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Oh come on. Here's a five-minute-brainstorm of people still living today who are FAR more interesting than Bill Gates. * Linus Torvalds * Bob Dylan * Paul Mc
by xamuel 6y ago
Oh come on. Here's a five-minute-brainstorm of people still living today who are FAR more interesting than Bill Gates.
* Linus Torvalds
* Bob Dylan
* Paul McCartney
* Terence Tao
* Elon Musk
* Saul Kripke
* Noam Chomsky
And that's just people HN might've heard of. I could quadruple that list in another five minutes if I were going to include people that aren't household names.
- happytoexplain 6y agoFor what it's worth, I do find Gates, the person, more "interesting" than these folks, even though I would describe the people in the list as "great", "luminaries", etc. Can you elaborate on your reasoning?
- xamuel 6y agoInterestingness is in the eye of the beholder. I, for one, find people very interesting who go "rags to riches". I don't find it all that interesting when people with rich families grow up to be rich. I also find people interesting when they have interesting and unique philosophical, mathematical, scientific, or artistic ideas. I find people interesting who have become extremely skillful at various things through years of practice and who thereby give us a glimpse of the extremes of human capability. I don't find it particularly interesting that a philanthropist with lots of money can throw lots of money at problems (and at PR).