Politicians and kings rarely do something they weren’t forced to, and inventors are rarely without competition, so I take issue with most of the responses here.
Instead, I’ll go with naval officer Vasily Arkhipov, who, if he had decided to agree with the normal officers of the submarine he happened to be on, would have started a hot Cold War on 27 October, 1962.
Then again, there was a separate, slightly less severe close call the same day, so if you butterfly that who knows what else happens. It was a crazy time where few understood nuclear diplomacy and cold warfare, but nukes were ubiquitous, and were being treated like normal weapons. We got lucky.
There was another noteworthy case with Stanislav Petrov.
Yup. That one had a bit more wiggle room, though, because his superiors might have just come to the same conclusion he did. The other incident marked likely on the Wikipedia list is actually from France, which is almost funny to me. Can you imagine France doing a first strike out of nowhere?
Mathematicians, Physicists, Scientists, and Astronomers: Good effort everyone. The foundation of a rational world.
Very Notable Mentions:
-
Chemist: Fritz Haber. 1/3 of world food production today can be attributed to his discovery. Also an enormous negative impact, see German Chemical Warfare.
-
Biologist: Gregor Mendel. Monk who discovered the basis for genetics.
-
Ecologist: Charles Darwin. Discovered the theory of evolution.
-
Philosopher: Socrates. Critical Thinking.
-
Computers: Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, and Alan Turing. See empowerment of computation and relegating ridiculously complex math and data collection to machines.
-
Computer Networking: J. C. R. Licklider, DARPA, and Tim Berners-Lee. See Internet and I/O on a global scale. Both positive and negative.
-
Finally, the largest net positive of all: Artists. Yes, artists. Popularity as the prime determinant by nature of their work. For inspiration, desire, meaning, peace, community, and emotion. The language of all, an instinctive form of communication.
My visual pick is Leonardo da Vinci as both a practical and artistic contributor. As for classical, it’s nearly impossible to pick, but I’d say Beethoven and then Bach.
Eh, kind of ‘rediscovered’ more.
Biologist: Gregor Mendel. Monk who discovered the basis for genetics.
Sometimes children take after their grandparents instead, Or great-grandparents, bringing back the features of the dead. This is since parents carry elemental seeds inside – Many and various, mingled many ways – their bodies hide Seeds that are handed, parent to child, all down the family tree. Venus draws features from these out of her shifting lottery – Bringing back an ancestor’s look or voice or hair.
Indeed These characteristics are just as much the result of certain seed As are our faces, limbs and bodies. Females can arise From the paternal seed, just as the male offspring, likewise, Can be created from the mother’s flesh.
For to comprise A child requires a doubled seed – from father and from mother. And if the child resembles one more closely than the other, That parent gave the greater share – which you can plainly see Whichever gender – male or female – that the child may be."
- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 4.1217-1232 (50 BCE)
Ecologist: Charles Darwin. Discovered the theory of evolution.
In the beginning, there were many freaks. Earth undertook Experiments - bizarrely put together, weird of look Hermaphrodites, partaking of both sexes, but neither; some Bereft of feet, or orphaned of their hands, and others dumb, Being devoid of mouth; and others yet, with no eyes, blind. Some had their limbs stuck to the body, tightly in a bind, And couldn’t do anything, or move, and so could not evade Harm, or forage for bare necessities. And the Earth made Other kinds of monsters too, but in vain, since with each, Nature frowned upon their growth; they were not able to reach The flowering of adulthood, nor find food on which to feed, Nor be joined in the act of Venus.
For all creatures need Many different things, we realize, to multiply And to forge out the links of generations: a supply Of food, first, and a means for the engendering seed to flow Throughout the body and out of the lax limbs; and also so The female and the male can mate, a means they can employ In order to impart and to receive their mutual joy.
Then, many kinds of creatures must have vanished with no trace Because they could not reproduce or hammer out their race. For any beast you look upon that drinks life-giving air, Has either wits, or bravery, or fleetness of foot to spare, Ensuring its survival from its genesis to now.
- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 5.837-859
Certainly the more modern versions of these ideas had the benefit of the scientific method to help flesh them out and gain traction as opposed to being rejected and forgotten by dogma.
