50 coolest people who've ever lived. Who's on your list?

[my breakfast.]

Haven't you got some starving children to save or something?

I don't even understand.

[Flying pig437]

Haven't you got some starving children to save or something?

I don't even understand.

Well your so saintly and compassionate and obviously just, unlke me and Thatcher, can't live with yourself while spending time and money on what you want instead of sacrificing it to help other people. OH! HOld on! You can! Yet somehow you're not selfish and greedy and uncaring but other people who spend ttime and money on what they want insted of sacrifcing it to help children starving to death are. Seriously. If you want to critise people for being selfish and uncaring then maybe you should practise what you preach but you won't do that because you don't want to sacrifice what you want 'cause, like me and Thatcher, you really really, despite kidding yourself on otherwise, don't give a shit about other people. Understand now, Mr. Hollier-Thanthou?

[ddebil]

Mr. Hollier-Thanthou?

It's neither big nor clever to publish people's real names on a public forum.

[garygreen]

I second that.

[snifferdog]

welcome back Gary. Where've you been
all this time?

[garygreen]

I was involved in a bit of argy bargy and had a chip on my shoulder for a while.

[Stephen]

I was involved in a bit of argy bargy.

[boo]

[my breakfast.]

Well your so saintly and compassionate and obviously just, unlke me and Thatcher, can't live with yourself while spending time and money on what you want instead of sacrificing it to help other people. OH! HOld on! You can! Yet somehow you're not selfish and greedy and uncaring but other people who spend ttime and money on what they want insted of sacrifcing it to help children starving to death are. Seriously. If you want to critise people for being selfish and uncaring then maybe you should practise what you preach but you won't do that because you don't want to sacrifice what you want 'cause, like me and Thatcher, you really really, despite kidding yourself on otherwise, don't give a shit about other people. Understand now, Mr. Hollier-Thanthou?

I still don't understand. However this is much like how I imagine some sad old tosser to write, so keep up the good work!

[rememberaday]

Even I didn't get what FP347 said. It almost seems like it's been written by a saint! Keep it simple, please!

[Flying pig437]

Well your so saintly and compassionate and obviously just, unlke me and Thatcher, can't live with yourself while spending time and money on what you want instead of sacrificing it to help other people. OH! HOld on! You can! Yet somehow you're not selfish and greedy and uncaring but other people who spend ttime and money on what they want insted of sacrifcing it to help children starving to death are. Seriously. If you want to critise people for being selfish and uncaring then maybe you should practise what you preach but you won't do that because you don't want to sacrifice what you want 'cause, like me and Thatcher, you really really, despite kidding yourself on otherwise, don't give a shit about other people. Understand now, Mr. Hollier-Thanthou?

I still don't understand. However this is much like how I imagine some sad old tosser to write, so keep up the good work!

YOu can live with yourself spending time and money on leisure and luxury while kids are dying of malnutrion every 3 seconds in Africa which imo isn't really much difference from the indifference and, shall we say, un-niceness of the people your hating on like Thatcher. All she did was shit on a load of people who didn't vote for her. I'm not defending that I'm just saying I've got a right to not give a shit just as you've got a right to effectively not give a shit about the kids dying of malnutrion every 3 seconds in Africa.

[my breakfast.]

YOu can live with yourself spending time and money on leisure and luxury while kids are dying of malnutrion every 3 seconds in Africa which imo isn't really much difference from the indifference and, shall we say, un-niceness of the people your hating on like Thatcher. All she did was shit on a load of people who didn't vote for her. I'm not defending that I'm just saying I've got a right to not give a shit just as you've got a right to effectively not give a shit about the kids dying of malnutrion every 3 seconds in Africa.

