Who do you admire?

[Thomas A. Anderson]

What famous people or not that famous do you admire and why? Who are your heroes? Just don't say your parents...

I find it interesting to learn about people who have done great stuff.

My short list:

Richard Feynman: For both it's personality and it's genius. "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman" is an awesome book. He is what every scientist should ought to be.

Paul Graham: For his great essays about startups. Also, he is doing what I think his the best job, being a mentor in a startup incubator. There is only so much work you can do by yourself, but by helping others do their work, there is no limit.

Richard Stallman: For his ideology. He is for software freedom and against software patents and anything that is against the user. Also, his legacy is incredible. He is the founder of the Free Software Foundation and GNU which did a huge amount of work (GNU/Linux for example).

Leonardo Da Vinci: Because he was great at so many domains. I like the inventions especially.

Douglas Adams: For The HitchHiker's Guide to the galaxy. It never occurred to me that a book could be funny before reading this one.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Socrates, for questioning everything.

 

[Solitaire U.]

Noam Chomsky

 

[Turniphead]

Niklas Jansson -- for his design work and independent thought in the art/game/design world. And for not liking drawing...

Terry Pratchett -- for being generally awesome.

Also, at the moment...
Adam Savage -- for his general enthusiasm.

 

[Ink]

Very many different people, I search for them constantly... Whether it's a healthy obsession or not I'm not sure.

 

[BigApplePi]

I admire particular qualities in a person who have done well. This admiration spreads to the person and encounters less admirable things.

For examples, Einstein for his creative accomplishments, but not as a mathematician or a social philosopher. That doesn't mean you can't admire him for all three.

Another is Hitler (the horror) for his public speaking ability, but not for his morality.

I admire HB a professor in college who was a great inspiration, but not for his mentorship as he never was my mentor.

I admire my father for his supposed worldliness, but not for his caretaking as a father.

I admire Architect for his ability to give sober and mature answers to questions but I don't share his sense of humor.

There are more ...

 

[Analyzer]

Murray Rothbard
Fedinand Magellan

 

[Duxwing]

--Socrates for questioning everything and being brave enough to die rather than renounce himself. In terms of personal behavior, he is to me the ideal philosopher: curious, skeptical, and brave.
--Einstein for thinking of relativity.
--Voltaire for his polemics, bravery in the face of criticism and imprisonment, and candid (Voltaire fans will get the joke) discussion of the injustices of France.
--Whoever pushed the button for NASA's manner space programs: if something goes wrong, then it's your sorry butt that sent them into space.
--Edison and Tesla for their work with electricity

-Duxwing

 

[Chad]

Jesus
King Solomon
Socrates
Plato
Thomas Aquinas
St Aguistin
C.S. Lewis
J.R.R. Tolkein
Adam Smith
Carl Marx
John Newton
Dr. Francis Collins
Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Jefferson
Martin Luther King
William Wiberforce
Mahatma Gandhi
Mother Theresa
Nelson Mandela
John F. Kennedy
Abraham Lincoln
Thomas Edison
Nikola Tesla

I could go on there are many great historical figures in history I have named a few that came to my mind quite quickly.

 

[redbaron]

Lao Tzu
Vince Lombardi
Anton Chekhov

 

[Chad]

Marie Curie
Isaac Newton
Galileo Galilei
Edwin Hubble
Archimedes
Alexander Graham Bell
Alfred Nobel
James Prescott Joule
Michael Faraday
John Dalton
Robert Boyle
Blaise Pascal
Levi Strauss
Orville Wright
Wilbur Wright
James Watson
Francis Crick
George Washington Carver
John Kellogg
Henry Ford
Guglielmo Marconi
Heinrich Hertz
Samuel Morse
Adolphe Sax
John Philips Sussa
Edward Teller
John Venn
Leonardo da Vinci
Eli Whitney
James Watt

 

[Absurdity]

"No man is a hero to his own valet." - Montaigne

 

[addictedartist]

