Who was the Most Important Person in History?

Great Debates
121

I think the sectarianism came in more because of the Celtic/Germanic ideas of inheritance coupled with some of the technological advances that the Romans had left behind. Probably there was a lot of tribal warfare in Europe before the Romans, just no written account of it.

Notice, for instance, how little anyone talks about Mongolian Empire even though the Mongolians probably conquered more land than anyone up until the United States hit the West Coast. But they didn’t believe in writing stuff down, so there went that.

122

How can Paul be more historically significant than Jesus? Without Jesus, what religion would Paul have been spreading?

123

I can see that easily, since the over hyped"Jesus" could easily have very little in common with the historical Joshua bar-Joseph, who I’ll assume existed on the basis of probability rather than evidence (i.e. it’s more likely he did exist than that he didn’t). Joshua was probably real, but Jesus is more like a fictional character based loosely on his life, and credit for writing that story goes, to a significant degree, to Paul.

Of course, I’m operating on the assumption the Joshua was not in any way divine and did not perform miracles of any kind.

124

Maybe this will change your tune

125

Hmmm. Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha all have a fair claim to the title. Likewise Edison, Galileo, Newton and Gutenberg, for the reasons stated.

But I’ll throw in my lot with Vox Imperatoris and say George Washington. The United States has had a tremendous impact on world history which seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future. The country wouldn’t even exist were it not for Washington’s grit and determination in winning the Revolutionary War, his calm influence in chairing the Constitutional Convention, and his wise yielding of power voluntarily after two terms as President, setting a vital precedent for democracies everywhere.

King George III, who had every reason to hate Washington, said to their mutual friend Benjamin West when he learned that the general would be resigning his commision after the Treaty of Paris, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world!” Napoleon, on his deathbed, is reputed to have said, “They wanted me to be a Washington.”

126

Well played, but I guess I’ll just take my chances.

127

I’ll re-acknowledge the technical advances Xerox made in inventing the mouse but i’m arguing that supplying the masses with an easy-to-use point-and-click computer operating system had more of an impact than the concept of GUI interface itself.

Maybe not mentioning buddha was cultural bias but not in the instance when he was found less influential than Jesus. I do agree that Buddha has impacted more people than say… the greek generals of marathon, thermopolye, salamis, etc.

Speaking of the impact of preserving greek culture, that would be noteworthy but hardly in contention of GOAT. It may not even be the most important military victory in terms of altering history. Charles Martel repelling muslim defenders from spreading past the iberian penninsula, the allied victory at battle of the bulge, allied victory at normandy, napoleon’s “victory” at moscow, the sacking(s) of rome, the first crusades, and pearl harbor immediately come to mind.

I can also see the case made for peter since he is the microsoft to jesus’s xerox - generally speaking. The difference being microsoft isn’t pimping xerox’s name out there as brand recognition.

128

God knows I tried :smiley:

129

In answer to the OP,

Adam - both of them, the first and The Last. - Jess.

130

The importance of Themistocles and the Battle of Salamis lies with what came afterward in a free Greece - classical literature that became the basis of Western education; philosophy that underpinned much of Western thought; and, of course, democracy. Arguably, none of those would have developed in a Greece controlled by Persia and the entire framework for Western culture would have been different.

While the other battles you mention were undoubtedly significant, I don’t know that they have changed the course of human history on such a fundamental level as the Battle of Salamis (and Plataea) did. For example, even if the Allied invasion of Normandy failed and Nazi Germany controlled Europe up through today, Europe still would have developed under a similar framework based on Western thought. Sure, there’d still be some significant differences, but there’d also still be significant similarities in terms of politics, philosophy, art, etc.

131

The mouse was actually invented at SRI by Douglas Engelbart in 1967. The WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointing device) GUI was developed at Xerox PARC.

132

Ancient Persia was surprisingly tolerant of local culture and customs. I doubt a Persian victory would have changed much. And they wouldn’t have ruled Greece for very long, in all likelihood.

