neumann.ycombinator.com
| [deleted]
| mathieubordere wrote:
| oh god, another one to put on the wishlist
| davemp wrote:
| Wow that collection must be rare. The only complete listing
| on ebay is $2.5k and not in good condition. Talk about show
| off books.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| What would one do with it?
| hirundo wrote:
| "It's fashionable to say that intelligence isn't real, or that we
| can't define it, or that it's a Western colonial construct. But
| the word points to a real thing: there is some quality which
| rocks don't have, and which mice have a bit of, and which
| chimpanzees have more of, and humans have a lot of; and which is
| something like problem-solving ability or ability to achieve
| goals."
|
| We have IQ for measuring problem-solving ability, but it doesn't
| correlate well with the ability to achieve goals. That would be
| another very useful measure though, of something like
| intelligence * grit. Call it IGQ. An IGQ test would somehow set
| goals in a realistic, complex, chaotic environment, with social
| and physical as well as intellectual obstacles. So, a GPA is a
| sort of IGQ.
| [deleted]
| goto11 wrote:
| The quote sounds like either a strawman or a misunderstanding.
| I don't think many people would claim intelligence "isn't
| real", but obviously IQ tests are created by humans which
| certain culturally-influenced ideas about what constitute
| intelligence.
| badRNG wrote:
| 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 tries to
| engage with programming/computer science communities online.
|
| It makes me appreciate the largely positive and safe experience
| HN provides, despite the occasional user that insists the
| opposite.
|
| _Edit: some of the comments appear to have been removed /deleted
| or otherwise fallen off, though the comment about "ethnicities
| that are less intelligent" is still up near the top._
| [deleted]
| tuesdayrain wrote:
| 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.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Yeah but some comparisons suck.
|
| If you measure the IQ for the same ethnicity you will notice
| that the IQ changes over time.
|
| Having proper levels of iodine is responsible for about 15
| points of IQ. Removing lead from fuel, some extra increase.
|
| Pollution, nutrition, water purity, all the accrued knowledge
| about fetal and child development that is applied in modern
| economies, etc. plays a role.
|
| Also, there are negative factors like exposure to violence
| and trauma, substance abuse, which is correlated with poverty
| and inequality... which is a legacy of slavery, racial
| segregation, etc.
| badRNG wrote:
| All you've done is restate the original claim without
| providing evidence that intelligence "doesn't match up" (as
| you claim) across ethnicities.
|
| Generally when pressed, folks who dress up their racism in
| pseudoscientific language rely on the same small handful of
| talking points which largely haven't changed since
| "scientific racism" was mainstream in the 19th century. This
| started with phrenology, a widespread mainstream
| pseudoscience not only focused on dehumanizing black people,
| but also explicitly targeting natives as an apparent attempt
| to justify otherwise unconscionable public policies of the
| day. [1]
|
| It's bad enough to hold pseudoscientific beliefs; it's worse
| if those beliefs originate in a blantant attempt to
| dehumanize others.
|
| [1] https://pages.vassar.edu/realarchaeology/2017/03/05/phren
| olo...
| tuesdayrain wrote:
| James Watson had evidence on the subject, he was stripped
| of his titles and harassed by ideologues who are convinced
| everyone should be exactly equal. Scientists have realized
| it's not worth it to sacrifice their career when the
| general public simply isn't interested in knowing things
| that might be considered racist.
| badRNG wrote:
| James Watson made many unfounded racist claims that have
| been completely discredited.
|
| The rhetoric surrounding racist pseudoscience mirrors
| that of the anti-vaccine and climate change denial
| movements. They point to a discredited "anti-vaxx" doctor
| or a discredited "climate change denying" researcher and
| view the criticism of their work as censorship, rather
| than as a sign they might not be a credible source.
| telesilla wrote:
| In addition to sexism. I read his book Double Helix as a
| young woman and will never forget passages criticizing
| Rosalind Franklin's "choice" not to "emphasize her
| feminine qualities" and her lack of "even a mild interest
| in clothes."
| watson_truth wrote:
| http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/10/james-watson-tells-
| inconven...
|
| The claims were true in the past, and the evidence has
| continued to accumulate. Denial of the evidence at this
| point is just silly.
| screye wrote:
| The unfortunate reality is that group level differences in
| characteristics associated with intelligence are measurable. It
| is pretty much an open secret in genomics.
|
| Additionally, given how regression to the mean works, a small
| enough endogamous minority will display larger deviations from
| the mean (positive or negative) than larger ethnic groups that
| usually constitute the majority.
|
| I agree that it is a really tricky line to walk. The brazen
| pursuit of truth or tabooing of prospectively society uprooting
| revelations. Both are a result of the same observation, just
| different moral systems.
|
| I'm sure many grapple with this struggle in their own way.
| However, ostrasizing those who find themselves on the other
| side of that fence by shouting various 'X-isms', is neither
| productive nor effective.
| badRNG wrote:
| >The unfortunate reality is that group level differences in
| characteristics associated with intelligence are measurable.
| It is pretty much an open secret in genomics.
|
| Do you have any evidence to support these assertions?
|
| We don't even have a reliable way to measure intelligence (a
| concept that is troublesome enough to even define), much less
| conclude that there are so-called "group level differences."
| solveit wrote:
| They were very careful to say characteristics _associated
| with_ intelligence for exactly this reason, I presume.
| screye wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Afaik, they are looking at measurable traits that we
| think are associated with intelligence.
|
| Intelligence itself is a much much harder problem to
| unravel.
| huetius wrote:
| Group level differences in IQ and its components are
| measurable. As someone not remotely progressive and who
| simply does not care about their values, I don't believe any
| of these things actually amount to a workable definition of
| intelligence. I base this on my experiences with the very
| well-sifted meritocrats I encounter daily.
| screye wrote:
| Unfortunately again, IQ is highly predictive. It obviously
| clashes with the massive emphasis on merit, grit &
| educational attainment placed by western liberal ideology.
| It fundamentally shakes the very foundation of outcome
| based evaluation of one's protestant/puritanism, especially
| in American Academia.
|
| (the deeply rooted nature of protestantism in the pro-
| science / anti-religion/ Academic community in the US is
| long discussion I would love to have at some point. I want
| to be clear that I do not mean it in a derogatory manner.
| It is an observation. Not a value judgement)
|
| Imagine if grit, intelligence and productivity within a
| capitalistic system were highly predictable at birth. Then
| the claim to eliteness that lends these elite institutions
| power, will suddenly get the appearance of genetic
| superiority. It quickly starts sounding like old school
| eugenicists. They/We will become what they claim to hate.
|
| Intelligence is an easier discussion in the east. The floor
| for the value you bring to society is not based on your
| intelligence alone. They also don't hide the brutal
| realities for survival/thriving in a society where you
| might lack vital skills from birth.
|
| I think everyone on HN would agree that a feudal-class
| system determined at birth, is not a desirable outcome. As
| it stands now, ignoring the ground realities has led to us
| building exactly that. The tabooing of IQ does not serve to
| stop the creation of this dystopia. It serves to obscure
| the reality that we might already be living in it.
|
| Razib Khan [1] writes a lot about intelligence from a
| genetic standpoint (He works in population genomics).
|
| One quote of interest General
| intelligence is one of the most predictive psychological
| measures in existence. The chestnut of wisdom that
| ability to test well measures how well you take a test is
| true but trivial. The implication that test
| measurement does not correlate with other aspects of
| performance is manifestly false. Those with higher
| measured IQs have higher incomes, greater educational
| attainment, and lower crime rates (this remains
| true among siblings who differ in IQ). This is
| well known within psychological science, but for
| various reasons has been obscured and downplayed by broader
| American culture. As with the athletically
| gifted, the differences in outcomes is most
| obvious in those who are intellectually gifted at a young
| age. The chart below shows the outcomes of 259
| children identified as very gifted in their early teens on
| the SAT: One out of thirteen of these
| extremely bright children became tenured professors.
| One out of thirty-three wrote a book. Nearly half obtained
| doctorates. These are not average kids who simply
| "test well." There is luck in life, but the die is
| loaded. Very high intelligence is no guarantee of
| exceptional achievement, but it clearly changes
| the probabilities.
|
| [1] https://razib.substack.com/p/applying-iq-to-iq
|
| [2] https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_a
| uto,q...
| huetius wrote:
| The people I speak of have high incomes, high education
| levels, don't break the law, can solve logic puzzles very
| fast, etc. They are also extremely stupid.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| The fact that you personally happen to know some people
| who are successful despite being "stupid" (whatever that
| means according to you), is not really any sort of
| convincing point. And at any rate, the fact that a
| "stupid" person _can_ be successful certainly says
| nothing about how likely to be successful any given
| "stupid" person is.
| huetius wrote:
| I invite you to consult your own experience.
|
| High IQ people are often more skilled than others in
| explaining away gulfs between their understanding and
| encounters with reality. For IQ believers, such people
| still get to be called intelligent. For me, it makes them
| stupid.
| gremloni wrote:
| It comes back to the idea that intelligence comes back to
| performing well in our current narrow paradigm with all
| its rules and constraints. It could be very differently
| defined for instance in a world where the fundamental
| rules are different.
| gremloni wrote:
| The fundamental problem with the "open secret" is a lack of a
| definition of what intelligence is. Something that works very
| well in our current paradigm may not do so well in another.
| If a mental trait is more advantageous in another paradigm,
| that would be classified as intelligence.
| [deleted]
| vishho wrote:
| I think it is ironically relevant.
|
| People complain about the target selection and first-mover
| advantage of Von Neumann, in the same thread which seems to be
| taken over by collateral damage of polarizing identity politics
| propaganda, set to target social cohesion of American civilians
| (which leaks into Western culture) done by the very same
| adversaries targeted decades back by Von Neumann.
