Asklemmy

Probably Wayne Gretzky? I don't even know anything about ice hockey and I know he's supposed to be the most dominant player of any sport. Like he and his brother have the record for highest combined goals of any pair of brothers: 2,857 by Wayne, 4 by Brent. If you take away all his goals, he'd be the highest scoring player of all time on assists alone. There have been 13 times when a player has scored over 100 goals in a season in NHL history: Lemieux (once), Orr (once), and Gretzy (eleven times in a row). He retired last century and still holds 57 records. I'm not gonna keep picking out examples but there's a bunch more facts like this that sound like the old "chuck norris facts" meme but are actually true.

"If you don't know anything about ice hockey why do you have all these facts on hand?" - I remembered seeing this kind of list before so I did a quick Google.

Edit: I'm seeing some different exact figures for some of these, but the general principle stands and I'm not invested enough in hockey facts to nail down which numbers are exactly right.

Abraham of Ur - greatest impact on the world of any schizophrenic in history with an impact that still affects billions a few millennia later.

My #1: All the no-name forgotten people that did the right thing and won't be remembered for it. Ages of memorable names are the worst ages for average people. Like, ancient Egypt might seem impressive, except that it existed in a world that was far more egalitarian elsewhere. All that still exists came at the cost of those that lived with and built it. The true GOATest of GOATs is like the greatest of thieves; if you know their name, they weren't the best. That is just my middle aged take.

Albert Einstein:

1. Invented the photon and discovered the photoelectric effect, which earned him a nobel prize.
2. Discovered Brownian motion and proved the existence of particles and molecules.
3. Created the theory of relativity, changing the way we think about space, time, energy, and matter.

Oh, and he released papers on all three of these groundbreaking discoveries in a single year. Dude was next level.

That person who ate the thing first.

Dissident voice: Noam Chomsky

The greatest of all time make changes to whatever game they are playing. Chomsky changes the realm of ideas. He questions narratives and provides damning evidence in support of his claims. His books reveal the inner workings of the Military-Industrial complex. He contests the positions of US Presidents of both parties. He follows the money, the use of language, and the differences between official fantasies and concrete realities. He raises others up, never sought fame, just did the hard work. Took all the heat that naysayers threw.

Read:

• Manufacturing Consent (1988)

• Understanding Power

• Hegemony or Survival (2003)

• On Palestine (2015), w/ Ilan Pappé

View:

• The Corporation (2003) - features Chomsky

• Imperial Grand Strategy

• Distorted Morality (2003)

What a great question.

A few that come to mind. (In no particular order)

• Socrates and Aristotle - literally changed the way humanity as a whole thinks, their influence echoes thorough time their ideas are talked about 2500 years later.
• Marcus Aurelius - stoic philosopher and emperor, set the standard for what a great ruler could be, modern politicians have nothing on him.
• Albert Einstein - literally changed the way we look at the universe, overturned Newton and his theories have stood up to ever more precise tests.
• Linus Torvolds - the impact of the Linux kernel on computing cannot be overstated, from the smallest single board computers to the biggest most powerful supercomputers, all run Linux. The internet wouldn't be the same without it.
• Johannes Guttenburg - inventer of the printing press, the wide dissemination of knowledge that directly stemmed from this invention changed the world.
• Alexander Fleming - discovered penicillin, finally gave humanity an effective weapon against bacteria, penicillin and it's derivatives have saved billions of lives.
• Stanislav Petrov - Ignored the nuclear early warning system, which erroneously reported 6 launches from the US against the USSR. If he had followed protocol the resulting nuclear response would have triggered WWIII, he saved billions of people by not launching.

To those saying sports personalities, I doubt people will be talking about their achievements in couple of hundred years.

Edit: added Stanislav Petrov.

I am

David Attenborough

the oldest Billy Goat Gruff, who knocked the troll off the bridge saving both his siblings

Messi

Jack Churchill mf fought in WW2 with a longbow, a broadsword and bagpipes. His Wikipedia page is great worth a read :)

I’d say GOAT should be a Council of greats, like the Jedi Council but without the religious extremism and child soldiers. I’d like to nominate a couple for this council:

Wilt Chamberlain- go look up his records

Andre the Giant - his drinking records alone should put him on the Council, but reportedly he was a very nice person as well

Dolph Lundgren - he plays a meathead in Expendables movies, but he’s a legit genius, as well as a literally massive human

Steve Wozniak - he managed to build the PC despite Steve Jobs being a colossal dick

Saint Olga - she took vengeance and raised it to an art form

Rocky Marciano. Never lost. Michael Jordan has strong claims. Aleksandr Karelin had an 887-2 record in Greco-Roman wrestling. Edwin Moses won 122 straight 400m hurdle races, setting 4 world records.

Me, obvs!

Dave of course. He knows everyone.

Capra hircus

It's either Tristram Shandy or Mang0.

Tom Brady

Boston Rob

Victor.

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

Sebastian Loeb. 9 time consecutive WRC champion. Probably the best driver of all time, not just best WRC driver.