# Who is the most influential person of all time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 21, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364 "2014-01-21T13:59:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/61 "2014-01-23T12:13:20Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > In answering this question, one can’t assume that something would have happened anyway and everything would have turned out the same. If Columbus didn’t sail, and America was “discovered” 60 years later by the British, large swaths of (our) future history just got erased. On the other hand, the fact that Balboa “discovered” the Pacific is of far lesser import and there would have been little change to (our) future development. And yet, neither the woman who financed him nor the man who inspired Machiavello are in the list. Their great-grandson is. Louis XVI of France? Are you fucking kidding me? He basically died! ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/62 "2014-01-23T12:52:35Z")
> [@weemart](#): > > Given the influence tv and telephone have on our societies does it not seem to follow that John Logie Baird and Alexander Graham Bell are the most influential ppl of all time? Well, it’s debatable who is most worthy of credit for the development of the TV and phone. Baird’s TV was not on the critical path that led to the CRT. And while Bell was the first to the patent office, that’s virtually the only thing that’s not contested. Which only serves to illustrate some of problems with working out which individuals are most influential. As much as we want to elevate heroes, many times it was just a race for who would develop first, or it was a collaborative effort (and this is more true over time). And with political figures it’s hard to separate them from the regime they were a part of, and the propaganda, before and after. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/63 "2014-01-23T13:40:12Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > And yet, neither the woman who financed him nor the man who inspired Machiavello are in the list. Their great-grandson is. Louis XVI of France? Are you fucking kidding me? He basically died! Agreed. It’s a suck-ass list, one of the worst of its kind. But that’s what you get when you essentially poll, like these guys did. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/64 "2014-01-23T13:49:54Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > I expected St. Paul to be #1. I can’t believe he’s not in the top 30. Effectively, he IS #1. Who was more “influential,” the Beatles or their publicist? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/65 "2014-01-23T13:59:02Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > I expected St. Paul to be #1. I can’t believe he’s not in the top 30. > [@Nava](#): > > And yet, neither the woman who financed him nor the man who inspired Machiavello are in the list. Their great-grandson is. Louis XVI of France? Are you fucking kidding me? He basically died! This is GD “Who is the most influential person of all time?” Discussing the Time list is better suited to BBQ Pit. Michael Hart’s list is enormously better (peraps better, IMO, than SDMB’s list from 4 years ago.) On Hart’s list, St. Paul ranks #5. Isabella the Catholic is #65. Machiavelli is #79. I like the criterion: “How different would the world have been without the person.” One famous scientist being “ahead of his time” argues _against_ his influence, as I argued in [“Who, in all of human history, has had the greatest impact upon modern society?”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=652160) > [@Who, in all of human history, has had the greatest impact upon modern society?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-all-of-human-history-has-had-the-greatest-impact-upon-modern-society/622264/125): > > A key question is: _How long would a discovery have been delayed if its discoverer hadn’t lived?_ In the case of Mendel, we know the answer: 35 years. A rather long delay, I think, given the simplicity and importance of Mendel’s discovery to the understanding of genetics and evolution. For this reason, Mendel could be called a great discoverer. > > Unfortunately, the fact that we know the delay would have been 35 years argues against Mendel’s influence. The only reason we know exactly how long the delay would have been is that … there _was_ such a delay. Though published in a scientific journal, Mendel’s discovery was completely ignored for 35 years. :smack: > > Mendel’s Laws _were_ an “idea whose time had come” … 35 years _after_ Mendel’s discovery … when four separate researchers independently discovered the Laws and/or stumbled on Mendel’s paper. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/66 "2014-01-23T14:28:01Z")
There are a lot of ways to look at this. Einstein was obviously hugely influential in shaping our view of the universe, but very little of his work shapes the day-to-day life of a modern ordinary person. At most, we might not have nuclear power or GPS without him. That’s about it, right? Viewed in those terms, Michael Faraday is arguably the most important person ever. There’s not much dispute over the invention of the motor, right? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/67 "2014-01-23T14:36:10Z")
