10 Greatest Figures in the History of the World - Your Picks?

[Reasonable]

Kasz216 said:

Reasonable said:

Kasz216 said:

tarheel91 said:

Kasz216 said:

tarheel91 said:

Kasz216 said:

tarheel91 said:

Snipped out to make shorter.

Because stuff only happened in the West, right?  Whatever happened in the East isn't really relevant?

No, they didn't all have to be "reinvented" in the West.  A lot of them were simply taken by European explorers back to the West.

Most application, or most application that you're aware of?  How much do you actually know about Eastern history?  Up until the Renaissance, China was easily the most technologically advanced country in the world.  From 2000 BC to ~1400 AD they really were unrivaled in terms of progression as a civilization.

Again, honestly, how much do you actually know about Eastern history?  A lot of people unconsciously assume that because they don't know of anything that happened there, nothing really did.  Sure, they know there were some emperors and such, whether it be China, Korea, Japan, or some other nation, but they see it as some land off to the side that really wasn't relevant.  That's only because they only care about Western history.  They falsely assume that because the West dominates today (something that could easily change in the next half century), they have always dominated.  Only their progression was relevant to world history.  That's simply not true.

I'm not trying to ridicule you or anything; it's just that often times we mistakenly assume something doesn't exist when we simply don't know about it.

I wouldn't be surprised if I knew more about eastern history then you do.

I'm actually quite knowledgable about eastern history.

The east never "dominated" the world.  When the east was superior it was nice enough to mostly keep it to themselves and didn't reign bullshit down opon the rest of the world like the West and colonialziation.  There was some trade, but that was pretty much it.

As such, they ever really had quite the impact or influence the west did on the ENTIRE world.

It's not that east's progression wasn't revelant to world history.  It's just not AS relevent.

Where did I say they dominated the world?  The East and the West are called such because they remained generally isolated until the age of exploration and imperialism.  The West never dominated the world until the 1800's.  200 years of domination doesn't justify downplaying the other half of the world's technical and civil superiority for almost 3500 years.

Sure it does.  Because that 200 years of domination is has been the 200 years the world has shrank.

The east's "superiority" of the west was meaningless on the "whole" world stage because it pretty much never effected the west, nor africa, nor native Americans.

The Chinese superiority only mattered for 1/4th the world cultures.

Europeon Colonialsm effected the entire world.  The eastern supreirority really only mostly mattered, for the east.

The last 200 years + combined with what put the west in position for the last 200+ effected the entire world more.

The last 200 years does downplay the first 3,500, because the first 3,500 weren't global effecting events.

 

If/when China takes the mainstage and starts dominating... then we can talk.

Until then... to use a more extreme example,  it'd be like if we discovered the Incan's developed an anti-aging machine.  It's the greatest invention ever, but it's effects only effected the Incans... who were then mostly wiped out.

I think you're misunderstanding the point of this thread.  It's the 10 greatest figures, not the 10 most influential figures on our time.  I'd argue that the developments within one of the largest empires of all time are plenty relevant, even if their influence isn't entirely felt during our time. 

Even if we are talking about influece during our time, Eastern history plays a profound role in over 4 billion people's lives today.  Plus, as I pointed out, China is responsible for many of the world's inventions, inventions that weren't usually also invented by Westerns, but instead taken from the East to the West.

I don't see the difference.  Greatness I would think would be measured by effect on the world.

Funny, to me greatness is seeking truth and making discoveries that will assist our species in the long term, hence my focus on Eisstein, etc.  Hitler had huge effect on the world, but I wouldn't see that as a positive influence nor great nor infact anything significant long term.

Also, long term, say 10,000 years in the future, figures like Hitler, etc. will be very vague in history, just another major conflict of many as will many figures I think it's tempting to see as important now.  Of crouse, it's human nature to think focused to our own time and knowledge, we only live around 80 years if lucky and in the right country.

BTW I liked your points earlier on East vs West.  I think it's quite correct that overall Eastern influence was limited due to aspects of their society and expansion policies vs say the West which, emerged massively influential on the back of an almost perfect storm marrying thoery with technological capability in a way never seen before in history.

I'm not sure we (that's the Royal We of course) made the best of the opportunity to radically change the world for the better, but it did ensure the influence was massive and pervasive.

 

That would be considered effect on the world... like I said, Einstein I understand, most other scientists didn't so much make a difference, as make a discovery slightly before someone else.

For example Darwin, if Darwin wasn't around... there were plenty of natural scientists who already knew this stuff... Darwin was almost outpublished... and in truth, he really was outpublished, as a scottish scientist had published a paper on natural selection based on herding or something similar... natural selection quite honestly was something a lot of folks already knew about who weren't connected to sience.

 

Also, while Hitler's actual memory will be vauge... the way he shaped the world will still have effected it.  The UN and all that came from it.  The cold war and all that came from that, getting out of the depression, Hitler's change in the western worlds view on anti-semitism... (Europe and the US used to be very anti-semtitic themselves.)

The future may not remember this stuff, but it'll be in the legacy of the world pretty much forever, without hitler there probably isn't a WW2... who knows what the world looks like today, let alone hundreds and thousands of years from now.

For most scientists... if they weren't around... their discoveries would of been found a few months later.

This is not to downplay scientists either... but when comparing the greatest events of all time, i'm not sure if someone that was inevitable over a short period of time deserves to be in the discussion.

 

 

Well, I'd have to disagree - but politely!  I think we're seeing the use of 'Greatness' itself in different ways, and I think it's too easy to say 'someone' would have though of it - when in most cases it takes an exceptional mind to make some of the least intuitive scientific leaps.

Combat and conflict have been constants in Human history, and the most recent and largest simply seem to have the most importance.  But in the long run it evens out.  Scientific truths are essentially outside of short term changes.  They remain fixed with the nature of the Universe.

The cold war is a short period of time, ditto the second world war, and most of their changes haven't really changed anything in the long run, they jsut re-wrote some of the imaginery lines of the world for a while and inflicted a lot of short term suffering that didn't actually have to happen.  But without wanting to sound callous what real impact does that have?

The greatest people for me are those behind truth, who almost always have had to labour in the face of popular opinion and particularly religious persecution or hinderance.  That truth was there waiting to be found isn't the issue, that so few have the character to see it, and more to fight for its recognition, is what's important I believe.  Even today, we have supposedly advanced Western countries like US with many people seriously wanting to put forward Intellegent Design in schools.  That's incredible to me, and a sure indication that as a species we are in no way out of the woods of facing the world as it is vs imposed dogma and docterines that put flawed concepts that support an established order over the truth and change.

I guess, rather like Kubrick with his cut from the bone to the spaceship, and the question of whether we'd actually really advanced or changed much in any meaningful way as a species, I'm not too convinced we have.  Our population's got bigger, the ways in we can fight for territory are larger, the options for entertainment are broader, but in the end we still eat, sleep, drink and pass the time without any clear goal or reason to apart from existing for the sake of it.

Anyway, this is getting wayyyy to phlisophical for a lazy Sunday, so let's just agree to disagree on what really constitues long term greatness in history.