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There's a line between "big ego" and "delusion", and it appears that Wolfram has crossed it. Innovation requires big ego and positive attitude, but it also req

There's a line between "big ego" and "delusion", and it appears that Wolfram has crossed it. Innovation requires big ego and positive attitude, but it also requires some contact with reality, and the ability to appreciate with humility the achievements of others.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
innovation, in your opinion requires those things. I'll use musicians as an example because they're most fresh in my mind. Good grief, take a look at some of the people we all acknowledge as being innovators: Motzart, who said he wrote great music like cows pee -- it was just his thing. Beethoven, who used to play performances that would make people cry -- and then would yell at the crowd for being such naves. Berlioz -- "At least I have the modesty to admit that lack of modesty is one of my failings." Delusion is one of those things, especially with really smart people, that's easy to assume and hard to prove. Humility and all of that are wonderful social skills, but they are by no means a prerequisite for being a paradigm-changing person or leaving great innovations to society. The lack of them just makes one unpleasant, and I never said Wolfram was a pleasant person to be around. And the kicker is -- their degree of popularity or acceptance by their peers in their own time was no indication of the contribution they eventually made. Their popularity and acceptance waxed and waned just like everyone else's: based on a bunch of social factors.
- jimbokun 17y ago
  "Humility and all of that are wonderful social skills, but they are by no means a prerequisite for being a paradigm-changing person or leaving great innovations to society." Social skills are paramount for all but solitary achievements. And great innovations are rarely paradigm-changing innovations. An interesting contrast is Steve Jobs. Jobs is legendarily arrogant. But I would be surprised to see an outright self-protestation of his brilliance or greatness. Of Apple and Apple products, yes, but not Jobs praising Jobs. Instead, his great skill is flattering, motivating and persuading others. I do not think you can dispute that this has led to much paradigm-changing innovation. Perhaps the problem is not that Wolfram is arrogant, but that he is so clumsily and self-apparently so. Wolfram has accomplished much, but it is possible he could achieve much more with a modicum of social skills.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    I don't know Wolfram, and I doubt you do, so I can assume that perhaps he is clumsily arrogant. Makes sense to me. I'm also not a math genius, and I doubt most of the folks on HN are either. I also lack the perspective of viewing Wolfram's works from a couple of hundred years out. Given all of that, why would I want to hold Wolfram in any more disdain than the guy at the local softball game who thinks he was the best baseball player since Hank Aaron? If anything, such people are fun to be around -- at least until you've heard all of their stories. They certainly don't deserve mockery. If you've got a problem with how somebody treats you because they are arrogant, that's one thing. But if you're just out there tearing somebody else down because they're an easy target -- they're clumsily arrogant -- get a grip and start treating total strangers better. I thought about mentioning Jobs. Goodness knows there are a lot of technology types that think they are God's gift to mankind as well. We just don't hear about them so much. I think it's disturbing that we are all turning into hate-mongers: we define ourselves by who we mock and hate. Wolfram is cool to hate, so let's all pile on him. Bill Gates is the epitome of evil, so let's have at him too. It goes on and on. These are human beings, precious other people. Would you want to be treated this way in a public forum by some writer looking to score points from his social group? It's clanning at it's worst -- made out to be light and funny. Kind of like picking on the slow kid at school. Wolfram isn't any good at self-promoting! What a self-deluded idiot. I guess that's what struck me about the article. I don't know one way or the other, but I know I'd rather talk about Wolfram's ideas than the man himself.
    - arakyd 17y ago
      I don't know Wolfram either, but I have read reviews of A New Kind of Science by experts who are competent to judge, and they all say that the book is full of old ideas that Wolfram claims sole credit for. The only really impressive bit in it was a proof that was done by one of his research assistants. Wolfram sued the guy to keep him from publishing until the book came out. He's also sued other academics who have so much as dared to sniff around what he considers his territory. So, yeah, he's clumsily arrogant in ways that are especially odious to his academic peers, and he doesn't have the sort of ground breaking accomplishments that might incline people to overlook such things. Is that a reason to hate the guy? No, I agree with you, don't be hatin'. It's unbecoming, and a waste of time. (Hecker's website is down, so I can't say if that's what he was doing.) If you really are defining yourself by who you hate, you are a pathetic individual who should be mocked yourself (but not hated). Wolfram is a brilliant, brilliant guy, and his company has written some pretty cool and impressive software, after all. What hast thou accomplished, O mocker? But I don't believe in giving arrogant people the benefit of the doubt just because we don't have a couple hundred years of perspective on their ideas either. The number of people who warrant that kind of treatment can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and they were almost always overlooked because they were out of the mainstream and were not able to get anyone to pay attention to their ideas. Wolfram has had no problem getting people to pay attention to his ideas, and while they are not exactly mainstream, they are in some well known tributaries. They aren't misunderstood or ignored, just unsubstantiated, or not new, or wrong, for the most part. There's not necessarily any shame in that. Science is hard. But when you add a massive ego.... A certain amount of arrogance can be a useful thing and a lot of really smart people are also arrogant, but I would be very careful about using it as a sign of people who are likely to have good ideas, or who deserve any sort of deference. There are much better things to go by, and much worse things to mock. A decent summary of Wolfram's scientific ideas can be found here: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/ http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

