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Richard Feynman on getting laid: "You Just Ask Them?"
- MaysonL 17y agoThe section following, on mental arithmetic, is actually even more appropriate for HN.
- powauth 17y agoJust out of curiosity: Is Feynman using 'sleep with' as a euphemism for sex? I'm guessing that, this story being written in the 1940s/50s, pre-sexual revolution, that it is more referring to sleeping with a some low level of intimacy.
- joeyo 17y agoUnless I am horribly behind the times, people in the US still use 'sleep with' as a euphemism for sex.
- cabalamat 17y ago> Is Feynman using 'sleep with' as a euphemism for sex? Yes.
- ubernostrum 17y agoI'm pretty sure he's talking about sex.
- aphyr 17y agoNo. It's a euphemism for a quantum electrodynamics process, commonly known as pair production. ;)
- nice1 17y agoYes and no - in those days they had no heating in winter, so people would "sleep with" one another just to keep warm. But it was considered rude to just snuggle up without asking. Of course sometimes this lead to considerable levels of intimacy.
- timr 17y agoClassy title. I can't understand why women don't feel comfortable in our industry....
- jamesbritt 17y agoCould you explain your comment? Is there something sexist about getting laid, or using the phrase "getting laid"? Because I know lots of regular women who both use that term and enjoy getting laid. This is a not a male/female thing; this is a conflict of attitudes about sex. If someone gets bent out of shape because they hear people talking about getting laid they seriously need to grow up. Or get laid.
- timr 17y ago"This is a not a male/female thing; this is a conflict of attitudes about sex. If someone gets bent out of shape because they hear people talking about getting laid they seriously need to grow up. Or get laid." The phrase is equally trashy when used by either gender. It's possible to talk about sex without sounding like a teenage boy.
- derefr 17y agoAnd I can't understand how this advice (at least as phrased in the title) is specific to one gender. (And if that's not your problem—why should women be more uncomfortable than men around sexual statements in general? That's almost the opposite of feminism.)
- araneae 17y agoBecause the title wouldn't have that incredulous tone if the "them" referred to men.
- dwwoelfel 17y agoThis probably only works if you're Richard Feynman.
- kareemm 17y agoNever know until you try. Fortune favors the bold...
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- aaronbrethorst 17y agoNot in the slightest. At the risk of destroying my chances of ever getting into YC (hi JL, PG, RTM et al!) I had astonishingly great luck with asking attractive women if they wanted to make out with me last Spring. Seriously: "hey, let's make out!" or "would it unduly offend you if I asked you to make out with me?" You're probably better off asking this sort of thing after conversing with them for a bit so you don't come off as a creep. As long as you've established your bona fides you won't, especially if you say it with a smile. I think I got one rejection, and her response was more of a good natured, laughing 'that sounds fun, but i shouldn't' variety.
- zackattack 17y agoIronically this probably increases your chances of getting into YC. Showing a history of assertiveness and getting what you want, Sam Altman-style!
- aaronbrethorst 17y agoI figure that my 'i know i'll be downmodded for this' aside zeros things out ;)
- zackattack 17y agoHaha you should email me I think we'd be friends
- anateus 17y agoSounds like Feynman getting introduced to what is now called "PUA".
- char 17y agoThe entire book (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman) is amazing and hilarious. I highly recommend it for the HN crowd.
- zackattack 17y agoAffiliate link for the lazy! http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393316041/?tag=httpwwwhiph02-20 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393316041/?tag=httpwwwhiph02-20
- jbyers 17y ago[deleted] I should have just down-voted the affiliate link and left it at that. Something's changed in the tenor of comments here on HN, and my reaction to it isn't productive. For the foreseeable future, I think I'm going to bite my tongue and read in silence.
