• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Who are the Greatest Minds of the Twentieth Century?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Who would you say are the greatest, smartest, and coolest people of the past 100 years? Who are the group of people you would throw in a room together and have hours of intellectual conversations with?

Here's some to get started:

Albert Einstein

Nikola Tesla

FDR

JFK

MLK Jr

Rod Serling


I need to think of some more.
 

Slo

Member
I'm not saying that he wasn't a great man, but was MLK really a great mind? I'm not trying to troll, I'm asking that question genuinely.
 
Well ya, I'm also talking more about who's the most interesting, than who's influential. So maybe Hitler does count. :p

Here's some more:


Noam Chomsky


Walt Disney
 

Acrylamid

Member
Besides scientists and politicians (many already mentioned), artists shouldn't be forgotten, imo.
Shigeru Miyamoto
Bill Watterson
Charlie Kaufman
Larry David
Trent Reznor

(Somehow, I have a feeling I'll get flamed for this list)
 

White Man

Member
Michel Foucault
Jacques Derrida
Albert Camus
Jean-Paul Sartre
James Joyce
William Faulkner
Franz Kafka

French intellectuals owned the 20th century.
 

MC Safety

Member
Winston Churchill
Warren Zevon
H.L. Mencken
Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt
The man who invented the Wet-Nap
Ray Kroc
T.S. Eliot
George Patton
 
Slo said:
I'm not saying that he wasn't a great man, but was MLK really a great mind? I'm not trying to troll, I'm asking that question genuinely.

You don't have to be overly smart to be a great mind. MLK was influential in getting an ENTIRE country to change its views, and that is no daunting task.
 

sc0la

Unconfirmed Member
Only going to give suggestions that have not been named here.

Miles Davis

John Coltrane

Pablo Picasso

Frank Loyed Write

Le Corbusier (uggh I hate that fucker too)

Carl Sagan

John Searle

Ezra Pound
 

SD-Ness

Member
I'm not saying that he wasn't a great man, but was MLK really a great mind? I'm not trying to troll, I'm asking that question genuinely.
Yes, definitely, in my opinion.

hitler

well in an influential sense anyway.
He was a genius.

Hitler was a fascinating man. I think all crazy dictators are :p
Personally, I find Stalin to be one of the more interesting.

Why would JFK be on any 'great minds' list?
I guess his 'courage', 'youth', and NASA program.

Miles Davis

John Coltrane
My two favorite jazz artists. Ridiculously good.




Osama Bin Laden (evil, but a mastermind of terror)
Sadam Huessein

Jimi Hendrix
Jimmy Page / Robert Plant
George Gershwin

John Knowles
Ken Kesey
Jack Kerouac
Allen Ginsberg
Stephen King
Isaac Asimov
Arthur C. Clarke
Robert A. Heinlein
E.B. White
Robert Frost

Stephen Hawking
Rachel Carson


The list could go on forever...
 
Acrylamid said:
Shigeru Miyamoto

IAWTP
thumbs_up.gif
 

andthebeatgoeson

Junior Member
Slo said:
I'm not saying that he wasn't a great man, but was MLK really a great mind? I'm not trying to troll, I'm asking that question genuinely.

Yeah, he tricked the devil into exposing himself. Nonviolent resistance is one of the greatest ideas ever and even tho it wasn't MLK Jr.'s original idea, it took a great mind to convince an entire nation of it's misgivings. What mind thought of using a nonviolent resistence in the face of attack dogs, water hoses and the KKK on National TV to expose some of the greatest evils of all time? Palestine and Isreal both faulter to not heed these teachings as sensible folk like me make them both out to be barbarians. You can't descern either of their messages when they both hit each other over the head like little kids.

I could only imagine the sympathy the Civil Rights Movement garnered from the nation and world as they continued to march into the face of death without striking back. To remind a nation of the ideals set 200 years prior (every man created equal) that had been forgotten, took a great mind. As I said before, he tricked the devil into smacking him in the face to gain sympathy from others.
 

Socreges

Banned
Slo said:
I'm not saying that he wasn't a great man, but was MLK really a great mind? I'm not trying to troll, I'm asking that question genuinely.
Read "Letter From A Birmingham City Jail". The best "minds", in my opinion, are those that can articulate themselves well. Not necessarily just those that are extremely good at physics. MLK just makes such a good case and seems to leave nothing guarded for. He actually reminds me a great deal of Socrates [through Plato] in that respect.
 

Musashi Wins!

FLAWLESS VICTOLY!
I feel that C.S. Lewis is a watered down version of Chesterton. He obviously had a talent for storytelling, but his essays/"philosophy" are weak.
 

Jim Bowie

Member
I would like to add Johnny Cash to this list, if possible.

And I don't even like country.

edit: Also add Rommel for his desert combat skillz.
 

NetMapel

Guilty White Male Mods Gave Me This Tag
As much as I don't like the man, but Mao Zedong was very powerful and influencial in the twentieth centry. He has like, what, 1/4 of the world supporting him !? That's crazy @_@

Also, J.K Rowling with her Harry Potter books became like a new fad with children quite quickly.
 

MASB

Member
J.R.R. Tolkien
C.S. Lewis
Theodore Roosevelt
Albert Einstein
Tennessee Williams
George Patton
Carl Barks
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom