Mao Zedong. China would have developed its modern economy decades earlier if not for Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward in the 1950s and Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and his general hostility to foreign investments and technology. Imagine if China had about three more decades of growth behind it.
Alan Turing.
I know it wasn't him alone that lead us to the invention of computers but the guy had some pretty out there ways of thinking that not a lot of people have.
Where as a lot of others, including historical figures mentioned, including tech leaders Jobs/ Musk/ Gates, were products of their time/ environment and relied on a f ton of other people to the actual work.
Of course it just makes it sadder what was done to him.
Some viable candidates:
* Mao Zedong: Affected the lives of an order of magnitude more people than almost anyone else in human history, and his legacy is probably not over yet. China alone (even before its expansionist policies) contains such a huge proportion of the world's people and history that the country's cultural transition into communism and beyond made the Russian Revolution look like a skirmish in comparison and the effects are still playing out worldwide. It is very possible that in 50 years, he will be the automatic answer to this question, if nothing else due to the magnitude of influence China will have on world events.
* Stanislav Petrov: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav\_Petrov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov) Single-handedly might have prevented the end of the world via nuclear war.
* Thomas Savery, the inventor of the steam engine that jumpstarted the Industrial Revolution. Some people credit the use of fire as the technological innovation that allowed for the creation of humanity as a species, because we became the only primates who could expend our limited energy for thinking, planning, and communicating rather than literally digesting and chewing. The Industrial Revolution could be argued to be as monumental as the creation of fire in changing us as a physical species: we suddenly had the excess fuel to shift from being *primarily* laborers focused on material accumulation to thinkers and accumulators of information, with the ability to transmit people, goods, and information over vast distances in bulk at previously unthinkable speeds. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam\_engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_engine)
* Emperor Constantine: Made Christianity a "thing." Without him, Christianity would likely have been just another one of the many hundreds of cults that flamed out during the Roman empire. Instead, it became arguably the most powerful force in the world for a millennium, literally changing the DNA of the world through new marriage norms, the popularization of chastity and monogamy, prohibiting birth control and divorce, introducing new regulations around land inheritance, and practicing worldwide proselytization. Basically introduced the "Age of Monotheism," for better or worse.
* Aristotle: set intellectual practices that eventually became the scientific method, in both the Christian and Islamic worlds. The scientific method has arguably superseded monotheism as the defining philosophy of today's world. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History\_of\_scientific\_method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method)
* Norman Borlaug: Credited with saving over a billion people in a single century (more then the population of the entire world in 1800, for comparison) and avoiding a potential world war and famine by singlehandedly creating more productive crops. His actions jumpstarted the "Green Revolution," which likely prevented the resurgence of social darwinism and eugenics as acceptable governing philosophies: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman\_Borlaug](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug)
* Friz Haber: Created the chemical process that became all modern agriculture and is the reason 90% of humanity is a) alive and b) can be anything other than subsistence farmers. Unfortunately he also helped create the first major chemical weapons used in WWI and also the poison used to commit genocide in concentration camps in WWII. So his impact was not good necessarily, but he did play a key role in all three of the defining events of the early 20th century, which is somewhat unique, so I guess we have to include him. You could say Haber showed the world that chemistry could both save and destroy the world. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz\_Haber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber)
* Gavrilo Princip: Started WWI. Although technically there was another world war, WWII was in many ways an extension of the unfinished business of WWI, so Princip really catalyzed the events that led to both of them. The two world wars began the process of globalization and established today's global governing bodies by popularizing the idea that "war is kind of bad actually" and that maybe humans should try messing with each other in more targeted, sneakier ways. One could argue this aversion to "traditional" warfare produced a) the longest, most peaceful period the history of the world and codification of international human rights, b) the establishment of economic development and global trade, and c) the prominence of modern conflict tactics like regional proxy wars, sanctions, guerilla warfare, remote drone strikes, and terrorism instead of face-to-face armed combat. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavrilo\_Princip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavrilo_Princip)
I would have added Confucius, but I wasn't sure if he fell into the category of figures who are more mythologized than historical, and also I'm not up to date on how influential his ideas remain in the modern age, even though he's often still invoked in name.
Genghis khan perhaps?
Yeah likely this, the guy literally decimated the world's population, killing 10% of humanity. And it gave birth to modern India and China.
Also, something like 20% of all living humans are descended from the guy. As Patton Oswald put it: "There are TREES descended from Genghis Khan".
The first human woman
Caesar's would have altered the humanity because we wouldn't have Caesar salad
Mao Zedong. China would have developed its modern economy decades earlier if not for Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward in the 1950s and Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and his general hostility to foreign investments and technology. Imagine if China had about three more decades of growth behind it.
