Summary
A new book, Ricardo’s Dream by Nat Dyer, reveals that Sir Isaac Newton’s wealth was closely tied to the transatlantic slave trade during his tenure as master of the mint at the Bank of England.
Newton profited from gold mined by enslaved Africans in Brazil, much of which was converted into British currency under his oversight, earning him a fee for each coin minted.
While Newton’s scientific legacy remains untarnished, the book highlights his financial entanglement with slavery, a common thread among Britain’s banking and finance elites of the era.
It’s important to understand the mavity of the situation.
“man in charge of money in 17th century found to be LINKED to how money was used in 17th century…”
my god
Slavery was commonplace and normal several hundred years ago.
It’s actually more surprising that Newton is only “connected” to slavery instead of owning a few slaves personally.
I really do believe that people remember historical figures moreso for their achievements and impact on the world and society. Than ever the characteristics of their human personality.
Because let’s be honest, a lot of historical figures - might surprise you - aren’t exactly great people at the whole humanitarian department.
I think it might have more to do with the fact that our perception of morality changes with societal norms. People in the 19th century probably looked at Roman gay sex as something bad and vulgar because gays were bad. Now we view Roman gay sex in a positive light.
Were the 19th century people bad people because they viewed homosexuality as something bad? Or do we consider them bad just because we no longer see homosexuality as something bad? What if 200 years from now homosexuality is considered bad again, do the 19th century people become good?
Maybe we shouldn’t apply our current moral values to people who lived at a different time with different moral values?
Isn’t that contingent on a person’s parameters for what they consider humane? Good and evil are subjective concepts that will never be objective. Wouldn’t you agree the definition for what you are calling humanitarian department is constantly evolving? For example, it was considered humane to designate women as the caretaker and men as the provider but now the idea of taking away a man or women’s option for how they want to build their family’s framework is inhumane as fuck. Also I’m not implying anything about a family being between a man and women or any gender related shit. I simply mean to include the full range of our species’ sexes.
Edit for further context: what i mean is that the fault doesn’t always point to historic records omitting truths to fit a narrative. There are plenty of examples of the records being accurate, but societal parameters for what is considered humane or inhumane is what evolved.
Have you heard of Elon Musk? …he isn’t nearly as smart, though 😢
By our standards he may have been a peice of crap.
At the time he was born in the society he lived in his wealth gained in a largley accepted manner.
I see no need to go back over history constantly bringing this shit up.
Nah, by their standards, he was a colossal piece of crap too. He was very much disliked. He was known to be humorless and just kind of a jerk overall. He was also pretty useless a lot of the time. He was elected to parliament and only spoke one time during his tenure there. He said, “the window needs closing.” Really.
And then when he took over the mint, he was just ruthless in prosecuting anyone he could for any reason he could find. He had a witch hunt for counterfeiters after there was a change in coinage. It was pretty nuts. So yeah, he was always a piece of shit. This just makes him a bigger piece of shit.
Ok, but I think the point is to judge him by the standards of the time. That might still label him a jerk, and so be it.
Maybe he was a neuro-diverse individual who saw little value in “people problems” and was only interested in maths and science. Today, we’d show more understanding to that, but we don’t know. All we can say was he was a jerk in the eyes of those around him.
That is not an excuse for his witch hunt. And it was a witch hunt by the standards of the time, although they wouldn’t have called it that obviously. He ruined people’s lives. He literally got people executed. One was certainly guilty of counterfeiting, but he also just made a list of suspects when he was put in charge of the mint and went after them McCarthy style. You cannot argue that drawing up lists of people and having them rounded up on spurious charges based on a list of people you suspected might have been guilty was the norm then because it really wasn’t.
Also, why should we judge him by the standards of the time? It was essentially “standard” for nobles to rape children who were put into arranged marriages with them because those children were considered property and brood mares all over the place and not just in the Western world. I sure as fuck judge Muhammad for marrying a six-year-old and raping her when she was nine. I don’t care if that was the standard at the time. It’s fucking disgusting.
Newtons part in the slave trade is no less a part of the life and history of Newton then his contributions to science, why would we omit it? Calling him a piece of shit and saying he contributed to an awful system does not alter the fact that modern math and physics are where they are currently due to his contributions. Conversely, his contributions to science doesn’t alter the fact he contributed to one of the worst systems in human history.
I’m not denying it I’m simply tired of the inevitable outcome that this brings
- Remove the statues
- Better not teach his theories in schools
- Someone HAS to apologise
- What about recompense in the form of money
It’s a long fucking list and the guys been dead for a couple hundred years.
Watson and Crick are/were giant pieces of shit. We still teach about them. Many biology teachers will openly state that Watson is a terrible person
Curious for your take on Confederate statues in the US
Not excusing the past, OR the present, but people a few centuries from now will call us monsters.
All of the statues that got wrecked would like a word.
Not when there is so much to be done today.
I see no need to go back over history constantly bringing this shit up.
Bringing what up? The truth?
You might as well say that you don’t see a need to even observe history if you take issue with people discussing the verifiable fact that Newton’s wealth came from slavery.
If anything, it sounds like you might have a vested interest in downplaying information like this. I would be curious to see where your family’s wealth came from.
Ok, but what do you want anyone to do about it? The guy has been dead for hundreds of years and we can’t just pretend that gravity and calculus don’t exist because he was a dick.
Newton wasn’t the only one who developed calculus. Leibnitz developed it independently around the same time, and both of them had prior mathematicians’ work to base their work on. If it weren’t for Newton, we would still have calculus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_calculus
That said, we can acknowledge Newton’s mathematical and scientific achievements while still acknowledging problematic or terrible things that he also did. We don’t need to whitewash history in order to recognize someone’s achievements.
People don’t just see Issac Newton as an important scientific contributor. They idolize him. Same for people like Thomas Jefferson. Appreciating history means understanding the full range of the people involved. When things like this are downplayed, it gives in to a narrative of history that supports terrible policies today.
I suspect most people would be hard pressed to name anything about him other than gravity.
I don’t think anyone is idolizing him because of slavery.
This is how I see it, if they were someone from history who was rich, I assume it’s because of slavery. It’s easier to count the amount of people who got rich without slavery on your hands.
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He was a rich dude in the 16 to 1700s, his wealth could only come from the suffering of others. While an interesting tidbit about his life, what does it have to do with his math? Not like we can stop using it due to his moral incompatibility with the present day…
He was a rich dude in the 16 to 1700s, his wealth could only come from the suffering of others.
Nobody gains massive wealth without the suffering and exploitation of others, not the 1700s, not in 800BC and not today.
Hundo p!
Extreme wealth is built on the back of extreme poverty.
Heads or tails. Billionaires or slaves. And don’t kid yourself; literal slavery still exists.
The summary in the body says his scientific legacy remains untarnished, so it has nothing to do with his math.
However, much like America’s Founding Fathers, it is important to account for the amount that important European and European-descended people in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (really even the 20th) benefited from the transatlantic slave trade. An accounting of history’s wrongs is necessary.
People in the past were huge pieces of shit. News at 11
News at 11: if you’d been born and raised in the 17th century there’s a chance you’d have felt the same
Now the weather
People in the past were products of their time, news at 11
Dude was smart as hell. He wasn’t nice.
Should we now detract from his achievements just like with Columbus?
