DA: Paragons of Humanity

[viranimus]

After watching "Dawn of the Seeker" and with Dragon Age 3 on the horizon I find myself in a DA mood.(and honestly slightly reinforced by recent run through on Bioshock Infinte)

So It got me thinking, if humanity followed the dwarven meritocracy system of Paragon worship who do you thinkour greatest paragons and their contribution to the species are? Any field, any walk of life, any period of history. The challenge is in trying to limit it to so few out of so many who made powerful contributions.

Spoiler: My top 10 In no particular order

Thomas Jefferson = Politics
Nicoli Tesla = Electrical Engineering
Sigmund Freud = Psychoanalysis
Ludwig van Beethoven= Music
Sun Tsu = Military strategy
Leonardo DaVinci = Art
Jesus/Socrates = Theology/Philosophy
Charles Goodyear = Inventor for revolutionizing cheap/easy/effective birth control in the condom.
Yuri Gagarin = Exploration - First human to escape the terrestrial bonds of earth.
Guglielmo Marconi= Radio Technology- Set the stage for wireless tech

So what would you think such a list should consist of?

For further discussion you could go the opposite and identify whos efforts and contributions damaged society and the species to the most devastating extent felt throughout generations and ages.


EDIT: GET OUT OF MY HEAD CAPTCHA!!! "Human Race"

 

[Henrik Knudsen]

The Tankman, maybe also known as Wang Weilin.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Ludwig van Beethoven= Music

I'd say Mozart for this one. I know it's my opinion but I study music and I believe Mozart contributed more to music. You could argue Beethoven, some say he introduced scales, but not everyone agrees.
I'll go with Newton or Galileo, they taught us a lot about how shit works. You could argue that they were the precursors to a lot of modern inventions.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

Ludwig van Beethoven= Music

I'd say Mozart for this one. I know it's my opinion but I study music and I believe Mozart contributed more to music. You could argue Beethoven, some say he introduced scales, but not everyone agrees.
I'll go with Newton or Galileo, they taught us a lot about how shit works. You could argue that they were the precursors to a lot of modern inventions.

snip

Uhm... Did you just forget about Johann Sebastian Bach?
Say what you want about his music, but if any one man could be considered the "Paragon of Music", it's him.

And I veto Jesus, because we don't really know what the guy preached but rather we have a book, written by people that maybe never even met him.
So I guess I would go with Socrates.

 

[Launcelot111]

Goodyear over Edison or Henry Ford? I'm not so sure about that (benefit of condom notwithstanding).

For the worst for society thing, I read an interesting argument about how Frank Sinatra was terrible for society. The author of this argument said that Sinatra invented "cool" and that "cool" was the death of the informed and opinionated and heavily invested in values that one cared about and willingness to act on those values. Instead, Sinatra's "cool" didn't care about anything and had no such values and pretty much let everyone else do anything that involved the slightest hint of heavy lifting. The author concluded that Sinatra's "cool" meant Humphrey Bogart was uncool, which immediately swayed me against Sinatra, but anyway, if aloof cynicism could be tracked to a source, that source should be given a stern reprimand. Fly Me To The Moon is pretty much perfect though.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

-snip-

Gagarin?

The guy did literally jack in the Vostok capsule, the entire thing was controlled from the ground.

Two better options would be Wernher von Braun and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Korolev.

Both men were behind their respective countries Space Programs, heck the Soyuz rocket that's still in use was designed in part by Koroloev.

If anyone pushed the bounds of exploration, especially into space, its those two and they (especially Korolev) deserve recognition for it.

As for damage to the world in general you can't really go past Thomas Midgley, Jr. Creator of tetraethyllead (leaded petrol) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's), aka the leading cause of lead poisoning and the crap which ate a hole in the Ozone layer and who has been described as "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history."

 

[Bertylicious]

And I veto Jesus, because we don't really know what the guy preached but rather we have a book, written by people that maybe never even met him.
So I guess I would go with Socrates.

