I don't think I'm reading this wrong, but I'm definitely reading it differently than most commenters here:
> the intelligence & character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few...
I don't think Einstein is comparing the most intelligent individuals to the least (or average) here. Certainly there are individuals who are more intelligent than the average, but I would argue not incomparably so.
I believe he's speaking about the tendency of large groups of people to act more like cattle than people. The intelligence of the mob (and the character, represented by the actions of the mob) are what I see as incomparably lower than that of an individual.
And I think this is indicated by the other shortcomings of 20th century humanity that he passes along. War isn't waged by individuals (or even groups of exclusively idiots and villains). There are a bunch of physiological and sociological variables introduced that make the output of the group stupider and less caring than the output of the individual.
> … who produce some thing valuable for the community.
I think you are cleaning up his values. He clearly seems to be pointing to a few people who produce novel ideas and creations as opposed to the mass of people who never create much of value globally out of their lives.
And actually, this statement used to be uncontroversial. Social media and the death of journalism means that our best thinkers no longer have much of a platform. It may be easy to forget and unpopular to remember, but there are some exceptional and brilliant people out there.
We should also consider that when our perception of things has changed, perhaps it is because the things we are seeing that changed. The average person in Einstein's day received a much inferior education to what schools offer today, and scientific progress was much more rapid. 1939 is only a few years after the end of the era of radioactive quackery, and in the thick of eugenics and "scientific" racism and sexism, while some leading scholars had begun to question this dogma. Fascists and their sympathizers controlled more than a dozen countries, many with significant popular support.
Today, the gap between scholars and the public is probably much narrower. This is certainly the case in physics, and I would think in biology and chemistry as well. I believe the only fields where the gap has significantly grown are computer science and pure mathematics, simply due to rapid progress in those fields.
I think I'll grant that there are more educated and competent people than there used to be.
But broadly the gap between scholars and "the public" is as massive at it's ever been. Meet a few members of "the public" socially, outside of tech or academic circles or however you usually meet people. Go to some random bar or club or whatever and make some friends. I think you'll find, like I do, that most people basically don't know anything. They can sort of do 3rd grade arithmetic, but struggle to apply it, and don't know anything else about mathematics - most people don't understand how to use negative numbers or what they're for, for instance. They don't know anything about history - they don't really know what the Renaissance was, or when the Roman Empire was, or when and where human civilization began, or anything else. They absolutely know nothing about physics - they are completely unaware of the idea that acceleration due to gravity is not dependent on mass, which I see as the starting point of teaching physics.
I think your characterization of "the public" outside of tech / academia (and I'd add medicine, finance, a few other professions) is pretty accurate in terms of academic knowledge.
Swap the places though and send someone who's held various mechanic, repair, manufacturing roles to a high end cocktail bar full of academics and let them ask questions on topics they know, and they'll be shocked (or maybe not) at how most of these academics basically don't know anything about how the nuts and bolts machinery that keeps the world running actually functions in real life, and certainly couldn't do most of the work themselves. They'd probably also come away thinking they'd rather have a random person from their dive bar in Nebraska help them for a day at work on a hard project than one of the people in the fancy bar.
Without being able to rely on these masses of the un-academic "public" to run the world they live in, the academics would largely be helpless and their knowledge useless as they starved to death as the world crumbled around them.
Specialized knowledge and training is amazing, and it allows us to advance as a civilization, but I don't think the average "academic" is much more intelligent or capable in the raw sense than the average person in "the public". Both are needed for society to function and progress. Without the academics there will be no progress, and without the public it will all break down.
Of course, there are also people who have little useful knowledge / skills / motivation either practical or academic. These people can however just as easily exist in the social / family circles of the elite, as in those of the public, so I don't think it's fair to throw them in either group for judgment.
The idea that blue collar and white collar workers are equally intelligent on average might feel good, but is easily disproven as intelligence has been shown to be highly correlated with educational attainment.
Huh I always thought acceleration due to gravity is a combination of both mass and distance. That is why gravity is so much stronger on earth than on the moon.
The force on the object is proportional to its mass. Acceleration, being (force/mass), is therefore not dependent on mass. (Ah least, for a small object being attracted to a much larger body)
Indeed it is, but the second body's mass may be neglected if it is orders of magnitude smaller than the larger body. Or at least that's how I understand it (I'm not a physicist).
I think this is a threat on its own. Education isn't everything, and may even backfire with dumb people. You know, there are people who are somewhat dumb, they figure a lot of things out, but they do know that they need a lot of help, and that they are not exactly geniuses.
But once a person's intelligence gets too low, they can't figure out anything. But, they can still learn. They don't see anything wrong with them, they think it's how the world works, people know and can do things that somebody taught them. When they see somebody figure something out, they think it's something they learned in the past, but are dumb and evil people who laugh at them for not knowing. Stupid and evil peoppe who refuse to pass on what they were taught. And they never figure out that they aren't normal, or even think that they're brilliant, because they remember more than others.
> Today, the gap between scholars and the public is probably much narrower.
I would argue the opposite. Each field of study has so much more depth now that on any given topic there is more that a layperson has to learn to be on par.
Lay people do tend to be much broader generalists (at least in terms of scientific understanding) than they were in 1939 but they are further behind the specialists.
True but in the context of the quote I don’t think Einstein would have viewed them as people that made valuable contributions to society. Probably would have placed them in the former category, honestly.
Einstein was a socialist, so this is likely not to whom he was referring. While undoubtedly an elitist, I’m sure he counted the leaders of industry among the dullards and buffoons. You’d honestly have to be pretty dumb yourself to put them on the same level of his peers in science, like, say, Von Neumann, even though that’s very much the order of the day in modern America.
Reading about Von Neuman is pretty crazy and shows how wide the gap is between people who are only highly intelligent and geniuses like he that made contributions to so many fields.
I think it can be both. The few who stand out do so mostly or entirely because they are separated from mass mentality. Maybe a Chicken and egg sort of thing. And then the quote about the difference between genius and insanity comes to mind.
This is the Jungian concept individuation.
Can you recommend any brilliant exceptions that come to mind? Especially in journalism.
Ed Witten is uncharacteristically brilliant and yet he (in my opinion) fell prey to the “masses” of physicists who clung to String theory despite its inability to yield results. Imo, that’s a counter example to your point. Thinking differently than other people and outside the masses doesn’t make one smart, take any non Ted Kasinski serial killer
Yeah. At first blush, it seems like an unnecessary condemnation, but the comparison here is between those who contribute and those who do not.
I believe I fall into the latter of the two, but also know folks who fall into the former. I would say pretty bluntly that they are definitely more intelligent and have better character than I do. Probably by an order of magnitude, were it something quantifiable.
> He clearly seems to be pointing to a few people who produce novel ideas and creations as opposed to the mass of people who never create much of value globally out of their lives.
The reason why it is clear that this is not what he is doing is the rest of the text. He starts by saying that his time is rich in inventive minds. It doesn't really make sense to assert that a couple of sentences later he is arguing that the reason we have war and poverty is a lack of more inventive minds.
For context, remember this statement comes from a time when his homeland is in the grip of the Nazis and WW2 was just beginning. Why would he tell the future that there a smart people and stupid people and the problems are the fault of stupid people?
Especially given the ending I read this note with a tone of hopeful despair about our ability to overcome the emergent failings of large groups. So far I'd say he'd probably be disappointed, but we still have 4916 years to figure it out.
I've read several bios on Einstein. There's nothing in any of his correspondence or opinions even remotely close to Ayn Rand's monstrosity called objectivism.
Wait why should social media mean less of a platform for our best thinkers? Sure social media provides not only additional platforming, but access to a far broader audience than Einstein could have possibly imagined?
