Who's your pick?

nemomarx 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Genghis Khan or Napoleon, maybe? Probably you'd want to pick someone further back but before the modern era you lose details.

Musk has made some tech innovations but he hasn't changed the lives of many generations of people yet. I'd only put him at the level of Edison

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fnordsensei 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Whoever came up with the wheel, maybe? Perhaps someone carrying the original homo sapiens mutations?

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Auracle 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’m not who you replied to but that’s honestly an interesting question. Genghis Khan? Jesus, I suppose?

Elon Musk is probably up there, though. You could say people like Henry Ford are on his level, but Elon is certainly more broad in his scope. I think people like them are probably accelerationists, meaning someone else would have done what they’ve done eventually. That could be a long eventually though. It’s hard to compare them to people who shaped history through their actions that nobody else would have done the same way.

	▲	slowin a few seconds ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> You could say people like Henry Ford are on his level Since Tesla was started, they've sold ~9.6 million cars. In that same time period, Ford has sold 100 million. Musk is no Henry Ford, it's probably much more accurate to compare him to P.T. Barnum.
	▲	fnordsensei 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You'd probably want to be more precise regarding "important for what" as well. And the philosophical angle: if the person hadn't existed, would someone else have slotted in to take their place? Is the impact measured in years/decades, because the overall historical forces were heading in a direction anyway? Is it like trying to say "the most important bacterium in a petri dish"? Without diminishing the impact that Musk has had, I'm fairly certain that Musk isn't the answer. And either way, the intent of saying that Musk is the most important person in history I'm fairly certain wasn't a very grounded decision. I'm sure it was more an expression of reverence and fealty.