Far to complex an issue to try and turn into some black/white issue such as this. Try harder. Thatcher, in theory, was responsible for the people of the UK, so sneakily testing taxes on the populus of the 2nd largest country within the UK was shocking behaviour. Except a few land owners up here it was always unlikely that the Tories would ever get a strong vote from Scotland (we run a bit red up here), so she thought "fuck them, they never vote for us anyway so lets trial a hefty taxation up there). There are people financially crippled still because of this course of action.

The kids in Africa are malnurished for a wide range of reasons from the failure of complex weather systems to the systematic over-harvesting of crops planted on weak soils. Corruption is rife as well. I don't think I could trust any financial contribution I may make to Africa to actually do anything benefitial in a long term and sustainable way. Sure you can build a new schoolhouse here, or build an over-engineered and failure-wridden aquaduct system there, but it seems there is a lack of long-term scope for Africa in terms of the country sustaining its own population. Who knows.

[Flying pig437]

YOu can live with yourself spending time and money on leisure and luxury while kids are dying of malnutrion every 3 seconds in Africa which imo isn't really much difference from the indifference and, shall we say, un-niceness of the people your hating on like Thatcher. All she did was shit on a load of people who didn't vote for her. I'm not defending that I'm just saying I've got a right to not give a shit just as you've got a right to effectively not give a shit about the kids dying of malnutrion every 3 seconds in Africa.

Far to complex an issue to try and turn into some black/white issue such as this. Try harder. Thatcher, in theory, was responsible for the people of the UK, so sneakily testing taxes on the populus of the 2nd largest country within the UK was shocking behaviour. Except a few land owners up here it was always unlikely that the Tories would ever get a strong vote from Scotland (we run a bit red up here), so she thought "fuck them, they never vote for us anyway so lets trial a hefty taxation up there). There are people financially crippled still because of this course of action.

.

Why should I care about that?

[Flying pig437]

The kids in Africa are malnurished for a wide range of reasons from the failure of complex weather systems to the systematic over-harvesting of crops planted on weak soils. Corruption is rife as well. I don't think I could trust any financial contribution I may make to Africa to actually do anything benefitial in a long term and sustainable way. Sure you can build a new schoolhouse here, or build an over-engineered and failure-wridden aquaduct system there, but it seems there is a lack of long-term scope for Africa in terms of the country sustaining its own population. Who knows.

Cool! You can't do much about it so what's the point of trying. No callousness and indifference and complacency there not unjustifiable callousness and indifference and complacency anyway! Not sure what would happen if people didn't have that attitude toward people in desperate need of help and made more of an effort to help but I think a mass worldwide concerted effort from millions, even billions, of nice caring compassionate people like you all over the world might make some in roads but that'd mean sacrificing a holiday or two here and there or a trip to the pub or a night out at the cinema wouldn't it? And who wants to do that just on the off-chance it might end up saving some kids life?

[my breakfast.]

Why should I care about that?

Because it might, in some way, temper your belief that Thatcher was a 'cool' person. Unless perhaps her fashion sense redeems herself in your eyes. Who knows.

As for Africa, I'm not sure if you are trying to catch me out or something because your wording is quite vague. At some point when the human population gets much larger, even the most liberal-minded and sustainably versed economist will have to throw up their hands and realise that it is perhaps unwise to try and get Africa to adopt a more Western outlook. The fact that more African children would survive their formative years is a nice bonus (as long as they don't spend their 20s waving AK47s around), but what we/you/they are basically saying is "we need to get Africa to reach a standard of living we achieved through 200+ years of messy industrial revolution.... but without the industrial revolution bit". If you go too far down that line you end up sounding imperialist.

The other analogy I can think of here is the last time I went to my parents' church. Instead of a "children's address" we were given a powerpoint presentation of "work" carried out in South America by tireless missionaries. It seemed that they were providing basic clothing and health provisions for the local jungle people, and as an (un)fortunate bi-product the native people were adopting christianity as their religion. Hopefully somebody documented their indigenous culture before they threw it on the village bonfire. Again it stunk of imperialism to my angsty young liberal nostrils, but who knows.