🤯 Nothing Artificial About This Intelligence

Oppenheimer, a Movie Review [The Rude Awakening] August 25, 2023 [WEBSITE]( | [UNSUBSCRIBE]( URGENT! Only 5 Days Left! Claim Your Seat to the Paradigm Shift Summit NOW Before Time Expires! [Click Here To Reserve Your Seat]( 🤯 Nothing Artificial About This Intelligence - While we usually don’t do movie reviews, Byron King couldn’t help himself. - Oppenheimer, a film by Christopher Nolan, displays a rare intelligence. - Enjoy this excellent history lesson from Paradigm’s military man. [Urgent “Red Alert” Warning For This Friday]( Due to the controversial nature of the following content, [this urgent “Red Alert” warning]( will be taken down on Friday at 4:00 PM ET. Don’t miss out, otherwise you could get blindsided. [Click here now for access](. [==> Click here now](. [Click Here To Learn More]( [Sean Ring] SEAN RING Dear Reader, Happy Friday! Today, I’ve got another treat for you. Good friend and frequent Rude contributor Byron King is back with a… movie review? You may be thinking, “Do they ever do movie reviews? And why start now?” Well, we usually don’t. But to have Byron suss out the historical details behind the hit movie is something to behold. I learned so many things I didn’t know before. And on a Friday morning, do you really want to work hard? Rather, grab your cup of joe, sit back, and enjoy all the intrigue behind this box-office hit! I’ll see you on Monday with an original Rude! All the best, [Sean Ring] Sean Ring Editor, Rude Awakening Twitter: [@seaniechaos]( [Warning: Will “Bidenflation” Destroy Your Retirement?]( If you’re like most Americans, you’ve worked hard for decades to build your financial legacy. And now, as a result of Biden’s disastrous money printing policies, that’s all at risk. According to one top retirement expert, “Bidenflation” threatens to destroy your retirement and make your hard-earned savings worthless. That’s why you must take action right away to protect yourself… [Click here now to get the simple, step-by-step actions to survive “Bidenflation.”]( [Click Here To Learn More]( [Byron King] BYRON KING We don’t usually review movies in our pubs. Generally, we tend to stick to our core business which is looking for ways to preserve wealth and make some money. And what happens when the movie is three hours long? Whoa, that’s a lot of film. It had better be a timeless epic like David Lean’s 1962 masterpiece, Lawrence of Arabia, or Sergei Bondarchuk’s 1967 spectacular retelling of Leo Tolstoy’s book, War and Peace. Well, along comes Christopher Nolan and a lengthy opus entitled Oppenheimer, a biography of the brilliant, mercurial American scientist whose fingerprints are all over 20th century physics, as well as a key man in the saga of how America developed the atom bomb during World War II, via the Manhattan Project. In this movie, there’s serious intelligence on display; nothing artificial about it. So, let’s review the effort and see where it takes us. [first atomic blast] World’s first atomic blast, called Trinity. [Courtesy U.S. Air Force](. American Prometheus To be sure, the Manhattan Project, America’s fast-paced, ultra-secret wartime effort to build an atomic bomb, holds all the building blocks of an epic tale. In this case, Nolan’s movie script is an adaptation of a 2005 book, American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. Obviously, per the authors and their book title, Oppenheimer was an “American Prometheus,” a heroic figure who led the effort to reveal nature’s inner nuclear secrets. And in the end, just like what happened with ancient Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods, both individuals were severely punished for their works. Now comes the question of how best to tell the tale of the American scientist who placed nuclear fire into a bottle, if not a bomb casing. And keep in mind that movies are not history; they are merely Hollywood-generated entertainment. This caveat pertains even to epic movies about physicists and atomic weapons. And thus, armed with a vast body of source material, Nolan wrote his script and made his film. Cinematically, Oppenheimer bounces across time and place, beginning in 1959 in Washington, D.C., during the course of hotly contested Senate hearings over confirming a man named Lewis Strauss to President Eisenhower’s cabinet. In the late 1940s and early 50s, Strauss and Oppenheimer had issues, and Strauss carried a grudge. In 1954 Strauss arranged to strip Oppenheimer’s security clearance, essentially ending the man’s days as an insider within the nuclear biz. And in 1959, payback loomed for Strauss, although we must await the movie's end to see that particular drama play out. From those Senate hearings, the film flashes back, sifting through three decades of events. For example, one scene depicts Oppenheimer as a clumsy graduate student at Cambridge in 1926, breaking his laboratory instruments and then cutting class to listen to a visiting scholar – Niels Bohr – give a lecture on quantum theory. Other scenes transport viewers to late-1930s Berkely and