Transcript
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. Idealist of the day. And, again, we're taking these idealists from the excellent new social media site, notepad.com, n o t e p d dot com, where people could write idealists. I always talk about how writing an idealist every day makes you smarter, more creative, and so on. And so many people have asked me over the years, can you make a site like this? So we did it. There's plenty of lists up there. At the end of this podcast, we're gonna have a challenge for you to make one of your own lists. But today, we're gonna talk about the 10 most influential people in history, which when we were first developing notepad, I just uploaded this list as a test. But, hey, who do you think are the 10 most influential people in history? And we'll talk about a few on this list, but start thinking of your own. So, Jay, Paulo, Robin, who would you say is the most influential person in history? Regardless of my list. Well, forget about my list for a second. Oh, Elon Musk. What was influential person in history? History, though. Oh, okay. History. Maybe gonna be the most influential person of next year, but I don't know if, like, my life has changed at all because of him. Because oh oh oh oh oh oh. Goddard. Doctor Goddard. Oh, who is Goddard? Robert Goddard invented the rocket ship, which, of course, the technology he used was used to make the the space program in the US. And in Russia, we have a man on the moon because of Robert Goddard. And and, also, you know, missiles and stuff like that are based on his technology as well. But I would say that's influential in terms of, like, missiles became influential, but was the space program influential? It's, I think it's interesting, though, what you just said earlier, right, about Elon Musk. And you said, my life hasn't changed because of him, and that seems like an interesting way of defining, you know, who's the most influential person in in history. I mean, by by that logic, the most influential person in history is my mother. Right? Everything happens, with a father in my life. She's a father in my life the most. That's true. Yeah. That's true. She's the most influential person in your life. But, like, I'll I'll say influence is maybe all of our lives, the entire planets Mankind. Are are where they are now because of this person. A higher percentage of what their life is like now is because of this person than because of another person. Okay. So it has to be a person, not an event. So then your mother is most likely not the most one of the most influential people in history, but she's the most influential person to Paolo. I mean, I take issue with that statement, but, I'll try to forget. Okay. We track it. Alright. This is okay. The guy that created the the phone, something Alexander Graham Bell. Alexander Graham Bell. Yeah. Because because of the phone, now we can't just look at TikTok every day. Yeah. And Or then you could say Ford or you could say yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So so I did not include these people on the list. So Alexander Graham Bell or Henry Ford, by the way, did not invent the car, but he had a big assembly line. Nikola Tesla did not invent the car, and and even his version of electricity was not used because Thomas Edison's political skills were much greater than Tesla's political Tesla, you know, he invented a better version of electricity, but Thomas Edison was more influential because he knew government officials, and he was able to get the contract to supply Manhattan with electricity. So his version of electricity is what we know now. He was a schmoozer. He was a schmoozer. He's a schmoozer, which makes him more by the way, influential people are not necessarily good guys. Yeah. That's true. Like, it's not like who's the best person ever. It's who's the most influential people. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's interesting. Yeah. It's kind of a definition. It's not the most important, but who's affected the most lives, let's say. Yes. So because of that, I'd rather think something like, Genghis Khan, you know, isn't like Mhmm. 1 third of the population is descendant of Genghis Khan or something like that. So that's number 1 on your first Yeah. So so, how many I'm gonna just Google it real quickly. How many descendants of Genghis Khan are there? I have to say, I don't have Genghis Khan blood in me. I did. I did 23 in me, so I didn't have. So, by the way, 8% of the men living in the region of the former Mongol empire carry y chromosomes that are, like, identical to Genghis Khan's. And here's another one that says, 1 in 200 men are direct descendants. So, actually, that's less than what I thought. I thought it was more like what Apollo said, which is that 1 third of the world is descended from Genghis Khan, but it's more like 1 in every 200 is a relative. If you think about it, I don't know if this is gonna make it into pockets. If you think about it, you know, he he do whatever he want to do. At at at old age, he just does he he can do whatever he want to do, but he just doesn't have that that load anymore. You know what I mean? The what do you mean? He just he could perform, but maybe just just no substance. Nothing. But, boy, is it true? I mean, old men have, like, people 80 years old have kids. So, like, are you saying know. And, you know, maybe he was just they didn't have, like, Viagra or anything back then, but maybe he was particularly rural. So or Maybe. And also was also should he mention that he murdered 10% of the world's population? And Right. So he could add a that that has to be negative. Way. Either have a lot of kids or kill a lot of people. Oh, you're abandoning lives are gonna be your kids. Yeah. Well well, here's a question. My god. Like, would you put