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Comment by max_ | Hacker News Reader

I love Stephen Wolfram so much that I may even consider him a role model.

I understand the need for the masses to have people ideas that are obviously practical.

Stephen Wolfram is more of an explore. And he is documenting phenomena that I don't see any one else doing because everyone else is so teleological.

I think we need to give a break to researchers doing this original non teleological research.

I don't understand why people find him "insufferable"?

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He comes off as very arrogant. Also, on more than one occasion he's tried to pass off others work as his own. The best of example of this is when he said he invented the field of cellular automata.

Did he really say that? My quick search didn’t turn anything up.

> The best of example of this is when he said he invented the field of cellular automata.

Source?

I don't think that's what he said (nor what he meant nor implied by the things that he actually did say).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39456628

(He does come across as arrogant, because he probably is, but his arrogance doesn't extend so far as to include this a claim that he invented something that he’s acknowledged were discussed before his birth.)

He posted a 4hr video on talking about his life. He always comes off with hubris and self-importance… that’s a big turn off.

People write large Biographies & memoirs about their life.

What should it be hubris to talk about your life for 4 hours?

But people don't often turn every opportunity they have into an a large autobiography and memoir of their life.

Here's one example: http://bactra.org/weblog/915.html

Is there something wrong there? I’m sorry if I’m being dense.

Attempting to goad a critical reviewer into engaging in some sort of comments-section "public debate" (assuming that somehow the public discussion would change the reviewer's mind) a _decade_ after the fact? That behavior is, in a word, insufferable.

EDIT: Also, "I know it was a challenge to review a book of its size..." comes off as insinuating that (1) the book is somehow "grand" and (2) maybe the reviewer didn't "get it".

I remember when it came out because a friend was excited about it. As I recall it’s a pretty large book.

Edit: just under 1200 pages on Amazon. I never got into it because I couldn’t figure out what the big revelation was supposed to be. It would take some serious dedication to go through such a large book for the sake of an unfavorable review.

I take wolfram’s words at face value.

I don’t find him insufferable but I also haven’t paid much attention to him.

From what I gather of other people’s comments, they are often bothered by his apparently pervasive discussion of himself and his life.

I’ve never met the man, but the few interviews I’ve see or read about him I thought were pretty interesting.

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