its openly communist social and academic milieu. It was the Great Depression, of course, and all the smart, fashionable people were certain that capitalism had failed and Soviet communism was the wave of the future. In this sense, if you were Oppenheimer, sure… why not subscribe to the Daily Worker, send money to the Communist Party, hang out with Commie friends, marry an ex-Communist, and even fool around on the sly with those easy Communist women? Back then, that’s what all the cool kids were doing. Other Oppenheimer scenes occur in the middle of nowhere, in New Mexico, in the 1940s, at what would become the Los Alamos National Laboratory. And for all the importance of this particular locale, Nolan fails to explain the origins, namely, that Oppenheimer suffered from tuberculosis as a youth and went to the high, dry desert mesas of New Mexico to recover. Over time, he grew to like it there and bought a local ranch. All this and more, as the movie presents many other scenes in different places and times, there is far too much to detail here because, as previously noted, the film is epic in scope. Meanwhile, it helps if the moviegoer ever studied chemistry or physics because famous names of science come at you fast and furious: icons like Albert Einstein, Ernest Rutherford, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Earnest Lawrence, Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, and more. The movie even depicts a sleazy, rat-faced, turncoat physicist Klaus Fuchs, who worked with Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project and betrayed the trust by passing critical secrets to his Soviet handlers. Throughout the film, Nolan hammers home that Oppenheimer was brilliant, certainly in physics but in many other ways. Yes, Oppie excelled in math and science. In the movie, the principal character glibly discusses general relativity, quantum mechanics and electrodynamics, neutrons, and neutron stars, the idea of black holes, quantum tunneling, and much more. Meanwhile, in addition to math and physics, Oppie was a scholar in other fields. He spoke several languages, read voraciously, and could converse at the highest levels with experts on the most arcane topics. At one steamy point, Oppie recites Sanskrit poetry as he seduces a woman who happened to be an ardent Communist, forming a mutually destructive relationship that would haunt the physicist well into his days building atom bombs and then long afterward. In all this, the point is that Oppenheimer was a brainiac polymath far beyond his Ph.D. in quantum theory, which he wrote in flawless, academic German. Indeed, he was scary smart such that one professor who examined Oppie for his doctorate reportedly said, "I'm glad that's over. He was on the point of questioning me." From the Cutting Room Floor Of course, no one is born this smart, and Oppenheimer was a product of his family and upbringing. Yet despite the movie's length, Nolan doesn’t delve deep into this part of the biography. Our Prometheus-to-be was born in 1904 in New York City into a nonobservant Jewish family where the father had done quite well in business. Indeed, the Oppenheimer clan was wealthy by the standards of the time. Young Oppie lived a comfortable and privileged life. In his family living room hung original paintings by Picasso and Van Gogh. He attended rigorous private schools. And one high school-era expedition included a trip by the young New Yorker to the Hartz Mountains of Germany to collect radioactive mineral specimens. (Note: yes, he was a mineralogist – like your editor! – which helps explain the later interest in atomic theory.) Oppenheimer burned through the science program of Harvard College in three years, packing extra courses every semester and achieving graduate-level status in physics before exiting summa cum laude. He went to Cambridge to study more physics but was bored there because the real “quantum” action was in Germany at the time. So Oppie transferred to the University of Gottingen for his Ph.D., awarded in 1927 at the astonishingly young age of 23. For the next fifteen years, Oppenheimer was a scientific nuclear dynamo. He lectured in physics at universities in Europe and the U.S. and was recruited by Harvard, Cal Tech, Berkeley, and others. A constant stream of graduate students huddled beneath Oppie’s wing, many of whom went on to make immense progress in physics and other fields. And he published prodigiously a long list of important papers, many of which are still cited today. According to physicist Hans Bethe, winner of the 1967 Nobel Prize for Physics: “Probably the most important ingredient (Oppenheimer) brought to his teaching was his exquisite taste. He always knew what were the important problems, as shown by his choice of subjects. He truly lived with those problems, struggling for a solution.” To Build a Bomb Now, fast-forward to 1942, post-Pearl Harbor, when President Roosevelt approved a massive scientific-industrial program to build an atom bomb. In a nation where the 1940 Census counted 132 million heads, there was but