Hitler on a list of the most influential people? Because the guy I mean, there's still less Jewish people in the world than there were before World War 2. Well, I mean, like, like, I always think about influential I thought influential, you have to influence a humanity towards a different directions. Right? So Alexander Graham Bell created a phone and a whole humanity sort of went to a different directions. But I don't know if Hitler or Kangaskhan does the same. Well, but here's the interesting thing about Jay, that's an interesting point. But, like, if Alexander Graham Bell didn't exist, would the phone have never existed? I mean, there's a lot of evidence that almost every great invention in history was developed simultaneously around the world by many people. So for instance, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, Alexander Graham Bell had to race to the patent office because someone else was racing to the patent office to file their own patent for the invention of phone, just like the car, just like the printing press or calculus. You know, calculus, Isaac Newton and Leibniz didn't even know each other was working on calculus, and yet they both invented it at the same time. Right. So would you say that Isaac Newton's influential? Well, if he didn't live, then somebody else would have done it. So I would discount his his influence. Although They knew that I was gonna grab that. I almost take issue with that. Although, I mean, I am a bit biased. But okay. Going back to that, I think there's I read somewhere, I can't remember where, that there is this idea where kind of, advancements or kind of technological events, so, you know, creation of calculus or, let's say, creation of the phone and stuff like that, If someone didn't do it, there would have been someone else who would have done it, you know Yeah. 20 years later or something like that. Whereas with kind of historical events, you know, if Hitler wasn't born, the world would probably be different. Right? Because, there's not there wouldn't be someone else who would have had the same ideas and done the same things. Going back to Newton, though, I think I don't know. I would I mean, I have a physics guy. I'm curious why you're biased about Newton versus Leibniz. Like, it's an odd thing to be biased about No. No. It's not like I'm biased about Newton versus Leibniz in itself, but just, like, the contributions that Newton has done are kind of insane. Like, to in so much as a single person, maybe that's true. There could have been 10 other people at the same time doing one tenth of the work, and he wouldn't have, so maybe maybe that's true. I think it it it does not detract, though, from the, like, greatness of the person. It's like saying detract from the greatness at all. Like, he did it. He invented it. But I'm just arguing if in terms of, how we live today, if Newton never existed, we'd probably live the same way because Leibniz. We would have got we would have used Leibniz's form of calculus. Yeah. It's a lot likely. Yeah. Same thing with Thomas Edison. Like, if we didn't use Thomas Edison's electricity, maybe we would use Tesla's form of electricity. Right. I mean, but the thing is, like, the fact that they are the one that created it. Right? Yeah. Someone else has created it at the same time. You know? But he actually created and patent it. And then he is the one that in everyone's history book that everyone learn about. That's why he is a little bit more influential than any other people. Well, we know about those history books. Yeah. Yeah. You know about the history book because the winner of Victor decide who to be on there. Right. So the the Victor, of course, writes history, but there's a here's an Italian guy, Antonio Miucci, began developing a phone in 18/49. In in 18/71, he filed what's called a caveat, an announcement of an invention for his design. But due to hardships, he he wasn't able to afford to renew his, I guess, patent. Paolo has something to say. Yeah. Yeah. That's who we learned in Italy invented the phone. Right? You're kidding. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, Alexander Graham Bell is, like, s**t in Italy. Like Yeah. Antonio Meucci. Who's that Bell? Oh, yeah. Did he work on, you know, musical Bells or something like that? Yeah. Who's that guy? Yeah. His it it says here his role in the invention of the telephone was overlooked until the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution on June 11, 2002 honoring his contributions and work. So we still would have had a telephone. We don't worry, Jay. We still would have had TikTok even if Alexander Graham Bell never existed. Right. Yeah. But I I felt like I felt like influential. I don't know. I I know I know it's about the list, but it almost felt like became the the the debate about the definition of influential. But, no, that's that's okay. We could I mean, that's interesting because what that decides who's on a list. A list. Like so he so here's another example. I included Jesus on the list, and yet Jesus during his lifetime was not really that influential at all. He had, like, a dozen disciples, like, 12 people. And, you know, I guess, hundreds of other people listened to him, but he was in a small part of the world. Well, like, most people are Christian. There's, like, Christianity is what Right. He he spread Christianity. Yeah. Clearly, over time, he became Influential. Influential. I mean I mean, Islam and Christianity is all stems from Jesus. Right? Yeah. Did you did you see that new article that said that Jesus proves that he didn't die on the stake or something? I don't know. No. What? What was the article? It was, like, 1200 year old script that said that, proves that Jesus didn't die, on the cross or the stake. Well, as far as I know, the only mention