Who is the most famous/infamous/ahead of the rest in their field?

[HexMachina]

Simone Biles. There are a lot of very talented gymnast out there, and historically there are a lot of names that spring to mind too, but Biles is really just ahead of everyone else in her skill and her prominence in the media

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

You really can’t say “he was a pretty poor golfer” in comparison, he’s second to Jack in most statistics. And Tiger has had serious injuries Jack didn’t have. If it hadn’t been for that incredibly stupid car accident, most people expected Tiger had enough years left to catch up to Jack, but he has really had to limit the number of tournaments he plays in because of those recent injuries.

Not to turn this into a golf thread, but nah, most people didn't really think that. Post divorce his career went to shit. He only won one major afterwards. That said, there's no argument you can make that Jack was the better player. Tiger was far more talented and played against much stronger competition. Jack would just be another guy today. It's basically the same conversation, since the player was mentioned, about comparing Jordan to Russell. No one outside of old people from Boston actually think Russell was the better player. 

Quote

There’s an HBO two or three part series on Tiger that explains a lot about him. His parents were just brutal to him. He was in love with his high school sweetheart and they got engaged, and his parents forced him to break up with her because she was ‘too distracting’. Poor kid. And his dad was a philanderer. Tiger was molded by his parents to be a machine, and that is just crazy.

Two part everyone should watch even if you don't give a shit about golf. And his parents didn't make him break up with her, they dumped her. It's unlikely he wrote the letter. 

Furthermore, why it's such a tragic story is in part because Tiger as a kid would sit outside like Forest Gump hearing his dad cheat on his mom. All. The. Time. Considering just those two things it's not surprising he struggled with romantic relationships, and that's before you factor in they tried to make him a robot.

It's pretty funny though that his mom had Earl buried in an unmarked grave that no one knows the location of except her. That's revenge. 

Edited September 17 by Tywin et al.

[Madame deVenoge]

19 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

I'm a penguin and I flew today. American Airlines. DFW suuuuuuucks.

 

@Madame deVenoge I'd put Sun Tzu over Ghengis Khan.

I mean, I've never read Ghengis Khan's The Art of War.

But, did Sun Tzu conquer half the known world?

I should also give a shout out to Alexander the Great, conquering the western half of the known world.

[Spockydog]

Did Sun Tzu even exist, eh? 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Look I'm sorry I know what you're saying here re: notoriety =/= morality and that Stalin clearly affected history whatever we may think of him, but even with that caveat several of your points now have come across as perilously close to 'actually Stalin wasn't that bad' and even though I'm pretty sure that's not what you're trying to say... please stop doing that.

I shall endeavour to continue to not do the thing that I have not done and you acknowledge I have not done but sort of sounds like I’m doing but not really. 

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Jonas. Motherfucking. Salk. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Ali

Cleopatra

Napoleon

Alexander

Homer

Mozart

Confucias

Gandhi

MLK

Ruth

FloJo

Rockefeller

Geronimo

Che

Just men or woman were still familiar with because they were so excellent or influential.

Also on the notoriety side of the ledger-

Manson

Capone

These people only need one name to be recognized, some even centuries later we know whom is referenced.

Edited September 18 by DireWolfSpirit

[Tywin et al.]

Rockefeller and Che are excellent? Weird choices. 

[Conflicting Thought]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Rockefeller and Che are excellent? Weird choices. 

Che IS excellent.  i recommend reading Che Guevara A revolutionary life by Jon Lee Anderson

 

for the topic at hand i pick Epicurus

[Tywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

Che IS excellent.  i recommend reading Che Guevara A revolutionary life by Jon Lee Anderson

Che is complicated at best. 

[polishgenius]

3 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

you acknowledge I have not done 

 

No, I acknowledged you weren't doing it on purpose. I was trying not to be unfair. Maybe that made me unclear: you were making a Tankie argument. Tankies suck and hearing the same arguments as they make again and again and again is wearing. Even if I didn't think you realised you were doing it. 