But let’s not be like the ancient Greeks in claiming Pythagoras invented ideas that we now know predated him by millennia. We owe a great deal to the giants on whose shoulders we stand on, but let us not forget the giants who tread the ground well before them and simply didn’t get taken up on the offer of their shoulders.
-
John Snow
For finally convincing westerners that microbes exist. Which got the ball rolling on like, actual medicine.
That’s all.
He did, in fact, know something.
And it was quite important.
Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press.
Fritz Haber, the Veritasium video about him is fascinating (The Man who Killed Milioms and Saved Bilions). He developed the chemical process to efficiently synthesize ammonia, one of the key discoveries that allowed mass adoption of fertilizers and the incredibly rapid growth of the human population in the 20th century (you could say that thanks to him, bilions of people could live and be fed by modern agriculture).
Tragically, he also had a fundamental role in developing chemical weapons during WWI, although he belived their use would reduce the number of deaths as army would simply avoid gassed zones, so who knows if he really intended and believed in the milions of deaths he caused. Ironically, he also helped developing Zyklon B during the rise of nazism (while it was still used as a pesticide), but was quickly forced to flee from Germany because of jewish origin. Later, his last invention would be used to kill even more people.
There’s also a Sabaton song, “Father”, about him.
That’s where I first heard about him. Thanks, Spotify. I’ve learned more about European history from Sabaton and Iron Maiden than I have from school.
Someone else mention Borlaug in this thread, and it shows how no single person necessarily changed anything on their own, and how it’s difficult to put all the success as the result of a single person. Borlaug’s success was only possible by building on Haber’s work, just like Haber worked with Carl Bosch to accomplish what he did, and so on.
Seven Billion Humans: The World Fritz Haber Made
Haber therefore revolutionized the entire course of world history. The transformation of Asia and the emergence of China and India as giant, modern 21st-century global economies would never have been possible without Norman Borlaug’s miracle rice strains. But they could never have been grown had Haber not “extracted bread from air,” as his fellow Nobel laureate Max von Laue put it. Borlaug’s “miracle” strains of rice and grain require exceptionally vast inputs of the nitrate fertilizer that is still made from the process Fritz Haber discovered.
These fertilizers also require enormous inputs of oil. This means the dream of an oil-free world can never happen. Even if eternal, ever-renewable free energy could be harnessed from the sun or the cosmic currents of space, a world of seven billion people would still be desperately dependent on oil to make the nitrate fertilizer to grow the crops those people need to survive. The 21st century, like the 20th century, therefore, will still be Fritz Haber’s world.
Norman Borlaug. His agricultural innovations have saved literal billions of of lives from starvation and malnutrition.
Newton
Norman borlaug and Fritz Haber. The first was basically the father of modern agriculture helping feed over a billion people. The latter known as the man that saved billions and killed millions, helped develop the haber bosch process that produces ammonia used in fertillizers that are responsible for feeding half the world’s population. It was also used in explosives hence the “killed millions” part.
Louis Pasteur?
Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman
deleted by creator
Yes. That Stallman is arguably one of the top few people why we have the internet as it is, at all today.
Most other people could be “replaced”. If it wasn’t X, it would be Y. But only Stallman pushed the copyleft license onto Linux. Only Stallman’s organization popularized it.
So yes, that sexist, neurodivergent, bigoted Stallman, is one of the most positively influential people of our time.
James Clerk Maxwell. If it uses electricity then it’s based on Maxwell’s equations.
He is not the one and only great physicist in history tho.
Who ever started the whole enlightenment thing, with the idea that there is no god and we are responsible for our self.
The enlightenment is overrated. History is driven by contestst of groups not contests of ideas.
As a counterpoint, may I submit: your own fucking username?
Be weird if they had made the first line of the Preface a counterpoint to the first line of Part 1
Which group contested your attention to this idea two months later?
Kaiser Chiefs
And people are often governed or motivated by ideas.
People are governed/motivated by self-interest.
That statement sounds an awful lot like … an idea.
Who ever started the whole enlightenment
Highly debatable, but one argument could be made for Sultan Mehmed II, which would be a fairly ironic person to give the award to.