a small handful of people who could even dream of leading such an effort, and the top name on everyone’s list was Prof. J. Robert Oppenheimer. When his country called him to build a bomb – he was brusquely summoned by then-Colonel/eventual General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project – Oppenheimer answered enthusiastically. He plunged into the work but first came certain bureaucratic niceties. On his security questionnaire for the U.S. Army, Oppenheimer admitted to being “a member of just about every Communist Front organization on the West Coast.” He would later claim that he was just (sort of) kidding, but FBI surveillance records from his days of partying with the Berkeley Reds spoke for themselves. Still, Oppenheimer was Oppenheimer, and America needed him to work on the bomb. Groves reviewed the files, spoke with Oppie, and summarily waived him into the sanctum nuclear sanctorum. Then comes more history via cinema. We see Oppie recruiting scientists from across the land. In many instances, he cajoled and arm-twisted stubborn, skeptical people to leave cushy jobs at fancy, leafy, ivy-walled universities to travel to the dusty flats of New Mexico, where Los Alamos sprang up from the sagebrush at wartime, Priority-One speed. In one scene of Nolan’s film, we witness Fermi’s first successful fission experiment, in a hand-built, graphite-moderated reactor cobbled together in a squash court beneath the University of Chicago football stadium. In another part of the movie, we stand in the dusty, windswept New Mexico desert awaiting the test shot of an actual atomic device – the “gadget” – on July 16, 1945. [Robert Oppenheimer and MGen Leslie Groves at Trinity] Robert Oppenheimer and MGen Leslie Groves at Trinity, site of first atomic blast. [U.S. Department of Defense](. To its credit, the movie makes the point that the intent of the nuclear scientists was not to build a bomb just for the sake of building a bomb. No, the drive behind the Manhattan Project was to develop a weapon ahead of the Germans, who also pursued a vigorous nuclear program under the direction of the above-mentioned Heisenberg. In other words, developing the bomb was less a discretionary policy choice by the U.S. government than a foundational military and geopolitical absolute. When Germany surrendered in May 1945, Oppie’s team had two different types of gadgets ready to test and deploy. All this while the war with Japan raged on. And sometimes, as in this case, vast programs take on their own momentum; in other words, we know what happened. There’s a telling scene in the movie from just after the first successful nuclear test in the desert of New Mexico. Oppenheimer walks into a room where Army officers sit at desks, performing calculations on nuclear effects. Oppie offers to help, and a very polite captain says, “It’s okay, sir. We’ve got this.” In other words, Oppenheimer and his team had built the bomb, which was their task. And the government had its deliverable. Of course, the next phase was the obligatory “thank-you-for-your-service-to-your-country, sir.” That is, once the underlying science was proven, the Manhattan Project transformed into a military-industrial project to produce more bombs. It became the kernel of a massive government program. And in a Promethean level of subtle irony, Oppie’s former ranch at Los Alamos became ground zero for Big Government to get into the business of Big Science, building Big Weapons. Prometheus Meets His Nemesis Oppenheimer remained involved in nuclear physics when the war ended, although more at the political level than in fundamental science. In the late 1940s, he took a position at Princeton, in the Institute for Advanced Studies, and met Admiral Lewis Strauss. Strauss (pronounced “Straws,” with a Virginia accent) was a highly successful Jewish businessman who got his start working with Herbert Hoover during the Belgian Relief Campaign of World War I. In his travels in Europe, Strauss saw firsthand the handiwork of Bolshevik forces in Poland, and it’s accurate to say that he was a hard-core anti-communist. In the 1920s, Strauss worked on Wall Street and was involved with many basic U.S. industries such as railways, steel, mining, and chemicals. As an aside, in 1926, Strauss took a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve while pursuing his business affairs as a civilian. With Strauss, we can fast-forward through the 1930s to World War II, when the Navy called him into active duty. Due to poor vision (almost blind in one eye), Strauss was non-deployable anywhere near the front lines. So the Navy assigned Strauss to its Bureau of Ordnance, where he deftly applied his industrial knowledge to play a crucial role in jump-starting American industry to produce vast amounts of guns and ammunition. In fact, Strauss was astonishingly good at his job and was an admiral by the end of the war. Postwar, Strauss leveraged his finance and Navy ordnance background to become one of the first commissioners of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the successor