Manly Palmer Hall
Fulton Sheen
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Aziz Shavershian
Alan Watts
Stephen Hawking
Terrence Mckenna
Hayao Miyazaki
Napolean Hill
Mewlanna Jallaludin Rumi
Shakespeare
Aleister Crowley
Salvidor Dali
David Bowie
Bruce Lee
Bob Marley
Milla Jonavich
Michelangelo Buonarroti
Gustave Doré
;as well as some of of the previous mentions,
And anyone who reads my posts

 

[GodOfOrder]

--Socrates for questioning everything and being brave enough to die rather than renounce himself. In terms of personal behavior, he is to me the ideal philosopher: curious, skeptical, and brave.
--Einstein for thinking of relativity.
--Voltaire for his polemics, bravery in the face of criticism and imprisonment, and candid (Voltaire fans will get the joke) discussion of the injustices of France.
--Whoever pushed the button for NASA's manner space programs: if something goes wrong, then it's your sorry butt that sent them into space.
--Edison and Tesla for their work with electricity

-Duxwing

everything you said, this was my exact thought, though I would add to my list...

Adam Smith- father economics and a philosopher who dealt with a rather unique and diverse range of topics (including even music)
Justice Thomas- currently serving justice of the US supreme court, for his position on the commerce clause
Thomas Jefferson- I admire those who can do much, and do it well. Aside from that, I respect his position on federalism, and government in general

However, the only person I would remove from the list would be Edison, for Tesla makes him redundant, and he stole everything good from Tesla anyway.

 

[Hadoblado]

Einstein, Socrates and Da Vinci are the classics, though they are somewhat generic answers.

It's strange, I am not impressed by feats of conviction. It is ability that impresses me most.

 

[Puffy]

I'm not so sure about hero, as I'm a little dubious of hero worship, but admire...

Emmanuel Levinas - For suffering through one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century and yet presenting one of the most hospitable philosophies I know.

John Cage - I just like the conception of his music as chance driven and working against his own agency. It's one of the first things that got me thinking about trying to create a perspective that facilitates a subject-subject relation to the world rather than a subject-object one.

Carl Jung - One of the thinkers I've read for the longest time and continue to glean insights from.

edit: Have to sneak Alan Moore in, for getting me interested in comics...

Potentially, Christopher Alexander somewhere down the line. Don Van Vliet to for his unflinching individuality...

 

[SpaceYeti]

--Socrates for questioning everything and being brave enough to die rather than renounce himself. In terms of personal behavior, he is to me the ideal philosopher: curious, skeptical, and brave.
--Einstein for thinking of relativity.
--Voltaire for his polemics, bravery in the face of criticism and imprisonment, and candid (Voltaire fans will get the joke) discussion of the injustices of France.
--Whoever pushed the button for NASA's manner space programs: if something goes wrong, then it's your sorry butt that sent them into space.
--Edison and Tesla for their work with electricity

-Duxwing

I respect Edison, but I like Tesla more. Edison was a dick!

 

[GodOfOrder]

I respect Edison, but I like Tesla more. Edison was a dick!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ1Mz7kGVf0

 

[Ink]

I never really could admire historical figures, all you really know about them is their achievements, which isnt enough for me, they could be really annoying in person...

 

[Architect]

I have some small admiration for Ray Kurzweil. His father was a famous conductor in his day and so Ray has a musical background (plays the piano), plus his ideas are remarkable and are shaping the latter part of my life. If I was to rewind my life I would most like to have been him in that sense of admiration.

In another sense I don't admire anybody anymore. I've come to think that free will plays a small part in history, in a way. I believe things would have developed much the same - though differently in details - if historical figures hadn't been there. Somebody else would have done the same, or we would have gotten to a similar result via a different path. Remarkable people are really 'remarkable lives', what they did was more a product of their temperament, time period, how they were raised and accident than any remarkable individualism.

So with that idea I savor historical people not so much as individuals but as part of the larger forces of humanity.

 

[Jennywocky]

I have some small admiration for Ray Kurzweil. His father was a famous conductor in his day and so Ray has a musical background (plays the piano), plus his ideas are remarkable and are shaping the latter part of my life. If I was to rewind my life I would most like to have been him in that sense of admiration.

