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Time's Man of the Century: Linus Torvalds?
Mr H writes "According to Time's Person of the Century Poll
Linus Torvalds is #15 out of 100." When I looked, Linus -- at #15 -- was ranked right below Madonna (#14), and right above Pope Paul VI (#16). Yitzhak Rabin was #1, Elvis Presley was #2, and Adolph Hitler was #3. Bill Gates, FYI, was ranked #17, Billy Graham was #4, and Albert Einstein was #5.
Although quite cool, I have to admit, I would have to be pissed of if Linus Torvalds got this award. Yes, Linux is cool, yes Linus is cool, yes the Open Source (or Free Software, take your pick) movement is amazing... but let's not get lost in our own sociological importance! Has the movement done great things? Yes. Is it such that from a socio-political point of view, one of the more visible figureheads needs to be dubbed person of the year? Absolutely not.
That's a very compelling argument and it got me thinking along different lines than I had before. I'm thinking about the space program, and how it has had a major lasting effect on the latter third of the century. My understanding is that because of the push to get to the moon in the '60s, much of the technology that runs our information society was either created from, or resulted in some way, from the space program.
The problem I have in this arguement is pinning it down to specific individuals. Sure, Hitler changed the course of history, but he didn't do it alone, he was certainly the visible figurehead of the facist axis alliance, but he had help.
Same with Ford. Sure he is credited with inventing mass production which was the key to industrialization of the western world. But, did he do it all by himself? I'm pretty sure he had the vision and all but I'm also sure he had a lot of help.
And Torvalds. You see where this is going? He is the visible leader, is credited with the invention and the vision, and I certainly don't try to diminish that. But GNU and Linux are as powerful as they are because of the efforts of people other than Linus.
Back to the space program. So was it Kennedy who was responsible for getting us to the moon which in turn led to our information age? Hardly. He made a famous speech committing the US to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. He set a course and a goal that others fought for. Who were the real heroes behind the space program? The Astronauts? Certainly they made a significant contribution. The engineers who built the spacecrafts' systems? The astrophysicists who were responsible for formulating the mission profiles? The german rocket scientists who perfected the booster technology that got us off the surface of the earth and into space?
Answer: all of the above of course.
So what exactly is the point of naming a specific individual as the "person of the century"? Sells magazines, I guess.
Having said that, I hope we all realize that for either of these gentlemen to win this award would not say pretty things about where we put our priorities.
Every human being deserves the right to live. It's not the children's fault that they were born who they were. Maybe you should have been born a poor, starving, 3rd world child. Mabye you'd have some perspective.
Or at least, with no computer access, we wouldn't have to listen to you ranting about how saving innocent people's lives is stupid.
Sure, Linus did some great things for software. But it's just that, software. Human life is worth more then the best software ever produced will ever be.
Well, perusing the list of current votes, I can honestly say that, of the top 20, fully eight are total bullshit. The Person of the Year/Century/Decade/whatever awards are meant to be the most influential - whether good or bad. Repeat - the MOST influential. Elvis? Bull. Just because a lot of people can't believe that their beloved Elvis isn't eating nuggets at a BK somewhere doesn't make him influential. And no, I don't think he had a large impact on the music industry, and no, I don't care how many Elvis impersonators there are. Same with Madonna. She's done nothing but be popular. Maybe you could say she influenced a few people, but she has not changed the world.
Skip to Billy Graham. What? He's a TV preacher. What has he influenced? A few people who already believed in God to believe more? Good work. Ronald Reagan? Nothing against Ronny, personally, but he was a pretty mediocre President. Hell, IMHO, we haven't had a non-mediocre President since Truman. One could argue that JFK was non-mediocre, thanks to his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I might buy that.
Speaking of that, where is Truman? Truman ended the Pacific War of WWII with one swift, brutal decisive move. He probably saved millions of lives with those two bombs, and ended the war earlier and with less bloodshed then predicted, but apparently, ending this century's greatest war is less important then singing "Imagine"(John Lennon) or marrying a rich guy(Princess Diana). By the way, people - that's all Diana did. She married a rich guy. Forget thos "touching" photos of her holding poor childrens who have been harmed by land mines.