to the Manhattan Project. And from that perch, he championed building out a U.S. nuclear power complex, along with a broad and deep focus on nuclear energy and advanced weapons. [Robert Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss] Robert Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss. Courtesy [Jewish Telegraph Agency](. Suffice it to say that between Princeton and the AEC, Strauss and Oppenheimer crossed swords along the way. And also coming between the two men was an intra-faith conflict over Judaism, with the details well beyond what we can explore here [but worth understanding](. As things evolved, in 1954, when Oppie’s security clearance was due for renewal, Strauss opposed recertification. Well, here’s where Oppenheimer’s 1930s-era communist elbow-rubbing came back to haunt him, along with other security scandals from the Manhattan Project, including the physicist-spy Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenberg spies who also spirited secrets out from Los Alamos. In the anti-communist environment of the early 1950s, Strauss was instrumental in blocking Oppenheimer from retaining his security clearance. The matter became a bone of contention across U.S. academe, within the military, and via politics. To sum it up, Strauss nailed Oppenheimer in 1954, and later in 1959, Oppie’s friends tubed Strauss for a cabinet position. Which brings us back to the Prometheus analogy. Despite his labors to bring nuclear physics to the forefront of American science and his work to develop the atomic bomb for his country, in the end, Oppenheimer was cast out from the temple of government science. Without further clearance to work on the biggest of the big physics projects being run by the AEC, Oppenheimer was a mere outsider looking in. Like ancient Prometheus, who was tortured for bringing fire to mankind, modern Oppenheimer was banished by the bureaucracy of a program he helped birth. No less than Albert Einstein offered an opinion on what happened to Oppenheimer. He quipped that Oppie’s problem was that “he loves a woman who does not love him, the United States Government.” That’s all for now… Thank you for subscribing and reading. Best wishes… [Byron King] Byron King Rude Awakening In Case You Missed It… “No” Is the Magic Word [Sean Ring] SEAN RING Happy Thursday! I’ve been running around Europe lately with the family. But there’s one skill that I’m so pleased I’ve developed. And that’s negotiation skills. Because even in Europe, people try to take advantage of you. So enjoy this piece and, by God, read Jim Camp’s books! Develop This Skill at All Costs There are many different skills that any person — especially a businessperson — must develop. Presentation, writing, and networking skills, among others, are crucial to developing both the self and the business. Imagine your prospective customer, and you are discussing a potential business deal. You’re able to navigate the conversation without any theatrics effortlessly. The dialogue feels like a sharp, rewarding tennis rally. It goes back and forth between the two of you for a time. Then, the conversation concludes with a deal. This deal gets you paid… and gets the client everything they want. You both benefit and realize a vastly increased scope of your agreement. Moreover, there’s even more potential to expand your business dealings. Dreamworld scenario? Sometimes, sure. But more often than not, this results from a conversation where you display excellent negotiation skills. [New LIVE Demo Video STUNS Crypto Investors]( In [this short 3:28 video…]( Crypto genius James Altucher reveals his most shocking crypto secret yet… A little-known secret that’s delivered over $1,170 in FREE crypto income per month. If you AREN’T using this affordable little device… You’re missing one of the best, easiest ways to earn real cash with cryptos. [Click here to watch this short 3:28 video NOW.]( [Click Here To Learn More]( What They Really Mean by “Don’t Give Up!” Roger Fisher and William Ury penned a “classic” text on negotiation skills called Getting to Yes. Reading this book is the surest way to have your head handed to you in a negotiation. I never understood the psychological mumbo-jumbo that getting someone to say yes to something would get them to say yes to everything. It’s garbage. Worrying about ZOPAs (Zone of Potential Agreement) and BATNAs (Best Alternative To No Agreement) differs from where your head should be when talking to someone. The truth is that people often say, “No.” All the time, really. How you deal with that is far more important than getting someone to say a “yes” they may not even mean. Are you going to give up after the first “No?” Many do, especially the Ivy League/Oxbridge types, who are positively insulted when someone declines their “perfect deal.” Don’t they know who they’re talking to? Using a “no” as a signpost or a boundary is critical when speaking to customers. You’ll hear them often. You may as well use them as guiding lights to get a solid deal done. Who’s the Best to Listen to? I’m a big Ben Settle