I would argue that the man who killed the most human beings in history is Fritz Haber. Between breaking the Malthusian Bargain (leading to a massive population explosion and everything associated with it) and creating the means by which high explosives can be created on an industrial scale (and everything associated with it), he's pretty much the single most influential person who's lived since the establishment of agriculture.

Bonus points for: creating the first "true" chemical weapons (in WW1) and his encore, Zyklon B (yes, he created the precursor, not the final product).

People will eat other people if they have nothing else to eat. Social eating rules are mostly that, a social construct, born of too many options. If a group of people or an influential individual decide bananas have feelings, so be it. The whole eggs are good, eggs are bad debate.

Read the bible for instance, like a quarter of it deals with social constructs that make no sense today, including rules about food. Pick and choose.

Just because of this fancy belief steaks have gotten no less tasty or nourishing. You have to kill a cow to get steak, no way around it. If this one is too cute, find another cow.

People are basically the same since hunting mammoths was a thing. Bread is OK. Meat is good.

I realllllly dont feel like working today TBH.

I'm content that his toxicity has energised people to work against misogyny, sex abuse, and bullying, I just hope they're more influential than he is and don't take a toxic turn themselves.
It's easy to become what you despise in one's fight against injustices.

Yep, a comedian on a comedy tour taking a joke picture pretending to assault a sleeping woman who then quit of his own accord is exactly the same as a long term pedophile who enjoys his parties full support and never backs down or apologizes even after losing, or a philanderer who blackmail his mistress by taking naked pictures of her tied up and threatening to make them public then fights removal.

There is no equivalency. There's not a monopoly on one side, no, but there's absolutely not "every bit as much corruption and dishonesty on the Democrat side of politics as there is on the Republican". Republican dishonesty is about selling the country to Russia and raiding the treasury, and hiding or excusing inexcusable behavior and permeates everything they say. Democratic dishonesty is about which email account an email came from and pretending the leadership has no bias, and bowing to hyper sensitivity and disingenuous faux outrage.

For example...
Asked how his tax plan benefits the rich, he replied....
Trump: "No, I don't benefit. I don't benefit. In fact, very very strongly, as you see, I think there's very little benefit for people of wealth."

When asked about his rich friends....
"They can call me all they want; not going to help," he said Sept. 27, 2017. "I'm doing the right thing and it's not good for me, believe me."

When asked about the Trump zero tolerance plan to tear families apart as a political ploy, Trump claimed the Democrats did it and only they can reverse it, then he reversed his plan himself proving both family destroying lies to be lies.

The consistency, levels, and importance of the dishonesty from Republicans is exponentially greater than that from Democrats, who are far from perfect themselves.

Edit: Btw, Mahr has addressed the issue of him running for office repeatedly, he's capable and intelligent enough to be honest and say he's a horrible politician and would probably never run, and he knows he's far more influential exactly where he is than he might be as a freshman representative.....and he's smart enough to see that a candidate that gets out the vote for the opposition (like Clinton) is a horrendously stupid idea.
And Franken worked out great until he caved to false outrage and quit while pedophiles and abusive philanderers were welcomed into the opposing party feigning the outrage over a funny (but disrespectful) picture.

@bobknight33
unsure if you are gloating that you uncovered some deep,dark secret,and are exposing some political conspiracy.

or are just re-iterating what i already posted.

for years i have seen you promote and tout the validity and necessity of the tea party for those who may be disgruntled with the mainstream republican party.

a party that started with modest means,but is now funded by some of the most wealthy and influential political players in our country:the koch bothers.

they even changed their name to the freedom caucus.
and they nominate candidates,and come out to support them.

so how is the tea party,which broke away from the establishment republicans to promote a politics that is more in line with the constitution,ANY different from the people who are sick and tired of corporate,establishment democrats? who ALSO have decided that enough is enough and have banded together to nominate their own candidates,and support those candidates to represent THEIR politics and ideological philosophies.

how,exactly,is that different?

because while you may disagree with justice democrats politically,and i suspect you do,you should also be proud that they are taking a stand and sticking up for their beliefs.

are you SO unaware of your own bias,prejudice and hyper-partisanship as to not recognize when a group of people are doing the EXACT same thing as your tea party did?

be careful bob,your bias and hypocrisy are showing.
and you are becoming a partisan hack,attacking any and everything that is contrary to your own politics,even when in reality it is performing the very same thing that you state to admire.

so what is more important to you?
honesty,integrity and sticking to your moral values?
or political affilliations?

because i can disagree with someones politics,and still admire and respect them standing up for their values.(that includes you bob).

i gather this is something you are incapable of doing,because in bob's world"politics trumps everything else,end of discussion.

if you want to sully your eyes a bit,check out what the justice democrats are seeking to do,and what their base philosophy is:
https://justicedemocrats.com/platform

*promote
*quality

If it was influential, it must have been a real shitshow before. Authorizing a change without "doing the math" just seems contrary to common sense to me.