- zackattack 17y agoHow is that principled?? You hate when others benefit even if it's at no detriment to you?? SCARCITY THINKING :_( Okay, if you like reading text on your screen, you can also read it for free here: http://www.gorgorat.com http://www.gorgorat.com
- jmtame 17y agothere has been a lot of focus on social dynamics and this type of stuff if it interests you, it's called pick up. for the longest time, mystery and neil strauss were the icons. i'm not sure who it is now, or if they have been replaced. i'd say the whole thing has died down since it got into mainstream television. all of those tricks don't work anymore because the girls know all about it. if you're really looking for a bold opener, google "the apocalypse opener." this will make pitching investors a walk in the park.
- vidarh 17y agoMost girls still haven't heard about it or don't pick up on these things. I actually spent last Saturday hanging out with a self-described pick up artist that mostly picks girls up during the day, in the street (he insists it's far easier than bars and clubs). The kind of stuff he pulled off right in front of me was mind blowing. At one point he literally had a girl he was talking to biting her lips and looking at him as if she was preparing to jump him then and there, and he got her to give him a neck massage right in the middle of a shop. A lot of what he was using was routines. He'd tell a girl with a friend that she was so adorable and petite he could just pick her up and steal her away, for example. Then he'd do it. Without exception the girls absolutely loved it, and he'd joke with them about how her friend clearly wanted them to hook up since she didn't object when he "stole her away". In most cases their friend more or less turned into a cheerleader for him after that, and he got the girls number without fail in those cases. Despite that, a lot of "pick up" has in any case transitioned into less stilted / scripted manipulative stuff and into "self help". E.g. companies like RSD that focus on being "natural" and improving yourself much more than routines.
- _debug_ 17y agoFrom: http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0504.html?m=3 http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0504.html?m=3 "The charming side of Richard helped people forgive him for his uncharming characteristics. For example, in many ways Richard was a sexist. Whenever it came time for his daily bowl of soup he would look around for the nearest "girl" and ask if she would fetch it to him. It did not matter if she was the cook, an engineer, or the president of the company. I once asked a female engineer who had just been a victim of this if it bothered her. "Yes, it really annoys me," she said."
- blackguardx 17y agoYou cut off the quote. Why? Here is the rest: "On the other hand, he is the only one who ever explained quantum mechanics to me as if I could understand it." That was the essence of Richard's charm.
- _debug_ 17y agoBecause I do not want his charm to detract from the rest of it. (charisma > sexism) == wrong. Also, in my opinion, it is actually a bit sad that the lady says, "oh well, it's ok to be treated that way because he's a good teacher". This is exactly the kind of compromise that victims make too often. Bill Clinton was not even being sexist and he got tasered big time. I'm not sure why Feynman should get a pass.
- xenophanes 17y agoThe point is that he was somewhat sexist in some fairly normal ways, but at the same time he was extremely unsexist in ways that no one else was. Other people may have been more polite than Feynman in casual situations, but when it came to serious discussion he treated women (and students) as equals better than other people.
- restruct 17y agoNo, the point is that sexism is still sexism, even when sexism was (more) socially acceptable.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- Tichy 17y agoThat was before HIV. Still, the pick up artists seem to give similar advice.
- nostrademons 17y agoIt was also before mass production of penicillin. Venereal diseases like syphilis and gonorrhea were a much bigger deal back then.
- powauth 17y agoAgreed. For the record, it is very hard to contract HIV from vaginal sex. (< 1/10000 per-instance chance)
- blasdel 17y agoThat's exaggerating quite a bit; but more importantly leaving off the other half of the equation — it's a lot easier for a woman to contract it from a man.
- powauth 17y agoTrue, women are more likely to get it from a man than vice-versa, but my number (1 in 10k) is not exaggerating all that much. http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/insite?page=ask-05-10-11 http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/insite?page=ask-05-10-11 "Two large studies in California and Europe found a per-contact risk (meaning the risk of a man becoming infected from each instance of penile-vaginal sex) of 0.0001 (1 in 10,000) and 0.0003 (1 in 3,000)"
- Tichy 17y agoDidn't they already have Penicillin during WW2? I think the story must have taken place after WW2? But maybe it wasn't mass produced, military only or something.
