Bell Labs and the invention of the transistor.
It’s absolutely mind blowing how many innovations came from Bell Labs.
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
The person who figured out how to make fire
Mother Teresa
You might wanna research that.
Dolly Parton
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.
Who ever started the whole enlightenment thing, with the idea that there is no god and we are responsible for our self.
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.
It is a bit like fans of the EU thanking Gavrilo Princip.
That is a funny perspective, I somehow like it.
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.
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.
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?
The enlightenment is overrated. History is driven by contestst of groups not contests of ideas.
As a counterpoint, may I submit: your own fucking username?
How is historical materialism a counterpoint to historical materialism?
Be weird if they had made the first line of the Preface a counterpoint to the first line of Part 1
Which group contested your attention to this idea two months later?
Kaiser Chiefs
And people are often governed or motivated by ideas.
People are governed/motivated by self-interest.
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.
That statement sounds an awful lot like … an idea.
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.
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.
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.
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.
my mother
I’m glad you were born, my dear. You are such a blessing!
I had never heard of him, thank you for showing me this
John Snow
For finally convincing westerners that microbes exist. Which got the ball rolling on like, actual medicine.
That’s all.
And killing the last of the dragons and stuff
He did, in fact, know something.
And it was quite important.
(almost like the fictional character was named that for a reason–)
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
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.
Thanks for existing, you are great advertisement for atheism, keep up the good work.
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.
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?
Oh you dumb motherfucker
Its great how people hate Jesus as an answer, but then love Stalin.
They would not admit that objectively Jesus and christianity is one the key factors of success of the west, and you dont even need to be a believer in God or a god to admit it.
removed by mod
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.
Its great how people hate Jesus as an answer, but then love Stalin.
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.”
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?
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.
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
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.
I’ll pass.
God is not all powerful if Satan can overcome him.
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.
Lenin.
We’re out here in full force.
