Greatest men of the XXth Century

[Big Ewis]

they can be a musician an athlete, non necessarily a big scientific mind, anything. Oh, they can even be non-English ! Yeah, I'm really giving this width and space...

 

[squirrel]

kind of typical answer here but im going for Martin Luther King, a true champion of the poor and people of all races around the world, not like a certain South African

 

[LittleGuy]

Norman Borlaug, hardly anyones ever heard of him but probably saved the most lives on the planet by any single human ever.......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

 

[nickdnz]

Batman.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

Ben Smith....could only possibly be beaten by the offspring of Fekitoa and Smith...and only if raised as the adopted child of Jason Rutledge

that's right...I've thought about it

 

[Big Ewis]

wow, I literally forgot I wrote this, I was that stoned yesterday night ? fk...I saw the title of the thread and it immediately came back to me "ohhh, that's right !!" I even cracked the crappy little joke about the English there...see, even in a total somnolent/subconscious state, some instincts don't leave me !

Indeed LittleGuy I'd never heard of Borlaug...

 

[smartcooky]

Sir Winston Churchill
Sir William Pickering
Lord Ernest Rutherford

 

[BRSTLDRGN]

Me

For many, many reasons and things

 

[j'nuh]

Sir Winston Churchill

Sorry for the rant but:

If he wasn't white or west of the Iron Curtain, he would have gone down in history as a war criminal. Had a Nazi succeeded in committing the same actions Churchill had, they'd have appeared at the Nuremberg trials.

Funny how in modern times, we get uppity about drone strikes, which may or may not kill civilians on a case-by-case basis. A small offence compared to the fire bombing of cities in which hundreds of thousands live, specifically targeting civilians. Yet we revere the leader behind the latter.

Winners write history, I suppose, and propaganda cements them as the good guys. Needless to say, I am not a fan of his.

 

[TRF_heineken]

George RR Martin

 

[Big Ewis]

Sorry for the rant but:

If he wasn't white or west of the Iron Curtain, he would have gone down in history as a war criminal. Had a Nazi succeeded in committing the same actions Churchill had, they'd have appeared at the Nuremberg trials.

Funny how in modern times, we get uppity about drone strikes, which may or may not kill civilians on a case-by-case basis. A small offence compared to the fire bombing of cities in which hundreds of thousands live, specifically targeting civilians. Yet we revere the leader behind the latter.

Winners write history, I suppose, and propaganda cements them as the good guys. Needless to say, I am not a fan of his.

appreciate the objective point of view a lot, well done j'nuh. I just think Churchill's "we shall fight them in the air, in the..." quote was really, really catchy to ppl
I don't believe many politicians would really make the list of greatest men, for any period, unless it's like an Abe Lincoln or a person who really made a true difference from his own decisions rather than just following whatever political conjecture/party decision/obeying geo-political the necessities of a given situation.

Like, Gandhi fasted, went on strikes, used his own intellect and won a war. He's more than just a mere politician in an office spewing out cool quotes and being good at strategies and wtvr, that's completely banal.

Anyways, for me: Martin Heidegger, H.P. Lovecraft, Seiji Yokoyama (anime music composer), the Wachowski brothers (creators of 'The Matrix').
One from each main craft, haha..

 

[ratsapprentice]

Alcoholic James Hetfield.

 

[squirrel]

agree with j'nuh, Winston was a right ****** who history looks at favourably through a whole heap of western propaganda

 

[Feicarsinn]

appreciate the objective point of view a lot, well done j'nuh. I just think Churchill's "we shall fight them in the air, in the..." quote was really, really catchy to ppl
I don't believe many politicians would really make the list of greatest men, for any period, unless it's like an Abe Lincoln or a person who really made a true difference from his own decisions rather than just following whatever political conjecture/party decision/obeying geo-political the necessities of a given situation.

Like, Gandhi fasted, went on strikes, used his own intellect and won a war. He's more than just a mere politician in an office spewing out cool quotes and being good at strategies and wtvr, that's completely banal.

Anyways, for me: Martin Heidegger, H.P. Lovecraft, Seiji Yokoyama (anime music composer), the Wachowski brothers (creators of 'The Matrix').
One from each main craft, haha..

Also 100& a pedophile.

 

[Peat]

Sorry for the rant but:

If he wasn't white or west of the Iron Curtain, he would have gone down in history as a war criminal. Had a Nazi succeeded in committing the same actions Churchill had, they'd have appeared at the Nuremberg trials.

Funny how in modern times, we get uppity about drone strikes, which may or may not kill civilians on a case-by-case basis. A small offence compared to the fire bombing of cities in which hundreds of thousands live, specifically targeting civilians. Yet we revere the leader behind the latter.

Winners write history, I suppose, and propaganda cements them as the good guys. Needless to say, I am not a fan of his.

In my interview for a place at Oxford, I expressed a lack of admiration for Winnie, and floundered when asked why. Needless to say I went to a lesser hall of learning.

