But I could be completely wrong.
Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality. Hence the modicum of truth in the old saying that no man is a hero to his valet. There is only a modicum of truth, for the valet, and the private secretary, are often immersed in the fiction themselves. Royal personages are, of course, constructed personalities. Whether they themselves believe in their public character, or whether they merely permit the chamberlain to stage-manage it, there are at least two distinct selves, the public and regal self, the private and human. The biographies of great people fall more or less readily into the histories of these two selves. The official biographer reproduces the public life, the revealing memoir the other. The Charnwood Lincoln, for example, is a noble portrait, not of an actual human being, but of an epic figure, replete with significance, who moves on much the same level of reality as Aeneas or St. George. Oliver's Hamilton is a majestic abstraction, the sculpture of an idea, "an essay" as Mr. Oliver himself calls it, "on American union." It is a formal monument to the state-craft of federalism, hardly the biography of a person. Sometimes people create their own facade when they think they are revealing the interior scene. The Repington diaries and Margot Asquith's are a species of self-portraiture in which the intimate detail is most revealing as an index of how the authors like to think about themselves. (source: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/Lippman/ch01.html )
Basically for those who are interested in the background of the quote, Deng arose to power at the end of the Cultural Revolution, at the height of Chinese communism ideology when the government was so communist that they broke away from the Soviet's and accused of USSR as "revisionist"; destroyed all of the Buddhist temples in China as "backwards and Confucius," imprisoned the sons and daughters of former capitalists (because there were no current one's left) for being "Western corrupution," and stripped intellectual's of their post in Universities and forced them to "country-side re-education camps" for being "radical leftists against communism." Before he rose to power, Deng himself was denounced and stripped of his political post, and sent down for "re-education."
In little as four or five years, in that kind of environment, Deng has reformed the former Chinese market-command economy to become more capitalistic. Liberalized the political and free-speech in China, that allowed for media/film/journalism criticize the Chinese Communist party which eventually led to the Tienanmen Incident. Deng, confronted tremendous criticism and resistance from the hardliners of the Community party when he tried enact his reform. He used this quote about "black cat" or "white cat" in a speech he delivered to the political cadres to persuade them to be a bit more pragmatic and less ideological about their communism, after 43 million people have died from Great Leap Forward and the Culture Revolution. It was also Deng who eventually issued the order to strike down the student protesters in Tienanmen.
This ambivalent character of Deng, of balancing liberalization versus stability has become a hallmark quality of the Chinese government. See how the Chinese government encourages citizens towards private asset ownership and entrepreneurship, but not towards democratic representation. See how the Chinese government agrees in principle to a Korea/Iran nuke disarmament, but they are more so wary of the stability of Korea/Iran region in the event of a international escalation - that they block the UN Security Council sanctions. Whether the current Chinese/Russian model of free markets but central strong political oligarchy without an ideological emphasis, versus the American model of free markets and free democracy with a strong ideology (leader of the free world), the viability of either models remains to be seem.
I think it's safe to say that any model which encourages individual freedoms would be superior. And the reason relates to my beliefs in self-education vs school education. It's more efficient if people do what they want. So even an oligarchy with an emphasis on practical results will still be less efficient than individual people managing themselves freely.
> Whether the current Chinese/Russian model of free markets but central strong political oligarchy without an ideological emphasis, versus the American model of free markets and free democracy with a strong ideology (leader of the free world), the viability of either models remains to be seem.
Neither of these models can accurately be described as consisting of "free markets". All three governments you mention exercise total control over their respective territories.
As for Tienanmen, every single mob revolution in the history of the world has caused far more deaths than the number of people who died at Tienanmen. Imagine how many millions of lives would have been saved if Louis the XVI had acted in the same way as Deng. The Chinese government did the right thing in putting in forcefully dispersing the mob. Any government, when faced with a armed, violent rebellion, needs to put it down. Revolutions and civil wars are the worse than any government. (And yes, the protesters had weapons: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0385482329/ref=sib_dp_srch_p... )
It will make you cry.
This video of Mr. Rogers is a huge help if you're ever in need of a pick-me-up. I always go back to it during the occasional rough patch. Like my sibling post, I should warn that it will make you cry. But in a good way.
Right up there with Norman Borlaug and Stanislav Petrov on the list of people you've never heard of because CNN is too busy covering Michael Jackson.
Here's the link to his patent, btw: http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=GB&...
Charles Darwin, Richard P. Feynman, J. Robert Oppenheimer, John Von Neuman, Paul Erdos, Alan Turing, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Thomas Jefferson, Aubrey de Grey, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Douglas R. Hofstadter
And Hofstadter, the guy who wrote that really dumb book? (Here I admit that I only read the introduction before being disgusted by his treatment with concept of things which are self referential. It's kind of a noob outlook to find something mind boogling about the fact that a mind can contemplate itself.)
