His milk is so passé. Louis Microfilter has much better stuff these days
But you need a subscription for it :p
I'm more a fan of Jonas Salk, Maurice Hilleman, Edward Jenner, Alexander Fleming
Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press.
I suspect that one is overrated, actually. He did one step in a long, gradual process. He gets credit mainly because it was big for Europe, who right at that moment in history invented proper seafaring and spread themselves and his name all over the place.
Considering Europe did conquer the world (yes, including China), I'd say that's a pretty big deal...
I don't think that was related to Gutenberg at all. Or, at the very least, they would have industrialised just a bit later without him. The initial wave was all about boats that allowed them to reach and enslave less advanced people.
But if you think the internet and social media as the continuation of that tradition - maybe that was a mistake after all. /s
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.
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 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.
Is that the guy that discovered the gas used in the Holocaust?
Zyklon b was used as a fumigant before it was used in the holocaust. It was also called Prussic acid and would be known as Hydrogen Cyanide today. It was discovered by Carl Scheele back in the 1700s. It is also what gives poisonous (bitter) almonds their characteristic scent and toxicity.
Haber did however, suggest the use of Chlorine gas as a chemical weapon which his wife was so horrified by that she committed suicide. Haber was also partially responsible for the development of the Born Haber cycle which is a theoretical tool used to estimate the thermodynamic stability of salts.
Haber is only listed here because ultimately billions would have starved to death without the Haber process. And regardless of his intentions and the other things he did, that particular invention arguably saved more lives than anyone else that has ever lived.
Thank you for providing context. I did not mean to blame (or make people think that) Haber for any deaths, he was a smart person that made a great impact on all of us. It isn't his fault people think of other ways to use his work for death. It most have been hard on him to have his wife commit suicide over it though. That's rough.
Haber did not develop the Haber process to produce fertillizer. He did it precisely because German access to saltpeter from South America had been cut off and that threatened to severely compromise the German capacity for war.
This was not a case where Haber's work was meant for benign peaceful purposes and misappropriated for use in war. It was used exactly the way he intended it to be. It just happened to also be useful for keeping half the planet from starving to death. His wife did not kill herself because his work was misused. She killed herself because it was used exactly how Haber wanted it to be. And he can't advocate for the use of Chlorine as a chemical weapon and have clean hands by definition.
Which is why I said that the only reason he was mentioned is because the Haber process ultimately saved the lives of billions of people arguably outweighing the harm that process was developed to enable. Haber wasn't a good guy by any stretch of the imagination but without the Haber process, we would have had famine and death on a scale never seen in all of human history on this planet.
Interesting. Thanks for the explanation. I guess I got mixed up with the process name and his actual intended use.
Even the fertilizer thing is arguably bad. It's allowed the population of the world to explode at an exponential rate and burn through resources even faster rather than be capped at a much more manageable level.
The alternative wasn't a reasonable population, it was billions starving. The solution was, and still is, giving women better control over whether or not they have children.
Even more are going to starve when we run out of fossil fuels and can no longer sustain the agriculture required to feed the now massively inflated population. Not to mention all the other damage having so many more people is doing to the world that is also probably going to kill us even if we solve the resource problem.
Louis Pasteur
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.
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?
Norman Borlaug. His agricultural innovations have saved literal billions of of lives from starvation and malnutrition.
I had never heard of him, thank you for showing me this
Norman Borlaug helped develop a lot of techniques used by developing nations to gain food self-sufficency.
Not just developing countries but the whole planet.
The Mitochondrial Eve.
Yeah my answer was "our Most Recent Common Ancestor"
Who ever started the whole enlightenment thing, with the idea that there is no god and we are responsible for our self.
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.
That is a funny perspective, I somehow like it.
It is a bit like fans of the EU thanking Gavrilo Princip.
You know, from what I've read about it, it wasn't one specific person, and it seems highly likely there were others doing the same thing earlier, but they just couldn't take root for whatever reason.
What do you mean? It's always a specific person or a specific small group that comes up with ideas that are later popularized. Like you can pinpoint evolution theory to a small group of biologists with Darwin and Huxley at their forefront.
So as you might be aware, you've actually chosen an example with 2 simultaneous inventors. Alfred Russel Wallace came up with the same idea at the same time, actually sent Darwin a letter about it before anything was published, and was credited for it. To be fair, they had similar backgrounds, and like you say were a small group. However, there's plenty of inventions of the same thing separated across lots of time and space. Writing was invented several times is fairly isolated civilisations, and Gaussian elimination bears a German man's name, and was thought to be fairly new, but can be found in ancient Chinese works as well.
Who started the enlightenment? Voltaire is often on people's lips, but if it wasn't for the French revolution in his area just a few decades after his death, and which made him a sort of saint, he would have a much smaller profile. Meanwhile, if you go back further there's someone advocating some enlightenment-ish idea recorded from probably every century. Famous names taper off towards the middle ages in Europe, but then so does the record in general, and Arabs like Avicenna or Al-Ma'ari pick up the slack.
But every time writing was invented it had to be invented by a specific dude or a small group of dudes. It did not just come to be out of thin air, someone had to invent it and someone had to popularize it. And so with enlightenment - someone (maybe we don't even know her name) has to come up with an idea and others, whose names we know have to popularize it.
I get that you are saying that it might have been another person (or small group), sure - but in the end it has to be someone.
Okay, well, sure. Even if it's inevitably someone, there is an individual or individuals that it turns out to be in the end. I think it would be a large group for the Enlightenment, even if you remove the forgotten advocates of it, but I guess that's a nitpick. I'm a huge fan of it too, pretty much every other good thing has been a product of it.
On the subject of this way of viewing history, which came up in another place, yeah, it could be depressing, but it depends on how you look at it. Schopenhauer said we're almost powerless and it's awful, Nietzsche said we are and it's great. They were often speaking in more cosmic terms, but I think it applies here. It's also a lot less pressure, right? And, beyond that, I think it just fits the data really well.
I think it's important to note that what I'm talking about is a bit like statistical mechanics in physics (small, unpredictable events adding up to a more predictable whole), and statistical mechanical systems are often complex or non-deterministic. I don't think without heroes human society is actually much diminished; or are our moral responsibilities within it.
But without "heroes" who is doing the actual work? Like again: Darwin, Huxley and couple other dudes actually had to make observations, collect data, come up with an, at that time, absurd sounding idea and defend it against societal pressure. And you don't think that they have influenced history and could be replaced by anyone else? I vehemently disagree that the data fits your perspective.
