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Comment by appleaday1 | Hacker News Reader

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How is "womanizing" a concept that makes sense, or has any meaning in modern times?

If I understand correctly, it describes a man that only has casual relationships with women. The implication being that all woman only want long term committed relationships, and any man doing this must be somehow exploiting or tricking the woman.

Nowadays, it is widely accepted that preferring casual relationships is within the range of normal preferences for both men and women- some people prefer it, others don't. If both women and men can choose and prefer consenting casual relationships, the concept that a man can be a "womanizer" seems to be paternalistic and infantizing to women. It also implies some sort of old fashioned 'duty' on the part of a man to essentially marry anyone he dates, even if they realize they are incompatible, and neither has a desire to stay together.

Eh, the biography sometimes veers heavily into redpill territory. He has a frank discussion of negging in order to seduce women. I personally think #canceled is far too eager to throw the baby out with the bathwater and if you just cruise through that section with the mentality that he's a product of his time then it's still a fascinating work.

I also personally think that there are multiple parts of the book that have been "spiced up" because that's the kind of personality he has.

There’s no need to do mental gymnastics around the definition of the word “womanizing” as if all criticisms of Feynman’s behavior can be reduced to that single word and then dismissed by opining over the definition of that single word. In reality, there are a fair number of much more specific claims about his behavior that are not reducible to that single word and can be described without even using that word if one finds it impossible to move past that word.

Go ahead and name these "problematic" claims if you like. It's long since tiresome to see so many historical figures with co much to recommend them being judged through an obsession with their failures to live and think like 21st century human beings of a specific and still very debatable set of morals.

I’m confident you can find the claims in mere minutes if you genuinely haven’t seen them and are interested.

Likewise. Vague things that it's absurd to use again and again in any mention of all the enormous contributions that Feynman made to science and an interest in science among younger people. The polarization towards this one specific thing, which in this case also happens to be vague, speaks of a tacitly puritanical need to paint black anyone who somehow decades ago didn't fit just right with a specific notion of modern moral correctness. Laughable idiocy.

I couldn't. All the accusations are vague to the point of uselessness. What is the convincing claim in your eyes?

I have no inside information and I haven’t done any particularly focused research into any of the claims. I’m only referring to extremely widely known and very easy to find claims that are much more specific than the single word “womanizing.” I’m not trying to convince anyone of their veracity or litigate details of claims on a point by point basis. I just think it’s disingenuous to reduce all such claims to a single or imply that they’re vague or difficult to find.

It's not widely known to me and I found concrete claims difficult to find.

Why are you so shy about simply naming specifics on a subject you claim is widely known and easy to find information on?

They're described in detail in the book reviewed in the link this entire thread is responding to.

I feel like his womanizing behavior was bad and that it was also somehow wrapped up in his attention seeking and other self promoting drives that made him so well known. I don't think it should be hidden.

I am really tired of dirt being brought up each time a discussion of a renowned figure is happening. It obviously detracts from the inspiration or immersion people are trying to derive from bringing up those renowned figures. They are intentionally focusing on the positive aspects, and those who are bringing the garbage up are intentionally detracting from it.

You think there's a problem reminding readers that venerated people aren't good role models? Why? Why not strive to be better than them, intentionally moving past their flaws?

I think that attitude would be great, but that isn't what I see happening. There is a widespread movement to cancel basically all famous historical figures, and dismiss the value of their work along with discrediting their personalities. It's frustrating to see, since many of these people were really inspiring to me as a kid, making me want to be a scientist/engineer myself.

Mr Feynman is well known (among other) for his work in the field of quantum electrodynamic theory (for which he won the Nobel price), his diagrams, his lectures and his work in the commission investigating the challenger catastrophe.

Are those the self-promoting drives you refer to?

When it comes to how we was self promoting, I think it's fair to look at his autobiography (edit: autobiographical anecdotes is probably a better description of the book) (Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman). In which he describes his own redpillish behavior towards women, and brags about how he would troll waitresses by purposely setting up time bomb messes for them to cleanup.

I assume that the parent commenter was referring to being a good teacher and charismatic lecturer.

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