/lit/ - Literature

i am clearly the greatest

Christ

Not including artists, I'm going to narrow it down to about 10:
1. Socrates
2. Newton
3. Christ
4. Buddha
5. Genghis Kahn
6. Muhammad
7. Alexander
8. Marx
9. Confucius
10. Napoleon

>>3820334
>no futurism
cut your pussy out and feed it to the dog

Norman Borlaug

>>3820370

>newton

that gnostic plagiarist doesnt deserve half the accolades we give him, and the machinations of his friends are chiefly responsible for relative lack of exposure and esteem leibniz rightly deserved.

>>3820400
WRONG. he did the thing with the apple and figured gravity all out

>>3820400
I put him there because of the world-wide impact his philosophy of science has been. Even if he himself didn't conceive of it or developed his own theories on physics, his influence can't be overstated.

>>3820400
on the real though Leibniz is fucking rad. fuck newton

David Bowie, all day erryday

>>3820370
>about 10
descartes could be top 10. and liebniz

Greatest at what, OP?

Being influential doesn't equal greatness. You can influence things greatly in a negative way, like Marx did.

I was listening to the radio awhile back, and the hosts unanimously agreed that Joan of Arc was the greatest person to have ever lived.

I found their reasoning to be very flawed. First of all, there's a difference between the greatest person of all time and the person who has led the greatest life. There could be great person who lived centuries ago, yet never gained any fame whatsoever. They could have had a 300 IQ (I know that IQ tests are flawed, but just bear with me), been kind beyond measure, been a natural charismatic leader, etc. Maybe he just wanted a simple life. Would that lessen his greatness? No. We can never know who the greatest person is, because we do not know all people.

>>3820385
Google him. You'll see. He may actually end this discussion.

>>3820618
a criterion of greatness should be helping your fellow man
someone who has all that horsepower and just goes away amidst all the shit isn't great

>>3820334
>hip-hop being the biggest

seriously wtf

>>3820405

>figured gravity all out

lol

>>3820654
Hard for me to imagine hip-hop over here in America being anything but the biggest in youth culture yet. Rich kids listen to it ironically or for cultural enrichment, suburban kids listen whilst driving to frat parties, lower class people roll all over in it while it sticks on them.

>>3820658
>Einstein
>mathematics of gravity

lol, pick one. All he did was collate and fully theorize the work done by others. That's OK though, because while relativity is what Einstein is know for among the lumpenproles, academics know that Einstein's real contributions to science lie elsewhere.

>>3820675
where?

>>3820678
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

Just read the wikipedia page dummy. There's a huge list.

>>3820681
can't delineate or explain one?

>>3820688
I'm not an academic.

>>3820400
>>3820428
god damn what the fuck IS IT with you people and Leibniz?

>>3820693
don't make me laugh, wikischolar

>>3820485

Good suggestion.

I myself would like to nominate Baruch Spinoza as a contender.

>>3820695
I'm not paid to spend my time elucidating things for you. You can read the wikipedia page if you're really interested--if you just want to disagree then feel free to ask your physics professor about it.

>>3820334
>that picture
You are an evil person.

Dunno, I like Bertrand Russell.

>>3820697
you're not paid to post uninsightful renditions of other people's opinions on the internet either but you're having a field day with that

Mac is GOAT

>>3820744
You probably thought that was clever when you wrote it.

Freddy N yo yo whats up. Neetzscher in the house yall niggas.

Christ of course is the most influential person of all time

>>3820756
you probably thought it was clever when you read it

>>3820334

Mozart, Christ, Hitler, John D. Rockefeller? Julius Caesar, Thuthmose III...umm there are too many to pick from..

>>3820370
>Newton
>no Einstein or Bohr
ya blew it

>>3820654
>>3820660
you're obviously too dumb to understand what the image is about, but that doesn't keep you from spouting nonsense

>>3820824
>you're obviously too dumb to understand what the image is about, but that doesn't keep you from spouting nonsense

why insult us instead of telling us what it's about ?

>>3820813
>Einstein

Gosh, if there is one overrated scientist, it's fukken einstein. What he did is essentially the compile the works of others into on formula e=mc2. Then we had the other field of quantum mechanics, which was just as big discovery, yet people never talk about it that much. Then we had the people who pointed out the flaws in einsteins work and now have discovered that quantum mechanics and general relativity can co-exist.

Einstein is the most famous, not the best scientist ever.

>>3820769
Trivia: Nietzsche called Goethe "nature's bullseye".

>>3820334
Genghis Khan

>>3820826
It is the biggest because it has the most influences (everything leading into it can be claimed as an influence, or causative factor)

>>3820370
>no wittgenstein

I can't believe no one has mentioned Aristotle.

