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[–] 97 points 10 months ago (6 children)

"A once-in-a-generation mathematical genius" is an extreme exaggeration, to the point that I suspect the person who used the phrase doesn't really understand what it means. The implication of "once-in-a-generation" is that there is about a 20 year window somewhere around their birth where nobody was born who was better.

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  • [–] 72 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Its a common phrase for an exceptional mind. Its not meant to be taken purely literally becsuse its untestable, but generally remarked upon in hindsight.

    You can argue Newton fit the bill even though Liebniz was a peer of his. Einstein and Oppenheimer, etc.

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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago

    You can argue Newton fit the bill even though Liebniz was a peer of his. Einstein and Oppenheimer, etc.

    Those are ones you can argue, though. Nobody would ever seriously argue that Kaczynski was anywhere near the top of his generation. There is no informed list of the greatest mathematicians that has Kaczynski on it.

    Let's imagine that, instead of being caught, Kaczynski simply stopped bombing things and was never caught, and lived out the remainder of his life in that shack. In that case, he'd be an obscure genius mathematician who wrote a few exceptional papers. There are a lot of people like that.

    I suspect that while right now, you think it's "a common phrase for an exceptional mind," if you really looked into its usage, you'd find that it's generally used for somebody who actually is uniquely exceptional for their time.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Its a common phrase for

    No, that's you learning it from context without thinking about what the actual words mean. It's meant to be taken literally.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

    I disagree. Each generation is 20 years long. With a global birthrate of 140 milllion/year, that means each generation contains 2.8 billlon people.

    If there is literally only one person per 2.8 billion that can fit that bill, then the world would never be able to agree on who it is. Who and by what standard is this literal "greatest mind of a generation" selected?

    If the phrase is meant literally, it should be "the greatest mind in a generation that people in a paticular society are largely aware of" because otherwise its just unverifiable puffery.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    With a global birthrate of 140 milllion/year, that means each generation contains 2.8 billlon people.

    How long has the global birthrate been 140M/yr? More than a generation?

    Maybe the current "generation" contains 2.8 billion people. Not convinced that bears much relationship to an average generation throughout history

    I also believe the term is typically used as exaggeration/puffery

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    No idea, but if that number is what youre fixated on, feel free to cut it down to 1/10 the size if that makes it easier. I think we can agree that even in Einstein's time more than 280 million people were born on earth in 20 years, right?

    If a generation is hypothetically 280 million people, who gets to decied and what are the criteria for the literal "greatest mind of a generation?"

    Im glad we both think the statement is puffery, but the person I was replying to was saying this was a literal statement, not exaggeration. I really want to know their take on the above, as I cant find a way to square the math.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago

    “Scandal noted.”

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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago (14 children)

    Math really is a language.
    Cuz i cannot understand a word of that footnote.

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  • [+] 43 points 10 months ago (10 children)
  • [–] -2 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    That's not the part of the foot note i was referring to.

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  • [–] 70 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Then I think you're misusing the word footnote.

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  • [–] 28 points 10 months ago* (4 children)

    Ha! I was. Thank you.
    D'oh

    But my point about math still stands lol

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    it’s not a language, you can’t translate a book into mathematics 

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  • [+] 3 points 10 months ago* (1 child)
  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago

    there are a variety of ways to express any mathematical idea… i.e. there are a variety of mathematical languages      

    usually referred to as different notations.      

    even when there are language barriers, a good translator can still express an idea in another language… math is not a language, but you do kinda need to learn another language to understand it

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Kaczynski's crimes were of course indefensible. But there's no denying that he was actually right about our relationship to technology.

    If he hadn't decided to head down the cukoo-banana path, he would have had a role to play in fighting this AI nightmare.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    I never understood the nickname. Unibomber? He bombed more than one thing. 🤷‍♂️

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 21 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Actually looking it up I think the Un was short for University the A for airline so it was Un(verisity)A(irline)bomber. The name apparently showed up after the FBI connected a bomb he sent in the mail on a plane with the two previous bombs he had sent to Northwestern University.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    I wouldn't call it "work".

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Maybe he meant it in the sense of "if you do what you love you'll never work a day in your life", i.e. perhaps Teddy K loved him some bombings so much that it wasn't "work"

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