
A Conversation with Bertrand Russell (1952) [video] - joubert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb3k6tB-Or8
======
sndean
Early on this interview [0] he says that his grandfather visited Napoleon in
Elba (in 1814). It's always sort of mind-blowing how few generations, albeit
long-lived ones, are required to reach to a very different era, where there
existed this weird short-lived French empire. In this case just 3 or 4
generations are needed?

Another instance is President John Tyler's grand children still being alive
[1]. John Tyler was born in 1790 when George Washington was still around,
although I doubt he had any contact with Washington.

[0] [https://youtu.be/fb3k6tB-Or8?t=129](https://youtu.be/fb3k6tB-Or8?t=129)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tyler#Family_and_personal...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tyler#Family_and_personal_life)

~~~
joe_the_user
Well, I think it's also telling that now Napoleon's reign could be thought of
as "this weird short-lived French empire", because while it short-lived, the
Napoleonic empire in many ways set the stage, created the model for the modern
world. Certainly, Napoleon was defeated but the forces of France at that time
represented a kind of progress, a kind of progress that other nations were
only able to defeat by adopting - the mass army at the service of a
centralized state implies a kind of democracy and mass participation in life
that a feudal system couldn't manage (to name just one of enumerable example).
That's why even in defeat, Napoleon represented a fundamental change in the
world.

~~~
BurningFrog
Yeah, you can think of the Napoleon Wars as "World War Zero", and Napoleon as
the Hitler of his time.

As you can maybe tell, the aspect of modernity where mass wars with millions
of dead sweep the world because some dictator wants it, is not my favorite
one.

Still, you're not wrong!

~~~
Koshkin
I think Napoleon was more similar to Caesar than to Hitler, and that modern
universal sense of disdain towards Hitler is a sign of progress.

~~~
shadowprofile77
That's not as much of an improvement as you might think... Caesar was
absolutely murderous and no stranger to ordering ethnic genocide either..
During the Gallic Wars, his armies butchered off at least a million and a half
people, while enslaving a few hundred thousand others, partly for the crude
sake of boosting Caesar's political career and paying off his debts. Paving
the way for smoother Roman colonization was another benefit of this genocide.
These things should remind you much more of Hitler than they do of Napoleon.

Bear in mind also that this was done without modern weapons and killing
techniques. Hardly a humane ruler. That Caesar happened to be much more
rational and erudite than the German dictator certainly helped his long-term
image, but just because 2000+ years of history and some good political
observations for posterity blot out the mass murder of civilians doesn't make
it any less grotesque.

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goolulusaurs
For some time I have been thinking about why it seems like scientific progress
has slowed down compared to a century ago, and then one day I came across a
clip of an interview with Professor Russell where he was saying that if
technological progress continued at the current rate, then very soon humanity
would drive itself extinct from the creation and use of weapons that were too
powerful and too easily produced. I wonder if the slowing of scientific
progress might be in some ways a saving grace, where if too advanced of
technology was developed too quickly, then society would be unable to evolve
in time to handle it responsibly without major potential for calamity.

~~~
aksss
Would just like to point out that Vaclov Smil says the time period between
about 1870-1910 is unmatched by any other time period before or since,
excepting a sliver of the Han dynasty, as measured by the rapid surge in
invention, innovation, and the rapidity with which those new ideas were
employed in the broader society (rate of adoption). He goes on to say that
even in today’s seemingly endless cycle of new products and legitimate
advancement, we’re making only point solutions in comparison. For instance,
the whole-house AC power system would be easily recognizable by Edison today.
Improved, yes, but compared to going from nothing to the direct-to-home and
whole-home solution set, it’s illustrative of relative stagnation. To be clear
though, he said that it’s unrealistic to expect society to perpetuate those
periods, as they are flukes - again, only twice in recorded history. I’m not
doing the depth of his reasoning justice by any means, but I think his would
bring another interesting angle to the idea that you relate from Russell.

~~~
rapind
I wonder what Edison would think of the internet, self driving cars, speech
recognition, image recognition, social manipulation at scale, VR, modern
medicine, etc.

~~~
dredmorbius
Self-driving cars in his age were called horsses. Those (and donleys and
mules) _still_ remain the preferred mode of autonomous all-terrain mobility in
some regions.

The US Army was actively considering resurrecting pack mules fpr use in
Afghanistan as of 2011, though I don't believe that actually occurred.

Otherwise, E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops" (1909) envisions much of what
you describe.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops)

[http://www.visbox.com/prajlich/forster.html](http://www.visbox.com/prajlich/forster.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461514)
(PDF)

Something of an HN perennial.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q="The%20Machine%20Stops"](https://hn.algolia.com/?q="The%20Machine%20Stops")

Several notable postings:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7637635](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7637635)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10490198](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10490198)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461514)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9544256](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9544256)

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interestica
If you're interested, and happen to be in Hamilton, Ontario, he donated his
archives to McMaster University. They have thousands of documents and things
like his Nobel Peace prize. It looks like a lot has been digitized now.

[https://www.mcmaster.ca/russdocs/russell.htm](https://www.mcmaster.ca/russdocs/russell.htm)

~~~
seesawtron
*Nobel prize in Literature. (Had to look up wondering why he would get a peace prize in that era)

~~~
interestica
Yes! Thanks for the correction.

>> The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950 was awarded to Earl (Bertrand Arthur
William) Russell "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in
which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought."

[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1950/summary/](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1950/summary/)

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ak39
Thanks, always enjoyed BR commentaries on history and modern perspectives.

Particularly enjoyed this one with CC on. "Don't upset the apple tart" for
"grown ups had the apple tart" and some other Monty Python-esque machine
gaffes.

------
jmiskovic
> Well I think there are three things that are needed if the world is to adapt
> itself to the Industrial Revolution. The troubles we are suffering now are
> essentially troubles due to adapting ourselves to a new phase of human life,
> namely the industrial phase. And I think three things are necessary if
> people are to live happily in the industrial phase. One of these is world
> government, the second is an approximate economic equality between different
> parts of the world, and the third is a nearly stationary population.

There's a full transcript here:
[https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2019/02/02/a-conversation-
with...](https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2019/02/02/a-conversation-with-
bertrand-russell-1952/)

------
bori5
For those interested in Bertie you may find Logicomix
([https://www.logicomix.com/en/index.html](https://www.logicomix.com/en/index.html))
an entertaining read

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lihaciudaniel
If you are curious his grand-father knew another great mind John Stuart Mill,
also Bertrand Russell wrote this thing called principia mathematica and wrote
30 pages on proving 1+1=2 using formal logic. This man has achieved so much
for one person, most notably writing history of Western Philosophy [1]

1.[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243685.A_History_of_West...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243685.A_History_of_Western_Philosophy)

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Angostura
I rather prefer the Face to Face interview with Russell talking to John
Freeman
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bZv3pSaLtY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bZv3pSaLtY)

