Tuesday, March 09, 2010

 

JSH: Why fame is lame

One of the things that gets posters who argue with me more hot and bothered than anything else is this notion that I'm trying to get famous. I'm not. In fact, it's quite dangerous to get famous. Or to be a celebrity which is not necessarily famous in my opinion but is more well-known as a THING, and in fact, celebrities in the US have a life expectancy of 55 years of age, less than black males.

The tales that so enthrall people of celebrity meltdowns are indicative of an illness associated with it. Somehow it seems to mess people up, maybe because human beings were not built for it.

So let's look at some famous people and I'll look at science and math people because it's math newsgroups:

Turing: did a lot of great work during World War II to protect his country, breaking German codes and such. After the war he was hounded for being gay, chemically castrated, and pushed to suicide. (His mother thinks he was murdered). He was treated horribly and the British government recently apologized for that treatment.

Einstein: ostracized by his colleagues as irrelevant, in his later life this greatest of scientists worked futility and alone on the "great proof" so he was a crackpot in his later life, having already BEEN famous for his prior work. He married his 2nd cousin—so why not some beautiful super model or something (ok, there weren't any back then but why his dowdy 2nd cousin?).

Newton: history says he died a virgin. It also says he was really mean.

My favorite though is Tesla. He fell in love with pigeons. Said that women's jewelry scared him. He died alone in a hotel room divisible by 3 because he wouldn't stay in any other room. Oh and he was really into pigeons and called the greatest love of his life one particular pigeon which when it died he said there was no reason left for him to discover anything further as his inspiration had left him.

Archimedes: slaughtered by a Roman soldier. Various tales as to how it all happened.

One remarkable theme that is recurring is problems with love interests or a lack of one. Einstein with his 2nd cousin. His "normal" relationship was BEFORE his Nobel prize, when he actually fathered children. Turing hounded for being gay. Tesla, in love with pigeons. Newton, a virgin.

Why?

My theory is that major discovery angers men around you. The major discoverer is automatically a threat as he's appealing to women and emasculating to men, so they make his life miserable. One way to be certain he's miserable is to remove romantic interests.

Einstein was pushed aside deliberately by his physics colleagues who said his ideas were not relevant any more.

That is typical. When you make major discoveries at a high enough level, you will get hurt for it. Guaranteed.

The major mathematical figure who seemed to best all of it that I've noted is Gauss. Somehow he managed to escape all of the above, have a lot of kids, and not fall in love with pigeons.

It's worse in our modern age. People like a winner but love to attack a winner. Most of the attacks are hidden from view.

You learn to be guarded as people ARE out to get you. But saying so is dangerous as they'll just say you're paranoid and crazy.

Safer to just fall in love with pigeons.





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