The greatest human ever....
Discussion
Ayahuasca said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Ayahuasca said:
I am not religious, so this nomination is not based on my beliefs.
Jesus Christ.
Nobody else comes close in terms of influencing life on this planet - for better or worse - than JC, and all he did was talk to some fishermen and peasants in an unimportant backwater of the Roman empire, and he only did that for three years. Three years!
There is no reliable evidence that he even existed. The Romans kept good records, and many Roman soldiers and citizens kept diaries, and this Jesus fellow, despite all the stories we hear about him, doesn't get a single mention by anyone, anywhere. Jesus Christ.
Nobody else comes close in terms of influencing life on this planet - for better or worse - than JC, and all he did was talk to some fishermen and peasants in an unimportant backwater of the Roman empire, and he only did that for three years. Three years!
Roofless Toothless said:
Or Eisenhower.
You could allow for certain mitigations on that one - allies or no there was always a certain professional rivallry between the British and American big wigs. The fact that Monty had a somewhat haughty disdain for the Americans, and the Americans thought the British didn't always pull their weight or get it right!That said I agree - aside from North Africa which in fairness was a much needed propaganda win and important in the long term strategic goal of cutting the Germans off from oil supplies Monty had an at best middling war. His name is also tarnished by Market Garden - though there is a solid argument to make that the plan was ok, but it was based on intelligence failings. Though taking a risk on your supply line getting spread thin is also asking for it to a certain extent.
I think that time messes this up a bit. I've mentioned Cyrus because he built a kingdom and introduced (for the time) great liberty. But his role in the spread of Abrahamic religions was minimal despite being critical. It was just at the beginning of a long path.
Likewise Jesus- he inspired a great following, but it was guys like the apostle Paul who really pushed the expansion of Christianity against early persecution, and he never met Jesus (unless you count the road to Damascus), so surely they deserve the credit for the survival and subsequent spread of Christianity when other religions died/were wiped out.
Or someone like Johannes Gutenberg- is there any part of life that wouldn't be completely different if not for that man's invention?
Likewise Jesus- he inspired a great following, but it was guys like the apostle Paul who really pushed the expansion of Christianity against early persecution, and he never met Jesus (unless you count the road to Damascus), so surely they deserve the credit for the survival and subsequent spread of Christianity when other religions died/were wiped out.
Or someone like Johannes Gutenberg- is there any part of life that wouldn't be completely different if not for that man's invention?
RTB said:
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. The theory of evolution is, almost certainly, the greatest scientific discovery ever made.
Difficult to argue against this. It seems so obvious now but in 1859 it was utterly mindblowing. All the people born before this time, people like Newton and Da Vinci, may well have been geniuses, but they had not a clue who they were or where they had come from. Kind of staggering really.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Difficult to argue against this. It seems so obvious now but in 1859 it was utterly mindblowing. All the people born before this time, people like Newton and Da Vinci, may well have been geniuses, but they had not a clue who they were or where they had come from.
Kind of staggering really.
For services to humankind Newton and Da Vinci far eclipse the achievements of Darwin and Wallace.Kind of staggering really.
Surely "who we are" is knowledge of gravity, the planets and our universal position? Rather then what we have physically developed from and where we might possibly be going? Newton alone blows natural selection out of the water IMO. What Da Vinci contributed to so many fields, quite apart from being the greatest artist that ever lived, was a richness of new knowledge almost impossible to believe only one man could have inspired.
popeyewhite said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Difficult to argue against this. It seems so obvious now but in 1859 it was utterly mindblowing. All the people born before this time, people like Newton and Da Vinci, may well have been geniuses, but they had not a clue who they were or where they had come from.
Kind of staggering really.
For services to humankind Newton and Da Vinci far eclipse the achievements of Darwin and Wallace.Kind of staggering really.