Social media doesn't allow for well-reasoned discourse. 140 characters generally aren't enough to change the world. And the masses are on social media.
Even here on HN, there's a strong bias towards shorter messages. Phones, perhaps due to on-screen keyboards, seem to encourage shorter messages than laptops and desktops.
The collective "intelligence and character of the masses" was a topic of the highest relevance back in 1939, particularly to a Jew like Einstein, while the average of its individuals less so (and of more interest to the racist ideologies he opposed). And this is not a metaphor: it is literally what is said in the note. On the contrary, it's a stretch to interpret it as a reference to the individuals in the masses instead of the masses themselves.
I don't know whether Einstein meant "the intelligent few are more intelligent than the masses, collectively" or "individually," but it's not fair for you to say that one reading is "loose metaphor" while the other is completely straightforward; either interpretation is sensible.
I think the distinction is that one interpretation is arguing that "truth by committee" is usually wrong, while the other is arguing for an elitist view where some people just carry all the weight.
Technically, defining something as being true only sometimes makes it true in fact ("All bachelors are unmarried", for example), in other cases (like this one) it only causes it to appear true...but then, if one considers the theory that reality is equal to people's perception of it, it is usually a moot distinction ...but not always.
One is completely straightforward whereas the other is ambiguous. Only one interpretation is sensible without making a big assumption about the author's views.
Your “straightforward interpretation” hinges of what he means by “produce some thing valuable for the community.”
Did he mean valuable things like bread, or only extreme value like electrodynamics? Well he didn’t say “extreme value” and it’s easy to argue the character of productive members of society is above that of pickpockets so that fits.
So IMO a straightforward interpretation would be calling the great masses of humanity dumb rather than extolling the virtues of bakers.
He calls out the lack of commodities as a problem to be addressed, unlike flying and radio which are suggested to be solved problems.
“everybody must live in fear of being eliminated from the economic cycle” not fear of failing to create the next wonder.
Thus emphasizing the critical nature of workers. It’s easy to read as pro social safety net or event collectivist terms. But stating a problem alone doesn’t suggest a solution.
> There is really only one way to read his message.
This thread is a clear indicator that ther are multiple ways to read it. One may seem more valid than others but it's not at all unambiguous.
I'd love to know what the people in 5000 years, if there are any, project onto this. Maybe they'll refer back to this thread and fall into two major camps.
> Could you also possibly be projecting your values on to Einstein?
I think this misses the forest for the trees. IMO, even if the GPs interpretation is wrong, it's still a far more interesting and insightful observation (that groups so often behave so much worse than individuals) than the alternative (some people are a lot smarter than others).
To answer your question - "yes" I definitely could be projecting my own values. Just as everyone else reading it another way could be projecting their own. We all have our biases. I do recognize that. I'm also not beholden to the language used (incomparably). To me that reinforces my interpretation, but of course often the interpreters can assign more meaning to a word than the author intended.
I'm not saying mine is the right answer, but I definitely think it is an answer.
Keep in mind that Einstein was a German Jew, and 1939 was after Hitler had come to power, passed all sorts of extreme anti-Jewish laws, and then started World War II. So it's a fair bet this is really about "how could so many people vote for and support Nazis?"
Einsteins time period was the golden era of libertarianism and individualism were more mainstream especially during WW1, so it doesn't come to me as surprising that Einstein would write something like that. The famous books of that era have many central themes and elements of individualism from authors such as Orwell, Tolkien, Huxley.
I love how to vote or rail against socialism is, in some sense, to say "Nah, Einstein don't know shit, surely I'm smarter than that man." Also don't call me "Surely"
Also, why do the Nazis have "Socialist" in their moniker if they were fascist? Can a society/political movement be socialist and fascist simultaneously?
What is the deal with this schtick, legit? Why does NK of all hellholes call itself democratic for any other reason than the presumption that everyone is cool with their Great Leaders in perpetutity?
Because democracy is a key part of Marx/socialist thought. The whole idea is that collective ownership of capital would mean it would be democratically managed by the working class, for the interests of the working class, rather than for the interests of someone else. You can quibble about that if you want but it's a big part of socialist thought anyways. It's only in the modern period that democracy has become synonymous with the western capitalist system.
So to what extent is democracy MORE a socialist thought with regard to its respect and enforcement of socialism than is the Western Capitalism system to which its become more Modernly and Popularly associated?
The Nazi party was one of many on-the-fringe parties formed in Germany's post-WWI chaos, and it initially combined socialist and nationalist ideas. The opportunity of funding from big business lured it rightwards, and the nationalism, as it often does, turned towards racialism and antisemitism. From late 1919, Hitler was a significant player in driving that move.
> Also, why do the Nazis have "Socialist" in their moniker if they were fascist?
Because a fundamental principle underlying fascism is that words don’t have any inherent or collective meaning, beyond how they’re used in the moment by “the strong” to dominate “the weak.” It’s an irrational ideology.
yes they can be. most of this is just who 'owns' the capital. Does the individual own it? Does the state own it? Does the state allow an individual to own it and they dictate what happens? When the argument should be about how monopiles (either state controlled or people controlled) are typically bad for everyone except the monopoly (and whoever owns it). One thing the socialists did very well was to hide the fact that fascism is a form of socialism like communism is too. If you read the nazi manifesto there are many aspects that are spot on socialist. Even the word 'nazi' is short for national socialist. The word is bandied around lot when people want to end an argument or make their opponent look bad. Without any thought what those people stood for.
I agree with your assesment 100%, People are just really simple minded and don't want to be grouped in or compared to nazis in any way share or form. Just look at all the emotional arguments presented in this thread alone by people who presumably identify presumably with more left leaning socialist values.
It was because Hitler hated the Communist movement and wanted to set his party apart from the Communists.
The best way to capture that opposition was to get the Socialists on his side so that's what he went for by calling his party Socialist and setting them in direct opposition to the Communists.
Actually Hitler objected to the socialist moniker. It was inserted into the name (to intentionally appeal to uninformed leftist workers) by the executive committee (the proposal was put forth by Rudolf Jung).
(Why Hitler?: The Genesis of the Nazi Reich, Mitcham, 1996)
Socialists want to pool resources to support the wider group. Fascists want uniform cultural norms throughout society. There's nothing contradictory about the two beliefs, but in our time people who subscribe to one rarely subscribe to the other.
I think my fair counterpoin to that is I never hear anything socialist sounding from modern-day Fascists (except maybe for the rich), as much as they are generally nationalists, they don't seem to have much care for their fellow countrymen...
> Can a society/political movement be socialist and fascist simultaneously?
Sure, nothing really excludes one from the other I think. You can take all of Europe now, give them a superiority complex, and you’d have a fantastic facist socialist republic.
Not that I don't think they are in fact superior in terms of like "Yeah I'd take Euro cit over whatever I have now", but doesn't Europe already low-key believe that anyway or is that simply the American hegemony talking?
> Fascism rejects assertions that violence is inherently negative or pointless, instead viewing imperialism, political violence, and war as means to national rejuvenation.
Even though they have a long history of it, Europe still has a ways to go to get back there :P
Einstein didn't have the 20th century as reference.
> Also, why do the Nazis have "Socialist" in their moniker if they were fascist? Can a society/political movement be socialist and fascist simultaneously?
They're both high authoritarian societies. Nazis were just for murder along geographic and racial boundaries rather than class boundaries.
Einstein's time period was also one critical of fascism with one of the points of discussion from then on that was talking about how large masses of people can turn into horrible unintelligible creatures that lead to the likes of the holocaust.
> the intelligence & character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few who produce some thing valuable for the community.
It doesn't strike me as crazy that a guy who was hanging out with Gödel and von Neumann all day [0] might think this way.