- nostrademons 17y ago
- araneae 17y agoThis is one of my favorite quotes from him: "The female mind is capable of understanding analytic geometry... The difficulty may just be that we have never yet discovered a way to communicate with the female mind. If it is done in the right way, you may be able to get something out of it." – Richard Feynman http://www.phy.ilstu.edu/pte/310content/nature/feynman.html http://www.phy.ilstu.edu/pte/310content/nature/feynman.html
- foldr 17y agoUnfortunately, judging from the context, that wasn't even a joke.
- jerf 17y agoAre you upset because a man said it? "Math is too male and we need to come up with more female ways of teaching it" is a pretty standard feminist idea. In fact, replace "math" with a wide variety of things. Recall he's not working under modern PC strictures, not that he necessarily would have subjected himself to them anyhow. He gets to say it directly, not cloak it in endless verbiage. That said, I actually disagree. Math is what it is and everybody regardless of gender must bend their brain to the subject and not the other way around. I think its fundamental inhumanity is dominant. But you seem to me to be casually implying that his statement is un-PC, and I think it's actually rather shockingly PC, just also very blunt.
- foldr 17y agoNo, I'm "upset" because the rest of the article makes it clear that Feynman really did think that women were inherently useless as math -- and even "rational thought" in general: >Those people who have for years been insisting (in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary) that the male and female are equally capable of rational thought may have something. This is a bit rich for my tastes (but it will no doubt go down very well on this forum). I just don't see why it would be someone's favorite quote, unless they liked making fun of women's intellectual abilities.
- tdfx 17y agoDefinitely giving this a go on Friday night.
- Mz 17y agoI think it works because it takes money out of the equation. There's a line in a song: "I've got dozens of friends and the fun never ends, that is as long as I'm buying". If the man is spending money to get her attention, how can he not feel like "she wouldn't be here if I didn't have money" and how can she not feel on some level like a commodity being purchased? Your real friends are the ones who enjoy your company without you spending money to garner their attention. It seems to me your real lovers will be much the same in that regard.
- mhd 17y agoYou know, some people consider quoting Styx songs a criminal offense. Domo arigato.
- winter_blue 17y agoThis seems to have happened in the late 1930s or the early 1940s (he says "while I was working on the bomb".) From what I've heard, the US was very conservative at that time; girls & women in general did not have sex before marriage. And additionally was contraception widely available at that time? The sexual revolution happened in the 60s and 70s. So, this does not make any sense. Can someone enlighten me?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- winter_blue 17y agoThis story by Freedman totally goes against what I've thought US/Western attitudes towards sex were in the 40s. (I thought the US was an uber-conservative sex-only-after-marriage & sex-only-for-producing children society.) Does anyone have any links/references to articles/papers/studies that show that the US was already laissez-faire about sex as early as the late-30s/early-40s?
- powauth 17y ago*Feynman :p sex-only-for-producing children is a bit of a stretch. The link to Ebert's blog post above describes pre-1960s society pretty well; couples were sexual, but if they weren't married (or at least engaged), they probably weren't having sex.
- gamache 17y agoDon't ever assume that the US -- or any other country -- actually practices what it preaches, especially when said country spends a lot of time preaching. The two Kinsey Reports (Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, 1948, and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, 1953) are the groundbreaking sexual studies of their time. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Reports http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Reports
- enjo 17y agoThat's just good old day syndrome. I've had some very interesting talks with older folks about this very subject. They all agree that the prevalence of sex in the culture is certainly a bit more front and center today. However, men have always been men and women have always been women. Teen birth rates where at their highest in 40's, 50's and 60's after all. Contraception certainly has played a role in reducing that, but it does demonstrate that conservative America has always been a myth propagated by a certain sect of older conservatives.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- froo 17y agoInteresting and entertaining article. I imagine if the master of ceremonies gave the a physicist the same advice today (say, Brian Cox for example) I picture the guy walking around with a pimp hat etc.