Engineering is not just about science and theories. There are practical aspects of engineering related to ethics, error prevention, and disaster management that were impacted by this disaster. This incident was highly influential on engineering as a profession.

@bcglorf

i don't think using @drradon 's example of anarchy a good use as a rebuttal.

now may be larken rose's vision is an extreme example,taken from the von mises institute,and where they dreamily offer a counter to police with a "non-aggression principle".while cute and adorable,humans tend to be far more vicious and violent in nature,especially when desperate.

but again,i think our respective approaches to authority will not find common ground here.

i do not seek a leader,but i am ok with a representative,though i do not seem to have any in my government at the moment.

i find it curious,amazing and not a little disturbing just how easily people will quietly,and tacitly accept a police that has become more and more draconian,violent and aggressive while SIMULTANEOUSLY decreasing the citizens rights to protect themselves,defend themselves and resist unlawful police practices.

because they simply change the law to make what WAS illegal...legal.with a stroke of a pen.

and i simply cannot respect when an american says,without any sense of justice or history,to just sit down,shut up and do what you are told.

while claiming they are a patriot,waving their american flag made in china.

the history of law enforcement in this country reveals that their main job,their main focus and duty is NOT to the poor,the dispossessed or the marginalized.

the police's job is to protect those who hold assets,who have money and wield political power.

and before you say anything,i am quite aware that there are some,and they are the majority,who do their job with honor and distinction.my argument is not about singular police officers but rather the systematic problems inherent in the system.

lets take my city for example.
i am blessed enough to live adjacent to a very wealthy and influential housing development.

average police response time?=7 minutes.

right down the street,not 10 miles down the road,is a depressed area of town.industry and manufacturing abandoned that area 20 years ago.it is stricken with prostitution,heroin addicts and abject poverty.

average police response time?=22 minutes

yet the main police station is in THAT area.

or should i bring up the history of american labor movement?
where the coal miners in west virginia decided to strike,and because the owners of the mines were politically connected.the governor sent in the state police to...and this should send chills down your spine...shoot any miners unwilling to go back to work.

and they did.
they murdered any coal miner still willing to stand up against the owners of the mine,and this included women and children.

now lets examine that for a minute.
workers for a coal mine decided to strike for better working conditions (which were horrible) and actually have a day off,besides sunday (because:god).

the owner of the mine,who was losing immense of amount of money due to zero production of coal,called the governor to have the state police,a civil institution,sent in to put those people down.to force them to either get back to work or face violence.

*now the owner brought in his own mercenary group to assist in the process of intimidation,strong arm tactics and violence.

i will add one more story that is personal,and comes from my own family,and may possibly explain my attitude towards police in general.

my father was born in 1930,in alton illinois.
now that small town had been hit particularly hard during the depression.my father spoke of not having indoor plumbing until he went into the navy,and how the floors in his childhood home were simple boards over dirt.

he grew up extremely poor,and my grandfather struggled to find steady work,and i gather from what my father told me.my grandpa made bootleg beer out of the bathtub.so he and his 6 brothers and 1 sister had to bathe in the mississippi river while grandpa tried to make money by selling illegal hooch.

my father also regaled me with stories of the chores he had as the youngest of 8 kids.it was his job every morning to head to the train tracks and pick the coal that dropped from the coal carts.(which he admitted to being lazy and stole directly from the very full coal cart itself while his brother kept an eye out for the station master).

my point is that my father grew up in desperate and poor times.

but one story always stood out,and i think it is because it has a wild west feel to it that always transfixed me,and i made him tell me the story over and over as a child.

when times are tough,people will do whatever they have to in order to survive,so my grandfather making illegal hooch was not the only illegalities being played out in that small town.neighbor upon neighbor did what they had to,and most were considered criminals in the eyes of the state.

so i guess one of my grandpa's friends was on the run from the law,and sought refuge at my grandpa's home.which he allowed,because neighbors take care of neighbors,at least they used to.

well,in a small town everybody knows everybody,and eventually three police officers showed up at my grandpa's house,and demanded that he turn over (i forgot the guys name).

and i remember the pride on my fathers face whenever he retold this story....

my grandfather stood tall on the top of his stairs facing his front door,holding his gun he was given during WW1 and told the police officers (which he knew.small town remember?),that if they took one step into his home..he would blow their heads off.

now this is a story retold from a childs perspective many years later.i am sure my fathers memory was a tad....biased..but i would bet the meaty parts were accurate.

now my question is this:
how would that exact same scenario play out in todays climate?

well,we would see on the 6 o'clock news how a family was tragically shot to death for harboring a criminal and that the police had done EVERYTHING in their power to avoid this kind of violence.

i know this is long,and i hope i didn't lose you along the way,but i think we should not dismiss the very real slow decent into a society that silently obeys,quietly accepts more and more authoritarian powers all in the name of "safety",and that any form of resistance is to be viewed as "criminal" and "troublesome".

so while i agree that "when should we shoot a cop" should be in the realm of:let us try to never do that.