Sure, if Darwin had been hit by a horse-drawn bus, we'd still have evolution. And probably a YouTube short about "The sailor-naturalist who almost discovered evolution (but died)". It would just be Wallace's theory of natural selection. There you go, one data point.
I was going to bring up some less clear-cut examples, but I guess I should ask what your point is, because I feel like I'm missing something. I think Darwin was a cool guy, but I don't think he was unexpected. Yeah, they did the work, but work is cheap, every peasant in history did work. Why should I care more about Darwin than the people who fed Darwin, and who were themselves (something like) inevitable?
Wait lets back up und make sure we understand each others point:
The way I see your perspective: you say that individual role in history is rather unimportant, we are all just part of some complex process wich leads to an inevitable progress through forces mostly outside individual control. Is it fair representation or did I miss something?
My perspective is: in the end it's individuals/groups who make specific things that contribute to progress, while sometimes the individuals might be replaceable, they sometimes also leave their individual marks on the events or theories they create (Freund vs. Jung for example - if Jung was more influential we might have quite different psychology). And even if they are replaceable, in the end it's still individuals that have to make things happen.
some complex process which leads to an inevitable progress through forces mostly outside individual control.
I actually have no idea where the process is going, and can't rule out the enlightenment as a transitory phase, which scares me more than anything. If you just meant progress as in evolving some way, then yes.
And even if they are replaceable, in the end it’s still individuals that have to make things happen.
And this is where I agree, but don't see the significance. In the end the set of possible outcomes and their probabilities are the same. Is this a free will vs. determinism thing, maybe? Or maybe you're thinking in normative terms, while I'm thinking in in descriptive terms.
I think this more of a perspective thing, that might be related to free will vs. determinism.
In the end the set of possible outcomes and their probabilities are the same.
Lenin or Trotkij taking power leads to rather different outcomes in my opinion.
(I assume you mean Stalin, unless this is a different guy I don't know about)
So far, yeah. I estimated two centuries for individual actions to wash out, though, and that was just one ago. On the other hand, if it would have lead to some complex chain of events ending in certain MAD, that could take millennia to become a human footnote, and would leave extinctions that may not ever be reversed. The 20th century was kind of a metastable point where everything is amplified.
I hear Trotsky was also pretty unpopular. He was Lenin's chosen heir, so I'm guessing he had a chance, but even if Stalin had died at some point pre-revolution it's possible Zinoviev or someone would have taken his place.
Religion died the day they invented the scientific method.
Someone forgot to tell that to religions.
Ahh they are withering a slow and painfull death not our problem.
I would very much disagree. They are our problem and we should put them out of their misery.
True colours
I never hid my contempt for most organized religions as systems of oppression throughout human history. At the same time I respect peoples individual spirituality, as long as they don't force it on others.
Any system of power is seen as oppression by those who dont beleive as long as people can choose their flavour of oppression we should be fine.
There are differences between for example a mostly secular democratic country and a theological authoritarian regime.
You said "we should put them out of their misery"
Keep up with the conversation. I was referring to organized religion as a construct not people.
So how do you expect to get rid of it without killing people?
By people realizing they don't need the construct of organized religion to be spiritual for example.
The enlightenment is overrated. History is driven by contestst of groups not contests of ideas.
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.
So you don't have ideas in your head about the world that affect how you interact with the world? Might be true for you, but I would say it's not an universal experience. Also I don't say it's juts ideas but ideas are part of our psychology.
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
How is historical materialism a counterpoint to historical materialism?
I'll have to argue that Santos Dumont and others inventors did Open Source in the XIX.
But compared to one of those. Who did the biggest impact?
I dont know them and maybe they made a much greater impact.
Dumont was a prolific Brazilian-French inventor. Among his most famous achievements are several lighter-than-air flights and flying machines (blimps), as well as a potential claim as the inventor of the first airplane.
Santos-Dumont was a pioneer of aviation, would say that that's a big deal.
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.
A person needn't be good in order to do good things, just as a good person doesn't necessarily impact the world positively simply by existing.
Sure.But if someone wants to say "X has done the most good because they fed 1 million people" but you don't mention that X also killed 900,000 people, you're being disingenuous. No, I'm not saying Stallman is a mass murderer. But normalizing pedophilia is a gross counterbalance to whatever good work he's done.
You're wrongly assuming that the opinion of one man on a subject he has no sway in is relevant to more than IRC discussions.
Whoever first domesticated fire. Whatever his name was, I forgot.
That was Ug. Really cool guy. His golf swing was immaculate, too.
Every hole, a hole in one.
And then his grandson invented the number two.
I'd bet fire was involved in his/her name. Either fire was named after the inventor or the inventor was named after fire.
John Fire
I mean, that could actually be many people for all we know. Back that far it's hard to even pin down the millennia something happened.
Fire domestication happened before our species even existed. Who ever did it, made us possible. Great answer.
-Sir Alexander Fleming (guy who discovered the anti-biotic properties of penicillin)
-Sir Isaac Newton or alternatively, Gottfried Leibniz (they both independently of one another invented Calculus roughly around the same time)
-Bill Watterson
Bill Watterson is up there
Dolly Parton
James Clerk Maxwell. If it uses electricity then it's based on Maxwell's equations.
Also if it uses light!
Maxwell was an important contributor to the formalization of electromagnetism, yes, but just as much recognition should be given to Faraday for discovering the bloody thing exists in the first place.
He is not the one and only great physicist in history tho.
Bell Labs and the invention of the transistor.
It's absolutely mind blowing how many innovations came from Bell Labs.
my mother
I'm glad you were born, my dear. You are such a blessing!
The person who figured out how to make fire
I believe many great human beings have existed throughout history, but the impact they cause is often limited by their circumstances. For example, there have been thinkers defending compassion towards human beings and animals in possibly every culture, but those sages live and die admired yet misunderstood. Their lives are seen as "extraordinary", and thus, not attainable for normal people like us. We give up on following them since the start, instead of trying to achieve their wisdom or understanding...
Anyway, by mere impact, I guess Socrates, Plato, and Immanuel Kant are on the top for me. The first ones were influential in the development of many branches of knowledge, and solidified a tradition of critical thinking since antiquity. Immanuel Kant is kind of recent, but I'd say his works were really important for discussions around philosophy, science, arts, religion, and more. I admire Immanuel Kant greatly. I was recently reading a little text he wrote about psychiatric disorders and he was predicting modern paradigms in the 18th century. He was such a brilliant and knowledgeable person.
