Our society doesn't welcome people like this anymore. I'm amazed we managed to make use of Mr Parsons at all; just the great luck of having someone in authority notice him when they needed a gifted pyromaniac prophet.
Humans rely heavily on social proof and familiarity to make decisions. There is social pressure to be normal and stick with the herd or only try small innovations on or close to the bounds of acceptable thought. But in contrast it is difficult to make serious contributions to state-of-the-art without being some combination of insane, obsessive or twisted. It can be done, but someone who just wants to set fire to everything is just going to learn more about fire than everyone else. While normal people don't learn how to do abnormal things.
The whole trick is setting up a society where strange people can make outsized constructive contributions even if society at large is trying to hit them with all the bullying tools it uses to make people stand in line. That is part of why liberty is so important, and why it is necessary to accept people even if they are just wrong about a belief.
> a society where strange people can make outsized constructive contributions even if society at large is trying to hit them with all the bullying tools it uses to make people stand in line
This is a huge generalisations: what "bulling tools" and what "strange"-ness? Social pressure can be used for bad, but it can also be used for good - it binds the fabric of society together.
There's that principle in tech of "not tolerating assholes/toxic people". How does someone strange differ (according to all opinions" from a (perceived) asshole?
Both of those descriptions are metaphorical. I don't know what you mean, and neither do most of the people reading the comment because different people use the words very differently.
So while I do put in an effort to respond to questions in this case I cannot.
I'm not sure they are metaphorical, beyond the sense that nearly all words are. But in any case, isn't it the point that this is subjective? But so is what constitutes a "strange [person]". Is an anti-vaxer "strange", or an "asshole"?
It's not like every society is based on well defined unambiguous rules, sometimes (not) sticking to convention is what discriminates the geniuses and serial killers alike.
> Amid McCarthyism, Parsons was accused of espionage and left unable to work in rocketry.
I would say his own society wasn’t very welcoming of him. As I recall he kept his occult interests mostly under wraps and his career was finished once it no longer was, subsequently dead during the McCarthy era.
> someone with a background in magic was able to reach these sorts of heights
Per sibling comment, it doesn't seem surprisingly that someone willing the push the bounds of scientific knowledge also pushed the bounds of thought.
And ultimately, that's what experimental science is supposed to be about -- either the thing works or it doesn't. No consideration of the inventor's other qualities.
On the other, non-scientific hand, I would have been surprised if he wasn't rejected for a security clearance though!
The though was unconventional, but I wouldn't necessarily say it was innovative - arguably scientific principles are more innovative and unintuitive than the occult philosophies that preceded them.
> that's what experimental science is supposed to be about
science is supposed to build up knowledge. You shouldn't really be testing things without establishing its basis, otherwise you can't really evaluate the results anyway.
I think that ordering is a modern science vs early science distinction.
Most of the early principles of gravity, motion, electricity, and magnetism were observed and experimentally tested before having a basis to evaluate them.
Heck, even quantum mechanics was (and arguably, still is, in un-unified form) experimentally characterized before an explanation (see: double-slit results).
When I read more about the Thelema occult, I hardly could find anything particular to justify it as an occult. Is not almost everyone today trying to find his/her true will?
The answer is that people don't ever think for themselves. If you say to them that something is occultist, or a cult, or a conspiracy theory, then that's what they think, and they won't consider it. In reality, 'occult' belief systems like Thelema or even Satanism are far less mystical than mainstream religions like Christianity, with its con/transubstantiation etc.
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There was a comic-book format biography not too long ago.
He wasn't, apparently, clinically insane. He just got his brain taken over by demanding memes. Not so different from QAnon or Flat Earth sufferers today. (Or, really, lots of religions.)
>In December 1945 Parsons began a series of rituals based on Enochian magic during which he masturbated onto magical tablets, accompanied by Sergei Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto.
Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18715733 - Dec 2018 (63 comments)
The Last of the Magicians: On Jack Parsons and JPL - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8831746 - Jan 2015 (5 comments)
Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7641580 - April 2014 (97 comments)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7210448/
Unfortunately it ended (cancelled) just when L Ron Hubbard knocked on the door and things started to get interesting.
The whole trick is setting up a society where strange people can make outsized constructive contributions even if society at large is trying to hit them with all the bullying tools it uses to make people stand in line. That is part of why liberty is so important, and why it is necessary to accept people even if they are just wrong about a belief.
This is a huge generalisations: what "bulling tools" and what "strange"-ness? Social pressure can be used for bad, but it can also be used for good - it binds the fabric of society together.
There's that principle in tech of "not tolerating assholes/toxic people". How does someone strange differ (according to all opinions" from a (perceived) asshole?
Both of those descriptions are metaphorical. I don't know what you mean, and neither do most of the people reading the comment because different people use the words very differently.
So while I do put in an effort to respond to questions in this case I cannot.
It's not like every society is based on well defined unambiguous rules, sometimes (not) sticking to convention is what discriminates the geniuses and serial killers alike.
I would say his own society wasn’t very welcoming of him. As I recall he kept his occult interests mostly under wraps and his career was finished once it no longer was, subsequently dead during the McCarthy era.
That he progressed so far because of his occult roots, but that we don't hear about this sort of thing so much nowadays?
PS I personally find it, erm, disconcerting, that someone with a background in magic was able to reach these sorts of heights.
Per sibling comment, it doesn't seem surprisingly that someone willing the push the bounds of scientific knowledge also pushed the bounds of thought.
And ultimately, that's what experimental science is supposed to be about -- either the thing works or it doesn't. No consideration of the inventor's other qualities.
On the other, non-scientific hand, I would have been surprised if he wasn't rejected for a security clearance though!
> that's what experimental science is supposed to be about
science is supposed to build up knowledge. You shouldn't really be testing things without establishing its basis, otherwise you can't really evaluate the results anyway.
Most of the early principles of gravity, motion, electricity, and magnetism were observed and experimentally tested before having a basis to evaluate them.
Heck, even quantum mechanics was (and arguably, still is, in un-unified form) experimentally characterized before an explanation (see: double-slit results).
How would a ritual dependant on such lore be objective?
https://www.idlethumbs.net/somethingtrue/episodes/babylon
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XcOHiGonWwU
Honestly I would love to see a movie about his life!
For example it's the reason I read this article.
[0] https://www.mostdiscussed.com/
Blood and Rockets https://youtu.be/XcOHiGonWwU
He wasn't, apparently, clinically insane. He just got his brain taken over by demanding memes. Not so different from QAnon or Flat Earth sufferers today. (Or, really, lots of religions.)
Prokofiev would have been so proud.