People are overly charitable with Einstein because they view him as more grandfatherly and less of an asshole than most of the classic super genius types of history. That's based almost entirely on his image, which has been well sheltered, and his literal image (how he comes across in old black & white photos; oh look, golly, that's soooo cute, he has his tongue sticking out! look at that hair!).
Back in reality, Einstein likely had an ego the size of a large galaxy, like all the rest. I don't know that I've ever read about someone being similarly famous and them not having an unhealthy outsized ego. The fame always wins.
The masses are very commonly wrong about their adored historical figures though. Gandhi was exceptionally vile in his beliefs. Mother Teresa was a sadist that clearly enjoyed torturing people that had AIDS. FDR was a racist that put Japanese Americans in camps. Che was a sociopathic extreme homophobe and mass murderer. Napoleon was one of the great genocidal maniacs of history, almost on par with Hitler in the death and destruction he caused in attempted conquering. Bill Cosby, well, you know. And on it goes forever.
Perhaps you’re being a bit too uncharitable to overcompensate?
I’ve never heard of this, and the only sources I can find for the claim you made about mother Teresa make claims that the organization that mother Teresa started would refuse patients pain medication out of misguided notions. I’m curious what specifically you’re referring to here.
And as for:
> FDR was a racist that put Japanese Americans in camps
I wouldn’t go so far to say that FDR was racist for doing this. America was literally bombed and dragged into a war, and other countries were also placing civilians in internment camps. From Wikipedia:
>> Japan interned 130,000 Dutch, British, and American civilians in Asia during World War II.
Does this mean the Japanese were racist? No. This was world war, and countries were doing this as a source of leverage.
I don’t know about the rest of your examples, but I feel like you may be being a bit uncharitable in your characterization of these circumstances.
The immigrants and US citizens of Japanese descent were not the ones doing the imprisoning of US soldiers, so this is entirely irrelevant? Japanese Americans were also much hated by white farmers in California for their efforts to engage in labor organizing across race lines. They created the first interracial farm-workers union with Mexican laborers:
I don't understand your question. It was suggested upthread that Japanese internment of Europeans during the war implied that racism didn't animate the policy, based on a premise that the Japanese aren't racist. But the Japanese were, at the time, luridly, profoundly racist; they were during the war racist in the mold of Nazi Germany.
FDR was very much a racist who was going along with a plot concocted by a wealthy group of agricultural interests to dispossess Japanese-American citizens and immigrants of their farmlands, under the pretense of national security:
> Only hours after the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 7. 1941, Austin E. Anson, managing secretary of California's powerful Salinas Valley Vegetable Grower-Shipper Association, was dispatched to Washington to urge federal authorities to remove all individuals of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. In an interview for the May 1942 Saturday Evening Post, Anson told how he drew a frightful scenario for the War and Navy departments, the attorney general and every congressman he could get to listen to him: an invading army coming ashore in Monterey Bay and advancing into the Salinas Valley while Japanese residents blew up bridges, disrupting traffic and sabotaging local defenses.
> By the end of the war, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "farm ownership by Japanese amounted to about 30 percent of their total pre-war farm operations {and} ownership transfers to non-evacuees during and after evacuation has probably reduced these farm ownerships to less than a fourth of the total pre-war Japanese land holdings, including leaseholds . . . ." Few of the internees ever received full payment for their land.
This was further exposed in Korematsu vs. the US, where it was revealed that the Office of Naval Intelligence had prepared reports showing there was no actual threat, which they then hid from the courts when Japanese-American citizens sought redress through the justice system. Likewise, the FBI had already locked up or was monitoring anyone they thought was dangerous and had discredited all of the key justifications for internment:
Thank you for this description and links. I had no idea the agricultural powers of California so explicitly advocated for removing the Japanese Americans.
> I’ve never heard of this, and the only sources I can find for the claim you made about mother Teresa make claims that the organization that mother Teresa started would refuse patients pain medication out of misguided notions. I’m curious what specifically you’re referring to here.
There's a fair bit of evidence that Mother Theresa had a religious appreciation for suffering that is presumably the basis for the 'sadist' assertion. That does seem like hyperbole but explaining the complicated ways that she or any of the referenced individuals far fall short of their reputations in an accurate and susinct way is hard.
Einstein has been hugely whitewashed, like for example they claim he wasn't racist because of a black college visit he did where did PR speak, while ignoring the nazi like statements he did in China while talking better but also somewhat subtle racism about Japan.
A man who brought independence to 400 million people with non-violent means was a vile man? A man who’s the “father of the nation” to 1.3 billion people was a vile man?
Gandhi also routinely slept in bed with naked young girls to prove he was celibate.
Also: "In 1903, when Gandhi was in South Africa, he wrote that white people there should be "the predominating race." He also said black people "are troublesome, very dirty and live like animals.""
If we require that every historical person adhere to present sensibilities to be considered "great" then no-one will be considered "great". Societies routinely vacillate between permitting and punishing incest, rape, beatings, bigotry and theocracy, to name but a few things. It makes sense to me that we'd factor such matters out of our consideration - we cannot and should not hold an individual responsible for the mores of their time. Socrates was a misogynist and a pederast - but so was everyone else. Ben Franklin was an anti-semite - but so was everyone else. Einstein beat his wife - but so did everyone else. Lincoln was racist against blacks, even as he worked hard to give them rights - but this was far more progressive than most people of his era. We ought to grade people on a curve, not by modern standards. To do otherwise is a very foolish thing that puts us in the position eliminating any and all human virtue of the past. I can't help but guess that presentism was invented by a particularly ambitious PR intern.
> If we require that every historical person adhere to present sensibilities to be considered "great" then no-one will be considered "great"
So what? You say that like it is some huge loss! I think the correct choice is to abscond from this culture of hero worship you're advocating for and see people for their good and bad qualities, and be ready to criticize them without hesitation. Is it so important to you to put someone on a pedestal? I find that activity morally nauseating.
> we cannot and should not hold an individual responsible for the mores of their time
That's the weakest argument. "Of their time"? Last week? Last month? 1,000 years ago? You can pick whatever date you want to justify your hero worship. Personally I don't see accepting the Neuremberg defense as an ethical (or sophisticated) position, but you do you.
I personally think life is better when we admire people for doing amazing things. Such people are inspiring and are the characters in a pleasant and arguably constructive narrative. I don't advocate hero worship or putting people on pedestals. Nor do I advocate lying about their weaknesses or failings, even from a modern perspective. Two things can be true at once; vice and virtue can be present in the same person, and often are. We should accept that both vice and virtue are functions of time and place - a very modern notion. But the underlying "vibe" of your argument is that of a religious zealot convinced of the purity of your position, which I find natively abhorrent. It's the kind of position that I wouldn't even bother debating, like flat earth. I'd just walk away, as will will now do here.
An argument on a public forum is not won by whoever shouts the loudest or has the most "courage". If expressed clearly enough, it suffices (and is much wiser) to explain your ideas once and let the readers decide.
So I guess I won. The person I was arguing with called me a religious flat earther and then announced he was done with the conversation, rather than allowing me to reply. Age old forum behavior: Gotta get the last word and run. Sad really. If I was such a savage troll then just don’t reply!!!
Pointing out the flaws of these "great" individuals, heroes of humanity's past simply accomplishes nothing. They're long dead. They have notable accomplishments, that will be taught as history. Saying, "but he was a piece of shit according to my moral standard" doesn't really do anything except start a big argument. And that is a waste of time and energy, and a distraction from more important issues.
If your argument is "your shirt with a picture of Lincoln on it offends me - he was a racist!", then I guess you can just kick rocks or whatever.
P.S. "racist" is lately feeling really close to "communist" of the 50s as far as how effectual it is in describing a person's character. A witch hunt, in other words.