There are also incredible inventions and discoveries that have helped us all, but often those are the results of collective efforts. Still, as I said before, amazing human beings the ones that gave and still give these things for free. Getting personal again, I wouldn't be alive without many of those advances (vaccines, medications, etc.). On the technological side, the founder of that website that unlocks academic papers has had an impact that is yet to be analyzed.
Sorry! So many people...!
Did you know that Kant used to criticize people who drank more than one cup of coffee per day. Also, he would refill his own coffee cup before it was empty, so he never had more than one cup.
That's hilarious! I guess he was a normal man with normal blunders in his daily life. I've heard about his meticulousness, that we had strict rules for his routines and reunions, but never details (and never the cup of coffee thing). Thanks for sharing.
I intended to write that just as an intro paragraph to a critique of enlightenment philosophy, since I feel like, while the goal of objectifying the human experience was the natural predecessor to the eventual subjectification of the exterior universe, their confidence in their interpretations of their experience -- or maybe just in the universality of their interpretations -- makes their entire project a bit sus
But then life happened and I just said the thing about coffee.
Newton
James Color and Samantha Colour respectively, they invented color in their respective regions, before then the world was in black and white. Similar to Sandy Loam, very little is known about their personal life, or even what they look like. Hell, even their first names are up in the air.
It’s really tragic that we don’t celebrate the history of the people of Color the way we could.
Norman Borlaug
Zorbulon, and you’ve likely never known it.
The individuals or group that figured out the wheel
I'm gonna go with Napoleon purely for the legal code and opening the door for revolutions.
I suspect the couple of hundred thousand that died in his wars would disagree.
Just thought it was funny that you added "either present or past" the questiin
Nobody, I think this is an insane question.
So many different people had small impacts on humanity, most of it somewhat regional. Most of the heroes I could think of in Western countries will have had a very limited impact on Eastern history, and vice versa. Also, I am very sure nobody had only positive impact.
Another problem: not everybody will rate a certain impact equally as positive.
I'd suggest to remove focus and attention from god- or hero-like figures and shift it towards improvements won by community action.
I don't know why you are getting downvoted. This is a very valid and interesting point. Durable improvements are systemic, not individual, and the drive to look for heroes leads to nasty places.
from god- or hero-like figures
The fact that that was what you thought the question was about is quite telling
It would be a reasonable segue in any case. Myths and heroes are big in every society, and sometimes we don't realise ours count.
Edgy.
How? I think it's pretty accurate for OP to say it takes a team.
Dude it's a fun question from the sorts of who is stronger Superman or Goku. But even outside of that - it's hard to deny that some individuals had more impact on the course of our society than others.
Yeah, there's some variance, but I'd argue it's actually pretty small. I'm trying to figure out who I'd choose, but it's hard, because usually there's a lot of redundancy even when it comes to kings and generals, and nothings lasts more than a couple centuries or so on pure momentum. When archeologists excavate a place like Rome, without writing it's hard to even distinguish leaders. Rather, you can see trends smoothly changing over time, usually in response to something obvious like supply chain issues.
You can also see this if you look at the stories of today's great successes, and then compare them to the stories of people they would have started alongside. There was a lot of online stores in 2000, and one was bound to become Amazon. Amazon itself apparently was the first to allow negative book reviews on it's storefront, and that helped it through the lean years. That meeting could easily have gone a different way, and then it would have been someone else.
I gave you a good example in another reply. But we can also go deeper - Mohamed, with his freestyle jam on bible, to this day has rather big influence on society. It's a rather strange and honestly depressing perspective to deny individuals any role in history.
Uh, so administrative question, do we really want to split this across seperate threads? I'm going to suggest you add Mohamed and the futility of existing without individual influence in your response over there (non-federated link, AFAIK Lemmy can't do comments any other way).
Sure, you can add your response to Mohamed and why do you think that a perspective denying individual influence on human history is useful over there.
Taylor Swift ❤️
Is this supposed to be ironic? Is this meant to instigate a discussion on her impact on pollution as an individual vs the value of her pop entertainment production?
No one changes me more than my girlfriend Taylor Swift 💖💖💖
Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, and The Buddha all had profound impacts on the way that humans relate to each other, and the world around them. Each promoted non-violence and/or pacifism in a world ruled by ruthlessness and cruelty. I don't think we would be anywhere close to where we are now with human rights without their contributions to human understanding of empathy.
One of these is not like the others. Gandhi is polarising at best in India, and just kind of a nice brown guy strawman in the West.
Why is he polarizing in India?
As I understand it: Too tolerant and Westernised for Hindutva people, too mystical and obscure for progressives. When they made the biggest statue in the world, it was chosen to be of his colleague Vallabhbhai Patel.
As for why he's not the cartoonified nice guy he's often made out to be, well, I could talk about a number of issues, but this quote on how far he would take pacifism is pretty shocking:
Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.....It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany.... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.
I figured that was the answer. Thanks for sharing. As for the quote on the Holocaust, that's rough man. I guess I see his perspective, since what he did worked for him and India, but it sounds so ridiculous and callous to those of us who do not share the perspective.
I have never been a pacifist, but I understand its value and respect those with the strength to utilize it. It does take strength too. I can't imagine enduring what pacifists have endured throughout history. Even here in the United States, I love MLKJ's message, but I identify with Malcom X's perspective more personally.
Jesus Christ, hands down.
His hands are typically displayed stretched out to the sides, not down.
An apocalyptic rabbi who's had unfathomable violence done in his name? Yeah hey, thanks for the 'be nice to each other' rhetoric, but half the people spreading that message brought not peace but a sword.
And as a queer American I can attest his fanboys aren't exactly polite on their own turf.
Not even the most popular prophet from an Abrahamic religion. Second rate at best and losing to a war mongering pedophile at that.
His brother started it.
Mother Teresa
You might wanna research that.
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.
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."
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.
God was incapable of defeating him when a child was being raped and a perfect being is not capable of change.
The next child being raped will be watched by your God, too, as he will never be capable of defeating evil, as a perfect being will never change.
To change God would be to admit imperfection. Which is why I love the irony of the New Testament.
So if God is not capable of overcoming evil, and we know he is willing to watch innocent children be raped, why worship him?
All of these things are insignificant compared to Heaven. I think Job 38 illustrates God's perspective on this perfectly. This life is all we know right now.