 

 

I apologise to everyone else for being a debbie downer on a fun topic but seeing 'Stalin only co-invaded Poland with the Nazis because the West forced him into it by turning his alliance down' made me fume. 

Edited September 18 by polishgenius

[Conflicting Thought]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Che is complicated at best. 

He is complicated, like everyone. And he is also excellent, he was an excellent revolutionary.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

No, I acknowledged you weren't doing it on purpose. I was trying not to be unfair. Maybe that made me unclear: you were making a Tankie argument. Tankies suck and hearing the same arguments as they make again and again and again is wearing. Even if I didn't think you realised you were doing it. 

I have no idea what this means.

Quote

I apologise to everyone else for being a debbie downer on a fun topic but seeing 'Stalin only co-invaded Poland with the Nazis because the West forced him into it by turning his alliance down' made me fume. 

I never said, "the west forced him" into anything. Nevertheless, it was obvious in the late 1930's that things were in play and the Soviets were still isolated. They desperately wanted to form a military alliance for their own security and Germany was not their first choice. That's documented.

Was he a fucking monster? Absolutely. Extraordinarily so. But history is full of them. 

During the Russian civil war, American, British, and French troops were sent into Russia to fight on the side of the Whites. I'd have to find the reference but one of the American Officers said of the White Russian Generals that he had never seen people that put a lower value on human life. Not to mention all the atrocities that happened under the Tsars. Monsters were basically what they had to offer. The ones that weren't monsters ended up in the ground. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

1 hour ago, Conflicting Thought said:

He is complicated, like everyone. And he is also excellent, he was an excellent revolutionary.

Well he’s remembered today chiefly in the form of merchandising for wanna be teens 

Edited September 18 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

As an alternative to the title, the person with one of the single most impact on modern human history was undoubtedly Charles Martel who turned back the Umaiyyad Caliphate in France and prevented the Islamisation of Western Europe. Would be a very different political,economic,religious and technological spectrum today otherwise.

Edited September 18 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[baxus]

On 9/17/2023 at 6:16 AM, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Thomas Edison Nikola Tesla (electricity), Walt Disney(Western Animation),Henry Ford(Cars),Edmund Hillary(Mountaineering),Bill Gates(PC),Warren Buffet(Investment),Adolf Hitler(Dictator/Fascist), Christopher Columbus(Explorer),Da Vinci(Renaissance),michael schumacher(F1) and Christopher Reeves(The one and only Superman)

Fixed that for you.  

[maarsen]

16 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Not close imho.

Physicists still get Nobel prizes for proving assumptions from Einstein's theory of relativity - Discovery of gravitational waves won it in 2017 and Roger Penrose's in 2020 for  the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity (which is ironic, that Einstein didn't get one for the theory itself). Pretty impressive for an over 100 year old work. And sorta frustrating for physicist, as they for most parts are reduced to ticking boxes instead of disproving it and being able to come up with something better.

Without Einstein no GPS, no navi.

Without calculus, no Einstein. Also Einstein had to ask his buddy Hermann Minkowski to assist with the math of general relativity as Minkowski was already working on the same theory as Einstein.

Newton created the fundamentals of calculus in 1666, but his refusal to publish for 20 years led to Leibniz developing his own system. Archimedes himself came so close to doing calculus almost 2000 years earlier but infintesimal numbers bothered him too much.

In terms of modern mathematicians, Roger Penrose is certainly up in that top level.

Edited September 18 by maarsen
extra stuff

[thgrlwthcurushar]

The Kardashians and they even made the century kind of happen. It if you don’t know it, the Kardashians are ahead of their time because they are shaping people and morphing us all into the people of the future. 
 

Another I thought of was Obama because he kind of changed what we know and how we live. 

[Liffguard]

Jaco Pastorius is widely regarded as the greatest electric bassist of all time. Not the most famous, definitely not the most commercially successful, but amongst bassists whenever the discussion comes up it's usually a given that Patorius will top the list.

[Zorral]

58 minutes ago, The Social Liability said:

they are shaping people and morphing us

That would explain it then.