Back in the 1940’s and 50’s, before the advent of computers, the military had to do massive calculations for bomb, tank shell, and mortar trajectories. They literally had a whole cadre of idiot savants — brilliant mathematicians they corrupted into walking computers.
You’d walk up to one and say hi, and he would put his half full coffee cup in his sweater pocket to shake hands with you.
John Nash was not the exception but the rule. We only know about him now because he did brilliant work before the military got hold of him.
Personally, I think the whole premise behind Nash’s dissertation is flawed. It assumes (1) women are always jealous of the most beautiful among them (surely best friends are way beyond that immaturity), and (2) horny men are actually going to “do what is best for the group” and ignore the most beautiful lady (the bond of friendship among men is NEVER that strong).
This flawed logic has led us to (3) a modern business model where the goal is to become a billionaire (millionaires are paupers), and where (4) the total leveraged wealth on Wall Street is ten times the net worth of the entire world.
Moreover, in this new paradigm, (5) the big banks can buy stock worth thirty times the cash value of their bank account at zero percent interest (you or I can buy one times our net worth by borrowing from the bank at exorbitant interest rates), which means that (6) when the market goes up five percent I make 3-4% on my money, while (7) the big banks make 90-120%.
The moral is that economic rules do not characterize human behavior. They control it. And control equals economic success.
Anybody who has been to an exclusive graduate school in the sciences will not recognize Nash’s best friends. These men were smart enough to rub elbows with Albert Einstein, for God’s sake. They would all be arrogant, conceited ego maniacs.
In such a setting, John Nash and his eccentricities would appear human, even likable, by comparison. Nash retained a firm grasp on his basic humanity and would not let it go no matter the consequences.
The late 1940’s and 1950’s saw a national craze about UFOs. Orson Wells’ Mars radio broadcast caused national panic. Everybody was obsessed with UFOs.
It wasn’t perceived as bizarre, eccentric, or crazy the way it is now.
The elite scientific and military community that John Nash was a part of knew all about the new jet aircraft and other Top Secret technologies that were being developed at that time. If John Nash had known what they knew, he would have been fine.
As it is, they kept him in the dark and managed his situation to make him into a human computer, an idiot savant. They didn’t bother to see if he had any pre-existing conditions that would push him over the edge.
That’s the price we pay for an all powerful military industrial complex and a scientific community that is totally under their absolute control.