Revelation shows God defeating Satan. It will happen. Satan's power is limited right now. Right now we have Jesus to save us in the meantime.
raped children don't matter compared to my mental comfort
The disgusting selfish ego of the religious is the part I can never empathize with or sympathize with.
So, you admit God must change in the future to defeat Satan? You do not believe he is capable of defeating him as he is?
So God is neither all powerful nor perfect.
You do not worship the main texts of Christianity with those claims.
Notice how you don't actually want to discuss the topics or respond to the things I've said. You want to inject some fluffy talk to reinforce hiding your eyes from the discussion to pretend like you are participating.
If I worshipped something as a God, I would be devout enough to discuss it with a person instead of just talking over their statements about it.
Let's revisit where my previous comment started
God was incapable of defeating him when a child was being raped and a perfect being is not capable of change.
The next child being raped will be watched by your God, too, as he will never be capable of defeating evil, as a perfect being will never change.
You are happy to worship an imperfect powerless God who let's children be raped because a book written by child rapists said things might get better one day.
This guy believes in literal satan and jesus. Don't even try logic and reason, he is to far gone.
Yes... Because I'm Christian. It seems you feel that you are "too far gone" if you're Christian 😂
Satan actually isn't really a Christian concept.
Do you celebrate Christmas?
Of course I celebrate Christmas. Do you think I'm a Jehovah's Witness or something? 🤣
Did you just edit my message? I never said that. I never said God needs to change, it's just something He will do as described in revelation. And what's this about the Bible being written by child rapists? It seems atheists cannot come to a consensus on who wrote it, but this is new. Then why doesn't it proscribe child rape and justify their actions, if it were?
You might not know your Bible as well as you think you do.
It's a relationship with and eternal security in Christ.
I'm honestly very curious where this concept actually comes from. Would you be kind enough to help me pinpoint which part of Christianity suggests this, specifically?
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.
Wait dude, I just realized - do you also believe in the literal Satan?
I'm a Christian.... So yes....
Woa, never met anyone who actually took Christianity that literal. That must be a wild experience to believe in literal devil and god, sin and all that stuff - that's a trip and a half. Kind of speechless - that's just wild.
Do suppose the only "Christian" you know is Schrödinger's Catholic 😂 You mustn't get out much
Would you be kind enough to help me pinpoint which part of Christianity suggests this, specifically?
What else could I use?
I don't know, I guess I was curious because this seems so important to you and I wasn't expecting you to hinge your whole belief system on one ancient book.
I wasn't raised around religion nor have I ever really been around it, so I find it fascinating. My, bad, I guess it was a big ask.
The Bible isn't one book. It's a library of 66 books spanning thousands of years.
Yes? Because they are attestations of a guy who literally rose from the dead and fulfilled many verifiably older prophecies. We literally have surviving copies of prophecies about Jesus that were made before He was born. I'm sorry if I'm coming across as irate. Literally had someone tell me that it would be better if I and basically everyone I hold dear to me was dead. Along with 4 billion other people.
Are you aware that you have used the Bible to explain your belief in the Bible?
As I understand your reply, you believe you have a relationship with Jesus because you believe he exists, and that relationship will continue forever after you die.
You believe this because it says so in the Bible.
I know this is difficult to admit to yourself, I've seen it in others, but this is circular reasoning.
It's difficult to admit because we as humans are able to compartmentalise two opposing things in our mind at the same time. You can have a belief based on circular reasoning, and at the same time you can know that circular reasoning is not a good way to come to a conclusion on which to base a belief.
It's your job as a Christian to make sure that your belief is true. By only looking at the Bible, you are failing in this endeavour.
"The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going." Proverbs 14:15
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." 1 Thessalonians 5:21
You asked for Christian doctrine... What else did you want me to use? You said "pinpoint where in Christianity".
And Christianity is what you believe in. If you're telling me that the source of your beliefs is the reason for your beliefs, well, that's not a good way to know things.
I know this isn't easy, having your belief system exposed as untrustworthy. You can double down of course, which will make you feel better. Unfortunately it won't change reality.
You never asked me for my reason, you asked me for Christian doctrine, then acted like you asked for my reason in the first place.
No, I asked where in Christianity the idea comes from. You used doctrine to answer me, which is fine, but by doing so you revealed that your beliefs are derived from a book that tells you to have those beliefs.
I pointed this out to you because it's a problem, for you and for everyone else. We as humans should strive to make sure that the things we know are true, otherwise we get into all sorts of problems both as individuals and as a species.
What you are doing is basically accepting this -
but by doing so you revealed that your beliefs are derived from a book that tells you to have those beliefs.
You do realise that is not an argument at all? That's like saying
"how do you know how to build this ikea bookshelf"
"I read the instructions"
"But you cannot use the instructions to prove that you are in possession of the ikea bookshelf"
You didn't ask me why I believed in Christianity. You asked me to specify what parts of Christianity said that salvation is free and then got upset when I referenced letters from the Bible, which is THE collection of documents about Christianity.
I feel like you weren't actually wanting to reason with this, and were just looking for a way to get me to quote Scripture so you could accuse me of circular reasoning and use your napkin image.
I think you've missed the point, but that's ok.
That's like saying "how do you know how to build this ikea bookshelf" "I read the instructions" "But you cannot use the instructions to prove that you are in possession of the ikea bookshelf"
It really isn't, it's more like this -
"Why do you think you have an IKEA bookshelf, there really isn't any good reason to think so?"
"I have this instruction manual and it says I have one because it says so. That's good enough for me."
You can see how this looks from where I'm standing?
I asked in good faith, it's not in my nature to bait people. You're welcome to your opinion but it was your answer which caused me to go down that route. And please, no-one is upset here. If you really wanted to have a conversation, perhaps quoting scripture wasn't the best way to go about it.
Yeah...if only his teachings would have survived...
"Now just ignore all those instructions to implement socialism and go hate gay people!"
They did, it's just that you have two billion people ignoring them because they aren't in the compilation Rome put together and everyone else ignores them because of exhaustion hearing about the Rome version their entire life.
Super interesting stuff and way ahead of its time, understandably opposed by conservative Judaism at that period, and extremely different from what most people think was being discussed (nearly the opposite one might even say).
But it's one of those rabbit holes that's only worth going down for personal discovery, as nearly nobody gives a crap about it for varying reasons.
Boy, do I have news for you!
Thanks for existing, you are great advertisement for atheism, keep up the good work.
Oh you dumb motherfucker
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.
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.
