what would ACTUALLY change the world

[Ulax]

32 minutes ago, Basman said:

Nope. Most people are ordinary. 

Limiting beliefs

[Basman]

9 minutes ago, Ulax said:

Limiting beliefs

It's not a belief as much as an observation. None of you here are going to be world leaders realistically. 

Don't misunderstand me. The lot here is more ambitious than most but your not THAT ambitious most likely, where you will noticeably change the world. And that's fine. 

[Ulax]

4 minutes ago, Basman said:

 None of you here are going to be world leaders realistically. 

What makes you say that?

[Realms of Wonder]

Music that deepens self connection

[OmniNaut]

43 minutes ago, Basman said:

It's not a belief as much as an observation. None of you here are going to be world leaders realistically. 

Don't misunderstand me. The lot here is more ambitious than most but your not THAT ambitious most likely, where you will noticeably change the world. And that's fine. 

You don't have to be a world leader to change the world.

Rosa Parks comes up top of my mind, there are countless others whose actions start movements.

Every avalanche begins with the movement of a snowflake, and my hope is to move a snowflake.

- Thomas Frey

[Basman]

26 minutes ago, OmniNaut said:

You don't have to be a world leader to change the world.

Rosa Parks comes up top of my mind, there are countless others whose actions start movements.

Every avalanche begins with the movement of a snowflake, and my hope is to move a snowflake.

- Thomas Frey

Rosa Park is more of a mascot than a real leader. She was an activist hand picked to represent the lawsuits against segregation because she was more sympathetic as a "poor seamstress" (as opposed to a "dangerous man"). Her whole story was staged for political ends. The pictures taken of her on the bus where taken after she was first arrested as part of their propaganda campaign. Real political machinations orchestrated Rosa Parks.

1 hour ago, Ulax said:

What makes you say that?

It's just probability. I'm not saying anything crazy. Prove me wrong, by all means.

Edited 3 hours ago by Basman

[OmniNaut]

37 minutes ago, Basman said:

Rosa Park is more of a mascot than a real leader. She was an activist hand picked to represent the lawsuits against segregation because she was more sympathetic as a "poor seamstress" (as opposed to a "dangerous man"). Her whole story was staged for political ends.

Still she made a difference.... Mascott or not.

And again don't confuse creating change for leadership, You don't have to be a leader to affect change.

This whole, you have to be a leader for change is a red/blue/orange thing.

 

After some research, the incident was real, the photograph was staged after.

Edited 3 hours ago by OmniNaut

[Basman]

32 minutes ago, OmniNaut said:

Still she made a difference.... Mascott or not.

And again don't confuse creating change for leadership, You don't have to be a leader to affect change.

This is about creating change. Not being a plant. Rosa Parks happened to be useful to an already existing movement. They would've picked someone else if she wasn't available.

Edited 2 hours ago by Basman

[OmniNaut]

 

21 minutes ago, Basman said:

This is about creating change. Not being a plant. Rosa Parks happened to be useful to an already existing movement. They would've picked someone else to represent their movement if she wasn't available.

Rosa Parks was neither a "plant" nor a staged stunt; her December 1, 1955, arrest was a real, spontaneous act of civil disobedience, though the Montgomery Bus Boycott that followed was a carefully organized campaign.

 

But your dodging the premisse here.

 

Leadership is one route to influence, not a prerequisite for it.

 

 1\. Activists and ordinary people

Rosa Parks — Refused to give up her bus seat; became a catalyst for the Montgomery bus boycott.

Claudette Colvin — Challenged bus segregation at 15, months before Parks.

Mohamed Bouazizi — His self-immolation in Tunisia in 2010 became a catalyst for protests that helped trigger the Arab Spring.

Miep Gies — Helped hide Anne Frank and her family from Nazi persecution.

Irena Sendler — Helped rescue thousands of Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto.

Stanislav Petrov — Questioned a Soviet early-warning system's apparent nuclear attack in 1983, helping avert a potentially catastrophic response.

Claudette Colvin — Her testimony helped challenge the legality of bus segregation.

Wangari Maathai — Built a grassroots tree-planting movement linking environmental restoration, women's rights and democracy.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg — As a lawyer, advanced gender equality through strategic litigation before becoming a judge.

Harvey Milk — An openly gay community organiser whose visibility helped shift public debate on LGBTQ+ rights.