> Che was a sociopathic extreme homophobe and mass murderer
The homophobic claim is patently false. He had no involvement in Cuba's treatment of gay people, and the only quote in which he even mentions gay people is about how he was bothered when a guy he liked was beat up. The homophobia accusation is mostly just peddled as a gotcha question. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5eFPgvhS60
It was a very different educational reality back then.
High school education was not at all common until the 20th century.
That means most of Einstein’s contemporaries, the masses, would have had between a 50-80% chance of a haphazard middle school level education. [0]
Contrast this with his peers in the sciences who were extremely well educated and an early generation if not the first generation of globally-connected world-class minds and there is no ambiguity about what he is saying.
He had to leave his home and relocate to the US, because masses of stupid people suddenly decided that Jews are root of all evils. His words reflect exactly that sentiment. Unfortunately, 80 years on, there are still masses of people upholding the same belief.
A smart man once said “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”
This would’ve been quite obvious to someone fleeing Germany in the 1930’s after seeing what happens when the people are panicked and afraid and a charismatic leader says “I know whose fault this is and I can fix it!”
It’s not clear to me that there’s a meaningful distinction. If “the masses” can be manipulated into supporting and even dying for a despicable but charismatic leader, that precisely means a bunch of individuals were so manipulated.
A group of people functioning with a sense of group identity behaves very very differently from what each individual member of the group may say or do on their own. Peer pressure and groupthink are powerful phenomena that can override individual character and intelligence.
This has never made any sense to me. "People are dumb, panicky animals" because "people" is made up of "persons" who (in aggregate) dumb stuff down. The individuals in the "people" are also "dumb, panicky animals," generally speaking.
It's just speaking to the idea of pack mentality. It's ingrained in us to go with the flow because we're a social species. So, if someone else makes a mistake, it's not nearly as bad if we make a mistake as well. On the flip-side, if you're the only person around, you can't rely on anyone else and it forces you to think about things.
It's not always true of course; just a colloquialism.
> Further more, people living in different countries kill each other at irregular time intervals, so that also for this reason any one who thinks about the future must live in fear and terror.
It sounds like he's speaking to the common intervals of war during his lifetime. From 1879-1955 Einstein would have been alive for roughly 27 wars that involved the US and there's probably a multiplicative factor there for international conflicts and wars.
> This is due to the fact that the intelligence and character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few who produce some thing valuable for the community. I trust that posterity will read these statements with a feeling of proud and justified superiority.
The way I read this is that people are inevitably who vote for war. It's similar to the attitude prevalent in the song "Forever Young" by Alphaville:
Can you imagine how we won the war?
Little fascist lady she loves you so
Following her leader, she's getting in tune
The music's played by the madmen
which became
Can you imagine when this race is won
Turn our golden faces into the sun
Praising our leaders we're getting in tune
The music's played by the madmen
I reason about that as juxtaposed to his comments on his contribution to the atomic bomb:
> “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would never have lifted a finger.” (1947)
From his Isaacson biography, it would appear that he does not have high regard for the mental faculties of the average person.
As far as absolute comparisons of intelligence goes, we don't yet have a way to measure it and may never have. The best we can do are relative comparisons like IQ. So he may well be spot-on in his assessment, and we should respect his point of view, because he was clearly very close to the top of the mountain in his (and every) time.
Obviously Einstein was a brilliant man but I've gotten the impression he was "2nd tier" when compared to some of his contemporaries like Poincaré and von Neumann. Confirm/deny?
I'm not a physicist, but this guy reinvented physics using thought experiments that were later proved to be extremely accurate.
That's just relativity, but he also did groundbreaking work on atoms and light, and he even designed an interesting new refrigeration cycle.
It's not really possible to say how much raw intellectual power goes into solving a problem (yet), so it's hard to compare giants like Poincare, von Neumann, and Einstein.
Right, his mind was first rate but in a dog-eat-dog life, so much more goes into it. I find them all very interesting characters and I'd like other people's thoughts on the narrative I've crafted of their lives and interactions.
I don't even understand how its possible to think this.
He revolutionized classical physics, made huge advancements in the brand new field of quantum mechanics (unwillingly at first) and made tons of very interesting philosophical works.
It could be I am way out of my depth here, but it seems to me someone like Von Neumann was certainly above Einstein. Von Neumann was an S-tier intellect, truly astonishing.
I don't know enough about Einstein to say whether or not he was also an S-tier, but I have often heard it said that someone would have figured out the stuff he is most famous for if he hadn't been there. Because others were working on similar math. And I've also read about Von Neumann just solving unsolvable things on whim, inventing new concepts whole cloth that weren't even the focus of his work, etc.
Nobody could say Einstein wasn't brilliant, but his being famous doesn't mean he was the most brilliant. For that matter, we should acknowledge that the smartest person to have ever lived might have died without ever touching a pencil, because we still use "being born in the right place" as a proxy for greatness. Should we ever meet the basics needs of everyone and to allow every mind to flourish, we might find our greats are less rare than we thought.
Thank you, this is precisely what sort of conversation I was trying to elicit. If anything, realizing that Einstein's intellect, while tremendous, is something we can wrap our heads around. He always seemed like a quality, if a bit unfocused, academic who managed to put himself in the right places at the right times and accomplished tremendous things as a result. A testament to the fact that one doesn't have to be a von Neumann level genius to affect science in earth shattering ways.
> I don't even understand how its possible to think this.
Are you intending to come across as so rude? Because I'd say this sounds like your problem. Perhaps English isn't your first language, so I'll forgive your tone.
Anyway, it seems apparent to me that an academic who struggles to land a job researching or teaching after graduation is not "top tier", but as a non-academic, perhaps I misunderstand.
Famously, the man didn't fully understand the mathematics (tensor calculus and differential geometry) required to flesh out his obviously profound ideas about general relativity, so he learned them, and then proceeded to change how we think about the universe. It's completely fascinating the drive and effort required for such a thing.
I realize the profundity of the photoelectric effect, but I've read that had Einstein not figured out relativity that Poincaré wasn't far behind. Also, Einstein commented that he felt von Neumann was the "cleverest man" that he had ever known so curious what these guys thought of Einstein? I like to imagine it rather like the tensions between impressionist musicians where Einstein is the scrappy Satie and the establishment try-hards like Ravel are smugly casting judgment on his lofty ambitions, but this may not be correct.
I maintain that I am asking a fair question about how he compared to his contemporaries.
There's vision / creativity and then there's raw compute & storage power and the ability to cross-reference. Einstein seems first rate in category #1 but 2nd rate in #2. VNeumann is maybe a decent candidate for smartest human ever, in terms of category #2.. he was a prodigy staggering adults with math/linguistic feats of strength at a point in development when Einstein was probably still stuttering. But being intuitive has it's own advantages and it takes all kinds of people to build our vast wealth of knowledge.
The thing that fascinates me about Von Neumann is his apparently "normal" personality given his savant nature. Dude liked to do earth shattering work in front of the TV and was quite a friendly, if not a bit socially awkward, person.
That's also how I would read it, and I think it's perfectly understandable why someone who was considered a Jew by the Nazis and had to flee from Germany, despite holding a prestigious university chair position and being a scientist of the highest international acclaim, would feel that way about the instincts of the masses in 1939, in the days of mass hysteria leading up to or following right up to (depending on when exactly this was written) an unjustified war of aggression against a neighboring country (even without knowing what that war would later turn into).
Considering these circumstances, I think his assessment is spot on, and the fact that we look down on this idea nowadays (judging from the fact that this is the top-voted comment at the time of writing) may be evidence of the kind of progress he was hoping for in the last paragraph.