Is this where the Kurzweil line of synths came from?

 

[Chad]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ1Mz7kGVf0

That made my day. I find the more I learn about Tesla the more I am intrigued we are just now starting to use some of his ideas realize just how ingenious he actually was. Thomas Edison wasn't a theft they were working on similar ideas at the same time. Thomas Edison was just better at getting his Ideas out to the public. Tesla was most likely much more of a genius of the two.

 

[motrhead]

People I admire, since I don't believe in heroes.

Einstein
Tesla
Gandhi
Sojourner Truth
Karl Marx
Che
John Lennon
Bob Marley
Frank Zappa
Yoko Ono
Bob Geldof
Hans Ledwinka
Lee Miller
Camille Claudel
Ray Bradbury
Pablo Neruda

 

[Thomas A. Anderson]

In another sense I don't admire anybody anymore. I've come to think that free will plays a small part in history, in a way. I believe things would have developed much the same - though differently in details - if historical figures hadn't been there. Somebody else would have done the same, or we would have gotten to a similar result via a different path. Remarkable people are really 'remarkable lives', what they did was more a product of their temperament, time period, how they were raised and accident than any remarkable individualism.

I have thought of that before and I agree.

But the way I see it, people I admire is people I want to become. If I live a life like Feynman did, but never achieve something great (which is my current goal), fine by me. If I live by the ideologies of Richard Stallman, I'll consider my life well lived too.

Da Vinci, Paul Graham and Douglas Adams I admire for their work, but they still jump of the page. Yes, luck plays a good part in achieving success, but I find admiring men of science to be a sane thing to do, even if another scientist would probably have found the same thing a couple of years later. They are the ones that bring society forward. Their names might be irrelevant, but their work is not.

And you have to know who you want to be if you want to change who your are.

 

[Architect]

Is this where the Kurzweil line of synths came from?

Same guy, that was his first business. He sold it off years ago.

Then he worked on speech recognition, that company was sold as well and eventually became part of what is today known as Nuance.

 

[FlowerThug]

Noam Chomsky, i love how critical he can get.
Karl Marx, critical of existing and fledgling economic philosophy
Marie Currie, she was hot
Bhagat Singh, brave intellectual, martyred
Patrice Lumumba, more a sentimental admiration
Tupac Shakur, for being a real G

 

[Chad]

Authors

Douglas Adams
Sir Author Colan Doyle
Ted Dekker
C.S. Lewis
J.R.R. Tolkien
Aesop
The Grime Bothers
Hans Christian Andersen
Isaac Asimov
Edgar Allan Poe
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr
Herbert George "H. G." Wells
Charles John Huffam Dickens
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde
Samuel Langhorne Clemens "Mark Twain"
Ernest Miller Hemingway
Richard Bachman "Stephen King"
Homer
Antoine Galland
Jonathan Swift
Mary Shelley
Jules Gabriel Verne
Philip Nolan
Philip Kindred Dick
Sin-lequi-unninni (earliest known editor of the Epic of Giligmash)
(Unknown Anglo-Saxon Poet author of Beowulf)
(unknown Authors of The Matter of Britain "the King Author tales")
Anyone that Authored Mythology is interesting to me.

 

[truthseeker72]

everything you said, this was my exact thought, though I would add to my list...

Adam Smith- father economics and a philosopher who dealt with a rather unique and diverse range of topics (including even music)
Justice Thomas- currently serving justice of the US supreme court, for his position on the commerce clause
Thomas Jefferson- I admire those who can do much, and do it well. Aside from that, I respect his position on federalism, and government in general

However, the only person I would remove from the list would be Edison, for Tesla makes him redundant, and he stole everything good from Tesla anyway.

I like your trio. All three of these men advanced the causes of liberty and freedom.

My list would also include:

Ayn Rand
Ron Paul
Jim Morrison

 

[dala]

Mr. Rogers - the only person in the world who could win over the US senate with a poem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXEuEUQIP3Q