Kind of sad to see this, or at least what Wolfram perceived of the situation:
> It did have some limits, though. I think he never really believed it applied to human affairs, for example. Like when we were both consulting for Thinking Machines in Boston, I would always be jumping up and down about how if the management of the company didn't do this or that, they would fail. He would just say: "Why don't you let these people run their company; we can't figure out this kind of stuff." Sadly, the company did in the end fail. But that's another story.
I don't believe that tech/computers/science is the end all of improving human existence. But sometimes, the systems we construct are machines, in the worst way. I wonder if what Feynman meant that they could "figure it out", but it was either beneath them, or, Feynman was wise/cynical enough to know that that their kind of individual intellect had no real power in that realm of political and collective human affairs.
In a way, it's nice that a genius is introspective enough to know that intellect and cleverness, especially by individuals alone, can't be efficiently applied to the business concerns that frustrated Wolfram. On the other hand, many of us below Feynman's knack and energy for problem-solving would say the same thing about the physics that he did get around to working out.
> It did have some limits, though. I think he never really believed it applied to human affairs, for example. Like when we were both consulting for Thinking Machines in Boston, I would always be jumping up and down about how if the management of the company didn't do this or that, they would fail. He would just say: "Why don't you let these people run their company; we can't figure out this kind of stuff." Sadly, the company did in the end fail. But that's another story.
I don't believe that tech/computers/science is the end all of improving human existence. But sometimes, the systems we construct are machines, in the worst way. I wonder if what Feynman meant that they could "figure it out", but it was either beneath them, or, Feynman was wise/cynical enough to know that that their kind of individual intellect had no real power in that realm of political and collective human affairs.
In a way, it's nice that a genius is introspective enough to know that intellect and cleverness, especially by individuals alone, can't be efficiently applied to the business concerns that frustrated Wolfram. On the other hand, many of us below Feynman's knack and energy for problem-solving would say the same thing about the physics that he did get around to working out.