- WilliamLP 17y agoI think it's important not to understate the fact that a young Feynman was just inherently really sexy. (Talking as a straight man.)
- vaksel 17y ago"I bought her $1.10 worth of sandwiches," how old is this story?
- chaosmachine 17y ago"When I was first at Cornell I corresponded with a girl I had met in New Mexico while I was working on the bomb." Considering the first sentence in the story, I'd say 65 years.
- _delirium 17y agowhich would put it at around $12 of sandwiches in today's money, according to miscellaneous online inflation calculators
- karlzt 17y agoFeynman had good karma enough to die twice of cancer
- karlzt 17y agoIt isn't fair to not have the option to delete my comment
- sown 17y agoI could never do it. I just can't. I'm too much of a coward. I think I might die if I asked.
- pstuart 17y agoThat's the best part--you don't die. You might even live a little.
- RevRal 17y agoa failure of a hacker who doesn't have the energy to do much of anything anymore :( Sorry, brother. I don't know how bad it is, but I've been in similar situations. I do know it takes a lot of energy to get going again, and that a minuscule amount of energy, every day, accumulates into progress. I wouldn't concern myself with the girls, yet.
- davidmurphy 17y agoOr you might die a little death! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_petite_mort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_petite_mort
- vidarh 17y agoI used to think that too. Get a coach. Seriously. Whether just a friend, or someone who is paid. Doesn't need to be about "pickup" at all - just someone to push you into going up to random strangers and strike up a conversation until you're so desensitized to it you just get used to talking to anyone and saying anything you like. You're likely to find that having a friend physically force you to take the first step will make it immensely easier, and after a while you'll hesitate less and less. Takes practice, like anything else, especially if you've allowed yourself to build up "barriers" against it in you mind.
- mwexler 17y agoOut of 101 comments, no one mentions that this site is hosting an illegal copy of an artist's work? I mean, sure, the whole book is great... but shouldn't we be having a bit of respect for someone's intellectual property and not linking to it? If Gorgorat.com has permission to print the book, or it's now in public domain, then I'm the first to say link to that pup... but I didn't see anything on the site to say this. I'm a bit surprised that folks who make their living creating intellectual property are so blase about this. There were more comments about the inappropriate affiliate link than the fact that the book is still in press and under copyright. Let's not devolve into "information wants to be free" and "the world is open source", but stick to the fact that the book is not free and open source in the US legal system at this point, AFAIK. Would we be linking to a hosted full copy of PG's excellent book Hackers etc. (http://www.paulgraham.com/hackpaint.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackpaint.html) to highlight one of his points? Probably not.
- lucifer 17y agoThe new breed http://roissy.wordpress.com/ http://roissy.wordpress.com/ [Note that (textual) content is NSFW.] The author was recently featured in the WeeklyStandard, and is a 44 year old DC wonk cum [npi] PUA. The impression that he wishes to convey that he is a Sexual Terrorist fighting in the trenches against Feminism and the "Misandrist Bubble". There is also quite a bit of noise/male_anger/general_kaka in the comments, but clearly also quite a few quite insightful and intelligent regulars.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- Dove 17y agoI wanted to respond with a rant about how terribly degrading and insulting it is to women to classify them all as bitches, to presume a few dollars worth of drinks, in a just world, entitles one to intercourse. And then I realized the women involved are the sort who would gladly manipulate a guy's emotions and waste his time for a few dollars in drinks. And I realized that justice was probably being served without my intervention.
- yesbabyyes 17y agoThis is exactly what the fictional John Forbes Nash, Jr did in "A Beautiful Mind". Does anybody here know whether he really did, or if they got it from somewhere else (Feynman, perhaps)?