Sure. John Wilkes Booth, Timothy McVeigh, and the 9/11 hijackers were all, in some sense, pivotal.

The quotes around "unhinged" were to imply positively pivotal figures — like Leonardo da Vinci, Walt Disney, or Steve Jobs — not categorical terrorists.

Clearly it was intended to convey a positive association. I think it's totally fallacious to imply that unhinged is a positive attribute; hence the rebuttal. Unhinged is just unhinged.

Sure, the crazy people who made a bunch of money (or the terrorists) are the ones you've heard of. The majority of "unhinged" people are probably not better off for it.

Steve Jobs is kind of a great example. On HN people fawn over him, but he was "unhinged:" he was a giant asshole to everyone, by all accounts, and he opted for snake oil over medicine during the earliest part of his cancer treatment.

Plenty of people get lucky and strike it rich or contribute meaningfully to society without being unhinged. There is no meaningful correlation here.

Well, let's see.

West has billions, is a recognized musical genius, is now setting fashion trends and will go to bed tonight with Kim K.

I'd say he's doing pretty well, compared to most.

This is an extremely weird argument to get into.

ew. :)

Howard Hughes comes to mind.