rumade:

As I wake up to the news of Stephen Hawking turning back to stardust, I am reminded of a quote about Einstein’s brain:
“I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”- Steven Jay Gould

Hawking was a passionate defender of the NHS, and also believed that automation should liberate the people not enrich those with capital. He was granted by technology a life longer than anyone thought possible for someone with his illness.

How many geniuses have we lost or overlooked because they weren’t granted the resources to thrive in our unequal society? How can this be right when scarcity of basic needs is entirely manufactured?