Some even speculate that protestantism itself within Christianity helped grow literacy rates by encouraging Bible reading, however the Roman Catholic church has done a lot for science as well.
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.
(almost like the fictional character was named that for a reason--)
And killing the last of the dragons and stuff
Louis Pasteur?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur
His milk is so passé. Louis Microfilter has much better stuff these days
But you need a subscription for it :p
I'm more a fan of Jonas Salk, Maurice Hilleman, Edward Jenner, Alexander Fleming
Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press.
I suspect that one is overrated, actually. He did one step in a long, gradual process. He gets credit mainly because it was big for Europe, who right at that moment in history invented proper seafaring and spread themselves and his name all over the place.
Considering Europe did conquer the world (yes, including China), I'd say that's a pretty big deal...
I don't think that was related to Gutenberg at all. Or, at the very least, they would have industrialised just a bit later without him. The initial wave was all about boats that allowed them to reach and enslave less advanced people.
But if you think the internet and social media as the continuation of that tradition - maybe that was a mistake after all. /s
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
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.
Is that the guy that discovered the gas used in the Holocaust?
Zyklon b was used as a fumigant before it was used in the holocaust. It was also called Prussic acid and would be known as Hydrogen Cyanide today. It was discovered by Carl Scheele back in the 1700s. It is also what gives poisonous (bitter) almonds their characteristic scent and toxicity.
Haber did however, suggest the use of Chlorine gas as a chemical weapon which his wife was so horrified by that she committed suicide. Haber was also partially responsible for the development of the Born Haber cycle which is a theoretical tool used to estimate the thermodynamic stability of salts.
Haber is only listed here because ultimately billions would have starved to death without the Haber process. And regardless of his intentions and the other things he did, that particular invention arguably saved more lives than anyone else that has ever lived.
Thank you for providing context. I did not mean to blame (or make people think that) Haber for any deaths, he was a smart person that made a great impact on all of us. It isn't his fault people think of other ways to use his work for death. It most have been hard on him to have his wife commit suicide over it though. That's rough.
Haber did not develop the Haber process to produce fertillizer. He did it precisely because German access to saltpeter from South America had been cut off and that threatened to severely compromise the German capacity for war. This was not a case where Haber's work was meant for benign peaceful purposes and misappropriated for use in war. It was used exactly the way he intended it to be. It just happened to also be useful for keeping half the planet from starving to death. His wife did not kill herself because his work was misused. She killed herself because it was used exactly how Haber wanted it to be. And he can't advocate for the use of Chlorine as a chemical weapon and have clean hands by definition.
Which is why I said that the only reason he was mentioned is because the Haber process ultimately saved the lives of billions of people arguably outweighing the harm that process was developed to enable. Haber wasn't a good guy by any stretch of the imagination but without the Haber process, we would have had famine and death on a scale never seen in all of human history on this planet.
Interesting. Thanks for the explanation. I guess I got mixed up with the process name and his actual intended use.
Even the fertilizer thing is arguably bad. It's allowed the population of the world to explode at an exponential rate and burn through resources even faster rather than be capped at a much more manageable level.
The alternative wasn't a reasonable population, it was billions starving. The solution was, and still is, giving women better control over whether or not they have children.
Even more are going to starve when we run out of fossil fuels and can no longer sustain the agriculture required to feed the now massively inflated population. Not to mention all the other damage having so many more people is doing to the world that is also probably going to kill us even if we solve the resource problem.
Louis Pasteur
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?
Norman Borlaug. His agricultural innovations have saved literal billions of of lives from starvation and malnutrition.
I had never heard of him, thank you for showing me this
Norman Borlaug helped develop a lot of techniques used by developing nations to gain food self-sufficency.
Not just developing countries but the whole planet.
The Mitochondrial Eve.
Yeah my answer was "our Most Recent Common Ancestor"
Who ever started the whole enlightenment thing, with the idea that there is no god and we are responsible for our self.
Highly debatable, but one argument could be made for Sultan Mehmed II, which would be a fairly ironic person to give the award to.
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.
That is a funny perspective, I somehow like it.
It is a bit like fans of the EU thanking Gavrilo Princip.
You know, from what I've read about it, it wasn't one specific person, and it seems highly likely there were others doing the same thing earlier, but they just couldn't take root for whatever reason.
What do you mean? It's always a specific person or a specific small group that comes up with ideas that are later popularized. Like you can pinpoint evolution theory to a small group of biologists with Darwin and Huxley at their forefront.
So as you might be aware, you've actually chosen an example with 2 simultaneous inventors. Alfred Russel Wallace came up with the same idea at the same time, actually sent Darwin a letter about it before anything was published, and was credited for it. To be fair, they had similar backgrounds, and like you say were a small group. However, there's plenty of inventions of the same thing separated across lots of time and space. Writing was invented several times is fairly isolated civilisations, and Gaussian elimination bears a German man's name, and was thought to be fairly new, but can be found in ancient Chinese works as well.
Who started the enlightenment? Voltaire is often on people's lips, but if it wasn't for the French revolution in his area just a few decades after his death, and which made him a sort of saint, he would have a much smaller profile. Meanwhile, if you go back further there's someone advocating some enlightenment-ish idea recorded from probably every century. Famous names taper off towards the middle ages in Europe, but then so does the record in general, and Arabs like Avicenna or Al-Ma'ari pick up the slack.
But every time writing was invented it had to be invented by a specific dude or a small group of dudes. It did not just come to be out of thin air, someone had to invent it and someone had to popularize it. And so with enlightenment - someone (maybe we don't even know her name) has to come up with an idea and others, whose names we know have to popularize it.
I get that you are saying that it might have been another person (or small group), sure - but in the end it has to be someone.
Okay, well, sure. Even if it's inevitably someone, there is an individual or individuals that it turns out to be in the end. I think it would be a large group for the Enlightenment, even if you remove the forgotten advocates of it, but I guess that's a nitpick. I'm a huge fan of it too, pretty much every other good thing has been a product of it.
On the subject of this way of viewing history, which came up in another place, yeah, it could be depressing, but it depends on how you look at it. Schopenhauer said we're almost powerless and it's awful, Nietzsche said we are and it's great. They were often speaking in more cosmic terms, but I think it applies here. It's also a lot less pressure, right? And, beyond that, I think it just fits the data really well.
I think it's important to note that what I'm talking about is a bit like statistical mechanics in physics (small, unpredictable events adding up to a more predictable whole), and statistical mechanical systems are often complex or non-deterministic. I don't think without heroes human society is actually much diminished; or are our moral responsibilities within it.
