Badmovies.org Forum

Who do you consider to be the BEST minds-thinkers-of the 20th century?
Mine-

.Franklin Roosevelt
.Malcom X
.Gore Vidal
.Albert Einstein
.Martin Luther King
.Arhtur C Clarke
.Robert Oppinheimer
.Shirly Jackson

Winston Churchill
Theodore Roosevelt (aside from his politics, the guy wrote FORTY books!)
J.R.R. Tolkien (the dude invented SIX languages with their own alphabets)
J.P. Moreland (a leading Christian intellectual - I've heard the guy in person and he is BRILLIANT)

Defintly Churchill!
I could I forget Churchill?

Carl Sagan

(http://blogueiros.axena.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/carl_sagan.jpg)

Philo Farnsworth - none of us would be sitting here, staring into this stupid contraption if it weren't for him

Richard Nixon - Watergate aside, He did a bunch of stuff for the environment, gun control, Women's Lib & minorities that the left is trying to take credit for.

This is just minds, not necessarily character or influence.

Einstein
Stephen Hawking
Richard Dawkins
Vladimir Nabokov
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Bobby Fisher
Garry Kasparov

With a blank check from the government, & the best minds of science at his side, William Langley was beaten to a dream by a pair of uneducated bicycle repairmen...

I agree with many of the names you guys have mentioned, so let me just add:

Dorothy Parker
Edward Teller
Milton Friedman
Oscar Wilde
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Marie Curie
Akio Morita
Stanley Kubrick
Gary Larson
Gilbert Chesterton
Sheldon Cooper

I don't see my name anywhere.  :bluesad: :wink: *





* Nor did I expect to.  :teddyr:

In science:
Nicolai Tesla
Albert Einstein
Stephen Hawking

In Literature:
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tolkien - while I'm not a huge fan, as Indy said, he was a brillant man
C.S. Lewis
Edgar Allen Poe - invented the modern horror story and the modern detective story.

In bad movies:
Andrew Borntreger
Ronnie Merchant
Trevor Moses

And in my own mind:
Li'l old me  :twirl:

I would give it to Mr Ludwig Von Mises of Austria. He predicted that the central planning inherent in socialism would fail because there was no pricing mechanism ie it was impossible to tell what the actual demand for any given product was. Today, we all understand this thoroughly but at the time, people figured some smart person probably could figure out what everyone wanted on a given day. As it turned out, people are strange and want all kinds of unpredictable and often illogical stuff.

perhaps Churchill's image has been romanticised a bit, his name is synonymous with standing firm in the face of adversity, stiff upper lip etc... the more I read about his thoughts and quotes the less I admire his 'mind' tbh

"I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes "

"I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."

"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

He had some major f**k ups. invasion of Gallipoli and also cutting the money supply in half to support the pound which jump started the great depression

to be fair you could probably dig up some dirt on just about anyone if you look hard enough. I read some fairly dodgy things about nelson mandella before. and mother theresa. and we all know about peewee herman

Churchill was very much a product of his times - the Victorian era's last holdout.
He did absorb some of the prejudices of his era, but his literary ability and his peerless leadership during
World War II wipes out his minor sins in my eyes.

I think one of the worst mistakes we sometimes make is judging people who lived in another century by
the standards of our own time.

Saving the world from Nazi domination counterbalances a lot of Churchill's non-PC rhetoric. There's a good case for making him the greatest figure of the 20th century.

I don't know that the ill fated invasion of gallipoli or short sighted monetary policy were PC in particular.


I'll stay out of the ww2 convo as the topic led to me being the world's most smited user

Wow!  You're ahead of WyreWizard??

I understand the basis for this argument, but at the end of the day I will have to respectfully disagree with you here. Great minds do not bend to the standard prejudices, customs, and stereotypes of their time. In fact this is one of the crucial things that seperates 'great minds' from the herd. IMO

So it s fair to judge, say, Julius Caesar's behavior by the moral and ethical standards of the 21st century?

Not trying to pick a fight, zombie #1, but I agree with indy on this one. The problem with judging people of the past by our standards is that we are just as much a product of our times as they were of theirs, so judging them by our standards would be the same as judging a cave man by the standards of the chivalric code--there's just no real point to it. Social views evolve over time. In a hundred years someone will look at our society as horribly off whatever moral compass is in place at that point. I am a Christian and believe in moral absolutes, but even looking at the Bible, prejudices and social values changed between the times of Moses and Jesus. These values are shifting rapidly today partly as a result of the interconnected nature of our cultures through technology and partially because our societies are rejecting centuries of religious dogma in favor of a more secular worldview. Is one necessarily better than the other? It depends on your world view. I think my way of looking at things is right, and you may totally disagree with me, arguing that I am completely wrong. Philosophy allows for multiple moral, ethical and behavioral standards, and while some become outdated, one tends to build off another. And as I am starting to get myself off topic of my original thought, I'll stop here.

Well said, Derf.
Our current ethical and moral standards are a distilling of ideas. Not all the ideas that came down to us are always right and good.
We may indeed see changes in out P.C. culture, and they might well astound us.
If what's P.C. today is a change from the past...who knows what the future holds?

no probs, I would never "fight" with anyone here (not even wyrewizard!). it's just an interesting discussion that's all



well, perhaps no need for the hundred years gap, cause look at it now, from our own pov... I'm sure most people would admit there are huge flaws. but I get the point.

 However I guess that raises the big question: is there such thing as a moral code which is 'correct' irrespective of what timeframe or culture one is living in, or is the entire basis of 'moral code' always wrapped up in what a particular society decides is acceptable at that point in time? I don't know the answer but I would have to lean towards the first option, if anything.