Surely "who we are" is knowledge of gravity, the planets and our universal position? Rather then what we have physically developed from and where we might possibly be going? Newton alone blows natural selection out of the water IMO. What Da Vinci contributed to so many fields, quite apart from being the greatest artist that ever lived, was a richness of new knowledge almost impossible to believe only one man could have inspired.
True.
But no more or less than other leaders during war times.
He certainly had to make some decisions I wouldn't like to make.
For example - the bombing of Coventry.
There is evidence that we knew it was coming through Ultra decrypts. I am not 100% on the details, but I understand that there was no plausible way we could have known early enough to make a big difference OTHER than through having been reading Germany's encrypted messaged.
So the choice was leave Coventry to its fate - at the costs of hundreds of lives. Or risk blowing Ultra, and being locked out of German codes again potentially at the cost of thousands.
I guess it's easy to sit here and make a decision based on numbers and probabilities - but we aren't doing something knowing that we are the individual responsible to leaving someone to their fates when we could have stepped in.....
I don't have the balls for that sort of lose-lose decision.
But no more or less than other leaders during war times.
He certainly had to make some decisions I wouldn't like to make.
For example - the bombing of Coventry.
There is evidence that we knew it was coming through Ultra decrypts. I am not 100% on the details, but I understand that there was no plausible way we could have known early enough to make a big difference OTHER than through having been reading Germany's encrypted messaged.
So the choice was leave Coventry to its fate - at the costs of hundreds of lives. Or risk blowing Ultra, and being locked out of German codes again potentially at the cost of thousands.
I guess it's easy to sit here and make a decision based on numbers and probabilities - but we aren't doing something knowing that we are the individual responsible to leaving someone to their fates when we could have stepped in.....
I don't have the balls for that sort of lose-lose decision.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
All good points, but isn't it weird that they both had so little self knowledge. They both probably believed they were specially created by God, and had no idea they were just another species of great ape.
Not sure 'self-knowledge' is the term you're looking for - 'self-knowledge' is usually used to describe knowledge of one's own personality/character/motivations/impact of one's behaviour upon others (although this now blends with self-awareness). I think they both accepted God as a higher being (as was the fashion of the time - Da Vinci 1400s, Newton 1600s), though I think both would be intrigued rather than horrified to learn they came from the Apes. Interestingly Darwin initially studied theology, and this was much later the mid 1800s, I'm pretty sure the Coventry bombing story is a widely believed myth, but I agree that both world wars involved some lose/lose choices. Churchill was obviously a decent guy at the right time, but greatest human ever is surely a stretch. Even greatest leader ever would mean putting him up against Napoleon, Washington, Eisenhower, Bismark, etc...
If Otto von Bismark was in his prime (rather than very dead), for instance, could WWI have been avoided?
If Otto von Bismark was in his prime (rather than very dead), for instance, could WWI have been avoided?
popeyewhite said:
Not sure 'self-knowledge' is the term you're looking for - 'self-knowledge' is usually used to describe knowledge of one's own personality/character/motivations/impact of one's behaviour upon others (although this now blends with self-awareness). I think they both accepted God as a higher being (as was the fashion of the time - Da Vinci 1400s, Newton 1600s), though I think both would be intrigued rather than horrified to learn they came from the Apes. Interestingly Darwin initially studied theology, and this was much later the mid 1800s,
Was Newton not of the opinion that his (now lost) theological writings were his best and most important work? I should really find a good biography of the guy.It seems fashionable these days to disparage Winston Churchill and he clearly polarises opinion but it's worth remembering that the Allies were fighting a war machine controlled by a demonic dictator who gassed 10 million people and whose intention was total domination of Europe. Whatever the current generation think, from reading books, modern teachings at school or simply picking up sentiment from the TV, there is no way they can sense the feeling of total angst felt by my parent's generation. War is a terrible thing but whatever Churchill ordered was done to overcome the Nazi war machine and prevent more hatred and slaughter. Perhaps decent people don't make good wartime leaders but there is no doubt, for many reasons we should be respectful of, and thankful for, his leadership during world war two.
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