Why is it stupid?
I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones
Obviously the point of this quote is that we have very destructive weapons available today, ones capable of leveling society. But he's clearly trying to say this common, obvious truth in maxim form, so that it will resonate for years to come. This was a very popular practice with German intellectuals of that era (which he probably picked up from Schopenhauer, his personal favorite -- btw a man who was much more intelligent, in general, than Einstein), but he screwed it up. Why on earth would there ever be a WWIV fought with "sticks and stones"? It's absurd to imagine that a society with prehistoric technology could ever somehow wage a "World War."
Last night I read through a lot of his other quotes (
http://www.heartquotes.net/Einstein.html) and, outside of his specialty, it would seem he was a very average thinker. He'll make a very good observation:
A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
and draw a silly conclusion in his very next sentence:
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
You are ALWAYS restricted to your "personal desires and ... affection for a few persons nearest to" you. If you want to pretend like you have compassion for everyone, that is because you have the PERSONAL DESIRE to do so, and whether or not that is a good idea is not a given, as he seems to think it is. Sure, you probably want to pretend like you have everyone's best interest in mind, so that history spares your reputation when you develop a bomb that ends up killing millions of people, if not EVERYONE!
As I said before, certainly Einstein was one of the most gifted physicists in history, but that doesn't mean he was on some sort of next level-intellectual plane in general. Because his inventions had serious implications for all of humanity, his intellect seems that much greater. But most of the great specialist minds in history have had serious lapses of judgment when they start talking about general matters, which we are all qualified to discuss.