innovation, in your opinion requires those things. I'll use musicians as an example because they're most fresh in my mind. Good grief, take a look at some of the people we all acknowledge as being innovators: Motzart, who said he wrote great music like cows pee -- it was just his thing. Beethoven, who used to play performances that would make people cry -- and then would yell at the crowd for being such naves. Berlioz -- "At least I have the modesty to admit that lack of modesty is one of my failings." Delusion is one of those things, especially with really smart people, that's easy to assume and hard to prove. Humility and all of that are wonderful social skills, but they are by no means a prerequisite for being a paradigm-changing person or leaving great innovations to society. The lack of them just makes one unpleasant, and I never said Wolfram was a pleasant person to be around. And the kicker is -- their degree of popularity or acceptance by their peers in their own time was no indication of the contribution they eventually made. Their popularity and acceptance waxed and waned just like everyone else's: based on a bunch of social factors.

jimbokun 17y ago
"Humility and all of that are wonderful social skills, but they are by no means a prerequisite for being a paradigm-changing person or leaving great innovations to society." Social skills are paramount for all but solitary achievements. And great innovations are rarely paradigm-changing innovations. An interesting contrast is Steve Jobs. Jobs is legendarily arrogant. But I would be surprised to see an outright self-protestation of his brilliance or greatness. Of Apple and Apple products, yes, but not Jobs praising Jobs. Instead, his great skill is flattering, motivating and persuading others. I do not think you can dispute that this has led to much paradigm-changing innovation. Perhaps the problem is not that Wolfram is arrogant, but that he is so clumsily and self-apparently so. Wolfram has accomplished much, but it is possible he could achieve much more with a modicum of social skills.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  I don't know Wolfram, and I doubt you do, so I can assume that perhaps he is clumsily arrogant. Makes sense to me. I'm also not a math genius, and I doubt most of the folks on HN are either. I also lack the perspective of viewing Wolfram's works from a couple of hundred years out. Given all of that, why would I want to hold Wolfram in any more disdain than the guy at the local softball game who thinks he was the best baseball player since Hank Aaron? If anything, such people are fun to be around -- at least until you've heard all of their stories. They certainly don't deserve mockery. If you've got a problem with how somebody treats you because they are arrogant, that's one thing. But if you're just out there tearing somebody else down because they're an easy target -- they're clumsily arrogant -- get a grip and start treating total strangers better. I thought about mentioning Jobs. Goodness knows there are a lot of technology types that think they are God's gift to mankind as well. We just don't hear about them so much. I think it's disturbing that we are all turning into hate-mongers: we define ourselves by who we mock and hate. Wolfram is cool to hate, so let's all pile on him. Bill Gates is the epitome of evil, so let's have at him too. It goes on and on. These are human beings, precious other people. Would you want to be treated this way in a public forum by some writer looking to score points from his social group? It's clanning at it's worst -- made out to be light and funny. Kind of like picking on the slow kid at school. Wolfram isn't any good at self-promoting! What a self-deluded idiot. I guess that's what struck me about the article. I don't know one way or the other, but I know I'd rather talk about Wolfram's ideas than the man himself.
  - arakyd 17y ago
    I don't know Wolfram either, but I have read reviews of A New Kind of Science by experts who are competent to judge, and they all say that the book is full of old ideas that Wolfram claims sole credit for. The only really impressive bit in it was a proof that was done by one of his research assistants. Wolfram sued the guy to keep him from publishing until the book came out. He's also sued other academics who have so much as dared to sniff around what he considers his territory. So, yeah, he's clumsily arrogant in ways that are especially odious to his academic peers, and he doesn't have the sort of ground breaking accomplishments that might incline people to overlook such things. Is that a reason to hate the guy? No, I agree with you, don't be hatin'. It's unbecoming, and a waste of time. (Hecker's website is down, so I can't say if that's what he was doing.) If you really are defining yourself by who you hate, you are a pathetic individual who should be mocked yourself (but not hated). Wolfram is a brilliant, brilliant guy, and his company has written some pretty cool and impressive software, after all. What hast thou accomplished, O mocker? But I don't believe in giving arrogant people the benefit of the doubt just because we don't have a couple hundred years of perspective on their ideas either. The number of people who warrant that kind of treatment can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and they were almost always overlooked because they were out of the mainstream and were not able to get anyone to pay attention to their ideas. Wolfram has had no problem getting people to pay attention to his ideas, and while they are not exactly mainstream, they are in some well known tributaries. They aren't misunderstood or ignored, just unsubstantiated, or not new, or wrong, for the most part. There's not necessarily any shame in that. Science is hard. But when you add a massive ego.... A certain amount of arrogance can be a useful thing and a lot of really smart people are also arrogant, but I would be very careful about using it as a sign of people who are likely to have good ideas, or who deserve any sort of deference. There are much better things to go by, and much worse things to mock. A decent summary of Wolfram's scientific ideas can be found here: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/ http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/