Which three people influenced you politically and intellectually, whose ideas should everyone at least listen to once?

[Axulus]

If I had to pick just three people, I would pick the following. I'd be interested to hear other people's selection.

1. Maajid Nawaz

Reason: Really helped formulate my ideas on what the problem is regarding Islamic terrorism and the related ideology. It boils down to the intellectual idea of Islamism, the desire to impose one version of Islam on the rest of society. Provides great insight into extremist ideology of all stripes and how to best combat it: as a war of ideas. Staunchly advocates for secular liberalism and provides the intellectual artillery to back it up.

A short bio:

Nawaz is a former member of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. This association led to his arrest in Egypt in December 2001, where he remained imprisoned until 2006. Reading books on Human Rights and interacting with Amnesty International, which adopted him as a prisoner of conscience, resulted in a change of heart. This led Nawaz to leave Hizb-ut-Tahrir in 2007, renounce his Islamist past and call for a "Secular Islam".[3]

After his turnaround, Nawaz co-founded Quilliam with former radical Islamists, including Ed Husain.[4] He documented his life story in his Amazon bestselling autobiography Radical (2012).[5][6] Since then, he has risen to become a prominent critic of Islamism in the United Kingdom. He is a regular op-ed contributor, debater and public commenter, and has spoken from various international platforms including the TED conference.[7] He presented his views on radicalisation in front of US Senate Committee and UK Home Affairs Committee in their respective inquiries on the roots of radical extremism.[8][9][10]

Some of my favorite content from him:

Panelists Sam Harris, Co-founder and Chief Executive of Project Reason and Maajid Nawaz Founding Chairman of Quilliam, joined moderator Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, for a panel discussion to reflect on the future of Islam and tolerance regarding it. The panelists discussed many topics regarding Islam in modern society, such as Islam's place in modern culture, the events leading up to the modern public perception of Islam, and Islamic extremism. These topics were put forth with the final goal of collaborating to ensure a stable future of tolerance in the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWclm4Bi4UM

Interview with Bill Maher:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ9PgrkHlgM

Maajid Nawaz gives a talk at the world affairs council of Houston

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czfeZFs7E-U

2. Hans Rosling

Reason: Really opened up my picture of the world to be strongly based on facts and statistics. Helped shape my worldview to always have the data and facts to back it up and helped destroy preconceived notions that were in conflict with those facts.

A short bio:

Rosling's research has also focused on other links between economic development, agriculture, poverty and health.[5] He has been health adviser to WHO, UNICEF and several aid agencies. In 1993 he was one of the initiators of Médecins Sans Frontières in Sweden. At Karolinska Institutet he was head of the Division of International Health (IHCAR) from 2001 to 2007. As chairman of Karolinska International Research and Training Committee (1998–2004) he started health research collaborations with universities in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. He started new courses on Global Health and co-authored a textbook on Global Health that promotes a fact-based world view.

Rosling presented the television documentary The Joy of Stats, which was broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Four in December 2010.[6] He presented a documentary Don't Panic – The Truth About Population for the This World series, which appeared on BBC Two in the UK in November 2013.[7]

Some of my favorite content:

Using state-of-the-art 3D graphics and the timing of a stand-up comedian, world-famous statistician Professor Hans Rosling presents a spectacular portrait of our rapidly changing world. With seven billion people already on our planet, we often look to the future with dread, but Rosling's message is surprisingly upbeat. Almost unnoticed, we have actually begun to conquer the problems of rapid population growth and extreme poverty.