 2\. Scientists who transformed humanity's understanding

Marie Curie — Pioneered research on radioactivity, transforming physics and medicine.

Albert Einstein — Reshaped our understanding of space, time, gravity and the universe.

Rosalind Franklin — Produced crucial X-ray diffraction evidence that helped reveal DNA's structure.

Charles Darwin — Changed biology and humanity's understanding of its place in nature through evolution by natural selection.

Gregor Mendel — Discovered fundamental patterns of inheritance through experiments with pea plants.

Ignaz Semmelweis — Demonstrated that handwashing could dramatically reduce deaths from childbed fever, despite fierce professional resistance.

Rachel Carson — Her book Silent Spring helped transform public awareness of pesticide harms and environmental protection.

Katalin Karikó — Her mRNA research helped make mRNA vaccines practical.

Tim Berners-Lee — Invented the World Wide Web, changing global access to information.

Alan Turing — Helped establish theoretical computer science and contributed to breaking German wartime codes.

Michael Faraday — Discoveries in electromagnetism laid foundations for electric motors and generators.

Jane Goodall — Changed primatology through long-term observations of chimpanzees and their behaviour.

Tu Youyou — Helped discover artemisinin, a treatment that has saved millions of lives from malaria.

Norman Borlaug — Developed improved wheat varieties that contributed to major gains in food production.

3\. Philosophers and thinkers who changed how we see the world

Socrates — Made questioning assumptions and examining beliefs central to philosophical inquiry.

Confucius — Shaped East Asian ideas about ethics, education, relationships and social responsibility.

The Buddha — Developed teachings on suffering, attachment and liberation that influenced cultures across Asia and beyond.

Ibn Sina (Avicenna) — Influenced medicine and philosophy across the Islamic world and medieval Europe.

Niccolò Machiavelli — Changed political thought by examining power and statecraft in pragmatic rather than purely moral terms.

Mary Wollstonecraft — Argued for women's education and equality, helping establish foundations of modern feminist thought.

John Stuart Mill — Advanced ideas about individual liberty, freedom of expression and women's rights.

Karl Marx — Radically influenced how people understand class, capitalism, labour and economic power.

Friedrich Nietzsche — Challenged inherited moral certainties and profoundly influenced modern philosophy and psychology.

Simone de Beauvoir — Transformed feminist philosophy through her analysis of how society constructs womanhood.

Hannah Arendt — Deepened understanding of totalitarianism, political responsibility and the nature of evil.

Michel Foucault — Changed how scholars examine the relationship between knowledge, institutions, power and social norms.

Jiddu Krishnamurti — Challenged psychological dependence on authority, organised belief and established systems of thought.

 4\. Artists who changed culture and perception

Leonardo da Vinci — Expanded the possibilities of art through observation, anatomy, engineering and scientific curiosity.

Vincent van Gogh — Helped reshape modern painting through expressive colour and emotional intensity.

Pablo Picasso — Co-developed Cubism, radically changing how artists represent space and reality.

Frida Kahlo — Used deeply personal imagery to explore identity, pain, gender and cultural belonging.

Marcel Duchamp — Challenged the definition of art by presenting ordinary objects as artworks.

Banksy — Uses anonymous street art to confront consumerism, war, inequality and political hypocrisy.

Yayoi Kusama — Expanded contemporary art through immersive installations and explorations of repetition, infinity and perception.

Ai Weiwei — Combines art and activism to challenge censorship, state power and human-rights abuses.

William Morris — Influenced design and craftsmanship while challenging the social consequences of industrialisation.

Isamu Noguchi — Blended sculpture, architecture and landscape design, changing how art interacts with public space.

5\. Musicians who changed society and human expression

Ludwig van Beethoven — Expanded classical music's emotional and structural possibilities, influencing generations of composers.

Nina Simone — Used music to confront racism and injustice during the American civil-rights era.

Bob Dylan — Helped bring protest, political commentary and literary ambition into popular music.

John Lennon — Used his music and public platform to popularise anti-war and peace messages.

Fela Kuti — Developed Afrobeat and used it to challenge corruption and authoritarianism in Nigeria.

Bob Marley — Spread reggae and messages of resistance, liberation and pan-African identity worldwide.