Remember Mother Theresa, who gave all she could and more, and worked herself to the bone to help the poor. Diana did some nice shit, yeah, but she could afford to. Mother Theresa couldn't, but did so anyhow.
Toss out Linus, definetly. Nice OS and everything, and I use it and love it, but in the grand scheme of things, he wasn't that influential. I'd much rather put Gates on that list, because he's been part of computing for much, much longer. However, I don't believe that Gates is that influential in the grand, worldwide scheme of things, so I'd toss him off too.
Move up FDR, Truman, Neville Chamberlain...Heck, I'd probably move Shimon Peres up some. In addition, the problem with polls like this is that people are fixated on the last ten-twenty years. Arguably, WWI and WWII changed the world more this century then ANY other events...but only Hitler and Churchill are mentioned. Not Yamamoto or Hirohito, no Mussolini, no Goehring, no FDR, no Truman, no Harding, nothing.
Toss out those pop-culture knee-jerk answers, and let's get this Linus bullshit out of there - let's pick people who really changed the world.
I think the Linus T. inclusion in this poll is utter BS.
Mention anything about Linux anywhere and you'll see a flock of dedicated Linux users/developers just voting to make their cause more visible. I can relate to this because I used to flock around to "help Apple" in those polls.
This reminds me of all the other open polls. It doesn't serve a value. Object World recently had a poll to determine the best web application server. There were Apple folks on the Mac OS X-Talk mailing list asking people to go vote for WebObject (still a damn good product, but the award it won makes it artificial).
Torvald didn't do squat to "influence the course of history over the past 100 years". Nor has Gates. Nor has Jobs.
People who shook the world for good were those who caused major shifts in society. John Lenon didn't do that either. He merely represented a free-form movement that started out of the will of the mass to change things. I guess HE can relate to Torvald. But neither really MADE the movements (BSD started out years before Linux, and is still used in more places than Linux).
But you can bet that Hitler did change the course of hystory. He changed how societies collided each other. More so than Napoleon did. He defined what war is today. He defined how a society can be manipulated into beleiving a cause, either good or bad. None can really like what he did. But nobody can ignore what he did, and still reflects today, 50+ years later, when we are still going against war criminals, picking up debries and rebuilding nations from that war.
However, Hitler couldn't have gone this far without the simplicity and genius of another man. And that's Henry Ford. Ford redefined (and basically invented) mass manufacturing, without which no U-Boats or Sherman thanks or rifles, bombs, amunitions, boots, hats, medals and tombs could have been produced in great-enough numbers to have ever made a difference. Ford didn't only shift society--he moved it, literally, by making possible (and afordable) the trade routes that constitutes today's world economies. His mass-produced cars, and the manufacturing lines that made them possible,is at the core of current human activities. Throughout this planet, right up to the moon. Apollo 11 wouldn't have made it in time for the Kenedy deadline ("before this decade is over") if it wouldn't have been for countless mass-produced parts like metal plates, wires, electronic components, bolts and paint buckets.
Ford made it possible for the Jobs, Gates, Torvalds, Lenons to have their medium to publicise their cause. Imagine Lennon without mass-produced records or radios. Jobs without mass-produced Apple I parts. Gates without mass-produced Macs to copy from. Torvalds without mass-produced internet connection apartus: modems, phone lines, hubs. Imagine a great movie without Soilent Green.
Henry got my vote.
"Man of the Century" is not necessarily an award, and in some cases it's not even an honor.
Here's the thing: the title goes to the person who has had some sort of great historical impact over the specified time period (the last century, in this case). Yes, Hitler was a madman, an utter freak, but you've got to admit that he did have one hell of a lot of historical impact.