133

Well, then, without whoever came up with Judaism, Jesus would have had no religion to preach.

134

The problem with the Mongols is that despite conquering huge tracks of land, they failed to leave a lasting impression. They pretty much ended up being absorbed by the culture of whatever country they conquered.

135

You had me at “huge tracts of land.”

136

Which is essentially the communist theory of how things would work out. Eventually, governments wouldn’t be necessary anymore, when people would have changed enough for a true Communist society to develop (note that the Soviet Union didn’t consider itself a Communist state, which was the ideal they were thriving for and that would be reached at some point in the future).

137

Thanks. :slight_smile:

ETA : huh… I was sure I had read : you meant “huge tracts of land” , and assumed it was a correction. Now, I’m not sure what you meant.

138

Well… Given your argumentation, it’s pretty important actually, because the question : “Why did Europe come to dominate the world” is frequently asked, and quite puzzling.

And your contention is, as far as I can tell : “Because the printing press was developed there”. If we’re assuming it probably wouldn’t have been invented without him, we have an answer to the mystery of the European domination (at least according to you). If at the contrary we assume that it’s pretty certain someone would have come up with the mobile characters 5 years later, then we’ve to search further : “what made the invention of the printing press possible and even unavoidable in Europe?”
(and by the way, in this case, Gutenberg would have to hand the title of “most important person in history” to whoever came up with whatever made the invention of the printing press in Europe a near-certainty)

139

Almost everthing I’m about to say is completely peripheral to the original topic. If we’re going to keep discussing it, should we start a new thread?

Thank you so much for that link on game theory, Sage Rat. (Love game theory, btw.) [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_4_166/ai_n6151880](game theory link)

but it refutes your assertion.
“Maynard Smith and the late George Price showed that cooperators and defectors coexist stably in a mix whose proportions are determined by the payoffs of the particular game.”

Not only does the article suggest, as cosmosdan also did, that populations can change over time, but also that if you set up the payoffs properly, you can change the proportions to what you want, (say… to have more cooperators.)

concerning the prisoner’s dilemma game…
“Chase through the options, and you’ll find that no matter what course one prisoner chooses, the other will do better by defecting.”

I’ve said often, (elsewhere,) that an individuals best result is when everyone else follows the rules, but he is free to do whatever he wants. Or as the article called it, he cheats.

I’ve said this before as well… Democracy and Capitalism are the best systems we’ve come up with to deal with humans as they exist. (although we’ve seen some recent hiccups in unfettered capitalism lately, haven’t we?)

But, why be content there with humans as they are? Why can’t we cooperators set up the payoffs to increase the proportion of cooperators? The defectors have always tried to change the rules, and those have often been the cause of the hiccups, (Enron, Worldcom, the sub-prime mortgage crisis we’ve seen most recently were all caused by defectors lobbying to change the rules so they could make boatloads of money.)

Sage Rat’s article has suggested to me that, not only can we change ourselves, and encourage others to change, we can set up the game to encourage cooperation. Animals evolve to cooperate even in situations where logic says the best *individual *outcome is to defect because the optimal survival option is cooperation. So, cooperators survived.

Also from the article-
“Whenever nature achieves a major step, it involves cooperation,”

But, if the best individual outcome, (logically,) is defection:
You could surmise from that, that logic has been our downfall. hmmm.
(Or, you could conclude that the best individual outcome is not the one we should be striving for, but the best collective outcome. hmmm, change the attitute of the individuals to think about the group. Why didn’t anyone think of … Oh, wait, that’s what cosmosdan and I suggested.)
Oh, and back on topic, I liked JohnT’s point that it doesn’t matter if “someone else would have invented it.” only what caused the greatest effect. (I still nominate the invention of zero. Math and science and almost every advance in the last 1500 years hinge on it.)

140

I think that’s the way it is set up. We just need more people to see it.