6 ms·
Why do great people like Iain Banks, Steve Jobs, Carl Sagan all die relatively young, while evil sons of bitches like Dick Cheney live to a ripe old age despite
by sixQuarks 13y ago
Why do great people like Iain Banks, Steve Jobs, Carl Sagan all die relatively young, while evil sons of bitches like Dick Cheney live to a ripe old age despite having 100 heart attacks?
- flatline 13y agoConfirmation bias
- chris_wot 13y agoObviously confirmation bias is a very long term illness.
- kolinko 13y agoThere are a plenty of examples that say otherwise. Also, the older someone is the higher chance you'll get to hate him. "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain."
- michaelochurch 13y agoMost people I know become better as they age, even if the change is slight (i.e. wholly bad people rarely turn to good people just because they get older). Certainly, I'm a much better person than I was ten years ago. That might just be reversion to the mean, because I was somewhat of an asshole.
- vidarh 13y agoEven if the get better, some of them might get the power and time to do stuff that more people will consider bad. I have no idea if Dick Cheney got better or worse with age, for example, but being VP under Bush certainly gave him a far better opportunity for stuff people disliked about him to be noticed.
- mercurial 13y agoYounger or older people have an unfortunate habit of letting the exercise of power turn them into "bad people" (whatever that means).
- LowKarmaAccount 13y agoI don't think than Iain Banks, Steve Jobs, and Carl Sagan made contributions as important as: Galois — 20; Markov — 25; Abel — 26; Ramsey — 26; Ramanujan — 32; Riemann — 39; Turing — 41; Von Neumann — 53, etc. But Erdős, Cantor, Newton, Archimedes, and Gödel (though he starved himself to death) lived past 70. So not all great mathematicians die young.
- sixQuarks 13y agoYou guys don't seem to get sarcasm. Obviously, I realize my statement is not literal (hence, the 100 heart attacks). I'm surprised someone didn't point out that Cheney has only had 3 heart attacks.
- saraid216 13y agoI don't think you understand what sarcasm is. Here's a hint: it's not an appropriate reaction to death.
- stevekemp 13y agoSpeak for yourself, sometimes it is.
- sixQuarks 13y agoI feel like I'm dealing with a bunch of Sheldons from "Big Bang Theory"
- rosser 13y agoFor you, maybe. Please don't presume to dictate to the rest of the world.
- wpietri 13y agoHaving lost a number of people in the last couple of years, I am of the firm opinion that nobody gets to say what an appropriate reaction to death is. It's a big thing; people have the feelings they have. I do think there are more and less appropriate contexts to express those feelings. I think the ring theory is a pretty good guide: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407,0,2074046.story http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0407-si... I think here we're all in the same ring in regards to Banks, so I'm ok with people expressing their grief as it comes to them, as long as they're not being giant dicks to other grievers in the process.
- ars 13y agoIs he so great? His books are great I hear, but he's antisemetic: He supports BDS. I haven't decided if I want to read his books anyway. Divorce the artist from the art. (And please don't tell me that BDS is not antisemetic because that's nonsense - just look at who the founders were.)
- mercurial 13y agoI didn't know Banks personally, unfortunately, but I challenge you to find a single anti-semitic statement he made. As for BDS, I wasn't familiar with it until 5 minutes ago, but it seems to be a group calling for a non-violent boycott of Israel. I have a hard imagining how you can paint everybody who supports them as antisemitic. If you want a shortcut into his politics, I suggest you read Dead Air.
- ars 13y ago> but it seems to be a group calling for a non-violent boycott of Israel They are calling for the delegitimization of Israel as a country. > how you can paint everybody who supports them as antisemitic I can't. I don't know him, but if you are going to publicly support a group it behooves you to look into them first. Thanks for the mention of Dead Air - have you read it? I'm not familiar with UK politics - why is he so mad at Tony Blair?
- Argorak 13y ago> They are calling for the delegitimization of Israel as a country. [Citation needed] While there is a fair bit of criticism flying around that argues one way or the other that thought through, the goals of the group could mean just that, there is no statement from the group itself. So they are certainly not 'calling'. It is a very controversial group, I give you that, but it is not as clear cut as you make it seem to be. I agree that I wouldn't touch it with a stick, but that still doesn't make it as easy you try to make it seem.
- mercurial 13y ago> They are calling for the delegitimization of Israel as a country. They are? They don't exactly advertise that on their website. Even if they were, it's like saying "Belgium is not a real country". It's orthogonal to one's feelings wrt Belgian nationals. Unless you think Stephen Hawking, another BDS supporter, dons a balaclava at night to beat up his kippa-bearing neighbours. I have read Dead Air. And it's pretty easy to understand why he would be pissed off at Blair. If your country was headed by a compulsive liar, whose lies had brought your country in a protracted, costly, pointless war, you'd be pissed too.
- misiti3780 13y agoWhile still alive, Dick Cheney has to be sort of living in his own little personalized hell - imagine everywhere you go 99% of the people in the room think you are an evil piece of shit.
- gjm11 13y agoI expect he mostly goes to places where 99% of the people in the room don't think that.
- misiti3780 13y agoagreed but that means he probably can't go anywhere outside of certain places in the dc-metro area
- asveikau 13y agoI'm pretty sure there's a large area in the middle of the country, far from the coasts, where he can go just fine..