Personally, I'd have the three go this way:
Man of the Year: Linus Torvalds (inventor/maintainer of Linux, an OS which came out of literally nowhere to challenge the Microsoft hegemony and is putting up one hell of a fight)
Man (Woman would be more appropriate in this case) of the Century: either Admiral Grace Hopper (inventor of FORTRAN, the first non-assembly programming language, which is a big part of why computers are so pervasive) or whoever at Intel is credited with the introduction of the microprocessor (just as important in the pervasity of computers today)
Man of the Millennium: Johannes Guterberg (inventor of the first practical printing press, the single biggest catalyst the the spread of knowledge there has ever been, even greater than the computer
First off, I hope that Time will decide that they should have a group of people be the "People of the Century", rather than have a single person. Perhaps it should be a group of leaders, whether it includes the likes of Hitler or not. Maybe some of the people that put together the first computers in this century -- the computer has definitely had a lasting impact (at least on those of us in developed or moderately developed countries). There is a huge number of people in the computer (and networking -- i.e. Internet) field that could be mentioned. Of course, those people would probably get much more credit if the century had started in 1940 or 1950 instead of 1900 -- nobody wants to have someone from 1995 to be a Person of the Century...
Of course, Time isn't going to take the online poll as a literal thing -- they are most likely just using it to get ideas, and to see some of the different people that we look up to, hate, or get brainwashed by..
I think Time will pick someone we don't all know, just to prove a point.. Perhaps the person that discovered you could transmit sound over the radio, the inventors of RADAR, or some other moderately obscure person or group. I guess I just don't need to get reminded about all the wars, oppression, and death that happened in this world in the last century.. I'd rather see someone that made a lasting, positive impact -- even if we hardly recognize their names.
No oviously the moderators had too many points on their hands. A few oviously moderated it up to atleast 3 then someone moderated it back down to 2 with troll being the reason. Why it got moderated up to 3 in the first place excapes me.
It probably got moderated up to three, and the last person who saw called it a troll, causing it to slip back to 2.
I can certainly see how that would happen - it was written intelligently, but was certainly provocative. The moderation system worked - it's still on the first page of results, and I think it deserved to be there.
D
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All of those other people in the list are either
1: political leaders that a) started wars, or b) ended wars
2: religious leaders that a) fell from grace, or b) held the grace of their god
3: pop culture figures that are products of a greedy western hype machine (Madonna, Bill Gates, John Lennon, Pricess Diana)
4: appear on the list only by virtue of the revenues they have generated for the media machine.
Where does Linus sit? He's not in either of those categories, realistically (okay you could say #4, but that's secondary to his function, unlike Madonna whose prime purpose is to do just that).
Linus, and the entire Linux project, is a peace-time project. You have Jews, Hispanics, Atheists, disabled people, nerds, geeks, jocks and other 'types' of people all working together, peacfully, productively, making something that countless thousands of other members of the human race will put to use to enhance their lives through greater productivity, education, etc.
For free.
Linux is the product of a truly Free Society. It is not some government funded project, it is not based on some fascist/rascist/capitalist/whateverist agenda.
Linus' inclusion in that list is the only one that makes sense.
Should we put a figurehead on the 21st Century that means anything *other* than what this civilization has fought the *entire* century to become, which is a Freedom for All Races? Should we say "the 21st Century was best represented by Adolf Hitler, who was a war monger who persecuted the Jews"?
Should we say "the 21st Century is best beheld by the image of Mother Theresa, who, in spite of her own personal suffering and persecution, continued to suffer her entire life so that children in 3rd World Countries, ignored by the rest of the species, could have decent health services"?
No. I don't think so.
Linux is the child of all of those other people on this list. It's prime creators' (Linus) image is the natural representation of everything that all of those other figureheads has either fought *HARD* to obtain, or *HARD* to prevent.
So I say he deserves to be in that list with the rest of them.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Why not Hitler? WWII was _the_ most significant political event of this century. That puts all the major leaders - FDR, Churchill, Stalin and yes, Hitler in the running for most historically significant figure of the century. Not the most admirable perhaps, but definitely one of the most significant. I voted for Gandhi myself, but the case for Hitler is pretty strong. He's a bit unlikely to disappear from the annals of history.
--Shoeboy
I don't think that any one person is worthy of the title of "Man of the Century". For every "big name" you see in that list, I'd bet there's at least 50 people working twice as hard behind-the-scenes that don't get media attention.
All of the people on that list are who they are/were because they have people behind them. They have a following. People working for them, subscribing to their way of the world, willing to go the extra mile for them. A single man is nobody without his peers to back him up.