i also cannot agree to placing cops on a hero platform as if their job is somehow sacrosanct and beyond reproach.they are human beings,of limited intellect,whose main job it is to protect those who own property,have wealth and wield political power.

and with the current disparity and blatant inequality their job has been more and more focused on keeping those 30% undesirables down.

the poor,the destitute,the marginalized,the addict and the junkie and the petty criminals.

those are a threat to the "better" citizens.they are a blight on a community that should be cleansed from the tender eyes of those who are deemed more "worthy".

rich folk may wring their hands,and lament the plight of the poor and wretched,but for GOD's sakes! they don't want to actually SEE them!

so a police officer can do all the mental gymnastics they want in order to justify their place in society,but at the end of the day,they serve the elites.

and they always have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVBOtxCfan0

I don't agree with Chomster's smugness completely, I think that theory & leftfield (pseudo) "intellectualism" needs to have a niche that is entertaining, of which Zizek surely fills the void of. But, Chomsky, is a stick to the facts sort, which is why I find Chomsky to be so important. We can't refute the facts and Chomsky is a great analyst of history.

What is it that Zizek exactly does? He is influential for being a sort of thinking man's political comedian, a jester to a degree; I think that is, in and of itself important (even inspirational) but I can see Chomsky's critical perspective in seeing it as just a bunch of posturing (jester prancing in a circle; ouroboros) that gets nothing done.

He really was a man who left this world too soon. The day he died, the gaming world came to a grinding halt and it didn't matter what kind of gamer you were.

He really was that influential of a man, and he will continue to be missed be all.

You're right but the advantage Corbyn has is that we don't have a Trump character. Not only has Farage quit, Boris sunk his own career in a party of backstabbers, but we had our personality politics moment and I think people are past it.

The papers won't tell you that; our 8 billionaires will pull out every stop to convince the great unwashed that he's dangerous. The papers will tell you every day right up until a general election that he will lead Labour into electoral oblivion, even as thousands pack out halls in unprecedented showings of support in northern "racist" (according to MSM) towns. They'll tell you they won't win from UKIP and be out of power for 20 years.

I'm not saying he WILL win a GE because the playing field is not level, the game is not fair. Boundary changes will play right into Tory hands and the character assassinations will only increase, but if ANYONE has a chance of winning for Labour it's Corbyn. Owen Smith hasn't a hope in hell of getting MORE votes than Corbyn would, at an election.

The only way to win is by going with Corbyn but I fear that there are influential ex and current MPs who are sabotaging the campaign because this wave of populism and people power would not be beneficial to their future prosperity.

We are living in a post-truth world right now, with journalistic integrity at an all time low. A window was broken in the stairwell of a building where a Corbyn-Labour rival has an office, and it was splashed all over the news that it was a violent, thuggish Corbyn supporter just like they all are. There was no evidence and they even lied about the facts, which has been reported on twitter and by smaller news sources, but the damage is already done, throw enough shit and some of it will stick.

As Lyndon Johnson says - I know it didn't happen, but let's make the bastard deny it. Oh and apologies for shameless derailment.

On topic:
Is Schieffer making the usual mistake here? "It's not the left she needs to worry about, it's the middle." Taking the left for granted is what happened to Labour in the last 10-15 years and seen their support die pre-Corbyn. Dunno how it is in USA but over here the left have had to hold their noses and vote for a candidate who doesn't represent them at all and they're getting sick of it. So thanks to the internet when they finally see the cracks forming they recoil in horror at how they've been undermined from the inside from day one; why should they ever vote for that again?

I would actually say that's what makes a personally successful politician, but not a professionally successful one, and as far from a perfect one as it's possible to be.
I think we need both election reform and finance reform to make a difference. Election reform to be able to actually hold politicians accountable to their voters at least once every few years, and finance reform to make them want to work for the voters rather than the donors.

A perfect politician would be fair minded, not greedy, not ego driven, not 'tribal', honest, willing to sacrifice for the greater good, thoughtful, consistent but willing to change in the face of new information, moral (not the kind of morality where you force your specific morals on others, but the kind of morality where you can be a role model for them), and still influential and successful at not only finding solutions to problems that are at least palatable to all, but also successful at getting them implemented. I'm not sure I've ever seen one of those...but as I see it, Sanders checks more boxes than most, far more than any other candidate.

Whenever I see something as horrendous as slavery downplayed (by likening it to today's working class) I'm likely to find myself agitated, and I think that contributed to my tone when replying earlier, and I'm somewhat ashamed for overreacting.

I could be totally wrong with my interpretation of the video, however. I guess the best thing to do is present my interpretation before any argument ensues.

It seems to present the similarities between the relationship a plantation slave had with their masters and the negative parts of the relationship a modern citizen has with their government and employer and the influential elite.

By creating a character as odious as the slave owner, they are poisoning the discussion. Their grievances are with three separate groups of people, but they push them all into one. Then they tar him by making him the slave owner, making it almost impossible to have a real discussion about him. Furthermore, they dismiss any of the benefits they enjoy from the three groups they are demonizing.