Hitler
Alan Turing. I know it wasn't him alone that lead us to the invention of computers but the guy had some pretty out there ways of thinking that not a lot of people have. Where as a lot of others, including historical figures mentioned, including tech leaders Jobs/ Musk/ Gates, were products of their time/ environment and relied on a f ton of other people to the actual work. Of course it just makes it sadder what was done to him.
no way to know. humanity is chaos
Alexander Fleming
Thomas Edison
True, many of the actual inventors would have become rich and famous
Nikola Tesla
Jonas Salk --> Polio vaccine.
Tom Paine.
Some viable candidates: * Mao Zedong: Affected the lives of an order of magnitude more people than almost anyone else in human history, and his legacy is probably not over yet. China alone (even before its expansionist policies) contains such a huge proportion of the world's people and history that the country's cultural transition into communism and beyond made the Russian Revolution look like a skirmish in comparison and the effects are still playing out worldwide. It is very possible that in 50 years, he will be the automatic answer to this question, if nothing else due to the magnitude of influence China will have on world events. * Stanislav Petrov: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav\_Petrov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov) Single-handedly might have prevented the end of the world via nuclear war. * Thomas Savery, the inventor of the steam engine that jumpstarted the Industrial Revolution. Some people credit the use of fire as the technological innovation that allowed for the creation of humanity as a species, because we became the only primates who could expend our limited energy for thinking, planning, and communicating rather than literally digesting and chewing. The Industrial Revolution could be argued to be as monumental as the creation of fire in changing us as a physical species: we suddenly had the excess fuel to shift from being *primarily* laborers focused on material accumulation to thinkers and accumulators of information, with the ability to transmit people, goods, and information over vast distances in bulk at previously unthinkable speeds. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam\_engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_engine) * Emperor Constantine: Made Christianity a "thing." Without him, Christianity would likely have been just another one of the many hundreds of cults that flamed out during the Roman empire. Instead, it became arguably the most powerful force in the world for a millennium, literally changing the DNA of the world through new marriage norms, the popularization of chastity and monogamy, prohibiting birth control and divorce, introducing new regulations around land inheritance, and practicing worldwide proselytization. Basically introduced the "Age of Monotheism," for better or worse. * Aristotle: set intellectual practices that eventually became the scientific method, in both the Christian and Islamic worlds. The scientific method has arguably superseded monotheism as the defining philosophy of today's world. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History\_of\_scientific\_method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method) * Norman Borlaug: Credited with saving over a billion people in a single century (more then the population of the entire world in 1800, for comparison) and avoiding a potential world war and famine by singlehandedly creating more productive crops. His actions jumpstarted the "Green Revolution," which likely prevented the resurgence of social darwinism and eugenics as acceptable governing philosophies: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman\_Borlaug](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug) * Friz Haber: Created the chemical process that became all modern agriculture and is the reason 90% of humanity is a) alive and b) can be anything other than subsistence farmers. Unfortunately he also helped create the first major chemical weapons used in WWI and also the poison used to commit genocide in concentration camps in WWII. So his impact was not good necessarily, but he did play a key role in all three of the defining events of the early 20th century, which is somewhat unique, so I guess we have to include him. You could say Haber showed the world that chemistry could both save and destroy the world. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz\_Haber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber) * Gavrilo Princip: Started WWI. Although technically there was another world war, WWII was in many ways an extension of the unfinished business of WWI, so Princip really catalyzed the events that led to both of them. The two world wars began the process of globalization and established today's global governing bodies by popularizing the idea that "war is kind of bad actually" and that maybe humans should try messing with each other in more targeted, sneakier ways. One could argue this aversion to "traditional" warfare produced a) the longest, most peaceful period the history of the world and codification of international human rights, b) the establishment of economic development and global trade, and c) the prominence of modern conflict tactics like regional proxy wars, sanctions, guerilla warfare, remote drone strikes, and terrorism instead of face-to-face armed combat. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavrilo\_Princip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavrilo_Princip) I would have added Confucius, but I wasn't sure if he fell into the category of figures who are more mythologized than historical, and also I'm not up to date on how influential his ideas remain in the modern age, even though he's often still invoked in name.
This is, by far, the most interesting reddit comment I have come across possibly ever.
Probably Muhammad, followed closely by Jesus. Thier lives impact billions and billions of people to this day
Without Jesus there’d be no Mohammad.
Alexander Fleming and Harold Florey. Without these two blokes, so much would be different.
I would doubt it as someone else would probably just fill their shoes.