Obi's Picks:

XY:

-Albert Einstein (HAVE to have the most brilliant mind this side of Newton in there...and he gets extra, albeit, biased points from me for ensuring it means there WILL be Jewish genetics in Humanity 2.0!) ;)

-William Shakespeare (If I need to tell you why...go read one of my numerous publications on the site under the title "Obi's 1001 Ramblings on Shakespeare...greatest author ever, that needs to go into this...)

-Plato (See the Shakespeare Example, alter for Philosophy)

-Muhammad Ali (For the physical and especially mental and spiritual strength he brings...gotta make sure Humanity 2.0 isn't all whitewashed and boring!)

-Teddy Roosevelt (He just brings so much...athletic ability, keen mind, sharp leadership skills, rugged determination...an awesome as hell mustache...)

XX:

-Queen Elizabeth (Perhaps the greatest female leader ever...and with Will on board as well...well, it's always been a source of "What if?" conversations...)

-Marie Curie (Brilliant scientific mind, and science counts a lot in rebuilding society, so another mind for that is needed)

-Frida Kahlo (We need to pass on artistry, and Frida's amazing--and creepy as hell--paintings AND her fighting spirit mean she's going in...plus, we've gotta get the diversity going here, it can't be all White women!)

-Virginia Woolf (A biased pick for me, as an English major, and many would even take a Bronte sister or Jane Austen over her...but to me, Woolf's easily one of the best authors of the last century PERIOD--and she makes a strong case for Best Female Author, too...)

-Cleopatra (Odd for a Jew to pick an Egyptian, maybe, but still...)

Quite possibly, the best ratios for men women would be the 3:7 or 2:8 for the quickest re-population without too much genetic inter-connectivity. I'm sure there's a study on it somewhere.

I'm far too tired to venture on actual picks though, so that post will have to suffice for now.

Screw it, I can't leave music out, and we already have a queen...

Sorry, ladies, I wanted to keep it 5/5, but I can't leave out Mozart...

SO, final roster:

Humanity 2.0, First Generation Subjects:
ALBERT EINSTEIN
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
PLATO
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
MUHAMMAD ALI
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
ELIZABETH I
MARIE CURIE
FRIDA KAHLO
VIRGINIA WOOLF

I look forward to your choices later, Warden :)

Nice picks Obi, but don't you think the Caucasian race is severely overrepresented?

Pocahontas in, Roosevelt out?

Probably...but then, I AM a child of the West...

I suspect someone in Africa or Asia would have it the reverse racially..

(Pocahontas over Roosevelt? What'd SHE ever do, except marry at far too young an age and die of tobacco?

Hell, ELEANOR Roosevelt is a better choice...Cleopatra, if we're getting off the Caucasian kick.)

I'd throw in some more diversity, e.g.

Naomi Campbell- to put some physical abilities in the blender, also already of mixed ethnicity.
Zhang Xin- self-made billionaire, prime example of intellect combined with perseverance.
Mae Jemison- first black female astronaut; intelligent, ambitious, dedicated.

Konosuke Matsushita- Japanese industrialist, inventor and management-guru. Died at the age of 94 so pretty decent genes too I'd say.
Kofi Annan- secretary general of the UN, ability to bring people together, impressive figure.
Garry Kasparov- chess grandmaster, political activist. Brilliant.

fuck me, every time an American gets involved in a conversation, RACE becomes an issue. Quit it, seriously...Can you not see beyond the colour, the gender, the physical characteristics and just talk about people???
Here there is a (semi) decent question: who would you have to repopulate the planet? And as soon as an American gets involved we have to start talking about fractions. How many men v women; black v white; and obi even decided that it was important to have a jew!!!
Get over yourselves!
10 HUMANS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not a hard question, what?
not important what their colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, hairstyle, job, or favourite football team is.
Why not gender? It's a hypothetical question people! A lot of the people we're apt to name are DEAD!
Now, let me think, please :)

When it comes to repopulating the earth gender, sexual orientation, and race are definitely of importance.. no need to be so uptight about it :p. If the topic would have been 'name 10 people you admire most' or whatever it would not be, but that's not the question.

@ Marti

You seriously think a Rangers fan could mate with a Celtic supporter? And what sort of twisted, mixed up child would be produced if they did?!? Come to think of it, sexual orientation may be an issue for the whole repopulation lark too.

@Marti:

+1...I agree, race shouldn't matter (for the most part...I guess biologically, some diversity wouldn't kill us, but I just mentioned the Jew thing because...well, I'm human, and human beings have this thing, called partiality, and it's illogical...

But as illogical as it sounds, I WOULD care if Jewish genes continued or not.

Preservation of culture--it's a driving force in sex and civilization, after all...that's all it is for me...besides, Einstein's a pretty fair pick in any event, wouldn't you say? ;) )

I reckon the best bet would be to use the population (minus old women) of a small, isolated village. What could do the job better than a bunch of people who have grown up knowing how to live together in a small community. Crucially the sort of people where marrying cousins is not frowned upon with the same intensity as with most of society

I guess the race thing counts for the sense of continuity...

We're all going to die someday, so the thought that our culture and/or our genes and such will be passed on and live on is of some comfort.