| Herodotus38 wrote:
| 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.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Interesting insight
| Herodotus38 wrote:
| Thanks. Who knows, maybe this article will be cited by others
| in the future, and it will be one more piece of
| misinformation. The fight never stops.
| jgmmo wrote:
| I have had this great book for 10+ years, and still find it
| fascinating it's called "Prisoner's Dilemma: John von Neumann,
| Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb". I try to re-read it on
| occasion. It's half John von Neumann biography and half subject
| matter history.
|
| Call him an unhinged lunatic if you want photochemsyn; but I
| consider him a super genius.
|
| Link:
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29506.Prisoner_s_Dilemma
| triclops200 wrote:
| He was a super genius. Just a super genius who repeatedly
| called for genocide and nuclear first strikes. He was removed
| from the target selection committee for the Japan bombings
| because he kept advocating for high civilian targets with no
| military value and even the generals at the table viewed him as
| crazy. The ability to be a genius and a lunatic aren't mutually
| exclusive and the recent efforts to build a hagiography around
| him are concerning.
| vishho wrote:
| A first strike is not lunacy. It is a rational decision, if
| the nuclear arms race is viewed under game theory.
|
| He was a consultant, not had his hand on the button. The
| people with the hand on the button were talking about the
| rising threat and how to deal with it in the future. Neumann
| rightly reasoned that if there ever came a conflict, the
| winning move would have been an early first strike.
|
| If you look at his statements, these are statements of
| mathematical fact, not political strategy.
|
| If anything, he showed the hypocracy of target selection and
| its justifications for war. You want to play to win, or worry
| about rules and perceptions, unsure of if your opponent
| employs similarly intelligent analysts and game theorists?
|
| Look at the target selection of American adversaries in their
| information warfare. Made by lunatics? Or made to win a
| shadow war and damage American culture and politics without
| regard to military status?
| fossuser wrote:
| In the prisoner's dilemma isn't a core constraint that the
| prisoners can't collaborate? Therefore you can't cooperate
| for the best outcome and both are independently
| incentivized to defect.
|
| In global diplomacy the _goal_ is to coordinate for the
| best outcome. So I 'm not sure a strike first 'defection'
| is the rational move.
| vishho wrote:
| Game Theory eventually settled on Mutually Assured
| Destruction. MAD can be seen as the tit-for-tat strategy
| in an iterated PD with multiple level thinking (If we
| have crazy von Neumann, do they have similar consultants?
| Do they know that we think Neumann is a lunatic? etc.)
| and super rationality (we are all players on the same
| board, damaging other players reduces our own chances to
| grow, we should be competing against those urging for
| war, on either side).
|
| Von Neumann was consultant on game theory, not on
| geopolitical diplomatic strategy. War generals wanted to
| talk about future conflicts. Von Neumann reminded them
| that all talk of winning future conflicts could be made
| moot by a single move. And he reasoned that intelligent
| analysts on the other side would inform their generals
| similarly. Both did a good job, and the generals are
| commended for taking things outside pure maths into
| consideration.
|
| _What is our solution for when Russia joins the game and
| gets access to its own nukes?_
|
| The Spockian rational answer is: _make this question
| irrelevant and increase our power on the board, by making
| sure Russia cannot even join the game we are currently
| winning_.
|
| To make good decisions you need diverse expert input like
| this. All in all, I think von Neumann's work helped keep
| the nuclear war on paper, instead of reality. His input
| of a first strike evolved into MAD and allowed us to
| reach an equilibrium.
| dragontamer wrote:
| There's no such restriction in the prisoner's dilemma.
|
| Lets make it explicit. Let me _pretend_ that I'm going to
| work with you on the prisoner's dilemma game. I pretend
| that I'm trustworthy, and coordinate with you that we
| both trust each other.
|
| That's when I betray you and take all the money for
| myself.
|
| ------------
|
| In an *iterated* prisoner's dilemma, I simply work with
| you for the first X-1 trials (where X is the number of
| trials), and then betray you on the final trial. Since
| you know I'm going to betray you on the final trial, you
| betray me on the 2nd to last final trial. Etc. etc. This
| follows like induction all the way to the 1st trial.
|
| Which means my best move is to betray you in the 1st
| trial, as per the rule of induction. But you know,
| pretend that I'm going to work with you (so that you
| choose trust in the 1st trial).
|
| ---------
|
| Where things go sideways is iterated + public prisoner's
| dilemma. That is, there are 3 players, and the 3rd player
| watches what the other 2 players do. Each iteration, we
| rotate who plays the game.
|
| Finally, we have a situation where trust is a good move:
| if only to "prove" to the other player that you're
| trustworthy and possibly get more gains over the long
| term.
| joeman1000 wrote:
| I can never escape von Neumann. Everywhere I look, there is his
| influence. Even just as an engineer I see this. Physics,
| mathematics, computing (!), economics.. I am dumbfounded whenever
| I come across yet another monumental von Neumann idea that I use
| every day without knowing. Imagine how much further down the
| track we would be if we got another decade out of this incredible
| man...
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