Negro had an enormous influence on the world, singlehandedly created new areas of philosophy such as logic and ethics, also advanced western thought immensely in the areas of biology, physics, poetics, tragedy and theology, and he did it all while living an ethical live and without having to kill anyone.

>>3820930
This is not a "most influential person of all time" discussion, it's about the greatest person of all time. And we can't exactly say that about him by standards of these days.

>>3820933
Not him, but I think greatness is something that would have to be judged relative to characteristics that are independent of transient social mores... Otherwise it wouldn't really mean anything. Influence on thought seems like an eligible criterion.

>>3820938
ok yeah well then it's Aristotle, no contest.

>>3820901
>being this embarrasing

I would probably have argued the same thing about Grunge and Dreamrock when it was at it heights, however I'm older now and being in a culture at its peak admittedly makes you blind.

You'll grow up soon.

>>3820338
This. We will talk about Hitler in a 1000 years from now.

Jews will never shut up about him.

Marcus Aurelius.

>>3820938
shut up nerd

>>3820874
it's true. mongolia wouldn't be the same without him

>>3820982
Y-you too.

>>3820828
was he not the first person to understand that matter and energy are the same thing in different states; ditto space and time? or are you saying he was just the first to empirically prove it?

if the former, as far as fundamentally understanding the universe and being the first to do so, the only contenders are copernicus's heliocentricism and newton's gravity plus thermodynamics; both of whom he left in the dust

>>3820826
It's about the concept of 'coolness' and to which other concepts it can be traced back and how it (the concept) manifested and manifests itself in different (sub-)cultures/(sub-)societal codes of conduct, idiot.

no DaVinci?

>>3820996
I'm not sure whether Einstein arrived at it independently or not, but e = mc^2 was published for the first time in a paper by Poincare years before Einstein. The equivalency of matter and energy was something that scientists in the field of relativity had been working towards for a long time.

>>3821014
Too obvious. Da Vinci doesn't count as a person; more, he was a minor natural event.

>>3820953
I'm 29, and I wasn't making any argument, it was my first post in this thread and I was just making clear the argument of the timeline in OP picture as was asked. Hopefully when I do "grow up", I will learn that rushing to conclusions and insulting people doesn't do anything or mean anything.

>>3821051
>I'm 29
lel

Your writing is exactly what I would expect from a 29 y.o. who still posts on 4chan.

>>3821066
>he thinks he won't still be here when he's 29

>>3821185
>implying 4chan will be around that long
moot will have sold the site to Facebook by then

hitler, alex the great, and maybe christ
in my opinion great people are those who change history by creating something new or destroying something. not some genius guy who discovers gravity or whatever there is already.

>>3821193
People were saying that 7 years ago. No one thought 4chan would be here in 2013, and yet...

>>3820694
Never really noticed a love for leibniz other than between myself and blood rainbow in one thread.

I like him because he's an extremely comprehenseive person. I was introduced to him by Julian Barbour

>>3821066
Where should a 29 year old be posting? What exactly do you think changes as you get older other than having more responsibility?

>>3821215
>What exactly do you think changes as you get older other than having more responsibility?

your hairline recedes ;_;

>>3820874

Plus genetic studies show that an alarming amount of people are descended from Genghis Khan.

>>3821243
>alarming amount

Are you possibly a tabloid journalist?

>>3821243

1 in 200 men is descended from Genghis. All dat rape.

Alexander the Great

There can only be one, a man with wrecking balls between his legs

http://youtu.be/tpH5L8zCtSk?t=7s

Criteria for great? That could mean anything.

Christianity wouldn't exist without Judaism, so -- and I don't know much about Judaism, so this could be wrong -- Abraham.

>>3820996
>matter and energy are the same thing
schopenhauer did it first

>space and time
there are still contemporary debates dealing with time; whether it exists or not

My mother

>>3821264
yes. it's right there in his name

>>3821336
>herpa derpa

Why not just take god

>>3821409
ok but which god?

>>3821415
The one who precide over abraham who you deem to be so important

>>3821421
But there is no God. Abraham was just a "prophet" who heavily influenced the creation of Judaism. Without Judaism there would have been no "Christ" and thus no Christianity. And probably no Islam, either.

Plato

>>3822014
Christianity wouldn't exist without the views of the neoplatonists, Renaissance philosophers were also heavily influenced by Plato's views of love and the human soul

>>3822023
>Christianity wouldn't exist
I mean Christianity wouldn't have been adapted by the Romans

>>3822014

>>3821215
I feel as though I'm eschewing my responsibilities every time I visit 4chan, so I suppose that.

>>3822023
>>3822037
>implying christianity exists

>>3822023

Plato wouldnt have existed without socrates [as a force for thought]

>>3820984
Nope, and neither would anywhere else for that matter.

