• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Mt Rushmore of Influential People who have lived [article from Time Magazine]

wakephan09 said:
My argument was simply that it wasn't Gutenberg himself who significantly influenced world history. The notion that the printing press changed the world overnight is still pretty widely held, but it has been convincingly disproven. The book trade was incredibly advanced in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, and it was far more efficient to produce and purchase non-printed books during and immediately after Gutenberg's lifetime. Not saying printed books weren't sweet, just that if there was something that you particularly wanted, you'd be in much better shape looking for it in manuscript until the late 16th century.
Click to expand...

Still seems to me that whether it was influential overnight or influential two centuries later, it was a necessary if not sufficient technological building block towards proliferating literacy, Christianity, etc.
 
Got to take the first step, plus the graphic representation would appear nicely linear in increases so the 17th century would not have happened without the first step in 1452.
 
TownieDeac said:
Still seems to me that whether it was influential overnight or influential two centuries later, it was a necessary if not sufficient technological building block towards proliferating literacy, Christianity, etc.
Click to expand...

LOL at Christianity needing to be further proliferated. Agreed about literacy. The main point I mean to make, I think, is that there was already an incredibly advanced non-print literary culture before, during, and after the advent of the press.

bcobbdeacs said:
Got to take the first step, plus the graphic representation would appear nicely linear in increases so the 17th century would not have happened without the first step in 1452.
Click to expand...

I think I would generally agree with the both of you, and obviously I'd be a staunch believer in the importance of literacy and book-production in the turn towards 'modernity' (whatever that is). One of the important things I'd like to push, though, is that reliability thing -- early printers could (and did) print pretty much whatever they wanted, however they wanted. The non-print book trade had an established infrastructure, divisions of labor, and oversight which ensured the content and quality of production.
 
wakephan09 said:
LOL at Christianity needing to be further proliferated. Agreed about literacy. The main point I mean to make, I think, is that there was already an incredibly advanced non-print literary culture before, during, and after the advent of the press.

I think I would generally agree with the both of you, and obviously I'd be a staunch believer in the importance of literacy and book-production in the turn towards 'modernity' (whatever that is). One of the important things I'd like to push, though, is that reliability thing -- early printers could (and did) print pretty much whatever they wanted, however they wanted. The non-print book trade had an established infrastructure, divisions of labor, and oversight which ensured the content and quality of production.
Click to expand...

Sorry, the parallel form of the list would certainly make you think I meant Christianity was proliferated bc of the press. I'm sure it was, but that's not what I meant. Bad writing. More, the press had a transformational role in the church, via the 95 Theses being distributed, the whole Chasm and all that.

Anyway, cool discussion.

I guess we can thank The Reff, who I had assumed would have picked Valentine, Hess, Nestor, and Corbett.
 
The Time article actually listed 100 living people........Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Columbus, Shakespeare, Moses, Martin Luther King Jr, Plato, Napolean just to name some. This came up yestrday in our sermon at church. So of course Jesus was #1.

Also the list of non-living people that might make the same type Top 10. Like Sherlock Holmes, Cinderella [like Cinderella story and how that has taken off in sports stories], Peter Pan, Barbie, etc....so that was an entirely different list.

And no Townie, I would not have had Hess or Valentine on my list......Nichols or Wirtz maybe :bowrofl:
 
Last edited:
TheReff said:
The Time article actually listed 100 living people........Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Columbus, Shakesspeare, Moses, Martin Luther King Jr, Plato, Napolean just to name some. This came up yestrday in our sermon at church. So of course Jesus was #1.

Also the list of non-living people that might make the same type Top 10. Like Sherlock Holmes, Cinderella [like Cinderella story and how that has taken off in sports stories], Peter Pan, Barbie, etc....so that was an entirely different list.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure all those people are dead.
 
I'd go with Adam as most influential because at the end of the day, we all came out of his dick. Except Eve. She came out of his ribs or some crazy bullshit like that. I mean, Jesus did some cool shit, but he didn't even have a kid, let alone have all of mankind come from his dick. So yeah, Adam for sure.
 
TownieDeac said:
More, the press had a transformational role in the church, via the 95 Theses being distributed, the whole Chasm and all that.
Click to expand...

Agreed, though that was more than half a century later. It is more telling, I think, that (if I remember correctly) the 95 theses were translated out of Latin into the Vernacular THEN printed and distributed in the vernacular. Spelled the death of the Global Roman church in more ways than one.
 
ChrisPaul3 said:
I'd go with Adam as most influential because at the end of the day, we all came out of his dick. Except Eve. She came out of his ribs or some crazy bullshit like that. I mean, Jesus did some cool shit, but he didn't even have a kid, let alone have all of mankind come from his dick. So yeah, Adam for sure.
Click to expand...

But Noah basically did though, am I right? Also, he may have had a hand in some of the new animal species as well.
 
wakephan09 said:
But Noah basically did though, am I right? Also, he may have had a hand in some of the new animal species as well.
Click to expand...

Oh don't get me wrong, I love Noah. If it weren't him, there'd be no goddamn gophers or zebras lighting up my fucking life, that's for sure. But at the end of the day, he was just following orders, you know? I mean, it's like Wendy's was invented by Dave Thomas, not the asshole who put the fucking cheese on my burger. Same thing with Noah. But he's still top 3 for me. I go 1. Adam, 2. Elmer (invented glue. without which, the world would be forever broken) 3. Noah, 4. Dave Thomas. I'm not saying that list is 100% correct but I think I know a little more about the world than Time fucking magazine.
 
wakephan09 said:
It was Eisenstein who convinced the world in 1980 that it was so, but nothing really changed for over a hundred years after Gutenberg. If you're interested, check out Adrian John's The Nature of the Book (1998??) -- it essentially replaces Eisenstein's notion of a technologically determinist print history.

Not saying it wasn't a huge deal (and people like Gutenberg and Caxton had huge balls), but print wasn't particularly reliable until the late 16th century, I'd argue.
Click to expand...

It's spelled Einstein you MORAN!!1!
 
im not sure the inventor of one particular thing deserves a huge amount of credit. the printing press > gutenberg. i feel like someone would've figured it out. like airplanes, Wright Bros. get the credit but c'mon. they barely beat the French
 
BarcaDeac said:
reff'd
Click to expand...

Summer time & not much else to discuss right now. Besides, we need to give The Wright Brothers some love for first in flight & being from North Carolina. How about Naismith for inventing basketball in 1891....there is some sports.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top