If you could meet one person from the past...

I

IronDuke

Ancient Mariner
If you could meet one person from the past (recent or distant), who would it be and why?

I'd like to have dinner with Alexander the Great. He's one of those people whose impact on world history has dominoed as time progressed, and yet we have nothing in the way of primary sources actually created by him (aside from relics and cities). I'd like to get inside the man's head and figure out what motivated him to do what he did.
What would be really fun would be to sit down with Alexander, Napoleon, and Hitler and just let the three compare notes on world-conquering. I wonder how similar the three would be...

Anyway, what do other people think?
 
I'd really like a company with Charles Darwin, see the diverse species discovered and see the sights of other lands. What an adventure that would be, eh?
 
John Locke, I think, would be really interesting to talk with.  Also, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Puritan, born in 1599, died in 1658....September...
 
OH, Marx and Adam Smith. OH even better, get them together for a Celebrity Death Match
 
Sherlock Holmes, even if he didn't exist for real, I'd like to meet him to find out more about his methods!

But the topic is about existing characters, so I pick Michiel De Ruyter, one of the best and bravest admirals in world history. I'd be interested to stand beside him and see how he acts in difficult situations.

When it comes to art it would be Alfred Hitchcock, a director I tremendously admire.
I'd like to be on the set and see how he directed the famous scene in The Wrong Man, where Manny Balestrero, (who is the wrong man, played by Henry Fonda) prays to a picture of Christ with a bleeding heart. What starts out as another dissolve to a longshot—that of a man walking toward the camera—stops midway. The man looms larger and larger until his face, too, is the same size as Fonda's, and we can see the startling resemblance Manny has with the "right man."
 
Muhammad. Actually, I'd like to bring him here, now, and let him explain that a lot of people took him wrong.
 
Perun said:
Muhammad. Actually, I'd like to bring him here, now, and let him explain that a lot of people took him wrong.
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Could you not substitute any religious icon there...?
 
I like that one Perun! It would serve more people than only yourself!

@Raven, he could only chose one! ;)
 
Perun said:
No.
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Actually yes, Christians are still acting all stupid, we could bring Jesus and say, check this out. And he'd say, "I know, I'm God remember? But you're right, it sucks ass."
 
Jesus can't be called, and even if he would come, he'd only stay for 10 seconds saying:
"You know, I'm actually Caesar. But you're right, it sucks ass." Then he would change into Caesar, laugh loud and vanish.
 
I know it's cool and trendy to be anti-religious, but that's not what my post was aimed at. My post was exactly about what I posted.
 
Perun said:
I know it's cool and trendy to be anti-religious, but that's not what my post was aimed at. My post was exactly about what I posted.
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I thought it was cool and trendy to be a fanatical gay hating isolationist uber nationalist evangelical that can barely read and write... But if you say so.......
 
The question was: If you could meet one person from the past (recent or distant), who would it be and why?

I gave my answer and reasoned it. That's no debate. I don't see how you could discuss that not being so.
 
Ludwig van Beethoven, with a special condition: as long as we're bringing him back from the dead, he also gets his hearing restored. I'd love to know what he thinks of rock music. I'd also love to be able to play his own 9th Symphony for him (which he never actually heard).
 
SinisterMinisterX said:
Ludwig van Beethoven, with a special condition: as long as we're bringing him back from the dead, he also gets his hearing restored. I'd love to know what he thinks of rock music. I'd also love to be able to play his own 9th Symphony for him (which he never actually heard).
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He'd probably take Revelations and thicken up the chords a bit.  And add some pedal.

Myself, I'd love to bring Maverick back, just so we could unleash a year of pent-up acidic wit on some poor noob...
 
Perun said:
I gave my answer and reasoned it. That's no debate. I don't see how you could discuss that not being so.
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How can YOU not? but I'll drop it, like most things in life it's best to just accept it without asking question :p
 
I'm having real trouble narrowing it down to one. So many choices.

Lots of great minds would be fun, Milton, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Swift, Newton, Einstein, Blake and so on, but I have a feeling the conversation would be quite dull.

Oscar Wilde would have to be my pick. I have a feeling he was a cool character to hang out with.
 
I would love to meet many philosophers as their work is often the vaguest and often misinterpreted.  It would be interesting to ask them as see their reaction when they realize that their followers have managed to fuck up the world, e.g. Marxists, Randroids, etc.  I would especially have a talk with Kant to ask him "what he really meant"  :p.
 
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