fan. Right now, Ben is perhaps the most renowned email marketer on the planet. One day, Ben talked about one of his heroes, Jim Camp. My ears immediately pricked up. What Ben relayed about Jim immediately resonated with me. This man not only trained FBI negotiators but seemed no-nonsense about it all. Suddenly, negotiation wasn’t an exercise in psychology or hypnosis but a method of finding common ground. Camp defines negotiation as “the effort to bring about an agreement between two or more parties, with all parties having the right to veto.” What happens when you give someone the breathing room to say no is impressive. It completely contrasts the “take it or leave it” boneheads bandying their “method” about. To be sure, at the end of a negotiation, you need to know whether you’re getting married. But that’s much farther down the road. Whenever I submit a proposal, I write in the email's conclusion, “Please let me know if you’d like to add/delete/amend anything.” That sentence gives my client the guilt-free wiggle room they need to alter things they don’t like. Keep your ego out of it. Shipping business and stacking paper are what matters. Not bullet points on a proposal. Let the market tell you what it wants. It’s easier that way! The Adult’s Magic Word “Micah, what’s the magic word?” “May I have some chocolate, puhleese?” Every child is ingrained with that lesson. “Please” is the magic word. And always say “thank you.” They’re great lessons every child must learn to function in polite and impolite society. Although I’m enjoying my four-year-old immensely, I can’t wait to say, “Micah, you know how I always told you the magic word was ‘please?’ Well, here’s your new lesson. You’re at the age where the new magic word is ‘No!’” I don’t know about you, but I used to be one of those dopes who used to say yes to everything. I like making people happy, so I must remind myself of the magic word. No, thank you. No, that’s not for me. No, I think you should find someone better suited for that job. No, that price doesn’t work for me. Practice if you must. You won’t believe the results you’ll start getting. And what’s better, you’ll have cleared the way to say an enthusiastic “Yes!” to the right projects and deals! Camp gives three pieces of advice concerning “no”: - Embrace “no” at every opportunity in a negotiation. - Don’t fear the word — invite it. You do not take it as a personal rejection because you are not needy. - Every “no” is reversible. Camp continues, “The moment you really internalize this principle, the moment you understand the honesty and the power of ‘no,’ you will have taken a long stride away from emotion-based negotiating toward decision-based negotiating.” “Maybe” is the worst answer you can hear. It gives you nothing. Wanna go out with me? Maybe... Not great, is it? How about this: Shall we do lunch? Yes! Have your people call my people. Is that a real “yes?” Maybe it’s something they said to shut you up. You won’t know until later. That’s why “no” is the golden word. You know exactly where a boundary is. There’s so much more to write about this topic, but let me touch on one more thing. Want is OK, Need is Not “You stink of fear!” Mr. Hyde screamed at Tom Sawyer in the 2003 film League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Your customers smell this a mile away, as well. From now on, train yourself to want things from your clients. But from this point forward, you never need anything from them. You don’t need this deal. You want this deal. You don’t need to do this. You want to do this. You don’t need to close. You want to close. Badly. In fact, removing the word “need” from your vocabulary insofar as it’s reasonable to do so will do wonders for your body chemistry. Need produces stress. Stress causes cortisol levels to rise. It constricts your breathing. It raises your heart rate. Worst of all, it clouds your judgment — all bad stuff. Wants and desires don’t have that deleterious effect. But what if my client rejects me? They can’t reject you if you don’t need anything from them. Wrap Up I love Jim Camp’s books. Start with No: The Negotiating Tools that the Pros Don't Want You to Know, and No: The Only Negotiating System You Need for Work and Home are classics. I prefer the audiobook versions. Listen to them 10x each to ingrain the message. It may be a big change for you, but it’s worth it. Have a wonderful rest of your week! All the best, [Sean Ring] Sean Ring Contributing Editor, The Morning Reckoning feedback@dailyreckoning.com Twitter: [@seaniechaos]( [Paradigm]( ☰ ⊗ [ARCHIVE]( [ABOUT]( [Contact Us]( © 2023 Paradigm Press, LLC. 808 Saint Paul Street, Baltimore MD 21202. By submitting your email address, you consent to Paradigm Press, LLC. delivering daily email issues and advertisements. To end your Rude Awakening e-mail subscription and associated external offers sent from Rude Awakening, feel free to [click here.]( Please note: the mailbox associated with this email address is not monitored, so do not reply to this message. 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