Technically isn't the same thing true of Socrates? Didn't he just do spoken word and then Plato wrote it all down?

 

[Erttheking]

Good old George Takei for civil rights, comedy, and best Human Being who ever lived.

<youtube=dRkIWB3HIEs>

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Architecture/Infrastructure: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Yes... There is no doubt about it... what that mad did during the industrial revolution was far beyone any other persons single exploits during a stage of history...

 

[bug_of_war]

Alexander Fleming: Discoverer of Penicillin. I'd say that's a pretty big deal.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Ada Lovelace the world's first computer programmer.

Dorothy Hodgkin Nobel Prize-winning Chemist: During her career she sought to determine the structure of organic molecules using equipment, which, at the time, was very advanced. Her first breakthrough came in identifying the structure of penicillin, which led to the creation of new antibiotics. She accomplished the same analysis for vitamin B-12 and insulin . The structural discoveries helped improve the use of these medications for pernicious anemia and diabetes, respectively. In 1964, Hodgkin became the first British woman to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry

Just wanted to add some women to the list. You would think gamers would remember Ada at least.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

Thespis of Icaria as the Paragon of acting.

He was pretty influential in Greek theatre and is one of the first legit recorded actors.

Pretty swell if you ask me.

 

[wolf thing]

Drums = Buddy Rich, the best drummer who ever lived
science = Richard Feyman, a great scientist, worked on the Manhattan project, was one of the creaters of QED (quantum elector dynamics) and discovered the reasons the challenger shuttle exploded on launch

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Ludwig van Beethoven= Music

I'd say Mozart for this one. I know it's my opinion but I study music and I believe Mozart contributed more to music. You could argue Beethoven, some say he introduced scales, but not everyone agrees.
I'll go with Newton or Galileo, they taught us a lot about how shit works. You could argue that they were the precursors to a lot of modern inventions.

snip

Uhm... Did you just forget about Johann Sebastian Bach?
Say what you want about his music, but if any one man could be considered the "Paragon of Music", it's him.

And I veto Jesus, because we don't really know what the guy preached but rather we have a book, written by people that maybe never even met him.
So I guess I would go with Socrates.

Funny thing is, we know for certain that many of the ideas we could attribute to him are actually those of his student, Plato, who wrote them down and may have made up a few more in order to support his own philosophy.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

In no particular order...

Brunel
Darwin
Newton
Mozart
Bismark
Da Vinci
Copernicus
Pythagoras
Galileo
Shakespeare

EDIT: Honorable mentions go to Tim Berners-Lee, Einstein, and The Wright Brothers.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Ada Lovelace the world's first computer programmer.

Dorothy Hodgkin Nobel Prize-winning Chemist: During her career she sought to determine the structure of organic molecules using equipment, which, at the time, was very advanced. Her first breakthrough came in identifying the structure of penicillin, which led to the creation of new antibiotics. She accomplished the same analysis for vitamin B-12 and insulin . The structural discoveries helped improve the use of these medications for pernicious anemia and diabetes, respectively. In 1964, Hodgkin became the first British woman to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry

Just wanted to add some women to the list. You would think gamers would remember Ada at least.

I have, in fact, named my brand-new laptop 'ADA'. I'm cool like that.

Anyway, on topic, I would like to put forward Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Norman Borlaug. Look them up.

 

[The Harkinator]

William Wilberforce NEEDS to be in there, I think Einstein and Alan Turing should be there too. Maybe have Stephen Hawking up there one day?

Those saying Newton, Galileo and Brunel have the right idea.

EDIT: Oh dear whoops, forgot Tim Berners Lee and Shakespeare.

 

[Ironside]

My list seems to have a fair few Brits in it, but these are the people who I think have had the most positive influence.

Darwin
Shakespeare
Charles Dickens
William Wilberforce
James Clerk Maxwell
Newton
Brunel
Tesla
Einstein