I have several friends who personally knew Feynman. He was a problematic individual in many ways. One of them remembers being in an elevator with his girlfriend, and Feynman getting on the elevator and immediately hitting on her. Another recalls being dragged along to crash parties at Caltech for free food. That same one commented that, yes, he was super careful about his legacy and all the stories published about him.
But they spent time around him in a working context, and they are all absolutely clear in their minds that, beyond the showmanship, he was a genius.
That's fair. I'm not sure what other word to use though. Admirable in some ways, socially unacceptable in others? Someone whose work was amazing but who really shouldn't be suggested as a role model? And who knows what parts of it are due to trauma and what parts are just being an asshole? I'm open to suggestions.
Please don't take HN threads into flamewar. Getting provoked by one word and making a flamewar reply out of it is definitely not in the set of response patterns we want here. We want the kind that lead to more interesting / less predictable discussion.
To do this requires resisting this sort of provocation in oneself—i.e. waiting until the activation dies down, and then either moving on to something else or finding a more interesting response to share. More on that here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor....
Also, please don't use allcaps for emphasis and please don't go on about downvotes. These things are all in the site guidelines—would you please review them (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and stick to the rules when posting here? We'd appreciate it, because we're trying to avoid the internet hell in which everything becomes consumed by the never-ending flamewars.
But they spent time around him in a working context, and they are all absolutely clear in their minds that, beyond the showmanship, he was a genius.