Across the world, even in countries like Bangladesh, families of just two children are now the norm - meaning that within a few generations, the population explosion will be over. A smaller proportion of people now live in extreme poverty than ever before in human history and the United Nations has set a target of eradicating it altogether within a few decades. In this as-live studio event, Rosling presents a statistical tour-de-force, including his 'ignorance survey', which demonstrates how British university graduates would be outperformed by chimpanzees in a test of knowledge about developing countries.

https://vimeo.com/79878808

How Not to Be Ignorant About the World | Hans and Ola Rosling | TED Talks

How much do you know about the world? Hans Rosling, with his famous charts of global population, health and income data (and an extra-extra-long pointer), demonstrates that you have a high statistical chance of being quite wrong about what you think you know. Play along with his audience quiz — then, from Hans’ son Ola, learn 4 ways to quickly get less ignorant.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm5xF-UYgdg

Hans Rosling and the magic washing machine (2010)

What was the greatest invention of the industrial revolution? Hans Rosling makes the case for the washing machine. With newly designed graphics from Gapminder, Rosling shows us the magic that pops up when economic growth and electricity turn a boring wash day into an intellectual day of reading.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sqnptxlCcw

3. Christopher Hitchens

Reason: Was the first person I encountered to strongly challenge bad ideas using the most cutting humor, satire, and sound rhetoric. Demonstrated to me the power of challenging bad ideas head on and making plain their absurdity. Argued well for the importance of near unrestricted freedom of speech. Also demonstrated the folly behind hero worship - how certain people are put up on an unrealistic pedestal and how people fall for it rather than honestly assessing who they really were, faults and all. Shifted me towards being atheist to anti-theist.

Some of my favorite content.

Best of Christopher Hitchens Arguments And Clever Comebacks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqjfGFHes0w

Christopher Hitchens talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about George Orwell. Drawing on his book Why Orwell Matters, Hitchens talks about Orwell's opposition to imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism, his moral courage, and his devotion to language. Along the way, Hitchens makes the case for why Orwell matters.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/08/hitchens_on_orw.html

Christopher Hitchens - Mother Teresa: Hell's Angel

Christopher Hitchens investigates whether Mother Teresa of Calcutta deserves her saintly image. Probes her campaigns against contraception and abortion and her relationships with right-wing political leaders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65JxnUW7Wk4

Runner up: Milton Friedman - demonstrated to me in convincing fashion the power of capitalism and free markets to add net benefit to the world. Recommended content - the Free to Choose multi-part documentary.

 

[maxparrish]

I'm going to sub-divide this into the three who influenced me the most, and the three the modern reader should hear or read at least once.

Three most important to my own world view:

1. William F. Buckley - Founder of National Review, defender of the civilized life, and master of wit.
2. Milton Friedman - nuff said.
3. Ayn Rand - the writer that linked the failings of the collective social reality with individuals moral flaws.

+ Runner up - Eric Hoffer.

Three that everyone should read at least once:

1. Ayn Rand - The One.
2. John Searle - American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. Philosophy of mind, Social reality, Philosophy of language, Intentionality.
3. Nozick - Anarchy, State, and Utopia. The philosophical libertarian reply to Rawls Justice as Fairness.

Runner ups - Milton Friedman, Eric Hoffer

 

[untermensche]

Albert Camus

Noam Chomsky

John Pilger

Examination of the world with a moral sense that extends beyond the morality of self-satisfaction.

 

[laughing dog]

David Hume - rationality and causality
Harper Lee - walking a mile in someone else's shoes
Aristotle - "the golden mean"

 

[prideandfall]

1. none
2. none
3. none

unlike basically everyone else on this planet right now, i actually managed to think my way into my opinions and consider my own path to my philosophical principles, i didn't need to copy/paste my world view based on what someone else said about it.
though to be fair to the spirit of the thread i suppose that i could list george carlin as having articulated things very well that i already agreed with in a way that i hadn't thought of, and which i found highly entertaining.

 

[ksen]

Um, three guys that invented and popularized LSD.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Who influenced me:
Hubert Humphrey, because I met him as a child and all the adults around me were excited by him.
Jim Jones, because after asking questions on why people would follow a man to their deaths for no purpose, I sought out why and watched similar behaviors unfold in politics as people will take impassioned stances based upon emotion rather than reason.
Theodore Roosevelt, because Theodore fucking Roosevelt. And he really did reform the Federal government from a system of spoils into a professional civil service.

Who should you listen to:
The Pope. He is a good man.
John Oliver. He is also a good man with a good eye for exposing bullshit corruption.
Ksen. Because his name is on the post above me as I type, and I said so.

 

[dx713]

Camus
Zappa
Condorcet