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>Would this diminish our view of his legacy, for him to come "down to earth"? I doubt it. Consider how the greatest minds of the 20th century thought of him:

>Would this diminish our view of his legacy, for him to come "down to earth"? I doubt it. Consider how the greatest minds of the 20th century thought of him: "I have known a great many intelligent people in my life. I knew Planck, von Laue and Heisenberg. Paul Dirac was my brother in law; Leo Szilard and Edward Teller have been among my closest friends; and Albert Einstein was a good friend, too. But none of them had a mind as quick and acute as Jansci [John] von Neumann. I have often remarked this in the presence of those men and no one ever disputed me." — Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner "You know, Herb, how much faster I am in thinking than you are. That is how much faster von Neumann is compared to me." — Nobel Laureate Enrico Fermi to his former PhD student Herb Anderson. "One of his remarkable abilities was his power of absolute recall. As far as I could tell, von Neumann was able on once reading a book or article to quote it back verbatim; moreover, he could do it years later without hesitation. He could also translate it at no diminution in speed from its original language into English. On one occasion I tested his ability by asking him to tell me how The Tale of Two Cities started. Whereupon, without any pause, he immediately began to recite the first chapter and continued until asked to stop after about ten or fifteen minutes." — Herman Goldstine, mathematician and computer pioneer. "I always thought Von Neumann’s brain indicated that he was from another species, an evolution beyond man." — Nobel Laureate Hans A. Bethe. In his final days, Neumann tragically lost his genius to brain cancer. His friend Edward Teller said this about it: “I think that von Neumann suffered more when his mind would no longer function, than I have ever seen any human being suffer." Gwern has a funny essay about cloning Von Neumann here: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection#glue-robbers-sequencing-nobelists-using-collectible-letters https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection#glue-robbers-sequenci... As Neumann seemed to be god-like intelligent, highly personable, and very kind, if we were to clone any historical figure, he seems like a good bet!

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p1esk 7y ago
He also said something like “if we can nuke them today, why wait till tomorrow?”, referring to the Soviets.
- pinewurst 7y ago
  Cut him some slack for having grown up with the Red Terror in Hungary.
  - p1esk 7y ago
    Then he must also had lived through White Terror: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Hungary) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Hungary)
  - blfr 7y ago
    There is no slack to cut. There is literally nothing worse in human history than communism. He was simply right about it. In Warsaw, after the war, when it fell under Soviet occupation, a popular opposition slogan was Truman, Truman, spuść ta bania, bo to nie do wytrzymania which roughly translates to Truman, Truman, drop the nukes, because we can't take this any more. Irradiated ruins were preferable to communism.
    - p1esk 7y ago
      My grandparents lived through both communism and WWII. To them, the war was much worse.
      - Gibbon1 7y ago
        I asked a friend what growing up under communism was like. She said 'shabby' I don't think condemning millions the horrors of war is worth saving them from a shabby existence.
    - nl 7y ago
      Have you considered that perhaps that was a rhetorical statement uttered by some, and killing them and their political opponents and millions of others may not have been actually what they wanted?
- ZhuanXia 7y ago
  The historical context for that statement is it was made when America had a monopoly on nuclear weapons and Stalin's Soviet Union, a dictatorship of incomparable authoritarianism and delusion, was on the cusp of developing such weapons. Few would have predicted that a nuclear war would not occur once that happened. Under these circumstances, a first strike followed by occupation may have been rational. And given the complete insanity, cruelty and dehumanizing brutality of Soviet policy in the following 50 years, it's possible American occupation of the Soviet union would have saved many lives on net. See East vs West Berlin, for example. His position on first-strike was not very irrational given what was known at the time. Even in hindsight, it is hard to say either way.

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p1esk 7y ago

He also said something like “if we can nuke them today, why wait till tomorrow?”, referring to the Soviets.

pinewurst 7y ago
Cut him some slack for having grown up with the Red Terror in Hungary.
- p1esk 7y ago
  Then he must also had lived through White Terror: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Hungary) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Hungary)
- blfr 7y ago
  There is no slack to cut. There is literally nothing worse in human history than communism. He was simply right about it. In Warsaw, after the war, when it fell under Soviet occupation, a popular opposition slogan was Truman, Truman, spuść ta bania, bo to nie do wytrzymania which roughly translates to Truman, Truman, drop the nukes, because we can't take this any more. Irradiated ruins were preferable to communism.
  - p1esk 7y ago
    My grandparents lived through both communism and WWII. To them, the war was much worse.
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      I asked a friend what growing up under communism was like. She said 'shabby' I don't think condemning millions the horrors of war is worth saving them from a shabby existence.
  - nl 7y ago
    Have you considered that perhaps that was a rhetorical statement uttered by some, and killing them and their political opponents and millions of others may not have been actually what they wanted?
ZhuanXia 7y ago
The historical context for that statement is it was made when America had a monopoly on nuclear weapons and Stalin's Soviet Union, a dictatorship of incomparable authoritarianism and delusion, was on the cusp of developing such weapons. Few would have predicted that a nuclear war would not occur once that happened. Under these circumstances, a first strike followed by occupation may have been rational. And given the complete insanity, cruelty and dehumanizing brutality of Soviet policy in the following 50 years, it's possible American occupation of the Soviet union would have saved many lives on net. See East vs West Berlin, for example. His position on first-strike was not very irrational given what was known at the time. Even in hindsight, it is hard to say either way.