Sultan Mehmed II
That’s the dude who fought Dracula? Didn’t know he was involved with enlightenment any sources to read up on it?
The argument is (though it’s certainly not a universally-agreed view) that the fall of Constantinople lead a lot of artists and scientists to flee from the city heading west, along with old texts. Which lead to an increased interest in their knowledge from the west, which is what triggered the Renaissance.
Mehmed II was the Sultan responsible for the invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire and the siege of Constantinople. Hence, he’s the guy responsible for it, under this model.
Jesus Christ. Lived the life we should have lived and died the death that we deserve. Just so we can go and live with Him. No love is greater than that.
What’s the emoji for a wanking hand gesture?
Jehovah is a Lovecraftian monster with strong PR. Eternal torture for everyone who dared to be born is an indefensible concept that you glibly praise. As if the opportunity to kiss up to the entity threatening to shred your soul, forever, is some great gift, and not a grotesque exaggeration of every human dictator demanding limitless praise.
If you had infinite power to reshape the universe, and that universe still included hell, you would have to be some kind of asshole. Nevermind that the threat of torturing the average person, for any length of time, is horrific beyond consideration. Even if you said it only applied to the Hitlers of the world, the folks who did incomprehensible evil - why the fuck does your universe include incomprehensible evil?
And your apologia is to blame the powerless ants. Disgusting.
I find it problematic that you say it’s a death we deserve. God is all like, “worship me or be tortured forever!” That’s kinda toxic to be honest, and doesn’t sound like love to me.
We chose hell. Hell was made for satan and his angels. Heaven is prepared for us. And whether we don’t like something or not doesn’t dictate it’s truth. I don’t like Trump but he still exists.
Um, speak for yourself, I didn’t choose anything.
However, you dodged my point. Do you honestly think a “loving God” should torture his creations for eternity for not worshipping him? That doesn’t sound evil to you? Also, are the people from other cultures that were around before Christianity in hell?
It’s not for not worshipping Him. It’s for turning against Him.
Yeah ok sure, either way it still sounds petty to me.
Also, you can just say you don’t know the answers to my questions it’s fine, I’m not really surprised.
Its great how people hate Jesus as an answer, but then love Stalin.
I’m pretty sure “Satan” would be a more popular answer
They would not admit that objectively Jesus and christianity is one the key factors of success of the west, and you dont even need to be a believer in God or a god to admit it.
Removed by mod
I sure did feel the love and embrace of the son of God as his proud followers directly contributed to various traumatic experiences and abuses growing up that fucked me up as a child and led to me being an emotionally and mentally stunted adult. If this is God’s love, I ain’t impressed, and don’t gimme that shit about having my faith tested cause the sadistic bastard that sees global suffering en masse and explicitly allows it is not deserving of my faith.
Cool that your religion brings ya peace and joy mate, genuinely happy for ya. Shit sucks in the world and we all need some form of comfort, but my advice? Keep it to yourself.
I’m so sorry to hear that. Satan does infiltrate places where God is meant to be. What I am sharing is more than a religion. It’s a relationship with and eternal security in Christ. I stress this enough, the things that happened to you when you were younger WERE NOT okay in any way, shape or form. Bad things happen in schools as well, and other places that are supposed to be a sanctuary. Please don’t allow your bad experience to reflect poorly on Christ. I think it was Gandhi who said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
deleted by creator
Romans 3:10-12 ESV [10] as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; [11] no one understands; no one seeks for God. [12] All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
John 3:16 ESV [16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
1 Timothy 1:15 ESV [15] The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
Acts 16:31 ESV [31] And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Romans 8:1-2 ESV [1] There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. [2] For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
On relationship:
Matthew 18:19-20 ESV [19] Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. [20] For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Romans 8:26-27 ESV [26] Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. [27] And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8:34-35 ESV [34] Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. [35] Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
Is it possible for you to explain without referencing the Bible?
My favourite thing about that video is that it uses deception and misrepresentation and lies (Come on, it even refers to Bart Ehrman as a “pious protestant”), exact tools satan would use 😂. It does capture satan’s personality perfectly though, pretending to be the good guy.
God is not all powerful if Satan can overcome him.
Satan cannot overcome Him. Satan’s time is limited, in the end he will be defeated.