In my opinion, the Man of the Century isn't even a man. It's the brain. Not necessarily the human brain, just the brain in general. They're everywhere. The unstable element in an otherwise stable experiment. They get us into trouble, and sometimes out of trouble if we're lucky. They build things, and they break things. They can be your best friend, or your worst enemy. They can reason, and adapt. And who knows what they'll experience over the course of the next century.
I'm wondering how many of Hitler's votes came from little kids trying to be funny, and how many came from people who were voting for "historically signifigant" people. Myself, I thought that Person of the Century was supposed to be about people who had a positive impact on history, but I dunno. I didn't read the fine print.
First, for all the people getting their knickers in a knot about Saddam and Hitler being high on the list: The purpose is to pick, and I'm quoting from Time's own website, the "person who, for better or worse, most influenced the course of history over the past 100 years." (Emphasis mine.) It's just like when Time selected the Ayatollah as Man of the Year back in 1979 or 1980 -- it's not like the editors actually thought he was a good guy.
Second, I wouldn't be astounded at Linus ranking high or above Bill. If you haven't yet learned that Linux zealots love flooding polls like these, you haven't been paying much attention. Hell, if OS/2 had a figurehead (and no, I don't think Dave Tholen counts as one), I'm pretty sure that he'd be running away with this contest.
FWIW, I'm not sure who I'm going to vote for, although I'm struggling to find someone to top Hitler, the Holocaust being only one of a number of reasons for choosing him.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
The 100 Worst Ideas. I only have two small complaints:
1) You can only pick one choice out of the list.
2) The choices at the top will probably get more votes simply because they're at the top.
Still, it's quite entertaining just to read through the choices.
By the way, I voted for Albert Einstein for the Person of the Century, simply because it's the best thing I could come up with. How Madonna or Linus even got on the list is beyond me. And who is Yitzhak Rabin? Am I missing something?
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Where do they get all those hundreds of thousands of votes from? This poll surely got hacked. Also check out this poll. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk got 1305357 votes? Yeah right. Or look at Scientists and Thinkers. As if 769029 people in this world actually know the name of Enrico Fermi (and to be honest, I don't know either Jonas Salk and Viktor Hambardzumian).
Unfortunately the phonies & frauds list doesn't keep a running tally (at least visibly), but I did find it interesting that the large majority of the ones I saw read "Bill Clinton"
Instead of everybody screaming "This is ridiculous blah blah blah, Linux doesn't deserve this blah blah blah, here's my overreacted opinion blah blah blah", let's all take this lightheartedly and /. the poll with more votes for Linux/Madonna/Hank ; )
That would be John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley, Inventors of the transistor. E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y uses the transistor. Without which Linus would be programming an abacus -er- Eniac.
Need to vote for a computer geek?? Then that would have to be Alan Turing, who gave us computability theory, of which I do not believe we have seen the full effects of yet.
But lets get even more real. We could have lived without the transistor. Sure, alot of us would be glass blowers instead of hackers.
As humans, how much pain and lives have been saved by having penicillin? In 1928 Alexander Fleming discovered an 'accidental' mold in one of his petri dishes that would save countless lives. Both in war and peace. If you are looking for sheer numbers of people affected by one thing, that would have to be close to the top.
Along this line, look at Jonas Salk, who created the first polio vaccine. How many children can live without the fear of this horrid disease now?? But thats not what makes him a good choice. He spent his life travelling the world to foster peace among all people. You need a hero??? he would be a very good choice.
Slashdotters, get real and go back and change your dumbass choices.
While Gates can't begin to qualify as being as bad as Carnegie in absolute terms, I suppose relative to the times and his industry he hasn't done badly; maybe your comparison is apt.
And I guess I'll call my car an "assorted nuts and bolts" sedan, 'cause lord knows that's the largest number of pieces in it (and let's face it - where would it be without them?), and my computer is an SIS computer 'cause that's what most of the chips in it say on 'em (cpu's doin' nothin' without the chipset, credit where credit's due I say), and my motorcycle is of course a Snap-On motorcycle 'cause those are the tools I use on it (not goin' anywhere if I can't work on it), cool, that makes perfect sense.
On a slightly more serious note, it really doesn't take much rational thought to see that Linus' contribution to computing has a) been very significant and b) almost nothing to do with writing code.
Are bananas necessary to the survival of vegetables?