4 ms·

I’ve always wondered the true number of Einsteins, Ramanujans, Lovelaces, etc who were forced into a life of physical exploitation, turned into mechanical machi

I’ve always wondered the true number of Einsteins, Ramanujans, Lovelaces, etc who were forced into a life of physical exploitation, turned into mechanical machines because of life’s and humanity’s brutality. Even in modern times... (not that forcing anyone, even non-geniuses into a life of manual servitude or exploitation is ever ok)

a_bonobo 5y ago
>I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. Stephen Jay Gould, "Wide hats and narrow minds" New Scientist 8 March 1979, p. 777. Reprinted in The Panda's Thumb, p. 151.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
elgenie 5y ago
Consider also that until the 20th century around half of the people born died before adulthood and around a quarter did so before the age of one [0]. Those geniuses didn't even get the chance to be the smartest uneducated subsistence farmer in the fiefdom, the most intelligent 15 year old to bleed out after childbirth, or the brainiest starving war refugee. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past
- prox 5y ago
  If you have the chance to research your genealogy, do so. You get to experience history (and see the actual implications of this statistic) for yourself, but also how resilient and resourceful your ancestors had to be.
spoonjim 5y ago
Or, there's even the Mozarts who were just never put in front of a piano. Maybe they had parents who were really into sports and signed them up for every sport and they never got exposed.
- max_entropy 5y ago
  But the piano created Mozart. What I'm suggesting is that the limiting factor is the number of pianos and musical cultural environments, rather than the amount of potential musical geniuses.
bedobi 5y ago
"Imagine that you’ve got a million people farming in Antarctica. They’re eking out this bare subsistence in agriculture in the snow," "Obviously, if you let those farmers leave Antarctica and go someplace else to farm, the farmers are better off. But isn’t it also better for the world if you let people stop eking out this existence, contributing nothing to the world, and go someplace where they could actually use their skills and not just feed themselves, but produce something for the world economy?" The failure of the developed world to enable all of humanity to realize their potential is a huge, huge problem for everyone. Imagine you had been transplanted to Haiti or Equatorial Guinea at basically any point in your life, and you weren't given an education, you weren't allowed or able to move to anywhere else etc etc. It would be a huge loss not just to you but to everyone else that your potential went unrealized.
telesilla 5y ago
This exactly is the purpose of my branch of feminism! To be liberated from social systems of oppression of all kinds. It's refreshing to see a genial discussion here on HN, challenges aside.
- DromedaryCase 5y ago
  Except oppression isn't necessarily an end and allowing certain groups to define oppression or deriving it from immutable historical fact simply creates another privileged class and gives one a stick to beat oppressors who may not even intentionally participate in so called "oppressive acts" with. I argue fighting oppression is only useful insofar as it presents a utilitarian good for society and that certain levels of structural violence is necessary for nation states to function. At the end of the day, there always needs to be a (large) class of street sweepers, accountants and restaurant workers for the benefit of the rest of society.
  - telesilla 5y ago
    We don't get robots?
    - DromedaryCase 5y ago
      Eventually, but currently 7.50 an hour is much cheaper than a state of the art burger flipping machine. Once that changes, I assume the unemployment rate will rise and legislation against inequality will be needed.
  - andrepd 5y ago
    > At the end of the day, there always needs to be a (large) class of street sweepers, accountants and restaurant workers for the benefit of the rest of society. As long as they're not you. Furthermore the argument is't "nobody should have to be a garbageman", it's "perhaps garbagemen deserve more than 1/3500th the pay of a CEO"
    - jl2718 5y ago
pjc50 5y ago
Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard", Thomas Gray https://www.bartleby.com/101/453.html https://www.bartleby.com/101/453.html (Ironically time itself has pushed Hampden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hampden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hampden out of the list of names that one may reasonably expect English people to recognise, while Milton and Cromwell still remain)

a_bonobo 5y ago

>I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. Stephen Jay Gould, "Wide hats and narrow minds" New Scientist 8 March 1979, p. 777. Reprinted in The Panda's Thumb, p. 151.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

elgenie 5y ago

Consider also that until the 20th century around half of the people born died before adulthood and around a quarter did so before the age of one [0]. Those geniuses didn't even get the chance to be the smartest uneducated subsistence farmer in the fiefdom, the most intelligent 15 year old to bleed out after childbirth, or the brainiest starving war refugee. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past

prox 5y ago
If you have the chance to research your genealogy, do so. You get to experience history (and see the actual implications of this statistic) for yourself, but also how resilient and resourceful your ancestors had to be.

spoonjim 5y ago

Or, there's even the Mozarts who were just never put in front of a piano. Maybe they had parents who were really into sports and signed them up for every sport and they never got exposed.

max_entropy 5y ago
But the piano created Mozart. What I'm suggesting is that the limiting factor is the number of pianos and musical cultural environments, rather than the amount of potential musical geniuses.

bedobi 5y ago

"Imagine that you’ve got a million people farming in Antarctica. They’re eking out this bare subsistence in agriculture in the snow," "Obviously, if you let those farmers leave Antarctica and go someplace else to farm, the farmers are better off. But isn’t it also better for the world if you let people stop eking out this existence, contributing nothing to the world, and go someplace where they could actually use their skills and not just feed themselves, but produce something for the world economy?" The failure of the developed world to enable all of humanity to realize their potential is a huge, huge problem for everyone. Imagine you had been transplanted to Haiti or Equatorial Guinea at basically any point in your life, and you weren't given an education, you weren't allowed or able to move to anywhere else etc etc. It would be a huge loss not just to you but to everyone else that your potential went unrealized.

telesilla 5y ago

This exactly is the purpose of my branch of feminism! To be liberated from social systems of oppression of all kinds. It's refreshing to see a genial discussion here on HN, challenges aside.

DromedaryCase 5y ago
Except oppression isn't necessarily an end and allowing certain groups to define oppression or deriving it from immutable historical fact simply creates another privileged class and gives one a stick to beat oppressors who may not even intentionally participate in so called "oppressive acts" with. I argue fighting oppression is only useful insofar as it presents a utilitarian good for society and that certain levels of structural violence is necessary for nation states to function. At the end of the day, there always needs to be a (large) class of street sweepers, accountants and restaurant workers for the benefit of the rest of society.
- telesilla 5y ago
  We don't get robots?
  - DromedaryCase 5y ago
    Eventually, but currently 7.50 an hour is much cheaper than a state of the art burger flipping machine. Once that changes, I assume the unemployment rate will rise and legislation against inequality will be needed.
- andrepd 5y ago
  > At the end of the day, there always needs to be a (large) class of street sweepers, accountants and restaurant workers for the benefit of the rest of society. As long as they're not you. Furthermore the argument is't "nobody should have to be a garbageman", it's "perhaps garbagemen deserve more than 1/3500th the pay of a CEO"
  - jl2718 5y ago

pjc50 5y ago

Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard", Thomas Gray https://www.bartleby.com/101/453.html https://www.bartleby.com/101/453.html (Ironically time itself has pushed Hampden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hampden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hampden out of the list of names that one may reasonably expect English people to recognise, while Milton and Cromwell still remain)