Consider his start in life too, he was absolutely nothing when he was born. No connections (v.important in the steppe politics) , no kin outside his close circle, and yet he and his descendants smashed empires and precipitated the start on something that is still reverberating around us today.

>>3824578
Socrates wouldn't have existed without Plato.
Your move.

>>3820370
What did Christ do again?

Oh, but uh. Carl Sagan.
Or at least he's my favorite anyway.

>>3825104
inspired christianity

>>3825126
Do we know if that was that Christ himself, or a set group of people who just created this character?

It's hard to label historic figures as great when the records surrounding them are unreliable.

Kurt Russel.

Have you even seen Big Trouble in Little China.

>>3825126
Also, I'm not a fan of the Judeo-Christian belief system as they demonize the roles of females and affirmation of bliss, so even if you were accurate, I'd disagree.

>>3825138
I haven't. But The Thing is one of my favorite films.

>>3825140

Since when did great = good/benevolent/______(fill in any other positive adjective/trait)?

>>3825237
I always felt greatness entails working towards so worthy endpoint.
If you ask me, there was more to admire in Hitler's delusional notions of a 'perfect' race of humans than a belief system that attempts to rip you of your individuality.
Then again, I'm a pretty uneducated fuck.

idk, depends on what you mean by greatest. If you mean strategist and warrior, I'd argue for people such as Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Genghis Kahn, Napoleon, Lee, Bismarck, Rommel, etc.

By intelligence that could be anyone between Heraclitus and Wittgenstein.

Self-acctualized characters could be Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, Christ and other ascetics.

Arthur Cravan, Rimbaud, Guy Debord and Marcel Duchamp

>>3820828

He didn't compile shit. His e=mc2 paper has almost no citations or even complicated maths whatsoever. It's as if he just had the idea, and postulated it.

I'm not saying he's not overrated. But he did have one of the greatest insights of all time. It's not to say someone else wouldn't have figured it out later, but he did first, and there's no denying it.

>>3825133
There is no historic person whose existence has more evidence than Christ's

>>3825734

>>3825133
There's a number of resources other than the Church for the existence of Christ. There were many historians living in Rome during his times.

>>3820469
capitalists pig detected

I would say Siddharta Gautama
(how he found one of the biggest religion in the world opposing most of the time's views, for his discourses and intelligence)


or maybe Aristotle

Bismarck or Charles V.

Too historical? Perhaps

how is diogenes not mentioned?

>>3825250
How is perfection according to some retarded criterion not the definition of a system that attempts to rip you of your individuality? Nazism was (almost) more than anything an attempt at eliminating the 'unmensch'; as any Stirnerboo can tell you, you are an individual precisely because you deviate from the theoretical model of pure humanity.

>>3825723
>His e=mc2 paper has almost no citations or even complicated maths whatsoever.

That's because he didn't bother citing his peers, not because he hadn't read them. His correspondence is ample avidence that he was not working in a vacuum.

Steve Jobs

I think John Mcain is the greatest person of all time because he is a war hero and survived a prison camp and he is a straight talker and isn't afraid of anything. John Mcain is the greatest person of all time.

>>3821374
Agreed.

His mother is really good.

Christ, this thread proved that /lit/ knows nothing of science. Newton is a thousand times more influencial than Leibniz, Einstein or any other monkeys that you're mentioning. I don't know how great other faggot like socrates and Napoleon were, but if you want to put a scientist on that list, the #1 is Newton

Carl Sagan.

Stupid cancer..

>>3820345
I agree, he inspired the Christian movement which is absolutely huge and the basis of European society and by extension the society of Earth.

>>3826170
>I don't understand how important Napoleon was
Stop posting immediately.

This thread isn't about the importance or influence of someone, it's about a person's greatness.

moot
you know its true

>>3826022

>Failing time and time again, against the Ottomans
>Failing to centralize the Holy Roman Empire
>Losing the brother's quarrel
>Losing against Protestant princes of all people
>Running away and dying in shame in Austria
>Great

Pick all but the final one

>>3828784
Let's be fair, could *anyone* have managed all that at once? If you say Napoleon I will kick your internet scrotum.

>>3820334
hitler

/thread

>>3828789

Na der Shah

Napoleon

>>3828849
>people still say this shit
>two hundred fucking years later
>people still thinking Napoleon Bonaparte was anything more than a very capable general who lucked into a position of power

God damn it France, stop it.

>>3828876
You're an ignorant pleb. Please stop.

>>3828897
And you're a Frenchman. One day there's the possibility I won't be ignorant, at least.

>>3825138
this

also, Nikola Tesla, mother fuckers