But without "heroes" who is doing the actual work? Like again: Darwin, Huxley and couple other dudes actually had to make observations, collect data, come up with an, at that time, absurd sounding idea and defend it against societal pressure. And you don't think that they have influenced history and could be replaced by anyone else? I vehemently disagree that the data fits your perspective.
Sure, if Darwin had been hit by a horse-drawn bus, we'd still have evolution. And probably a YouTube short about "The sailor-naturalist who almost discovered evolution (but died)". It would just be Wallace's theory of natural selection. There you go, one data point.
I was going to bring up some less clear-cut examples, but I guess I should ask what your point is, because I feel like I'm missing something. I think Darwin was a cool guy, but I don't think he was unexpected. Yeah, they did the work, but work is cheap, every peasant in history did work. Why should I care more about Darwin than the people who fed Darwin, and who were themselves (something like) inevitable?
Wait lets back up und make sure we understand each others point:
The way I see your perspective: you say that individual role in history is rather unimportant, we are all just part of some complex process wich leads to an inevitable progress through forces mostly outside individual control. Is it fair representation or did I miss something?
My perspective is: in the end it's individuals/groups who make specific things that contribute to progress, while sometimes the individuals might be replaceable, they sometimes also leave their individual marks on the events or theories they create (Freund vs. Jung for example - if Jung was more influential we might have quite different psychology). And even if they are replaceable, in the end it's still individuals that have to make things happen.
I actually have no idea where the process is going, and can't rule out the enlightenment as a transitory phase, which scares me more than anything. If you just meant progress as in evolving some way, then yes.
And this is where I agree, but don't see the significance. In the end the set of possible outcomes and their probabilities are the same. Is this a free will vs. determinism thing, maybe? Or maybe you're thinking in normative terms, while I'm thinking in in descriptive terms.
I think this more of a perspective thing, that might be related to free will vs. determinism.
Lenin or Trotkij taking power leads to rather different outcomes in my opinion.
(I assume you mean Stalin, unless this is a different guy I don't know about)
So far, yeah. I estimated two centuries for individual actions to wash out, though, and that was just one ago. On the other hand, if it would have lead to some complex chain of events ending in certain MAD, that could take millennia to become a human footnote, and would leave extinctions that may not ever be reversed. The 20th century was kind of a metastable point where everything is amplified.
I hear Trotsky was also pretty unpopular. He was Lenin's chosen heir, so I'm guessing he had a chance, but even if Stalin had died at some point pre-revolution it's possible Zinoviev or someone would have taken his place.
Religion died the day they invented the scientific method.
Someone forgot to tell that to religions.
Ahh they are withering a slow and painfull death not our problem.
I would very much disagree. They are our problem and we should put them out of their misery.
True colours
I never hid my contempt for most organized religions as systems of oppression throughout human history. At the same time I respect peoples individual spirituality, as long as they don't force it on others.
Any system of power is seen as oppression by those who dont beleive as long as people can choose their flavour of oppression we should be fine.
There are differences between for example a mostly secular democratic country and a theological authoritarian regime.
You said "we should put them out of their misery"
Keep up with the conversation. I was referring to organized religion as a construct not people.
So how do you expect to get rid of it without killing people?
By people realizing they don't need the construct of organized religion to be spiritual for example.
How do you go about doing that?
The enlightenment is overrated. History is driven by contestst of groups not contests of ideas.
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.
So you don't have ideas in your head about the world that affect how you interact with the world? Might be true for you, but I would say it's not an universal experience. Also I don't say it's juts ideas but ideas are part of our psychology.
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
How is historical materialism a counterpoint to historical materialism?
Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman
I'll have to argue that Santos Dumont and others inventors did Open Source in the XIX.
But compared to one of those. Who did the biggest impact?
I dont know them and maybe they made a much greater impact.
Dumont was a prolific Brazilian-French inventor. Among his most famous achievements are several lighter-than-air flights and flying machines (blimps), as well as a potential claim as the inventor of the first airplane.
Santos-Dumont was a pioneer of aviation, would say that that's a big deal.
This Stallman? https://drewdevault.com/2023/11/25/2023-11-26-RMS-on-sex.html
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.
A person needn't be good in order to do good things, just as a good person doesn't necessarily impact the world positively simply by existing.
Sure.But if someone wants to say "X has done the most good because they fed 1 million people" but you don't mention that X also killed 900,000 people, you're being disingenuous. No, I'm not saying Stallman is a mass murderer. But normalizing pedophilia is a gross counterbalance to whatever good work he's done.
You're wrongly assuming that the opinion of one man on a subject he has no sway in is relevant to more than IRC discussions.
Whoever first domesticated fire. Whatever his name was, I forgot.
That was Ug. Really cool guy. His golf swing was immaculate, too.
Every hole, a hole in one.
And then his grandson invented the number two.
I'd bet fire was involved in his/her name. Either fire was named after the inventor or the inventor was named after fire.
John Fire
I mean, that could actually be many people for all we know. Back that far it's hard to even pin down the millennia something happened.
Fire domestication happened before our species even existed. Who ever did it, made us possible. Great answer.
-Sir Alexander Fleming (guy who discovered the anti-biotic properties of penicillin)
-Sir Isaac Newton or alternatively, Gottfried Leibniz (they both independently of one another invented Calculus roughly around the same time)
-Bill Watterson
Bill Watterson is up there
Dolly Parton
James Clerk Maxwell. If it uses electricity then it's based on Maxwell's equations.
Also if it uses light!
Maxwell was an important contributor to the formalization of electromagnetism, yes, but just as much recognition should be given to Faraday for discovering the bloody thing exists in the first place.
He is not the one and only great physicist in history tho.
Bell Labs and the invention of the transistor.
It's absolutely mind blowing how many innovations came from Bell Labs.
my mother
I'm glad you were born, my dear. You are such a blessing!
The person who figured out how to make fire
I believe many great human beings have existed throughout history, but the impact they cause is often limited by their circumstances. For example, there have been thinkers defending compassion towards human beings and animals in possibly every culture, but those sages live and die admired yet misunderstood. Their lives are seen as "extraordinary", and thus, not attainable for normal people like us. We give up on following them since the start, instead of trying to achieve their wisdom or understanding...