It's a big reason I love and plug Shakespeare so much:

I will die someday...

But

As long as men can breathe and eyes can see
So long lives Will, and Will gives "life" to me. (In the sense I read him and identified with him.) :)



It'd make me sad if Shakespeare was no longer read someday by humans.
Or if English as a language died.
Or, odd as it may sound, if there were no more Jews...I'm not even a GOOD Jew, by all accounts, I'm a secular, BAD Jew...

But it's part of my identity and culture and I identify with it, and I'd be sad if the future didn't have nagging Jewish mothers and Passover meals that go on way to long because of all the k'vetching and being able to use "Jewishness" as the punchline to about 50 different kinds of business/lawyer/religion/family jokes...

;)

Just to clarify, are we repopulating a world in which all trace of humanity has been wiped from the map and all that is left are the ten, or a world in which everyone but the ten have been killed, although the cities and works of humanity have survived?

...I hadn't really given that much thought, to be honest...

I dunno--would it make a difference? (I mean, obviously it would, but what kind of a difference in the selection and all?)

I think so. As long as you have the works of Shakespeare in a book do you realy need the man himself? Sure, he could write some new ones (although there is a very limited number of people to play the parts), but new plays are something of a luxuary. Will's great achievement was to add to the world's collective whatyoucallit, which he has done whether selected of not. But his talent at producing amazing offspring is less well documented.

Generally intelligent people good at making babies, such as my great Gran who had 14, would make a far better choice. I'd say that choosing anyone famous at all could be a mistake.

My question is on similar lines to Octavious'

As they are not dead, what age are they when the apocalypse happens?

i mean it's fairly important for things like making babies, finding food, intelectual development... the ability to decide right from wrong...

if they all started at the age of 3, then they likely wouldn't have many of the skills you're trying to save, but then if they all started around 40-50 you're not going to be doing much child rearing...

The last ten people on the earth:

1. Alexander the Great
2. Alex Morgan
3. Amy Mainzer
4. Cleopatra
5. Freddie Mercury
6. Leonardo Da Vinci
7. Mélissa Theuriau
8. Natalie Portman
9. Oscar Wilde
10. The Hanged Man

I sort of menat "repopulate" in this case in a more abstract sense, science-fiction-fantasy sense...

Like if you could somehow take the 10 bests people and their "aspects" and rebuild society from THAT...

It would be a world similar to the end of "The Time Machine," where he goes foward in time to rebuild society, and takes with him thee books to do so.

Instead of 3 books...the qualities of 10 people, whatever the "best" qualities and thoughts and feelings and knowledge and such of mankind you'd like to see in a rebooted humanity.

So it'd sort of be like having, say, 50 "blank drone humans" to start with, and you could infuse" them with whatever combination of two people you liked to create that person's genetic code and ability set, ie, mixing Elizabeth with Teddy Roosevelt for, say, leadership skills, or Virginia Woolf and Mozart for artistic expression...or mix and match, see what happens if you cross the science of Curie with the prose of Shakespeare...

What "quality sets" of 10 people would you want "on file" to be able to mix and match and infuse those Age of Empires-like drone citizens with to recreate humanity?

LOL...now THAT is a fun list, The Hanged Man...

Here, I apologise for going off half-cocked earlier lads, truly. I know most here aren't sexist bigots.
"I sort of menat "repopulate" in this case in a more abstract sense, science-fiction-fantasy sense...
Like if you could somehow take the 10 bests people and their "aspects" and rebuild society from THAT..." ..but that's where i'm coming from. Obi wasn't talking about what would be the best mix to repopulate, he was talking about ideas, ideals, gifts, skills (?) etc etc. So race, gender et al aren't important.
and @obi, mate my better half is jewish and i would really, really like her to be around, she makes my no1 spot :) and i think the world would be a dark, dark world without us wonderful, brilliant Scots and our marvellous cuisine :)

@octavious; surely such a thing would be damned to Hell! Could you imagine it? Never mind the horror of mating with a Celtic supporter (perish the thought!), the offspring would surely be some sort of DemonChild. shudder :)

I'd pick ten people with the greatest genetic variation. It's the fricking FUTURE OF THE HUMAN RACE, not a goddam popularity contest

So who's your favorite hermaphrodite, stratagos?

I like that Hanged Man's list consists of women and gay men, the possible exception of Leonardo.

10 Legends, you say?

I'd have to go with (in no particular order):

1) Singed
2) Kassadin
3) Lux
4) Caitlyn
5) Morgana
6) Gangplank
7) Zilean
8) Ashe
9) Katarina
10) Fiddlesticks

Is masochistic personality disorder genetic? If so there is an exciting opportunity to create a new world order in which the first true democracy with legalised slavery could exist! There are obvious advantages to a slave fueled economy with such a small population (no problems regarding huge workloads, no difficult choices about who's the first to die in famine situation etc), and for the first time in human history there would be a class system that everyone would be happy with!

@Zarathustra: I'm sure my male nominees would step up to fulfill their obligations with regard to restoring the human population. Casual sex beyond that? I might not have much competition for the women's attentions.