Why do great people like Iain Banks, Steve Jobs, Carl Sagan all die relatively young, while evil sons of bitches like Dick Cheney live to a ripe old age despite having 100 heart attacks?
Galois — 20; Markov — 25; Abel — 26; Ramsey — 26; Ramanujan — 32; Riemann — 39; Turing — 41; Von Neumann — 53, etc.
But Erdős, Cantor, Newton, Archimedes, and Gödel (though he starved himself to death) lived past 70. So not all great mathematicians die young.
not to diminish Vladimir's contribution to mathematics at such a young age - but Andrey Markov, of the chains and processes, lived until 66.
Also, the older someone is the higher chance you'll get to hate him. "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain."
Certainly, I'm a much better person than I was ten years ago. That might just be reversion to the mean, because I was somewhat of an asshole.
I have no idea if Dick Cheney got better or worse with age, for example, but being VP under Bush certainly gave him a far better opportunity for stuff people disliked about him to be noticed.
(That was sarcasm.)
I do think there are more and less appropriate contexts to express those feelings. I think the ring theory is a pretty good guide: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0407-si...
I think here we're all in the same ring in regards to Banks, so I'm ok with people expressing their grief as it comes to them, as long as they're not being giant dicks to other grievers in the process.
I apologize. Yes, sarcasm is sometimes an appropriate reaction to death.
I stand by the assertion that sixQuarks' attempt at sarcasm as an attempt at dark humor was still inappropriate, which was completely unclear from my original statement.
I haven't decided if I want to read his books anyway. Divorce the artist from the art.
(And please don't tell me that BDS is not antisemetic because that's nonsense - just look at who the founders were.)
If you want a shortcut into his politics, I suggest you read Dead Air.
They are calling for the delegitimization of Israel as a country.
> how you can paint everybody who supports them as antisemitic
I can't. I don't know him, but if you are going to publicly support a group it behooves you to look into them first.
Thanks for the mention of Dead Air - have you read it? I'm not familiar with UK politics - why is he so mad at Tony Blair?
[Citation needed] While there is a fair bit of criticism flying around that argues one way or the other that thought through, the goals of the group could mean just that, there is no statement from the group itself. So they are certainly not 'calling'.
It is a very controversial group, I give you that, but it is not as clear cut as you make it seem to be. I agree that I wouldn't touch it with a stick, but that still doesn't make it as easy you try to make it seem.
They are? They don't exactly advertise that on their website. Even if they were, it's like saying "Belgium is not a real country". It's orthogonal to one's feelings wrt Belgian nationals. Unless you think Stephen Hawking, another BDS supporter, dons a balaclava at night to beat up his kippa-bearing neighbours.
I have read Dead Air. And it's pretty easy to understand why he would be pissed off at Blair. If your country was headed by a compulsive liar, whose lies had brought your country in a protracted, costly, pointless war, you'd be pissed too.
Pretending that it is so is one of the traditional "arguments" of US far right, and I don't think it has place any in reasonable discussion.
EDIT: just in case you're wondering why the downvote.
Most are. People and organization who make a point of criticizing every injustice they know about can make that distinction.
But for virtually everyone else criticism of Israel is just thinly veiled antisemitism. And pretending it's not also doesn't have any place in reasonable discussion.
It's especially obvious from counties that criticize Israel for kicking out and/or not allowing back in Palestinians - and simultaneously have expelled thousands for Jews from their own lands. (Or from people who know about it, and yet don't also criticize the Arab countries.)
I've heard rebuttals along the lines of "I don't have to criticize everyone for my claims to be valid". But when the only county they focus on is Israel the true feelings are obvious.
If criticizing Israel is the de facto definition of antisemitism, maybe antisemitism isn't as bad as i though?
It's the "socially accepted" version. Because, rarely it really is just criticizing of Israel - but that's rare. So people claim "I'm also one of the rare ones".
What? It's very easy to find something to criticize Israel for, so I don't understand this reasoning. Either you want to stop all conversations that are any bit negative about Israel, or your honestly believe that everyone is an antisemite.
But you'll find that most of the people who criticize Israel are obsessed with Israel, who focus only on Israel, and don't care about any other county. Their true motives are pretty obvious.
PS: If anything I am amazed at the Jewish people for prospering dispite there government and regional politics rather than blaming them for the failures of there government.
As you know from history, if both answers are "no", then he's not antisemitic, he just happen to have an opinion.