DA: Paragons of Humanity

[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.

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.

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?

Boy is my face red.
Let's go with Plato then?
He seems like a good choice as well...

 

[ClockworkPenguin]

It's fairly scientist biased because I'm not able to really capable of assessing who made the greatest artistic contributions

Maxwell
Watt
Aristotle
Haber (Haber process estimated responsible for feeding 1/3 earth population)
Khan (sure the guy was a monster, but he was effective)
Turing
Einstein
Da Vinci
Gandhi
Kant/John Stuart Mill depending on whether you like your morality served with a categorical imperative or a hedonic calculus.

 

[jklinders]

Paragon of Communication: Alexander Graham Bell, bridged the gap between the telegraph and the internet with the telephones, pretty impressive if you ask me.

Music: Bach, hands down, the masters that followed were perched on his shoulders.

Physics: Newton, what we owe him cannot be properly quantified

Exploration: Columbus, not for what he tried to do but for having the balls to actually try it. that's kinda what it's all about. There were others that preceded him to north America but he made it stick.

Creativity within which invention is covered: Da Vinci, let's face it, this man covered a lot of ground.

I might add a bit more to this later

 

[Amittai]

Bill Hicks, a visionary comedian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=vX1CvW38cHA
check this out, he's hilarious and my personal muse and would make a fine paragon alongside Plato, Tesla and those other nobodies.

 

[Pharsalus]

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

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Omg this made me laugh so hard, it's ok to be Takei!

To the original post, while I Love Sun Tzu for a nomination (pretty much based my own philosophy on the Art of War), I think men like Philip of Macedon and Marius did more for for military strategy by creating truly professional standing armies.

 

[Something Amyss]

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.

I'd veto him on the grounds that the case for an historical Jesus is sketchy at best. I don't mean to offend anyone, but....

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

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What is Takei a paragon of? Awesome, that's what!

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Boy is my face red.
Let's go with Plato then?
He seems like a good choice as well...

Plato was kinda a bit of a dick, what with the whole shoving words into Socrates's mouth. That and most of his philosophy is rather... distasteful. Maybe Aristotle?

 

[asinann]

You know your list has mythological figures and people that not even the people that work in his field consider to be valid any more, right?

 

[username sucks]

Gavin Dunne for paragon of music.
Confucius for paragon of philosophy. (also because ancient China is cool)
Ghandi/Martin Luther King for paragon of Peace.

Can't think of any others at the moment.

 

[viranimus]

So far its been a good start Many of which have presented interesting additions with many palpable reasoned arguments. Thing is I do not think there is really any "wrong" answer here.

On responses to my list, Please understand, mine was formulated in less than 5 minutes and was only really meant to serve as a "Lets get the ball rolling" for other people to add their own. Wasnt really trying to debate the merits of my list as it was a challenge for others to present their own.

Ideally I would like to see a LOT of top 10 lists in order to get a good feel for which ones are most commonly viewed as the top. Its one thing to say "Edison over Tesla", Its quite another to see 5 people say Edison compared to one who would say Tesla.

So please moar lists, Kthxbai

Edit:

One I have to specifically respond to.

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

Not to diminish opinion and a case could be made for best living human being, I think he cant hold a candle to what HAS to be the greatest human being who has ever lived.