Our 21st century version, at least to me, is even harder to phrase... at least currently.
I thought connecting everyone, all opinions, minds, ideas... I thought it would be good. It was, at first. There were ways for the better ideas to float. Ways for ideas to cross-pollinate.
The "society" seemed like a greater intelligence, one that I got a lot from.
Now... It's worse than I could have ever imagined. It's like every person makes the whole a little meaner, dumber, weaker of heart... The whole makes the individual a little worse.
Oh yeah I unfortunately agree with you here. The ability to aggregate power around fringe ideas and bully other people into submission has truly allowed for a much less enlightened world - prime example is look how bareknuckle politics is around the world now.
The strategy that you can isolate one person from the herd with your online gang is deeply concerning for the future of reasonable discourse.
That and many other dynamics. Bullying is one. A lot is just dumbing down. Reduction to meme. Thinking by affiliation. Picking sides. Factionalism. Populism. Statements have scores. Followers. Upvotes. Retweets. Everyone is gaming some sort of algorithm.
All the problems of politics, now permeating all of society.
We think, often, how and as we speak.. as we debate. Now that the conversation, the debate has become.. what it is, I think it really does affect how and what we think. That (garbage) mode of debating is now a major mode of thinking.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
To paraphrase Terry Pratchett's version of this: "the intelligence of a group of people is the intelligence of the stupidest member of the group, divided by the number of people in the group".
In this context I agree, - I read it as him lamenting the intelligence of those who participate in, and perpetuate the conditions of the Drepression (and global economic collapse) in addition to the tendency to descend into mass violence (as he witnessed in the WWI and beginning again in Europe).
I think 'intelligence and character' in this context, can be interpreted as the knowledge of and ability to control world events. All of the wars are started by the 'in the know' few that have their own goals, have power, influence, access to information, etc. But the people that actually fall for the war propaganda and sign up to fight and die (or cheer it on from the sidelines) are largely entirely excluded from having any influence over the decision to start a war, and unaware of the machinations that go on behind the scenes. If we didn't have 'stupid' people willing to die for the goals of a few psychopathic parasites, I'm sure we'd have a lot few wars/conflicts.
I think how you interpret that line is related to how you interpret
> However, the production and distribution of commodities is entirely unorganized so that everybody must live in fear of being eliminated from the economic cycle
It is possible to give both an Ayn Randian interpretation.
It’s interesting that 10 years later he would write a defense of socialism; maybe in his mind both things could exist together (socialism and independent thought) or maybe he changed his mind…?
This is surely the strongest endorsement of education. Einstein nails
what Emma Goldman said, "The most violent element in society is
ignorance."
There is such straightforward simplicity to his writing that it is
over-interpreted today. Chiefly, Einstein's writing is compassionate,
often comparable to Erich Fromm. Here we take him as an "elitist"
insulting "the masses", who are by our definition today "poor".
He often calls people idiots and is scathing about the uses to which
we put technology;
" I fear the day that technology will surpass our human
interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots."
"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a
pathological criminal"
Albert Einstein would not survive for one moment in what we call
"Academia" today. One of my students once remarked that he'd have been
a Ted Kaczynski, only he built bigger bombs.
Yet my favourite, which I'd hope people of the 7th Millennium will
read and nod at:
"In any conflict between humanity and technology, humanity will win."
" I fear the day that technology will surpass our human
interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots."
While I loved this quote (because I aligns with my opinion), it doesn't look it is from Einstein. At least searching for it in google I've found quite a few pages precisely debunking this attribution.
> Albert Einstein would not survive for one moment in what we call "Academia" today.
He couldn't even make it in academia back then though, no? He failed to get a teaching position so he became a patent clerk, which is where he published his theories of relativity. One would expect that even today, papers of that magnitude would secure you a top professorship, even if you barely publish anything else.
It's a prediction that only seems true because there's still some human around to state it. Rather like proclaiming that I am certainly immortal because I've never died.
> This is due to the fact that the intelligence & character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few who produce some thing valuable for the community.
If he wrote this again today, I wonder what he would think about the relative "character" of those who produce things of value to the community. It's a mixed bag, from my point of view -- much like the rest of society.
Well, the difficulty is in identifying just who the producers are.
Modern society largely labels the financing and management arms of innovation as the producers.
Perhaps Einstein envisioned the researchers and scientists as the producers.
Thus it would not be Elon who was indicated as the intelligent producer, but rather the nameless researcher tied to a desk at one of his companies doing the work of producing.
And that the "less intelligent masses" includes the management who take that production and mismanage its distribution in maximizing short term gains in exchange for long term losses.
So the interpretation of his sentiment here would really depend on whether he'd buy into the self-branding of the rich and powerful as producers or not.
>Perhaps Einstein envisioned the researchers and scientists as the producers.
Anybody who spent any time in Academia knows that "researchers and scientists" can be as flawed as any other person, personality wise, and when it comes to professional conduct, jealousy, greed, backstabbing, etc. they're hardly better. They're also quite spineless, given all their privileges.
You're talking about the ones who've made it to tenure, either by genuine academic merit or old-boys-networks (or both). But given the lack of permanent positions in Academia, one could make the case that a large portion of Academia genuinely do excel on merit alone (albeit in the short time window where they have to face the reality that they will never make tenure, and will have to find an industry job). Complacency and politics occurs at the professor-level, but that's rarely where the science is done.
>Thus it would not be Elon who was indicated as the intelligent producer
Good point, bad example.
Musk is hardly just "financing and management." In contrast with ~all other CEOs, Musk actually spends most of his time (and IMO contributes most of his value) on engineering, despite the ongoing propaganda to the contrary.
Indeed, The incredible amount of engineering expertise and contribution that Elon gives is one of the biggest things that I learned from the new biography from Walter Isaacson. Elon solves real problems in many difficult and specific engineering fields. I would consider him a jack of all trades, Master of none, but understands enough that he can bring his unique solving style to the table and think outside of the box and devise wild experiments. He has strokes of genius at times that most people cannot have because they are too familiar with the rules. Musk also frequently takes lessons learned from one field of engineering and applies them to others in clever ways that few people are able to do simply because the breadth of engineering work that Elon contributes is so staggeringly wide.
In short, the dude is a serious individual contributor. He may be the CEO, but he does a lot of groundwork that you would not expect, and has some serious expertise.
And he also has quite a few incredibly stupid insights and ideas that others have to rein in (or wish they could rein in). It can be great to have someone like him as part of a team, but you do in fact need people familiar with the rules to override him when he tries to redefine well understood concepts because he's angry.
Yep absolutely. It's a pros and cons sort of thing, and having a personality like Elon can make things very difficult. In my opinion, this is a great example of why cognitive diversity is so important to a high-performing team. With team members who think differently, the team can reach incredible heights. If it was just Elon, I think they'd have a very difficult time achieving anything.
I don't think it's up for interpretation, the criteria is in the actual quote "who produce some thing valuable for the community". It could be any profession: researchers, managers, financiers, teachers, manual laborers. If they produce value for the society. And the same professions can be free loaders or even worse, suck value from society.
The quote, as I interpret it, is about Price's law. Not about professions, social or economical classes.
I think that when read in its full context, it's really just to contrast with the other group, which is the masses to explain why "production and distribution of commodities is entirely unorganized so that everybody must live in fear of being eliminated from the economic cycle, in this way suffering for the want of everything".
If I were to rephrase it, I would say society works democratically, but unfortunately the masses are much dumber than the real contributors to our society, but because their votes count the same as anyone else, the choices of the masses win elections and make bad choices. This is why there is such food and shelter insecurity.
unfortunately the masses are much dumber > the real contributors to our society, but because their votes count the same as anyone else, the choices of the masses win elections and make bad choices
Their "political votes" appear to count the same but if society rewards them then their economic power gives them outsized
"economic votes". Every dollar spent is a vote for the service or product it is spent on.