of Jesus in any kind of history is Flavius Josephus, who is a, Roman historian, mentioned briefly that there was a revolt among the Hebrews where, you know, somebody named Jesus was involved. So that I think that's the only actual historical mention of of Jesus. There's a bunch of mention, mentions of him in the, Dead Sea Scrolls. Yeah. I don't know what the story is with those. Well, Constantine is the one that created the, I I guess, the Bible that we read now, and he took out a lot of those, you know, books. Yeah. I think, I mean, for a long time, right, the so the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, and then it took a long time to translate them. And I don't know we don't know if they've been translated correctly, or we don't know the extent to which they wrote about something that was true. And I don't know if they're mentioning Jesus, actually. I mean, I'm just a regular agent on the podcast, so I can't know anything about Jesus. Jay, does it resonate with you saying Jesus was influential? Because with Confucius or Lao Tzu or somebody, and maybe this is, like, naive of me, would they be considered more, influential? Influential to me for sure because we learn about them and and we learn about their philosophy. We don't learn about their story, but, you know, we learn about their philosophy and all that stuff. So I think and then also, like and then also you you you there's a lot of, like, you know, like like, the the Confucius thinking just came up from that too. You know? Like, people have, like, a like, a whole philosophy came up from the one person. And for you, is Buddha more influential than Jesus? Like, or for for people when you were growing up, for people you knew? Okay. See, I don't know if Buddha is influential. Buddha is just a a a figure that we maybe maybe we heard about story or maybe we prayed to, but it wasn't as influential as Confucius, maybe. At least for me. You know? What about what about Jesus, though? Jesus is just a story for me too. Like, I it's like a story that I watch on TV, but that doesn't I watch Spider Man, but doesn't mean Spider Man is influential to me. You know? I think the answer is, who has the most followers on Twitter? Yeah. I see. The Rock is the most influential person. I'm sure. So I mean, I I I guess I guess The Rock is right now, you know, because of maybe Steve Jobs is too. You know? Because of his inventions and I don't know. His whole book about him and and stuff like that. In fact, he invented the turtleneck. Yeah. The turtleneck. Yeah. The turtleneck? Well, he did invent the idea that if if you wear if you have 20 versions of the same outfit, it reduces the amount of thinking you have to do in the morning so you have energy to think about more important things. So a lot of it seems a lot of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Right. Have bought into that. But, yeah, I guess Jesus I mean I mean, billions of people follow the words of of Jesus and Mohammed, so I kind of, like, lump them in together. Right. And so then you could argue Abraham, who supposedly started Judaism, although there's no historical record of him, is even more influential because he you know, Jesus ultimately was born Jewish. And, Right. Well, okay. What about on the negative side? Like, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, between them, they probably murdered a 100,000,000 people, between the 3 of them. Right. Like, how I I'm I'm just thinking about, like, how how how did they influence me? Yeah. They killed people, but did people's thinking about the the the philosophy like, for me, influential is influence is always about philosophy. Like, someone like, maybe maybe Robin's List influenced me to think about a different thing than Robin is influential to me. So I don't know. Did they did they actually, Well, that's a good point. Again, it's related to the definition of influence. Like, you could say influence is what percentage of the world's thoughts are related to maybe the thoughts of an earlier person, and then that person would be could be said to have influence. Or Yeah. Like, what's the time frame of that influence? Was it in the last 20 minutes, or was it the past 20 years? Well, that would be related to what percentage of the world they affect. Yeah. And I think I think that's very interesting because there's a kind of time wise component to this that's, people who are more more recent are more likely to influence us kind of directly. Whereas Yeah. The more people go into the past, they're more likely to have affected, you know, a longer, lifestyle. You know, amount of time and longer and or larger amount of people. So there's, an interesting balance there. Yeah. So Yeah. The other thing to think about is, like, is Plato actually influenced? Is he a influencer? Like, does he influence? Well, that's interesting because let's say let's say Wouldn't that be funny if he had he was on Twitter? It's Plato. The influencer. I wonder how many followers he'd have. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because look. Plato himself, who knows? I mean, he was, like, the first major philosopher, but then he taught Aristotle and Yeah. And Aristotle taught everybody from the stoics to the cynics to the all these different philosophical schools of thought that we now, spend a lot you know, a lot of people dedicate their lives to thinking about these things or living a life in in, let's say, a stoic way or or whatever. I mean, books on stoicism now are are they they hand them out at the airport practically. So Yeah. Yeah. So Plato might be influential. So It could be. Yeah. Yeah. So and I would say I threw this on the list even though he's not necessarily influential to other countries or maybe he is. George Washington. And the reason I say George Washington is because he the most influential thing he did was he left office. So he served for 2 terms in the United States as president of the United States, and they literally wanted to make him king and wanted to keep him to keep going as president. But he said no, and he stepped down. He rejected power. He stepped down, and I think that really influenced, you know, how how people saw, oh, US democracy is something different than we've seen before. And many countries then, adopted almost the same constitution that we did because they saw it working in action. And Lincoln too. So now now now, Paulo and and Jay, though, George Washington probably means almost nothing to you. Well well, like, the way I learned about Josh Washington is about the the tweet that he chopped down and not about lying. That's the way that's the only thing I learned about him in high school or in in whatever, like, primary school or or kindergarten or whatever. Yeah. So so, like, I it's like I felt like that he could be influential, but it just I felt like it's more, like, unconsciously influential. Like, no one would think about him as influential in that way. I think Martin Luther King would be on my list. Because well, between Martin Luther King and Gandhi, they they Yeah. Kind of came up with a new way of protesting. The nonviolent protest they sort of demonstrated could be more effective, the violent protest. And that's influenced all social protesting since then. Like, if you look at, like, the trucker convoys in Canada, they're really kind of you know, despite what Justin Trudeau says, these Canadian trucker protests have been very peaceful. Right. And that's influenced by Gandhi and MLK. And before that, by Gandhi, he was very influenced by Leo Leo Tolstoy. But Oh, right. So so it's kind of a a genealogy of influence, which is interesting to always study. But just like George Washington is ultimately has a genealogy of influence that goes back to the Magna Carta, where it kind of limited the the powers of a of a monarch. And Yeah. Yeah. Even that goes back to, you know, who was the guy in 1776 BC? Oh, the the Hammurabi, the code of Hammurabi. Oh, right. So so, essentially, every influencer or every person that were that were influential has someone else that inspired them. Probably or at least Or influenced. At least they stood on the shoulders of great you know, everybody stands on the shoulders of greatness. Every great every great person, I should say, stands on the shoulders of the greats. So not necessarily us, but other people. See, I thought that's a good list to do. Like like, who like, so, like, someone should just pick one name and who who did they who were they inspired by or which greatness of shoulder did they stand? Well, a lot of people won't be famous that you'll say or most people won't say that. The I mean, because somebody that inspired me, no one would really know who she is. So Right. Right. But then, but that'd be interesting, though, to to take some of these influential people like Hitler or Jesus or, I don't know, Alexander Graham Bell, and and kind of trace back in in time who influenced them? So I think an interesting example of this is, if you look at, Nobel Prize winners for physics, if you look at whoever won and who was their kind of, supervisor in university, there's an extreme overlap. You can literally look at the Nobel Prize winner and go back 2, 3, 4, and they're all Nobel Prize winners. Interesting. So I think this mostly applied in also early, 1900 and maybe till 19 fifties or something, but there was an extreme overlap. Yeah. Yeah. It's very, interesting to see also how much because this, I suppose it also means that the supervisor actually affects you, a lot. Right? Because they're able to And, also, it it was science in particular. Like, I'm I just, looked up who inspired, Einstein. And on the one hand, there's a physicist, Albert Michelson, who I guess did some stuff in photoelectricity. I don't know. A standard. There's an experiment. I think it's called Michelson, a morally experiment. I think it's the same person. They basically did stuff about saying, measuring the speed of light and, stuff like that. Paolo, you walked on the same campus as him. Oh, yeah. And then but then but then, it turns out that Einstein was also inspired by science fiction writers named Felix who I've never heard of. Felix Eberty and Aaron Bernstein. And, apparently, he devoured Bernstein's work with breathless attention, and it may have inspired one of the conjectures that led to his special theory of relativity. So, apparently, this guy Bernstein, he wrote a book, a story in 18 46, the stars and world history, and everybody speculated on what might happen if humans could travel faster than the speed of light. And he also wonder, what would you see if you observe the events, from Earth? And that's exactly the thought experiment that Einstein did. So it's interesting to see all the different ascendants, not descendants, but ascendants or ancestors of of a thought or an idea. Yeah. That would be a great list for someone to do. So I will make a challenge, though, is go on to notepad. Anybody listening to this, go on to notepad.com, n0tepd.com, and list who you think are the most influential people in history. Or, alternatively, take someone you find influential and who are the top 10 influences or 5 or 3 or 7. Who are the top influences on that person? And maybe the the the best of those lists will bring back on the podcast and and talk to you about it. So if you like this, subscribe to the podcast. Check out notepad.com, which is a place where you could write publicly or privately your 10 ideas a day and keep track of them and search them and search the ideas of others and and get smarter at the same time. Hope you enjoy this podcast.