I personally don't believe the argument that goes "well everyone else is doing it so I can't be blamed for doing it too" holds much weight. I think deep down we do know what is right and wrong as individuals, even if everyone else is doing the 'wrong' as if it's okay. How could I prove this? I don't know (lol)


now you're making big assumptions there.....that I know anything about Julius Caesar  :teddyr: can't even answer tbh

Well said, Z1, and I agree with you to a great extent.  As a Christian, I do believe in moral absolutes, but I also recognize that societal values do not always reflect them.

As for Julius Caesar - he's a fascinating study.  Read up!

Churchill and Caesar were both politicians so they both stink

Churchill is the only reason you aren't saying that in German, Lester! :teddyr:

He's the reason the reason eastern Europe spoke Russian or were governed by it

I'd argue that was inevitable.  Hitler did not have the resources or men to beat Stalin.
Oh well; you hate all Presidents, kings, and politicians,  I should know that by now.

To respond to your response to my response: I do believe there is a narrow moral code that remains constant, most of which can be found as far back as the Ten Commandments: Don't steal, don't murder, don't cheat on your spouse, respect your parents (with the exception of abusive idiots), etc. As far as notions of social behavior, those vary so widely that it is nearly impossible to boil them down to absolutes, and that is exactly where you and I start to disagree, not necessarily in the notion that there are few to no absolutes, but in the area of which social moral code is "correct."  The very notion that prejudging cultures is wrong is a very new idea in the evolution of social morals; throughout most of history most cultures have simply assumed that their particular way of life was the best and that other societies were barbarians--even the word "barbarian" comes from the Greek notion that speakers of other languges just sound like they are saying "bar bar bar bar" and therefore could not be properly civilized. Anyway, what I mean when I say it isn't fair to judge past people by today's standards is a little more complex than just saying that you can't blame them for doing things we find unpalatable today. The very idea that they could be wrong had not really formed yet because they valued their way of life and sought to spread it to those who had not yet reached their level of civilization. They viewed imperialism as helping those less fortunate  dirty savages achieve true humanity (I.e., what they had). We can barely even imagine this mindset today because we have been raised to respect other cultures, a notion which comes with another set of problems that we have not come anywhere close to solving. But I can't lay blame on Churchill for living within the conventions of his society any more than I can blame him for not using Google to help break Nazi codes. If the very ideas had not begun to form beyond the most rudimentary levels, I can't fault him for not being decades ahead of his time in every area.

US siding with the commies had bad ramifications though. it gave it a layer of legitimacy. it's why there are still communist parties in Europe and elsewhere today.

I think communism is such a beautiful, utopian vision of human society that it will always have adherents - even though it has never succeeded in creating a functional society.  It's based on a much rosier view of human nature than reality actually supports.

I am reading a dual biography of Hitler and Stalin right now. The sheer evil of both men is staggering, but I think Stalin is the worst of the two.

The Vampire Economy is an interesting book if you're conversant in CNBC type money language

http://archive.mises.org/6248/the-vampire-economy-guenter-reiman/ (http://archive.mises.org/6248/the-vampire-economy-guenter-reiman/)

A saying at the time was along the lines of "the communists take your cows because you're a kulak, the fascists take their milk and leave you the job of caring for the cows". It was a demented hodge podge of socialism, protectionism and the whims of whoever was in charge. not the worst thing they did of course though.

You think Stalin is worse than Hitler? We are taling about f**king Adolf Hitler-.reich-I mean right??
Hitler had children CHILDREN-used for medical experiments.Hitler had 6 f**king million-MILLION-people killed in death camps.
Stalin was a very evil man-but Hitler takes the cake hands down.

Of course thats like comparing John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy. :lookingup:

Stalin killed a lot more than that. that's part of, I would guess, Indys argument. the Scale of it.

for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor)

They were both monster. Its apples and oranges. They both deserve Hell-of course-I dont believe in Hell.BUT if there is one,and if Im wrong-I am sure Satan is f**king them in the ass.

I guess fascism was more openly sadistic.

The thing is that Hitler was passionate about his hatreds.  He had normal human emotions, they were just warped, twisted, and taken to extremes.
Stalin - no emotion at all, for the most part.  Totally dispassionate as he ordered the deaths of thousands.  I am not even sure he was human.

I'll name some who haven't been named (I definitely agree with many mentioned already). I completely admit there's some personal and political bias there perhaps.

Pierre Trudeau
Joey Smallwood
Geoff Stirling
Lester Pearson
Edward R. Murrow
Rod Serling
Joseph Stefano

I am going to offer some of my own:

Nelson Mandela (with certain reservations)
Steve Biko
Jan Christiaan Smuts
Alan Paton
Donald Woods (again with reservations)
Bill O'Reilly
Sean Hannity
Mahatma Gandhi
Me

I know these two have their detractors but I like the way they think.

And then there was Chairman Mao, who probably slaughtered more people than Hitler and Stalin combined. Hitler was a frothy maniac, Stalin a frigid sociopath, but there was something about Mao that radiated quiet evil. Even the way he spoke sounded like he was hissing. All three "needed killin' ", as my favorite Texan used to say.

Gloomy thought but I wonder what sort of cruel figures this century, barely in its adolescence, will eventually produce? Imagine wedding a Stalin with 21st century technology, and then go hide under your bed.

Well, here you go then, Trevor.

The best mind of the 20th century is Trevor, as Trevor is the first man in history to think of saving water and money by never washing his underwear.

Hitler and Stalin definitely belong in the most evil minds of the 20th Century...along with Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, numerous other dictators and serial killers.

Trevor - I have to admit I see Hannity and O Reilly more as foot soldiers to thinkers such as Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. and not just because they were big Iraq war boosters. They are good broadcasters

ER - Mao and other Asian commies took it to extremes till the whole idea of culture and humanity itself was subversive