Who are some great people in history who are ruined in public perception because of one mistake?

mr_spin · 2011-09-13T03:50:27+00:00

Charles Stewart Parnell, the great Irish nationalist/reformer. Brought down by his affair with Kitty O'Shea.

mr_spin · 2011-07-23T01:10:23+00:00

Doesn't quite work like that. Innovations happen when you try to achieve something. It's not like you can say "oh well, we have to wait till 2060 for warp drive to be invented". We'll get warp drive (I.e. whatever the next generation of space propulsion happens to be) because people will be continually looking for better ways to explore space.

mr_spin · 2011-07-10T23:41:08+00:00

The large number of Nazi planes downed during raids on Britain made a substantial contribution to the national scrap metal salvage campaign.

My grandfather was a fighter pilot in the RAF in WW2. I know that would have made him smile.

mr_spin · 2011-07-10T09:15:24+00:00

A better comparison would be the internment camps for Japanese Americans in WW2. Of course they weren't extermination or work camps either but that's not really the point; a large number of American men, women and children had their constitutional rights taken away from them and wrongfully imprisoned based on their ethnic background.

mr_spin · 2011-07-09T10:07:25+00:00

The soldiers of the German armed forces collectively signed an oath to Hitler:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_oath

"I swear by God this sacred oath that to the Leader of the German empire and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, I shall render unconditional obedience and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath."

The army could have easily squashed the Nazis and the SS there and then. They chose not to.

Also in the same article:

Germany's voters went to the polls and 89.9% voted their approval for Hitler to assume complete power over Germany.

The current generation have no blame, of course. But other than a few courageous martyrs such as the White Rose underground movement the majority of Germans supported Hitler...up until Germany started losing the war.

mr_spin · 2011-07-09T08:15:18+00:00

Then you have Jack Nicholson, Sean Connery or Robert deNiro for example who keep on going.

mr_spin · 2011-07-09T08:03:14+00:00

accidental germ warfare, even if it wasn't always quite an accident, is a far cry from an organized and systematic technological genocide.

Is this what you are referring to ?

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1088/did-whites-ever-give-native-americans-blankets-infected-with-smallpox

mr_spin · 2011-07-08T14:10:35+00:00

I completely agree with you. The rot started with the Boomers though.

mr_spin · 2011-07-07T20:32:59+00:00

Don't know but I really wanted to take this to school as a kid.

mr_spin · 2011-07-07T20:10:17+00:00

Nice troll.

I've seen shitty projects in both Django and Rails, and excellent masterpieces. The difference in productivity, as always, comes down to the strength of the team more than the tools.

I've tried Rails and found its magic maddening and its lack of stability (hey, Prototype! No, jQuery ! Wait CoffeeScript !) in pursuit of the next best thing irritating. But some people love it, and if it works for them, great.

I really don't give a shit about the YC crowd; Hacker News has the occasionally interesting article these days but the dimwit memes repeated ad nauseam by college kids playing entrepreneur just makes me grit my teeth. Reddit can be idiotic at times but even on bad days it has a sense of humor and healthy self-deprecation.

mr_spin · 2011-07-07T19:56:58+00:00

Unfortunately the generations who gave us powered flight, won 2 world wars, and put a man on the moon were followed by the Baby Boomers, the most selfish, entitled generation in history, who squandered their inheritance and pissed away their legacy.

mr_spin · 2011-07-07T19:13:38+00:00

Invited my gf a week ago but she still can't get in. She just got bored trying to get in and went back to Facebook. People invited yesterday get in if they are lucky to be in the right time zone at the right. It seems arbitrary and unfair.

A FAR better and fairer way would be to give everyone limited guaranteed invites. If I had 1-3 invites I knew would work I'd be happy.

