8 ms·

We are all adults in the same society. Do you think it's possible to look at the history of technology before 1960 without looking at, say, Einstein's skin colo

by zeteo 16y ago

We are all adults in the same society. Do you think it's possible to look at the history of technology before 1960 without looking at, say, Einstein's skin color?

Semiapies 16y ago
And some of us are more absurdly defensive than others. You pick a great example, actually. Skin color is a crucial ethnic divider in the US, but not the only one in the world. A history of technology up to 1960 that carefully avoided mentioning why all those Jewish scientists and engineers up and left Germany for the US would be weird and suspect.
- zeteo 16y ago
  Have you even read any technological surveys? You'll find plenty of respectable histories of technology that don't even mention that Einstein was Jewish. See http://books.google.com/books?id=XvB1ZcsrDFAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=vaclav+smil+20th+century&source=bl&ots=UeTybwd1Jd&sig=7-VLiilosE1wetFCbYQAl1gsbvU&hl=en&ei=Q761TZ6dNYXu0gGNjKmrCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=XvB1ZcsrDFAC&printsec=f... for example. The reason it's not mentioned is very simple: it's not relevant. Just as the skin color of the workers was not relevant to the development of the mass production process.
  - Semiapies 16y ago
    Have you actually tried searching for "Jewish" in that book? It comes up. Nazis, Hitler, anti-Jewish laws, etc. Now, if you want to continue being a whiny, defensive white guy freaked out because someone noticed that an early 20th-century film only had white guys in it, you're going to do so without any further responses from me.
    - zeteo 16y ago
      How lucky for prof. Smil that he included that tangential sentence about Lise Meitner's Austrian passport! Otherwise the whole of his learned research might have become "weird and suspect" for our non-whiny, non-defensive, full of politically-correct chromosomes friend Semiapies.

by zeteo 16y ago

We are all adults in the same society. Do you think it's possible to look at the history of technology before 1960 without looking at, say, Einstein's skin color?

Semiapies 16y ago

And some of us are more absurdly defensive than others. You pick a great example, actually. Skin color is a crucial ethnic divider in the US, but not the only one in the world. A history of technology up to 1960 that carefully avoided mentioning why all those Jewish scientists and engineers up and left Germany for the US would be weird and suspect.

zeteo 16y ago
Have you even read any technological surveys? You'll find plenty of respectable histories of technology that don't even mention that Einstein was Jewish. See http://books.google.com/books?id=XvB1ZcsrDFAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=vaclav+smil+20th+century&source=bl&ots=UeTybwd1Jd&sig=7-VLiilosE1wetFCbYQAl1gsbvU&hl=en&ei=Q761TZ6dNYXu0gGNjKmrCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=XvB1ZcsrDFAC&printsec=f... for example. The reason it's not mentioned is very simple: it's not relevant. Just as the skin color of the workers was not relevant to the development of the mass production process.
- Semiapies 16y ago
  Have you actually tried searching for "Jewish" in that book? It comes up. Nazis, Hitler, anti-Jewish laws, etc. Now, if you want to continue being a whiny, defensive white guy freaked out because someone noticed that an early 20th-century film only had white guys in it, you're going to do so without any further responses from me.
  - zeteo 16y ago
    How lucky for prof. Smil that he included that tangential sentence about Lise Meitner's Austrian passport! Otherwise the whole of his learned research might have become "weird and suspect" for our non-whiny, non-defensive, full of politically-correct chromosomes friend Semiapies.