With the advantage of hindsight and learning, I was both wrong and right, just as you are wrong and right.

War is acts of barbarity. All of it. Virtually all of them have been persecuted using methods distasteful to any civilised man. Is firebombing civilians justified? The answer must surely be no - but equally, if you are convinced that the action is required to save your nation and the lives of its people, the answer must surely be yes.

Churchill ordered atrocities. He blundered. He as monstrously unfair and unkind to no small amount of people. Creating a list of his flaws is not difficult unless you want to be thorough.

However... I believe that, objectively, fighting Nazi Germany was a noble and fine thing. I cannot agree with a statement that says only propaganda made the people fighting them the good guys. Churchill's reputation is not simply a matter of west-o-centric history. It is a matter of being (un)fortunate enough to be the right man in the right place and to shoulder the burden of resisting and defeating one of the most abhorrent regimes in recent history. If Churchill had ordered firebombings in order to secure Gelsenkirchen for Britain, or to keep back forces attempting to stop ethnic cleansing, or to remove overseas irritants to strategic interests, then he would have probably gone down as a war criminal. But he didn't. He did it in an attempt to remove a meglomaniac racist intent on military subjugation of everyone nearby. It is understandable that people are prepared to overlook/forgive/excuse bad things done in pursuit of a good aim.

Moreover, Churchill might not have had great morality, but he was a great man. He was a hero in the sense of the ancient Greek sense of the word, an exceptionally talented individual. It is difficult to imagine any other politician of the time who have had the ability and traits to commit Britain to such a fight and then see it triumph. His non-existence or failure creates a genuinely plausible scenario in which modern day Europe doesn't challenge racism but rather encourages it. He is revered both for his ability and for the cause he used it. Like him or not, he was by at least two measures of the word, a great man (the fat git).

So... yeah. No one deserves a totally free pass for deliberate strategic bombing of civilians. And there were many other things to judge him on. I was lucky enough to inherit a number of histories on the Second World War annotated by my Great-Grandfather, a man who knew Attlee very well (he also turned his back and walked out when introduced to Bomber Harris). The annotations are very acid when it comes to Churchill. But on his total balance sheet, I would suggest that the positives of his life greatly outweigh the negatives. I think you do him a grave disservice to place his crimes as the first measure of the man.

I'm going to second smartcooky. For breadth and importance of achievement, Sir Winston Churchill.

Martin Luther King would probably be my first choice though.

For a left field choice, Robert Heinlein. An incredibly persuasive and inspirational writer.

 

[Big Ewis]

:lol:, the post Peat just dropped there !..."However....Moreover..." "I was both right and wrong". Admit it, you had a little bit of toxicity in you as you wrote this yeah, wayyyy too enthusiastic !!

It never would've even crossed my mind to think of Churchill or anyone from that war-era as "one of the greatest men of the century", but there ya go...so it had to be an "Sir" Englishman after all, although surely it's just an objective pick they'll say, couldn't be a Gandhi who's actually got his hands dirty (and how !)...out of aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the men out there, some English politician with a taste for lyrical prose....mmyeah.

 

[Feicarsinn]

I love Heinlein, cracking author. I work with a Russian guy atm, every time I talk to him I start thing about The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

These sort of things are always rather tricky. In terms of science, I don't think anyone can come close to Albert Einstein (clichéd as that no doubt is.) He pretty much single handedly came up with the general theory of relativity, one of the two great pillars of modern physics, proved conclusively the existence of the atom and made a massive contribution to quantum theory via the photoelectric effect. He was wrong about an awful lot of stuff towards the end of his career (he really disliked some of the core ideas of quantum mechanics) but nonetheless, no one in the last century contributed more to our understanding of the universe.

From an Irish perspective I have a lot of time for W.T. Cosgrave.

Finally, Bill Gates. Microsoft's mission statement in the early 90's was "a computer on every desk." At the time it seemed farcical, but here we are. There are 4 computers within a meter of me as we speak. He was a ruthless businessman and a great philanthropist too. Top lad.

 

[Big Ewis]

Finally, Bill Gates. Microsoft's mission statement in the early 90's was "a computer on every desk." At the time it seemed farcical, but here we are. There are 4 computers within a meter of me as we speak. He was a ruthless businessman and a great philanthropist too. Top lad.

aw fk, he's dead ?!...well I definitely prefer him to Steve Unemployed (hahahhaha, get it ?!! GET IT ??ç!!!!!). Steve Jobs is now dead, and Microsoft is still alive. So Apple loses. That's just a fair logic.

Also I agree about Albert Einstein. Because I know so very much about the physics and all the things that are involved in them, I agree his quantum theory via the photoelectronic was brilliant, and the fact that he invented the atom, pfff huh seriously, like...that was just AWESOME. I think he was just a genius of those things...

 

[Superalexmarket]

Sir Homer Simpson.

 

[Big Ewis]

Sir Homer Simpson.

+1.
SOLID !!!!!....hum, sorry....'solid'...contribution to this already illustrious and copious thread.