"Intelligence & character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the individuals."
During the lifetime of Einstein, successful and educated mimicked the values of upper classes, even if they just pretended. After the WWII the middle class values took over. Today even upper class pretends to be middle class. Try to appear busy and productive. The "character" and intelligence have little to do with each another.
It was a communicational attempt based on a overly simple model dividing the set of the "swamped, idle, understriving" long Paretian tail and the "active, daring, inquisitive" "fewer" - without taking into account the actual real-world complexity (e.g. of relative continuity in more dimensions between the sets).
In those paragraphs, within context, it just meant "some have achieved much for the benefit of the population, but the population as an aggregate does not show the same spirit and ability".
To define the sets of the "well natured" vs "larvatic", the suggestive discriminator of being "benefactors to the whole" was picked.
So,
> It's a mixed bag... much like the rest of society
Yes, the point was that some strive and achieve some progressive "status", "being", "nature", and many do not: it is a wish that such good condition will be largely shared in a future society.
It is a wish that Paretian distribution is transformed into a widespread distribution of desirable «intelligence and character», as a condition for «pr[ide] and justified superiority».
I second that and I came here to add that the few who rule the masses are responsible, and not the masses.
Blaming masses for being not that clever is just arrogance and ignorance of the fact that intelligence is NOT required to live happily and be good to others.
And while scientists will continue this very stupid narrative of high intelligence necessity rulers and ultra-rich will continue to exploit it.
As in all systems, the greatest blame (or responsibility) lies in those nodes with the greatest power to change the system. "Leaders" who aren't elevating others aren't really doing any leading, just self-serving.
On HN, the option to read it as an Ayn Rand style attack on the poor is likely to have more salience.
But I think, given the preceding paragraphs about having lots of goods that are poorly distributed, and having technology that "could" improve human lives, he meant it as "humanity in general are pretty shitty to each other, but there's a few people trying to do better, which is both smart and morally correct, and he hopes they win out".
This is in the context of 1939 when Adolph Hitler had wide appeal.
I read it as a form of something almost approaching a call for eugenics: "The common man is such an idiot! If only the intelligentsia could be put in charge of the world, everything would be better."
Your point about putting the quote in the context of the times is well made.
It's not a mixed bag. Info asymmetry keeps increasing. It never decreases. Getting a billion people to row in one direction constantly breaks down. Just like cells in the body. Forget about 8 billion.
Maybe it's easier to understand the bitterness knowing that Einstein was a Jew forced to flee Germany after 1933 due to the "masses" which democratically (!) brought the Nazis to power. Although I think there is also something to be said about those who manipulate the "lower-intelligence masses" to their purpose...
The masses must be manipulated. The world is too complicated for most people to make a rational decision and they need guidance. This has always been the way it works. It's a symbiotic relationship. Everyone in society contributes and societies often rely on intelligent individuals for guidance.
Take, for example, a hypothetical workers union in a coal mining town. Those people probably have union lawyers and decision makers staffed with the smarter people who make the decisions. It's literally a media trope: old, salty coal miner encourages his son to get educated and leave coal mining. Son gets educated, comes back, contributes to the miners in his own way.
It is interesting to point out that that while the Nazis did come to power democratically, they didn’t actually have a majority of ‘the masses’. Turns out that a strong enough minority that is willing to change the laws and leverage fear can turn the herd.
> This is due to the fact that the intelligence & character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few who produce some thing valuable for the community.
This seems like a dangerously bad idea.
Isn't it intuitive that, for every one-in-a-billion genius with a heart of gold, there will be numerous people who only think that they know vastly better than most others?
And we can see examples of people with much more than their share of influence or resources, who seem to see themselves as historical great figures, who will do what others don't have the mind/will/strength to do. With nary a hint of gold in them thar hearts.
How about, instead, we elevate the masses, and embrace more egalitarian models, like democracy?
That elevating was an early promise/hope of things like the Internet. Now we have to smack down a bunch of people who sabotaged that, with greed and dimwittedness, dragging down the intellect and character of the masses, while presumably fancying themselves great figures.
There's always an alternative of trying to make society more meritocratic and letting the cream rise to the top.
But if it wasn't, recent history shows that someone with bad ideas that starts out with a heart of gold is far more dangerous than an evil genius, so I'd take my chances.
> However, the production and distribution of commodities is entirely unorganized so that everybody must live in fear of being eliminated from the economic cycle, in this way suffering for the want of everything.
I think it's more that there's a sizeable chunk of people who want to live the same lives that their parents lived for the equal sweat cost, and are seeing a large disparity in what they're putting in compared to what is coming out
Monopolies drive the cost of items and services up. (besides having all the other negative effects that are always caused by a huge concentration of power in the hands a non-democratic institution).
And as we see and know very well, e.g. by looking around us, monopolies or (at best) duopolies are always the outcome of unregulated markets.
More or less in all sectors, and especially in this very globalised world, where economies of scale drive profits up for those who put them to effect. This of course includes the Financial sector.
So, I'd say the exact opposite of you statement is true.
I'm replying to your comment because you statement is kind of the prototypical statement of free-market champions. I'm sure this conversation has already happened tens of thousands of times.
Still, do you think you can share any more insights about how can you possibly think regulations are the reason of a higher cost of living?
Can you please provide an example of a single unregulated market?
Free markets do not exist. Capitalism does not exist. Socialism does not exist. Communism does not exist. Humans seem to be completely incapable of implementing any such systems. Human systems invariably seem to become oligarchies and/or fascism.
As regards your assertions of monopoly, a monopoly is essentially impossible without either a state apparatus to exploit. Otherwise, the moment money were made in any given industry, competition would result. Only via regulatory barriers to entry or via corporate welfare can a monopoly be built and maintained for any serious amount of time.
> Human systems invariably seem to become oligarchies
That's what I'm saying.. We seem to agree here :)
> Only via regulatory barriers (..) can a monopoly be built.
This is, to me, an absurd idea. There are a lot of other very common, real-world barriers that exist...
I don't know what you mean by corporate welfare exactly, but yes, large established capitals are a barrier.
Physical assets are a barrier. Think factories, etc. A new entry cannot just "acquire" a production plant or a datacenter or an oil pipeline. Hence having worse economies of scale, etc.
Network effects are a barrier, especially in tech. Think social networks, etc.
Control over Media channels is a barrier that huge corporations in various sectors employ very effectively.
Established guilds and cartels are a barrier. Nothing socialist about those.
Knowledge itself is a barrier, and in my opinion an underestimated one. If a firm recruits lots of very technical, hard to find knowledge on how to do a process, they'll become the best at it. Well, nothing wrong with that if they are useful. But if they congregate too much knowledge in disparate domains, without sharing it, and have the capital to defend it, they become basically unbeatable. This brings more capital, and that is how a monopoly is formed.
If anything, you should regulate that knowledge should be shared. Because that's definitely not what happens with the knowledge that actually matters.
> Only via regulatory barriers (..) can a monopoly be built.
Honestly, this is such a weird option to me, that I wonder if there are people out there who gain from intentionally pushing this propaganda.. (probably yes)
Sure, in that regulation preventing many of those people from fucking dying when they drank milk-flavored lead with breakfast or sleeping in asbestos blankets. If we would have just let them die in agony, goods could be cheaper. But since we insist on having regulations, we're as helpless to societal decay as the lamb before the lion. There is no such thing as an economy that enriches the majority both in health and wealth, and we can't invent one. Right?
I specifically focus on the U.S. because we're perceived to be one of the most affluent countries in the world. Given that we throw away a third of our food, how is it that 12.8% of us are experiencing food insecurity? Are people just too lazy to eat?