Anyway, by mere impact, I guess Socrates, Plato, and Immanuel Kant are on the top for me. The first ones were influential in the development of many branches of knowledge, and solidified a tradition of critical thinking since antiquity. Immanuel Kant is kind of recent, but I'd say his works were really important for discussions around philosophy, science, arts, religion, and more. I admire Immanuel Kant greatly. I was recently reading a little text he wrote about psychiatric disorders and he was predicting modern paradigms in the 18th century. He was such a brilliant and knowledgeable person.
There are also incredible inventions and discoveries that have helped us all, but often those are the results of collective efforts. Still, as I said before, amazing human beings the ones that gave and still give these things for free. Getting personal again, I wouldn't be alive without many of those advances (vaccines, medications, etc.). On the technological side, the founder of that website that unlocks academic papers has had an impact that is yet to be analyzed.
Sorry! So many people...!
Did you know that Kant used to criticize people who drank more than one cup of coffee per day. Also, he would refill his own coffee cup before it was empty, so he never had more than one cup.
That's hilarious! I guess he was a normal man with normal blunders in his daily life. I've heard about his meticulousness, that we had strict rules for his routines and reunions, but never details (and never the cup of coffee thing). Thanks for sharing.
I intended to write that just as an intro paragraph to a critique of enlightenment philosophy, since I feel like, while the goal of objectifying the human experience was the natural predecessor to the eventual subjectification of the exterior universe, their confidence in their interpretations of their experience -- or maybe just in the universality of their interpretations -- makes their entire project a bit sus
But then life happened and I just said the thing about coffee.
Newton
James Color and Samantha Colour respectively, they invented color in their respective regions, before then the world was in black and white. Similar to Sandy Loam, very little is known about their personal life, or even what they look like. Hell, even their first names are up in the air.
It’s really tragic that we don’t celebrate the history of the people of Color the way we could.
Norman Borlaug
Zorbulon, and you’ve likely never known it.
The individuals or group that figured out the wheel
I'm gonna go with Napoleon purely for the legal code and opening the door for revolutions.
I suspect the couple of hundred thousand that died in his wars would disagree.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonapartism
Just thought it was funny that you added "either present or past" the questiin
Nobody, I think this is an insane question.
So many different people had small impacts on humanity, most of it somewhat regional. Most of the heroes I could think of in Western countries will have had a very limited impact on Eastern history, and vice versa. Also, I am very sure nobody had only positive impact.
Another problem: not everybody will rate a certain impact equally as positive.
I'd suggest to remove focus and attention from god- or hero-like figures and shift it towards improvements won by community action.
I don't know why you are getting downvoted. This is a very valid and interesting point. Durable improvements are systemic, not individual, and the drive to look for heroes leads to nasty places.
The fact that that was what you thought the question was about is quite telling
It would be a reasonable segue in any case. Myths and heroes are big in every society, and sometimes we don't realise ours count.
Edgy.
How? I think it's pretty accurate for OP to say it takes a team.
Dude it's a fun question from the sorts of who is stronger Superman or Goku. But even outside of that - it's hard to deny that some individuals had more impact on the course of our society than others.
Yeah, there's some variance, but I'd argue it's actually pretty small. I'm trying to figure out who I'd choose, but it's hard, because usually there's a lot of redundancy even when it comes to kings and generals, and nothings lasts more than a couple centuries or so on pure momentum. When archeologists excavate a place like Rome, without writing it's hard to even distinguish leaders. Rather, you can see trends smoothly changing over time, usually in response to something obvious like supply chain issues.
You can also see this if you look at the stories of today's great successes, and then compare them to the stories of people they would have started alongside. There was a lot of online stores in 2000, and one was bound to become Amazon. Amazon itself apparently was the first to allow negative book reviews on it's storefront, and that helped it through the lean years. That meeting could easily have gone a different way, and then it would have been someone else.
I gave you a good example in another reply. But we can also go deeper - Mohamed, with his freestyle jam on bible, to this day has rather big influence on society. It's a rather strange and honestly depressing perspective to deny individuals any role in history.
Uh, so administrative question, do we really want to split this across seperate threads? I'm going to suggest you add Mohamed and the futility of existing without individual influence in your response over there (non-federated link, AFAIK Lemmy can't do comments any other way).
Sure, you can add your response to Mohamed and why do you think that a perspective denying individual influence on human history is useful over there.
Taylor Swift ❤️
Is this supposed to be ironic? Is this meant to instigate a discussion on her impact on pollution as an individual vs the value of her pop entertainment production?
No one changes me more than my girlfriend Taylor Swift 💖💖💖
Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, and The Buddha all had profound impacts on the way that humans relate to each other, and the world around them. Each promoted non-violence and/or pacifism in a world ruled by ruthlessness and cruelty. I don't think we would be anywhere close to where we are now with human rights without their contributions to human understanding of empathy.
One of these is not like the others. Gandhi is polarising at best in India, and just kind of a nice brown guy strawman in the West.
Why is he polarizing in India?
As I understand it: Too tolerant and Westernised for Hindutva people, too mystical and obscure for progressives. When they made the biggest statue in the world, it was chosen to be of his colleague Vallabhbhai Patel.
As for why he's not the cartoonified nice guy he's often made out to be, well, I could talk about a number of issues, but this quote on how far he would take pacifism is pretty shocking:
I figured that was the answer. Thanks for sharing. As for the quote on the Holocaust, that's rough man. I guess I see his perspective, since what he did worked for him and India, but it sounds so ridiculous and callous to those of us who do not share the perspective.
I have never been a pacifist, but I understand its value and respect those with the strength to utilize it. It does take strength too. I can't imagine enduring what pacifists have endured throughout history. Even here in the United States, I love MLKJ's message, but I identify with Malcom X's perspective more personally.
Jesus Christ, hands down.
His hands are typically displayed stretched out to the sides, not down.
An apocalyptic rabbi who's had unfathomable violence done in his name? Yeah hey, thanks for the 'be nice to each other' rhetoric, but half the people spreading that message brought not peace but a sword.
And as a queer American I can attest his fanboys aren't exactly polite on their own turf.
Not even the most popular prophet from an Abrahamic religion. Second rate at best and losing to a war mongering pedophile at that.
His brother started it.
Mother Teresa
You might wanna research that.
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.
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."
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.
God was incapable of defeating him when a child was being raped and a perfect being is not capable of change.
The next child being raped will be watched by your God, too, as he will never be capable of defeating evil, as a perfect being will never change.
To change God would be to admit imperfection. Which is why I love the irony of the New Testament.
So if God is not capable of overcoming evil, and we know he is willing to watch innocent children be raped, why worship him?