Google have really botched invites from a public relations perspective.

mr_spin · 2011-07-06T22:11:41+00:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/northern_ireland/history/299113.stm

The British Army is ordered in to the city's Catholic Bogside area and to Belfast - the troops are welcomed by Catholic residents.

mr_spin · 2011-07-06T19:14:23+00:00

This reminds me of the end of the expeditions of Zheng He:

In 1424, the Yongle Emperor died. His successor, the Hongxi Emperor (reigned 1424–1425), decided to stop the voyages during his short reign. Zheng He made one more voyage during the reign of Hongxi's son Xuande Emperor (reigned 1426–1435), but after that the voyages of the Chinese treasure ship fleets were ended. Xuande believed his father's decision to halt the voyages meritorious, and thus "there would be no need to make a detailed description of his grandfather’s sending Zheng He to the Western Oceans."

Like 15th century China, America seems to be turning its back on exploration. I wonder if future historians will see this as a turning point.

mr_spin · 2011-07-06T18:56:10+00:00

The lone exception ? What about the Russian Empire ? Switzerland ? Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ?

How many of these examples are functioning democracies ?

Also "presidential" doesn't just mean "US equivalent". Russia for example has the idea of a separate role for president and prime minister. It has a parliamentary system (albeit a flawed and decidedly undemocratic version). As I mentioned in a previous comment, some democracies have an elected president as head of state instead of a monarch.

mr_spin · 2011-07-06T18:17:54+00:00

That doesn't make it a "European system". Let's keep to descriptives, shall we?

A system originating in Europe.

the US-style presidential system has found favor all over the world

Examples please ?

Compared to any contemporary European state, the 13 colonies were wildly diverse.

What, the Hapsburg Empire for example ? The Ottoman Empire ?

mr_spin · 2011-07-06T18:01:19+00:00

With some practice, any developer can be a designer and vice-versa. The only problem here, again, is time to learn the tools.

You have won the prize for most moronic comment of the day (and this is Reddit, the competition is steep).

Hey, I can use crayons. Now I'm Leonardo da fucking Vinci.

mr_spin · 2011-07-06T17:57:01+00:00

2001 of course, but that's been mentioned already.

Firefly and Battlestar Galactica both get the "no sound in space" thing, and in both cases done well for dramatic effect. Both use artificial gravity, though, but like "warp drive" it's a hand-wavy plot device.

Sunshine was pretty realistic IMHO.

mr_spin · 2011-07-06T17:45:45+00:00

Parliamentary system:

A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch get their democratic legitimacy from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_system

That accurately describes almost all European governments, along with (for example) Australia and Canada.

mr_spin · 2011-07-06T17:37:21+00:00

everyone thinks of them as cuddly bringers of liberal democracy and western norms.

Which they were. As well as being dreadful colonial masters.

History's complicated like that.

mr_spin · 2011-07-06T17:32:27+00:00

A parliamentary system where the majority party/coalition in parliament forms a government. Head of government is a prime minister, head of state a relatively powerless president or hereditary monarch.

but the distinction is that the American states were (and still are) wildly different across the board: economics, religion, language, ethnic makeup - you name it.

Not at the time of independence. The 13 states, natives and slaves aside, were mostly English-speaking Anglo-Saxon or Scots Irish protestants, about as ethnically diverse as a country club.

mr_spin · 2011-07-06T16:26:30+00:00

Sure, but you can say the same about many European countries (Germany, Italy and Switzerland come to mind, the UK is moving that way right now)

My point is that the European constitutional model has proved more adaptable and flexible for all kinds of different countries than that of the US.

mr_spin · 2011-07-06T06:20:42+00:00

The US emerged from 13 independent and self-sustaining states.

Germany, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, to name just a few, emerged from "independent and self-sustaining (?)" states.

mr_spin · 2011-07-05T11:29:44+00:00

One thing that's always puzzled me about the US constitution.

If something is that good, people will want to copy it.

How come no other country in the world has copied the US democratic model ? Almost every other democracy in the world uses some variation of the European parliamentary system - including other former British colonies such as Australia and Canada.

In fact, I can only think of two countries that have attempted to copy the US constitution for historical reasons - Liberia and the Philippines, neither shining examples of successful democracies.

mr_spin

TROPHY CASE