> [@Septimus](#): > > Michael Hart’s list is enormously better (peraps better, IMO, than SDMB’s list from 4 years ago.) One of the problems with the contest was that the categories were uneven in number, meaning that religious personages got short shrift. 5 categories of 20 each, or getting rid of the categories altogether, would have been an improvement over the way I originally constructed the game. In my defense, it was the first time I’ve ever done such a thing, so mistakes are likely. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/68 "2014-01-23T14:40:28Z")
If you get it right, we might have to put _you_ on the list. These things are hard! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/69 "2014-01-23T14:44:07Z")
I am. Every single thing I do, no matter how inconsequential, affects the entirety of the human experience (as observed from my p.o.v.) _tremendously_. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/70 "2014-01-23T14:45:31Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Louis XVI of France? Are you fucking kidding me? He basically died! Oi ! I’ll have you know he didn’t just _die_. He managed to piss off just about everybody before he did, too. So there ! ETA : joke aside, these lists are always so US-centric. The reason Louis XVI gets even a mention is probably that he sold guns and authorized private parties to give assistance to the Colonies. He did it mostly to spit in Britain’s eye, and because it didn’t cost him much, and there you go. Nigh canonization by American Internet list-makers. I think he would have preferred a jelly dougnut and a prison sentence, but as the philosopher Jagger said… ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/71 "2014-01-23T15:13:51Z")
OK, I’ll admit it: managing to piss off all of France _is_ a feat. Our own Fernando VII managed to piss off all of Spain time and again but he did it by halves: today I anger half the country, tomorrow the other half, day after tomorrow I manage to make the first half see red again… And that immigrant Philippe is still hated by many but doesn’t even show up in the radar for others. I think Philip II shows up only because of the wife he never laid with, a few sunk ships (“a few”) and maybe those islands all the way beyond Asia. Important dude? Yeah. More than his dad? Makes no sense. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/72 "2014-01-23T15:29:40Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > There are a lot of ways to look at this. Einstein was obviously hugely influential in shaping our view of the universe, but very little of his work shapes the day-to-day life of a modern ordinary person. At most, we might not have nuclear power or GPS without him. That’s about it, right? > > Viewed in those terms, Michael Faraday is arguably the most important person ever. There’s not much dispute over the invention of the motor, right? Many ([for example](http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/11/01/2013/einstein-s-real-breakthrough-quantum-theory.html)) regard Einstein as the single key founder of quantum physics, as well as relativity. Hart, BTW, tries to estimate _future influence_ as well as past and present influence. Hart places Faraday at #23, ahead of even Maxwell (#24). The Time list shows neither Faraday nor Maxwell :smack: … presumably to make room for Elvis Presley or Grover Cleveland. ---
**Author:** ![coryoliver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@coryoliver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coryoliver)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/73 "2014-01-23T23:49:49Z")
Could be Imhotep, once you study his contributions. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/74 "2014-01-24T00:08:57Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > “Always be remembered” as such by people who aren’t old enough to remember DOS, maybe. It was the first GUI to dominate the market, which is something completely different. For the record, DOS wasn’t a GUI, and during much of its heyday it had actual competition – which Windows did not and does not – mainly from CP/M and its followons like DOS-Plus and DR-DOS. But yes, due to its adoption by IBM, DOS was indeed the first OS to more or less dominate the market because of the success of the IBM PC. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/75 "2014-01-24T00:26:09Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Who was more “influential,” the Beatles or their publicist? Ha! Exactly the point that we seem to disagree on. Here I invoke the “principle of interchangeability” that I mentioned before, and was well stated by **Lemur866** : > [@Lemur866](#): > > In my mind “influential” means “if this person had never existed the world would be a different place”. Who was most unique and who was more or less the interchangeable commodity, the Beatles or their publicist? I admit that the analogy here with Jesus and Paul or the Gospel writers is weak, but the operative assumption is that Jesus made a sufficient impression that he inspired a critical mass of self-sustaining apostolic teachings. Not sure why some are so focused on Paul, as one could equally argue that he and all his teachings, along with Jesus, would have been relegated to obscurity had it not been for the later writers of the synoptic Gospels. So my argument in supporting Jesus for #1 most influential is simply regarding him as the essential starting point of Christianity – acknowledging that through the centuries it probably created at least as much evil as good, but influential nonetheless. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364.md?page=3)