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I can think of so many people who are radically more accomplished in vastly more interesting and important ways, it feels absurd to start listing because of how

I can think of so many people who are radically more accomplished in vastly more interesting and important ways, it feels absurd to start listing because of how many I'd be leaving out by doing so.

sixQuarks 5y ago
name one then. I'm genuinely curious
- clouddrover 5y ago
  Nikola Tesla.
- serf 5y ago
  intellectual accomplishments: Einstein, Tesla, Vannevar Bush, Newton, Bohr, Maxwell, Faraday, Gallileo, Newton, Dirac, Rutherford financial accomplishments: Rockefeller, Getty, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Mellon, Walton, Kluge, Gates, Bezos, Buffett industrial accomplishments: Ford, Edison, Gould, Morgan, Page, Brin, Zuckerberg, Branson, Allen Lots of overlap on the lists, but I decided not to doubly-list individuals -- and the lists are by no means complete, I favored recent centuries. That said, Musk is tremendously successful and awe-inspiring; this pissing contest is a miserable thing to participate in -- but I still think it's important to point out that Musk isn't the only awe-inspiring success ever.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 5y ago
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renjimen 5y ago
Even naming a few would actually help your argument, since you can think of so many
- staticassertion 5y ago
  Can you not? Like, how about people who have made major academic or philosophical breakthroughs? Major authors? Even within business, or celebrity, Elon doesn't stick out much other than filling a small niche. The problem with naming them is that then it becomes a discussion on whether the people I've named are impressive. Someone mentioned Einstein and was downvoted. Einstein is very obviously more interesting and accomplished in my mind than Elon, but he's one of many. Turing was 23 when he wrote his thesis on algorithmic computation. There are people with multiple turing awards out there. If your yard stick is "rich person who made more money" yes, or "CEO who makes memes", or "is a celebrity", Elon is impressive relative to the general population. It's a sad, sad way to measure accomplishments, but sure.
  - Retric 5y ago
    The point is they needed to make multiple significant independent breakthroughs in established fields. Turing like a lot of pioneers is seriously overrated. When surrounded by low hanging fruit it’s easy to seemingly make a great deal of progress especially when your credited with formalizing existing ideas or making that one last step into usefulness. Einstein actually pushed boundaries in a well established field which is vastly more impressive. Musk significantly pushing the boundaries in cars, rockets, computer networks, and banking is quite impressive in that context. We can quibble about PayPal, but I am being consistent in ignoring the charging network and self driving system etc as those are emerging fields. Clearly he’s not operating alone, but few people did. Newton is perhaps the most obvious example of significant progress in independent and established fields and IMO far more impressive, but it’s really not a long list.
    - staticassertion 5y ago
      Thanks for proving my point. As I said, listing out names just means that people are going to try to say why those people are less impressive. As for Musk's accomplishments, I don't find them to be very impressive or interesting.
      - 5y ago
enraged_camel 5y ago
Please name a few. We're all waiting. :)
Cd00d 5y ago
That's not an actual reply. Genuinely curious, just limit yourself to a list of 5, and don't worry about ranking so nobody more important is left out.

I can think of so many people who are radically more accomplished in vastly more interesting and important ways, it feels absurd to start listing because of how many I'd be leaving out by doing so.

sixQuarks 5y ago

name one then. I'm genuinely curious

clouddrover 5y ago
Nikola Tesla.
serf 5y ago
intellectual accomplishments: Einstein, Tesla, Vannevar Bush, Newton, Bohr, Maxwell, Faraday, Gallileo, Newton, Dirac, Rutherford financial accomplishments: Rockefeller, Getty, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Mellon, Walton, Kluge, Gates, Bezos, Buffett industrial accomplishments: Ford, Edison, Gould, Morgan, Page, Brin, Zuckerberg, Branson, Allen Lots of overlap on the lists, but I decided not to doubly-list individuals -- and the lists are by no means complete, I favored recent centuries. That said, Musk is tremendously successful and awe-inspiring; this pissing contest is a miserable thing to participate in -- but I still think it's important to point out that Musk isn't the only awe-inspiring success ever.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

renjimen 5y ago

Even naming a few would actually help your argument, since you can think of so many

staticassertion 5y ago
Can you not? Like, how about people who have made major academic or philosophical breakthroughs? Major authors? Even within business, or celebrity, Elon doesn't stick out much other than filling a small niche. The problem with naming them is that then it becomes a discussion on whether the people I've named are impressive. Someone mentioned Einstein and was downvoted. Einstein is very obviously more interesting and accomplished in my mind than Elon, but he's one of many. Turing was 23 when he wrote his thesis on algorithmic computation. There are people with multiple turing awards out there. If your yard stick is "rich person who made more money" yes, or "CEO who makes memes", or "is a celebrity", Elon is impressive relative to the general population. It's a sad, sad way to measure accomplishments, but sure.
- Retric 5y ago
  The point is they needed to make multiple significant independent breakthroughs in established fields. Turing like a lot of pioneers is seriously overrated. When surrounded by low hanging fruit it’s easy to seemingly make a great deal of progress especially when your credited with formalizing existing ideas or making that one last step into usefulness. Einstein actually pushed boundaries in a well established field which is vastly more impressive. Musk significantly pushing the boundaries in cars, rockets, computer networks, and banking is quite impressive in that context. We can quibble about PayPal, but I am being consistent in ignoring the charging network and self driving system etc as those are emerging fields. Clearly he’s not operating alone, but few people did. Newton is perhaps the most obvious example of significant progress in independent and established fields and IMO far more impressive, but it’s really not a long list.
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    Thanks for proving my point. As I said, listing out names just means that people are going to try to say why those people are less impressive. As for Musk's accomplishments, I don't find them to be very impressive or interesting.
    - 5y ago

enraged_camel 5y ago

Please name a few. We're all waiting. :)

Cd00d 5y ago

That's not an actual reply. Genuinely curious, just limit yourself to a list of 5, and don't worry about ranking so nobody more important is left out.