Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I think Law of Jante summarizes the 'zeitgeist' of HN comments towards this man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

The goal should be always to understand and discuss ideas, despite egos. As hard that can be practically, anything else is unproductive and not worth persuing.

His thoughts and theories are something to not ignore, but to follow with the same skepticism as any revolutionary claim should be. That should be irrespective of the author.

But we need to give value to new ideas and have a small dose of optimism, that way we can be open to true innovation and paradigm shifts.

But there is nothing bad that Wolfram's mind is powerful. I doubt anyone here would dare to try to create something as complicated as it's Wolfram service.




>Law of Jante summarizes the 'zeitgeist'

Why do you feel the need to dress up your comment to be something more than "you guys are just jealous."? Most of the comments criticizing Wolfram in this comment section discuss A New Kind of Science, cellular automata and hypergraphs but yours has no reference to any of the ideas discussed. Your post fluffs Wolfram to an absurd degree without ever actually providing any specific idea that is revolutionary or great.

>I doubt anyone here would dare to try to create something as complicated as it's Wolfram service.

Complicated is not a virtue.


With all due respect fellow HN reader, I never said his idea was great or revolutionary.

When I posted my comment, most comments I read then haven't tried to discuss any specific points nor his ideas, and my comment was for those. Most were discrediting the guy just based on his personality.

No matter how big this man's ego are, and I also think it is, he has proven himself a creator so far and to be passionate on those topics. For me, that's enough to not dismiss him as crazy or charlatan, especially so early.

My main point here is not aimed to defend or "fluff" Wolfram – I don't care about him personally. It is only about how our society does not have a healthy culture on receiving new ideas.

Let him and his team pursue his research – if this turns up to be something remarkable, time will show us – and humanity will benefit from it.

I posted "Law of Jante" as I see this happening over and over again. Different contexts, same "boohoo, this person think they're better than us".

>Complicated is not a virtue. That is not correct.

Complicated just means a complex 'something'. If the complexity of 'something' is accidental or not, that is another topic and is not even subject to moral judgment IMO.

Now, to develop complex software in a complex domain over several years, this is something hard and only someone sane can do that. So I'm just optimistic and open to see what his team will output from all this.

Have a great weekend!




Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: