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[...] Paul Erdős, became perhaps the most notorious mathematician of the 20th century. Erdős spent nearly his entire life crashing on other mathematicians' couches and subsisting on the small sums he received for giving talks at universities around the world. He also had a fondness for devising math problems and offering bounties to anyone who could solve them.
"Over the years it was kind of a habit he had to say, 'Here's a nice problem, I thought about it for a while, and I don't see how to solve it. Maybe it's a $25 problem or possibly a $100 problem,'" said Ronald Graham, a mathematician at the University of California, San Diego, and a longtime friend of Erdős's.
In offering small prizes, Erdős was continuing a tradition that flourished in Poland in the early 20th century in cafés where young mathematicians gathered to match wits and push against the frontiers of mathematics.
[...] In that culture, it was also common for mathematicians to back a newly posed problem with a prize — a bottle of wine or a nice meal to whoever could pull the sword from the stone.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:39PM (2 children)
There is nothing more sociopathic than the notion that "others should do as I say" (or, similarly, "others should fund my existence"); that is the very principle on which government is fundamentally based—there is no form of government that is not based on this principle.
In contrast, capitalism is the most respectful of each individual: Do only as you and others have agreed in advance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:52PM (1 child)
Notice I didn't mention Adam Smith? Capitalism has some flaws, but it works by and large. Our system, however, is not capitalism, and our government has been an authoritarian/oligarchic mess since it's inception, although for the most part it has worked better than other forms. As you say, government is anti-social by it's very nature, and I would say that the concept of government/attachment to social hierarchy is the number one thing holding our species back from fulfilling it's potential. If half as much effort was put towards working to the common good as is now spent on maintaining divisions in society all of humanity would be far better off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @12:31AM
There is only individual self-interest.
If you seek to further the "common good", then you'll only end up worshiping the principle that "others should do as you say".