Be careful when interpreting those stats -- food insecurity often does not mean "doesn't have food". If you gave every single one of those people free meals for the year, we'd still have 12.8% food insecurity, because people who get free meals are counted in that number.
The whole reason "food insecurity" topics like unhealthy diets, skipped meals, relying on food assistance, etc, are even a cause for concern is because starvation really isn't anymore.
The absolute minimum we should be aiming for is that nobody is starving to death or dying of other easily solved causes like unsafe water. Congratulating ourselves for progress up to that point is all fine and good as a motivation but we really haven't accomplished as much as we might like to think.
I agree with your first statement. I don't think self-flagellation is useful though and the West is pulling more than their share in global welfare. Your vitriol would be better directed towards, say, Arabian wealthy dictatorships.
You are clearly out of touch with reality. Even official state statistics in western countries clearly show the downward trend in life quality, you don't even need to use any reasoning, it's just math.
Maybe your problem is judging the quality of your life by ”state statistics.” My recommendation is picking up a philosophy book or two and looking at things from a new angle.
Thank you for your recommendation, it is a very good one which i have already acted uppon. The philosophical conclusion is that even though, in absolute metrics, the average life is better as centuries go by, in relative metrics it is getting worse and worse.
Our knowlegde and technology are being underutilized, thus obstructing access to modern quality of life to the majority of the people on earth who, by the way, do not live in the western countries
>However, the production and distribution of commodities is entirely unorganized so that everybody must live in fear of being eliminated from the economic cycle, in this way suffering for the want of everything.
Searching for the site of the time capsule on Google Maps makes me wonder -- has anyone created an archive of time capsule locations? I can think of at least three or four at my university alone, and a couple more in the surrounding community, but few people remember them and there is no central archive of info on them.
This is clearly tongue in cheek I wonder if they asked him to write something with high brow humour. The last paragraph gives it away, but in order to see why it's a giveaway you need to be able to understand why, which I'm guessing the people who asked him did not.
In short for those who missed it, proud and justified superiority is a key reason why we still have economic classes which cause disparity and wars (particularly ethnic cleansing and WW2 which would have been in Einstein's mind when this letter was penned as it was just starting).
Or maybe he was just humourously illustrating his predisposition to it too (i.e. call people stupid, illustrate you make the same mistakes).
> This is due to the fact that the intelligence & character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few who produce some thing valuable for the community.
One rejects "incomparably".
Sure, there is a distribution if intelligence and character.
But one suspects that the variance isn't as pronounced (or important) as A.E. might suppose.
As evidence, note the general rarity of a Newton or Einstein.
At the other end of the distribution, note the elderly couple who have been happily married for most of their lives and have begotten a clan.
History will remember The Names, but if we integrate joy over time, I'd contend that the anonymous couple may be more enviable.
Not even 100 years later, and we're already arguing about what he was trying to say.
You can read about the time and circumstances that Einstein grew up in, but you didn't experience it, so you will always be missing some essential context.
Trying to parse this without more background is foolishness. This was written at the beginning of WWII. What stage exactly, who had just been invaded or annexed is not really important. Every observant person in Germany saw something terrible coming since before Hitler came to power. Most were in denial until it was much too late to do anything, but it was definitely something people were talking about.
[0]> The first major law to curtail the rights of Jewish citizens was the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of April 7, 1933'
Einstein saw well qualified people kicked out of their positions for being of the wrong racial background. I think you would call out low intelligence and character if you lived through this era.
In 100 years, the most of today's references, euphemisms, and dog whistles will not be understood either.
The article makes it seem much more bizarre than the list actually was (based on what I read at the bottom).
He just wanted her to treat him as if they were seperated, but still living in the same house. I’m really not sure about all the washing and cleaning stuff, but it seems sort of regular if one brings in the money and the other stays at home (presumably taking care of the children). The only exciting thing there is that he wants to eat in his room. If you stay together for the children then why discard the one moment you share with them?
This is very much in line with the thinking and society of the time, and not shocked at all by this piece given it was written in 1914. I read it as "be a housewife, I bring the money".
Had this list been written in 2014 then yes, I'd be more than shocked. But for the time, I read it as a pretty standard thing.
You would be surprised by how many "heroes" in the early 20th century were onboard with e.g. eugenics. You know, one of the key points of the third reich.
This is due to the fact that the intelligence & character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few who produce some thing valuable for the community.
We could have a world without cashiers, you just take what you need from the shelves and throw the correct amount of money into a box. We could have a world without locks on houses, cars, and bikes. We could have a world with no trash on the ground. A world without police. I wonder what percentage of the masses prevents such a world.
I think higher than we're willing to admit. And that number could include you, me and other people reading your comment.
I don't remember who of the philosophers wrote about this, but they cautioned against being delusional about infallibility of ones own moral compass. At least that's my lossy reproduction of the thought.
I'm not sold on the correlation between intelligence, character, and producing value. How many self made billionaires achieved their position by utterly disregarding both moral and legal dimensions?
How many tiny villages exist on the fringes of capitalism, and operate primarily on the basis of trust?
How many self made billionaires achieved their position by utterly disregarding both moral and legal dimensions?
All of them if you apply strong enough moral values. Nobody can earn a billion by his own work, you can only become a billionaire by getting into a position where you can take a share of the work from many people.
The Futility Closet did a brilliant podcast 'featuring “forgotten stories from the pages of history” — surprising and curious tales from the past.'. I think it stopped because of health issues. But it is well worth checking out:
https://www.futilitycloset.com/podcast/
This could be made into a YouTube short. Einstein's message for the future. It would have a mix of ai generated images for the visuals with some of the stock YouTube short music evoking a mood simultaneously bad ass plus relevatory, the musical impact culminating in the point where he mentions the stupidity of the masses.
"The intelligence and character of the few who produce some thing valuable for the community" can only "produce some thing valuable" because it's supported by the 'masses', with untold open and untold invisible work at all levels.
>This does not mean that the «masses» are excused from cultivating themselves
I think the persons who pick up our shit and clean our offices and make food for us and stuff do have a lot of excuses of not having the time and energy for "cultivation"at the level of people whose job is to read and study.
But Einstein did not suggest cultivation should be «at the level of people whose job is to read and study», he said that it should reach the level of avoidance of gratuitous violent hatred.
Cultivation which remains mandated, because those people in topic have a job by definition and they have to perform it well, which implies some intellectual proficiency (moreover, they will be partially socially active, they will often be neighbours and in general meet people, and they will often be actors in democracies). Instead, reality is that a large number of those agents will be liabilities instead of assets, in the very performance of their jobs. So, «intelligence and character» remains more than a goal, a necessity.
>he said that it should reach the level of avoidance of gratuitous violent hatred
Well, lots of that going on at the top levels of academy and educated people too. In fact, usually it's them that "inspire" the masses to violent hatred. So it's not like some unique deficiency that the masses have.
Yes, and this is why in the "sketchy out of space constraints" model that Einstein drew the discriminator chosen to define a special «intelligence and character» is the «inventive mind» having effectively achieved «inventions», i.e. some expertise in application to problems, also educated by accomplishment with regard to actual solutions.
People who apply themselves in thought, and humbled by hard facts.
(This will be different from other profiles you may have initially guessed. You will notice that "ideologists" are right out.)
There needs to be a term similar to "embedded emissions"[0] (embedded labour?) to capture this concept. Anyone who contributes with something deemed worthwhile to society by these types can only do so because they have a lot of embodied "un-worthwhile" work done for them by other people. Whether that is the farmer producing the food your eat, the truck driver delivering your amazon packages, the engineers maintaining the infrastructure you rely on, the person picking up your garbage, and so on.
Nobody produces independently of others in a modern society, and any libertarian type that pretends otherwise needs a reality check.
There's something very vulnerable about the message. Almost a circular, self-proving logic. A dismayed recognition that humanity endlessly competes against one-another, for land, resources, principles, glory, superiority.
And yet ... his own main focus has inevitably fallen back to that same human behaviour pattern too! - the behaviour which underpins the very systems and conflicts he laments elsewhere - that is : an individual or group subjectively categorising other people into the Superior and the Inferior, then making a world view of it.
We know of Egyptian doctors by name from a similar timeframe away in the past, so I assume they very well will! Especially because we’re better at archiving stuff deliberately now.
For example Imhotep and Hesy-ra are both a doctor and dentist from over 4500 years ago
>we’re better at archiving stuff deliberately now.
Are we? You can't beat pyramids and Rosetta stones for long term endurance AND easy access.
Surely not with any digital media we have now, and if there's something like "Fall of Rome" collapse and loss of techniques and high end manufacturing because of some global war, climate change, comet, or something like that in the 4000 years until then, we might not even be able to read the stuff that did survive.
The irony is, we can do much better today and at scale too. Without the need of any slaves or dangerous labor. It's just it costs a bit, and god forbid someone misses the next quarterly goals.
but theres 1000s of doctors and dentists that we don't know the names of.
they might be aware of Dr Joe Bloggs in 6939, just because he carved his name in some rock, that doesn't imply they will have a deep knowledge of our famous scientists.
Einstein: "We hope future societies will achieve widely distributed heightened intelligence. It is a quality we see today in inventive, active minds"...
Always heartening to see a reminder that Einstein not only was intelligent in his field of physics but clearly recognized the ideal economic system is socialism.
There is some irony in Einstein blaming people killing each others because of the stupidity of the masses vs the wiseness of intellectuals. The largest genocides of that period have been orchestrated by communist countries, supported by a lot if not most of of the intelligentsia, including I believe Einstein himself.
There is a large class of people who believe they are intelligent. But sadly all they have is complete confidence in their views backed up by some pseudo intellectual nonsense that they’ve either read/watched/heard without much understanding.
Or a better ability to rationalise some impossible position. That being said I can't help thinking that there is a certain callousness, that the ideal is so great that it's worth breaking a few eggs, a lot of eggs if necessary. That certainly was the mentality of those who perpetrated the crimes. Lenin, Stalin and Mao were certainly thugs, but I think they were first and foremost true communist ideologists. I think western intellectuels deliberately ignored the crimes in the name of ideology.
What a horrible comment, if by "intelligentsia" you mean smart and/or educated people who contribute to the community. Those were the first to either be killed or exiled by such regimes.
That's true. And cheered by western intellectuals. Mao was probably the worst offender in that respect. Who were Maoist sympathisers in the US and western europe? Not factory workers and peasants.
> Who were Maoist sympathisers in the US and western europe? Not factory workers and peasants.
Very few Western elites were pro-Mao. And general support for communism definitely had a class bias. (Any populism does, for very sympathetic and not-stupid reasons.)
Certainly in France there were a group of intellectual elites who supported Mao, especially since Mao's Cultural Revolution was directly inspired by France's own Paris Commune as well as the fact that many CCP leaders were educated in France.
But to generalize this to say that most of Europe's elite supported Mao, or even that American elites supported Mao, is simply unsupported.
Yes actually, they were factory workers and often times minorities. In the U.S. some of the biggest supporters of Maoism were actually the Black Panthers.
Supported? funny way to put that. Isn't intelligentsia somewhat of a self appointed label? Wealth isn't much intelligence, or intellectualism, its depravity if you ask me.
You single out communist countries, but fascist and capitalist countries have committed more than their fair share of genocides.
The real problem driving genocide is a feeling of superiority of one group over another, whether it's a single leader or a particular ethnic group. In that sense it's sad to see Einstein talk down about the character of the masses vs the character of the few who provide value. That's the stuff Elon Musk would love.
> The real problem driving genocide is a feeling of superiority of one group over another.
Real? Where's the overall evidence for that? The capitalist system is inarguably
superior to a command economy in terms of supplying what customers want.
Does this therefore drive some urge towards genocide on the part of one or the other side?
'It was very much an American invention (the first supermarket in the world was opened in New York’s Queens borough in 1930 – The King Kullen supermarket, invention of former grocery clerk Michael Cullen). By the late 50s, what the women (and surely, even if unacknowledged by the New York Times, men) of Zagreb saw was a clear signal of capitalist superiority in something that mattered much more to them than the conquering of space or new ways to facilitate human extinction: Cheap and plentiful food.'.
> The capitalist system is inarguably superior to a command economy in terms of supplying what customers want. Does this therefore drive some urge towards genocide on the part of one or the other side?
When it sees them as resources to be exploited or wasted, as competitors holding resources you want, or as unproductive. Colonialism is probably the biggest driver of genocide in history. Look at the millions dead in Congo to urge them to produce more rubber. Look at the Native American genocide in the US to take their land.
"intelligentsia" is not intelectuals, it just means secret police . I doubt Einstein was a member of the KGB or would even entertain that thought.
Intellectuals were also murdered first / sent to hard labour to die, sent to political prisons, etc. (check out what Mao did or Stalin, khmer rouge, or any other communist regime)
They were replaced by random poeople off the street based on their perceived loyalty to communism.
In occupied countries russia basically put in russians at first to clean up everything / murder anyone they want.
> The largest genocides of that period have been orchestrated by communist countries, supported by a lot if not most of of the intelligentsia
First part is that Intelligentsia means intellectuals, which in russia after 1917 it did not. Google has issues with doublethink but you can find on wikiedia what they did to intellectuals and what they redefined the term to. It also does not cove the fact that it is equivalent to intelligence services but not the same.
Second part is that Intelligentsia made genocides, which is ambigous, which intelligentsia? (the KGB?, if so, yes but they were not intellectuals, or the intellectuals?, if so, how?, they were all dead or not in power)
Third part is that Einstein belonged to that which is even bolder illogical statement... He was not russian, not a part of the KGB, had no power or involvement.
It was me, and on the topic of english, I think you may confuse "perpetrated" and "supported". I am not arguing that Einstein perpetrated a genocide and I think even some automatic translation wouldn't distord my sentence that badly.
Allright, my comments still stand. Your statement is still as outrageous and wrong even with those two words replaced and my comments still stand the same.
How did Einstein "support" those genocides?
Define the "Intelligentsia" that supported those genocides?
Einstein's message was written in 1939 and WW2 had broken out in Europe. I would like to believe Einstein's message was a nerd's clumsy attempt at writing. I am paraphrasing what I believe he is trying to say below:
We have achieved remarkable technological progress learning how to fly, crossing the oceans at will, and communicating across the continents via wireless means. Yet, we live in fear of being left out of the economic cycle and left to starve. Yet, we cannot plan for the future but in live in terror of the next war. This is due to the fact we only value people who produce something we value, the rest we throw away. I trust that future generations will view us with disdain and with moral superiority and rightfully so.
> the intelligence & character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few...
I don't think Einstein is comparing the most intelligent individuals to the least (or average) here. Certainly there are individuals who are more intelligent than the average, but I would argue not incomparably so.
I believe he's speaking about the tendency of large groups of people to act more like cattle than people. The intelligence of the mob (and the character, represented by the actions of the mob) are what I see as incomparably lower than that of an individual.
And I think this is indicated by the other shortcomings of 20th century humanity that he passes along. War isn't waged by individuals (or even groups of exclusively idiots and villains). There are a bunch of physiological and sociological variables introduced that make the output of the group stupider and less caring than the output of the individual.