[rosalind dna]

I think you have to decide whether by "influential" you mean the person who has had the most influence, or has affected the most people. To affect someone, you need not influence them directly.

Take the case of Kublai Khan. Most Chinese would probably not have heard of him, but there can be no doubt that Chinese culture was greatly affected by Mongol rule. As there are now well over a billion Chinese, that's a lot of people that he has indirectly influenced.

And what about Buddha? No-one has mentioned him yet (at least, I didn't notice it).

Doc yes Alan MacDougall has mentioned Buddha in a long post from yesterday.

The philosophy of Karl Marx has affected untold people, as has that of Keynes (Capitalism).

Queen Victoria, in whose name half the world came under British influence and many countries still retain much culture and laws based on the British - USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, much of Africa, etc.

Or how about that ancient Greek bod who dreamed up democracy? (I think he was Greek)

Yes Democracy is a Greek word. But I don't know who had thought it up.

[Alan McDougall (OP)]

Rosalind

Alan if that is how you feel about religions, why did you mention a lot of men to do with faith in an earlier long post of yours?

EG Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, St. Paul. Lao Tzu?
It is a strange view I think

Rosalind


The list had nothing to do with my faith or position I think Paul's suggestion to use "Affect" instead of Influence is good.

Affect = (have an Effect on)

I have no argument with religious people who are true to what they believe, but the Church of England is supposed to believe in God Jesus and his teaching. But pandering and compromising, to dead atheists like Darwin does not impress me or I must say countless Church of England priests still active in the church, with many threatening to leave because the church is slowly allowing into the sacred halls of faith everything the church did not stand for.

So we can put all sorts of reprobates in positions of authority in the church and their private lives, no matter how depraved have nothing to do with the congregation. Bending previous sacred rules to the point they fall over to please the mob Call God by a false title like Allah The followers of Christ have died for their faith while the followers of Allah would have you die for their faith

Must we of the Emerald Island pander to you know who? or must the accept and adjust to our way of life Try beings an active Christian in their countries and reap the consequences

A person once said the peasants are revolting, his friend replied “yes I know I know  [] []

Alan

[DoctorBeaver]

Can anyone argue that the most influential people alive today are not Bill Gates & Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the internet)?

[RD]

Can anyone argue that the most influential people alive today are not Bill Gates & Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the internet)?

Currently more people have access to (and have been influenced by) Mr Gutenberg's invention, than have access to the internet.

 i.e. books , newspapers.

(Admittedly Mr Gutenberg is pushing up daisys).

[paul.fr]

Is this topic going anywhere?
The goalposts get changed, and what does Alan mean by "influenced", does anyone know?
Is this just another topic where the terms are not defined and where there possibly is no, one, single answer. Quite frankly it all seems to be a waste of time.

[rosalind dna]

Can anyone argue that the most influential people alive today are not Bill Gates & Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the internet)?

Currently more people have access to (and have been influenced by) Mr Gutenberg's invention, than have access to the internet.

 i.e. books , newspapers.

(Admittedly Mr Gutenberg is pushing up daisys).

LOL LOL LOL

[DoctorBeaver]

The goalposts get changed, and what does Alan mean by "influenced", does anyone know?

That is precisely why I wanted to differentiate between influence and effect.

As for RD's point about Gutenburg, that's valid. But has Gutenburg been more influential than the person (or persons) who invented writing? Without writing, there would never have been printing presses.

I would also contend that the internet could eventually have been invented without printing presses, but not without writing. Without the formal symbolisation of knowledge (e.g. writing), knowledge could only be passed by word of mouth. Printing helped bring knowledge to the masses, but writing made sure that knowledge was passed down accurately and to more people.

[rosalind dna]

RD and Doc Beaver good points but does the person, who had been
so influential in your lives have to be well-known?

I don't think so

[DoctorBeaver]

Rosalind - The original question was phrased: "...the most influential person in history", not the person who has influenced an individual the most.

[rosalind dna]

Rosalind - The original question was phrased: "...the most influential person in history", not the person who has influenced an individual the most.

Ok, Doc now I understand and had forgotten. thanks for reminding me. But it's an answer that will only become more difficult to
find the right reply to as time goes on. IMO

[paul.fr]

The goalposts get changed, and what does Alan mean by "influenced", does anyone know?

That is precisely why I wanted to differentiate between influence and effect.

As for RD's point about Gutenburg, that's valid. But has Gutenburg been more influential than the person (or persons) who invented writing? Without writing, there would never have been printing presses.

But even the post by RD can be discounted as it does not meet what the question is asking (or what it seems to be asking). Is Guttenberg an influence on people or his invention? They are, afterall, different questions.

[rosalind dna]

I was thinking about this last night and thought that we should all be grateful to Sir Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the world wide web.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee

Otherwise we'd not have come across forums, new friends and loads of education, learning, films, music etc.

Also Alan Turing, who had invented PCs though there were so big then that it
took a WHOLE room to keep them in. I've seen them. Colossus it's called and still working WoWeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

[DoctorBeaver]

I don't think the sort of computers Turing was involved with could be called PCs. Nothing particularly "personal" about them.

[blakestyger]

That's right - the computer at the college I was at in the 1960s filled an entire room and on a good day it would solve a quadratic equation.

[Alan McDougall (OP)]

I was IT Manager for a large Electricity Supply Commission,in he 1970s our IBM computer took up half the floor of a large multistory building. The master files were located on huge reels which could and would break in the middle of long runs that sometimes took 24 hours to possess.

Huge airconditioners were needed to keep the monster cool.

So the nighmare never ended , all we could do was recover from security tapes and start the whole nightmare 24 hour run again.