Pity, because the rest of your list is pretty damn classy. Those two are pretty weird additions.
...perhaps you should try reading the rest of the book.
> It's kind of a noob outlook to find something mind boogling about the fact that a mind can contemplate itself.)
Do you have a photo? Because if there's a Wikipedia article about how a fake blase-sophisticated seen-it-all-before pose of superiority can suck all the joy out of life, it should show your photo.
That's not what he claims. You have apparently only heard the soundbites. All the details of his proposals are in his book (check Amazon). After reading it, I happen to think that his engineering approach is brilliant compared to the traditional gerontological approach. Periodically repairing the damage (of which there are only 7 types) before it accumulates enough to create pathologies is much smarter than trying to learn how to cure all pathologies, or trying to fiddle with metabolism. For a quick overview, you can google his TED talk (but it's a bit old and doesn't contain much biology).
>And Hofstadter, the guy who wrote that really dumb book? (Here I admit that I only read the introduction
Once again, you seem to be commenting on something that you don't know much about. I'll admit I like Hofstadter more for who he is and how he writes, not for a specific idea or achievement, but GEB definitely isn't "dumb".
A man who saw the world as it could be and did everything he could to get it there.
Bonus point for not having a mausoleum, library or any other grand memorial as a monument to him.
Do people actually search for the term "pg cult?"
For me, I look to my dad as a hero, which is kind of funny considering how often have disagreements. I'm reminded of that line from Randy Pausch's last lecture, "Just remember, when your father was your age, he was fighting the Germans." Growing up I always heard stories about what my dad was like and what he was doing when he was in college, and the stories always seemed so distant. Now, I am going through those same years, and it blows me away to think about what my dad went through when he was at the same point in my life as I am.
Coming to the US with only a few dollars in his pocket, not knowing the language, working full time at bad jobs in rough neighborhoods in Houston, going to school full time in engineering, and building a life based around making sacrifices for the benefit of his family -- comparing this to my own life, which has been free of these hardships ('cept full time school in engineering, of course!) largely due to his efforts, I can't help but be inspired.
Thanks dad.
"Tell me something I don't know"
"If that book is so good, why are you telling me about it instead of reading it?"
She was a great motivator.
Quiet, calm, assertive and wise...he's the reason I can't shake this desire to start my own business. He started a business in the 50s with minimal resources and grew it for 50 years before it was sold in 2000. I still remember him and my father paying me less than minimum wage (at the time was $5.15ish maybe?) to sweep the floors and handle trash and pick items....I miss that building, and I really wish I was older and could have talked to him more seriously before he died.
However, for an article that criticizes Gandhi for being racist, the author has some nerve saying:
"Throughout his entire life Gandhi displayed the most spectacular inability to understand or even really take in people unlike himself--a trait which V.S. Naipaul considers specifically Hindu, and I am inclined to agree."
Edit: The article is also not without glaring inaccuracies. For example, the author claims that Gandhi supported Subhash Chandra Bose's Indian National Army. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only reason Subhash Chandra Bose even quit the Indian National Congress was because Gandhi had him kicked out because of ideological differences.
The founders - Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Washington - the world owes them a debt of gratitude.
Ernest Shackleton, Pat Tillman, Chuck Darwin, (politics aside)Barack Obama, Samuel Clemens, Einstein, Micheal Jordan, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Emerson, Jon Stuart, Ron Paul, MacGyver, Elon Musk, Hugh Hefner, Tiger Woods, Feynman, Socrates, Lewis & Clark, my mother. (don't mind the order)
Funny, I think all of these people, except my mother, are athiest/agnostic, goes to show you...
Why do you think that? Dylan famously converted to Christianity, BHO is a long time churchgoer, and Ron Paul is supposedly a creationist Christian. I don't really know about the others (obviously Einstein had a lot to say about god and dice and so on, but that hardly makes him a believer...)
And for some reason I wrote Steve Fossett when I meant Richard Branson.
Long day. Thanks.
Japanese envoy: Is the sale and purchase of land in Amsterdam freely permitted?
Dutch merchant: Certainly it is free.
Envoy: Do you sell land to foreigners also?
Merchant: Yes, as long as a foreigner is willing to pay for the land, we would sell any amount of it to any person
Envoy: Then, suppose a foreigner were to put down a large sum of money to purchase a great tract of land in order to build a fortress, would you allow that too?
Merchant: We never had occasion to think of such a case. Even though there are many rich men in England and France and other countries, we do not believe any merchant would spend money on such a venture.
I hate that he has faded so much from the public eye. If you've never seen Dave Chappelle's Block Party get it and watch it, whether you enjoy hip-hop or not. If you've seen that and are otherwise interested his Inside the Actors Studio interview is pretty solid too.
He is basically the type of role model I wish I could be someday.
Try Bigger and Blacker and Bring the Pain, two of the funniest shows I have ever seen !
Because damn, Buffy was a brilliant show.
From western civilization.
Other than that, I pretty much agree with you.
The one of two people in all of history I know of who truely didn't want power.
After the war the British Monarch asked what Washington wanted to do; he was then informed that he planed to return to his farm (which he did) upon which the king commented that if he did that he would be the greatest man in the world.
You have to be some person to get your greatest enemy to say that you are the greatest man in the world.
He created an epic masterpiece, never sold out, and left at the top of his game. He achieved fame without being drawn into celebrity, and his ideas have permeated our culture in a deep and wonderful way.
The guy was amazing, and I love that he lives as a recluse in a town that won't give him up to the media either. In fact, not many people even know what he looks like anymore from what I've read.
The never selling out part is also awesome. He refused to allow even one Hobbes stuffed tiger to be made because it would devalue his character...simply amazing, he really did it for the art.
But that's not what I admire him for the most. What really gets to me is that at the age of sixty five, he said, hey, let's try something new, and started writing fiction. He wrote several books, and they are really good and a pleasure to read, and if you took one in a bookstore and started reading it you would say it's a very fine novel even if you didn't know the first thing about the author. Why don't you give it a shot: http://www.amazon.com/Cantors-Dilemma-Novel-Carl-Djerassi/dp...
Think about it. He was sixty five. What will you be doing that age.
Creative, productive, knowledgeable, and funny.
He inspires me because through his great success, he's remained extremely humble and down to earth. It really seems like he just wants to keep his site going as a public service. They donate a large portion of their income to charity as is.. if only all public services could be run as well that they GIVE extra money away!
1. Invented the feature length animated movie. A multi-billion dollar business that paved the way for Pixar, Aardman, and all the other great creators we admire in that industry.
2. Invented the modern theme park. The "Second Life" of 1955! This is another massive multi-billion dollar business. It is also impressive in its technical scope employing physicists, pyrotechnic folks, and a bunch of roboticists who work on the audio-animatronic robots.
3. The Disney "Imagineering" crew is probably one of the most interesting interdisciplinary groups around combining nearly every kind of engineer with every kind of artist to create amazing things on an ongoing basis.
4. Before he died he was applying his ideas on art and technology to urban planning. Not in the way you would expect (e.g. No mouse ears), but marrying ideas of "New Urbanism" with technological futurism to rethink how we live and work.
His story is also a classic one of entrepreneurial striving, failure, and an unwillingness to give up. Check out this book for more inspiration:
http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disney-Triumph-American-Imaginati...
Both left eastern Europe, alone, as teenagers, to come to the U.S., knowing that they would never see their birthplace again, and that they probably would never see most of their relatives again. They did this because they knew they had much better chance for a better life, for themselves and for their unknown children and grandchildren.
Every time things get tough, I remind myself, "They came here for me," and then my challenges seem awfully small.
So what did they do? Built a huge freaking stone phallus in the middle of the nation's capital.
I admire a lot of people. Too many to try to narrow it down. The difficult part about choosing one is that you're always looking at relative progress. At the end of the day, doing something admirable means measuring the delta between what most people like you accomplished and what you accomplished. That means that famous president with a big monument probably isn't as impressive as poor, uneducated grandfather who did something to make a lot of people's lives' better.
But I think you measure greatness in making people's lives better in the long run. So if I don't have candidates, I definitely have the metric.
But I don't think we should admire people, especially for a long time in our lives. I guess, it's like "liking -> falling in love -> peaceful loving or forgetting (if it didn't work)". I think it's healthy to find things you don't like in the person you admire and enjoy accepting them as is and gain understanding of your own views this way. I guess this would be the way you build your own personality.
and
William Shakespeare - basically invented modern english.
(I felt this list needed more oestrogen, though both of the above are completely genuine. I'd add Thatcher, but I don't think I could survive the pitchforks - nevertheless, I do admire what she achieved.)
Also my buddy, who, whilst being induced into the Catholic confirmation process whilst in primary school, refused, saying that "I'm not convinced. It sounds like some sort of cult". I wish I had been so self-confident (not that being confirmed hurt me).
george orwell
douglas adams
leonard cohenhttp://extent.nl/about-eckart/
Unfortunately he's no longer.