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No matter how well you eat and get educated, you are not going to be able to do even a fraction of what John von Neumann or Srinivasa Ramanujan were able to do.
by chr1 3y ago
No matter how well you eat and get educated, you are not going to be able to do even a fraction of what John von Neumann or Srinivasa Ramanujan were able to do. And very often people like them were able to do that despite all the odds, not because they had the best opportunities.
- Nevermark 3y agoThe point isn’t that everyone could be a von Neumann, given consistently good conditions. The point is that the world would benefit from even one more von Neumann. Which would also indicate the likelihood of a lot of other people achieving more than they would have under more adverse conditions.
- chr1 3y agoOn the contrary, it indicates that truly talented and capable people are rare. Having more of them would allow the rest of us to live under less adverse conditions, find a way to become smarter and live longer. The point is that we could have dozens of von Neumann's twin brothers helping us to speed up that process, but we choose not to for no good reason.
- Nevermark 3y agoI think we agree then. Even one additional Von Neumann would be great. More would be fantastic. And would be associated with a lot of other more impactful people. The “good” reason for not providing better conditions is we don’t have a system for that. My vote would be that the value of all raw natural resources not created by human beings efforts be considered a joint inheritance. The raw value of them being shared by all equally with a focus on health and education for children, and keeping adults above survival mode. We would all benefit from that investment, even the rich. The efforts of those who extract and process them, as with any human added value, would be rewarded by the competitive marketplace as usual.