All of these things are insignificant compared to Heaven. I think Job 38 illustrates God's perspective on this perfectly. This life is all we know right now.
Revelation shows God defeating Satan. It will happen. Satan's power is limited right now. Right now we have Jesus to save us in the meantime.
The disgusting selfish ego of the religious is the part I can never empathize with or sympathize with.
So, you admit God must change in the future to defeat Satan? You do not believe he is capable of defeating him as he is?
So God is neither all powerful nor perfect.
You do not worship the main texts of Christianity with those claims.
Notice how you don't actually want to discuss the topics or respond to the things I've said. You want to inject some fluffy talk to reinforce hiding your eyes from the discussion to pretend like you are participating.
If I worshipped something as a God, I would be devout enough to discuss it with a person instead of just talking over their statements about it.
Let's revisit where my previous comment started
You are happy to worship an imperfect powerless God who let's children be raped because a book written by child rapists said things might get better one day.
This guy believes in literal satan and jesus. Don't even try logic and reason, he is to far gone.
Yes... Because I'm Christian. It seems you feel that you are "too far gone" if you're Christian 😂
Satan actually isn't really a Christian concept.
Do you celebrate Christmas?
Of course I celebrate Christmas. Do you think I'm a Jehovah's Witness or something? 🤣
Nope, not every christian is a hardcore christian fundamentalist.
Believing in Jesus and Satan are the fundamentals of Christianity so... Yes?
Did you just edit my message? I never said that. I never said God needs to change, it's just something He will do as described in revelation. And what's this about the Bible being written by child rapists? It seems atheists cannot come to a consensus on who wrote it, but this is new. Then why doesn't it proscribe child rape and justify their actions, if it were?
You might not know your Bible as well as you think you do.
Okay? 😂
😂
I'll pass.
I'm honestly very curious where this concept actually comes from. Would you be kind enough to help me pinpoint which part of Christianity suggests this, specifically?
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?
Nope
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Nope
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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.
Wait dude, I just realized - do you also believe in the literal Satan?
I'm a Christian.... So yes....
Woa, never met anyone who actually took Christianity that literal. That must be a wild experience to believe in literal devil and god, sin and all that stuff - that's a trip and a half. Kind of speechless - that's just wild.
Do suppose the only "Christian" you know is Schrödinger's Catholic 😂 You mustn't get out much
Did you even read the original comment?
What else could I use?
I don't know, I guess I was curious because this seems so important to you and I wasn't expecting you to hinge your whole belief system on one ancient book.
I wasn't raised around religion nor have I ever really been around it, so I find it fascinating. My, bad, I guess it was a big ask.
The Bible isn't one book. It's a library of 66 books spanning thousands of years.
Yes? Because they are attestations of a guy who literally rose from the dead and fulfilled many verifiably older prophecies. We literally have surviving copies of prophecies about Jesus that were made before He was born. I'm sorry if I'm coming across as irate. Literally had someone tell me that it would be better if I and basically everyone I hold dear to me was dead. Along with 4 billion other people.
Thanks for the reply.
Are you aware that you have used the Bible to explain your belief in the Bible?
As I understand your reply, you believe you have a relationship with Jesus because you believe he exists, and that relationship will continue forever after you die.
You believe this because it says so in the Bible.
I know this is difficult to admit to yourself, I've seen it in others, but this is circular reasoning.
It's difficult to admit because we as humans are able to compartmentalise two opposing things in our mind at the same time. You can have a belief based on circular reasoning, and at the same time you can know that circular reasoning is not a good way to come to a conclusion on which to base a belief.
It's your job as a Christian to make sure that your belief is true. By only looking at the Bible, you are failing in this endeavour.
"The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going." Proverbs 14:15
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." 1 Thessalonians 5:21
You asked for Christian doctrine... What else did you want me to use? You said "pinpoint where in Christianity".
And Christianity is what you believe in. If you're telling me that the source of your beliefs is the reason for your beliefs, well, that's not a good way to know things.
I know this isn't easy, having your belief system exposed as untrustworthy. You can double down of course, which will make you feel better. Unfortunately it won't change reality.
You never asked me for my reason, you asked me for Christian doctrine, then acted like you asked for my reason in the first place.
No, I asked where in Christianity the idea comes from. You used doctrine to answer me, which is fine, but by doing so you revealed that your beliefs are derived from a book that tells you to have those beliefs.
I pointed this out to you because it's a problem, for you and for everyone else. We as humans should strive to make sure that the things we know are true, otherwise we get into all sorts of problems both as individuals and as a species.
What you are doing is basically accepting this -
You do realise that is not an argument at all? That's like saying "how do you know how to build this ikea bookshelf" "I read the instructions" "But you cannot use the instructions to prove that you are in possession of the ikea bookshelf"
You didn't ask me why I believed in Christianity. You asked me to specify what parts of Christianity said that salvation is free and then got upset when I referenced letters from the Bible, which is THE collection of documents about Christianity.
I feel like you weren't actually wanting to reason with this, and were just looking for a way to get me to quote Scripture so you could accuse me of circular reasoning and use your napkin image.
I think you've missed the point, but that's ok.
It really isn't, it's more like this -
"Why do you think you have an IKEA bookshelf, there really isn't any good reason to think so?"
"I have this instruction manual and it says I have one because it says so. That's good enough for me."
You can see how this looks from where I'm standing?
I asked in good faith, it's not in my nature to bait people. You're welcome to your opinion but it was your answer which caused me to go down that route. And please, no-one is upset here. If you really wanted to have a conversation, perhaps quoting scripture wasn't the best way to go about it.
Yeah...if only his teachings would have survived...
"Now just ignore all those instructions to implement socialism and go hate gay people!"
They did, it's just that you have two billion people ignoring them because they aren't in the compilation Rome put together and everyone else ignores them because of exhaustion hearing about the Rome version their entire life.
Super interesting stuff and way ahead of its time, understandably opposed by conservative Judaism at that period, and extremely different from what most people think was being discussed (nearly the opposite one might even say).
But it's one of those rabbit holes that's only worth going down for personal discovery, as nearly nobody gives a crap about it for varying reasons.
Boy, do I have news for you!
Thanks for existing, you are great advertisement for atheism, keep up the good work.
Oh you dumb motherfucker
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.
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.
Some even speculate that protestantism itself within Christianity helped grow literacy rates by encouraging Bible reading, however the Roman Catholic church has done a lot for science as well.