David Bowie — Challenged conventions around identity, gender presentation and artistic reinvention in popular culture.

Aretha Franklin — Helped define soul music and gave powerful cultural expression to Black identity and women's autonomy.

Fela Sowande — Brought Nigerian musical traditions into wider classical and academic recognition.

Kraftwerk — Pioneered electronic popular music and influenced techno, hip-hop and modern electronic production.

6\. Writers and storytellers who changed the cultural landscape

William Shakespeare — Transformed English drama and left a lasting mark on language, literature and popular storytelling.

Harriet Beecher Stowe — Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin helped intensify public debate about slavery in the United States.

George Orwell — Made political language, surveillance and authoritarianism accessible through enduring dystopian fiction.

James Baldwin — Exposed the psychological and social realities of racism, sexuality and belonging through essays and fiction.

Toni Morrison — Reshaped American literature through her exploration of Black history, memory and identity.

Ursula K. Le Guin — Used speculative fiction to question gender, hierarchy, capitalism and alternative ways of organising society.

Chinua Achebe — Challenged colonial narratives by portraying African societies and experiences from African perspectives.

George Eliot — Expanded the psychological and moral depth of the realist novel.

Rachel Carson — Also belongs here: Silent Spring helped change how the public understood humanity's impact on nature.

J. K. Rowling — Created a globally influential fictional universe that shaped contemporary reading culture, despite her later controversial public positions.

7\. Inventors, designers and people who changed everyday life

Ada Lovelace — Recognised for her early vision of how computing machines could manipulate symbols beyond arithmetic.

Hedy Lamarr — Co-developed a frequency-hopping communication concept that contributed to the history of spread-spectrum technology.

Grace Hopper — Helped make programming more accessible through early compiler development and contributions to programming languages.

Norman Foster — Helped popularise high-tech architecture and transform modern urban design.

Steve Wozniak — Designed the Apple I and Apple II computers, helping bring personal computing to a wider public.

Linus Torvalds — Created the Linux kernel, now central to much of the world's computing infrastructure.

Guido van Rossum — Created Python, a programming language widely used in science, education and software development.

James Dyson — Popularised bagless vacuum technology through iterative engineering and product design.

Yvon Chouinard — Built Patagonia around environmental activism and influenced debates about business responsibility.

 

8\. Educators, healers and people who changed institutions

Maria Montessori — Developed an influential child-centred educational approach used worldwide.

Paulo Freire — Reframed education as a process of critical consciousness rather than passive memorisation.

Florence Nightingale — Helped professionalise nursing and advance hospital sanitation and evidence-based healthcare.

Mary Seacole — Provided nursing and medical support during the Crimean War despite racial and institutional barriers.

Jonas Salk — Developed the first widely used polio vaccine, helping prevent a devastating disease.

Henrietta Lacks — Her cells became foundational to major biomedical research, raising enduring questions about consent and medical ethics.

Abdul Sattar Edhi — Built a vast humanitarian welfare network in Pakistan through grassroots service.

Verghese Kurien — Helped transform India's dairy sector through cooperative structures that strengthened many rural producers.

9\. People who changed how society sees identity and human potential

Muhammad Ali — Challenged racial injustice and the Vietnam War draft while redefining the cultural role of an athlete.

Billie Jean King — Advanced gender equality in sport and helped establish professional opportunities for women tennis players.

Jackie Robinson — Broke Major League Baseball's modern colour barrier in 1947.

Wilma Rudolph — Became an internationally celebrated Olympic champion despite childhood illness and disability.

Malala Yousafzai — Advocated for girls' education after surviving a Taliban assassination attempt.

Temple Grandin — Influenced livestock-handling practices and public understanding of autism through her work and writing.

Stephen Hawking — Advanced cosmology and became a prominent example of scientific communication while living with motor neurone disease.

Sir David Attenborough — Used natural-history broadcasting to bring biodiversity and environmental issues to global audiences.

Just to name a few.

And let's not forget recently deceased American treasure Dolly Parton

* generated with help of AI

Edited 2 hours ago by OmniNaut

[Basman]

Holy AI. 

It takes personal leadership to be effective at anything. Rosa parks was a prolific activist, no doubt. She just gets overcredited for propaganda purposes. Extensive political machinations worked to end segregation.

BTW, Martin Luther King was also a hand picked plant specifically for his profile 😉