[alexasmyths]

A) It's the power centres that we remember, because they make the decisions - most notably, Royalty. The articles comments are off on this - maybe 80% of UK Royal heads of state are almost household names in the UK. Even around the world.

B) 'Religious figures, hopefully, will lose their relevance.' - as we dive into selfish consumer materialism, and narrow minded scientific materialism, the better religious figures words are more important than ever now, I for one wish some legitimate leader would come along in this regard.

C) Musicians - Mozart, Beethoven and Bach are still household names.

The one's that will be around:

QE2, Hitler, possibly Obama - I think American academics will create a big historical thing around him and America is a 'big power' they have the ability to bend history. Think JFK but times 10, and more globally oriented. Mao especially due to his foundational status of the new Chinese state - and they are huge. Possibly Stalin. Gandhi - depending on how Indians decide to propagate his history. He has some really ugly spots that we overlook.

Possibly Marx and Adam Smith as 'founders' of economics.

Maybe another common thread is 'those who are the foundation of something' - because Bach, Beethoven and Mozart are taught in Music class as kind of the kings 'basic of music' (even though they were not there at the start). No matter how many music genres we go through, at music school the rudiments will likely still be interpreted with them in mind.

Any serious Monarch that lasts more than 30 years will get a spot in the textbooks at least.

As for Scientists - how many can the average person name past 'Einstein'? And FYI - Einstein had a marketing/branding campaign behind him that he was aware of and somewhat weary of. Niels Bohr? Oppenheimer? Walk down the street nobody knows who they are. Maybe if they get a particle or theory named after them ...

Athletes not really.

Actors - this is a new one - because we now have the ability to record performances for future generations. Maybe the early actors will be minted as 'the originals' and be studied for 1000 years ...

The kind of history we have post 1900 will be very different than before because now everything is recorded and written down. Imagine if we could just pull up Billy Shakespeare on YouTube ...

[ars]

I disagree about Obama. He did nothing special as compared to other presidents. He will be remembered as much as they are, but not any more than that.

As I think back pretty much the only thing I remember about him is healthcare, and that's he's the first half-back-half-white president.

That's really not much, as compared to other presidents.

Even Trump's antics will not be remembered in detail (how many do you remember from 6 months ago?) He will be remembered in a general sort of "said lots of dumb things" kind of way, as a trope basically.

Want to be specially remembered as President? Start [or end] a huge social program, or make peace in Israel.

PS. For Einstein did you mean weary or wary?

[cperciva]

I disagree about the memorability of bringing peace to the Middle East... because once peace arrives, it will be longer be a famous conflict zone.

Quick, who was involved in bringing peace to Northern Ireland?

[ars]

Yah, you've got a point there.

But I have to distinguish peace in Israel vs. peace in the Middle East.

Peace in Israel is likely to be a military kind of peace where no one dares attack, and with the Palestinians having their own state, no one has a good excuse anymore.

But they will still have bad excuses, because no one is even trying to bring peace to the Middle East.

i.e. it will be a famous conflict zone for a lot longer than you might expect because of Sunni/Shia conflict.

Also the underlying hate and antisemitism will persist even after the Palestinian negotiate a state, giving another reason for it to stay a famous conflict zone.

> Quick, who was involved in bringing peace to Northern Ireland?

St. Patrick :)

[alexasmyths]

Obama was the 'First Black President' - this is, on a historical scale - massive. Just massive. Also, America is kind of a 'world leading' country, so 'leader of the free world' - meaning, a black man as 'leader of the free world' - only about 150 years after slavery. This is a big deal, historically. I think his story is just getting written. Academics love him and they will write the history books. In 50 years, I think Obama will be up there with the 'big ones' in terms of being a 'landmark president'.

Sorry, I meant wary :)

[anigbrowl]

Not over a 1000 year scale it isn't. Maybe 100 years.

[alexasmyths]

Yeah, I see what you are saying.

But I'm coming to think they may go: Lincoln, Washington, Obama as the 'big 3' over time. Again, a 'Black leader of the free world' is historically massive, and it transcends USA issues.

Not saying I think that, just how academics will write it.

[stordoff]

> because we now have the ability to record performances for future generations

I think this has the potential to be extremely interesting. Until relatively recently, you could see a performance and be influenced by it, and that fusion of ideas could still be seen as new and original. As more and more things are recorded, and become more readily accessible to a much wider audience, I wonder if we'll start to see people unpicking the minutiae of an actor's influences and what effect that will have on how actors are perceived.

[hindsightbias]

I would throw in MLK (over Obama) and Armstrong.

I'd bet on at least one President - Bush. Because every history book of the next couple of centuries will mark the millennial new year with imagery of 9/11 and the "Clash of Civilizations" meme. 19 guys and 1 President changed the course of history.

[vadimberman]

> C) Musicians - Mozart, Beethoven and Bach are still household names

Very recent ones. Name a composer from 1300s or 1100s.

> As for Scientists - how many can the average person name past 'Einstein'?

A lot. Everybody knows Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes, Freud, Newton, Galilei, Darwin, da Vinci, Pascal.

[Leherenn]

Not really composers, but Walter von der Vogelweide, or a trobador like Betran de Born are somewhat famous.

At least they are one of the fews whose name and music have reached us after about a thousand years.

But your point stands, music travels the years pretty badly.

[alexasmyths]

" Name a composer from 1300s or 1100s."

There were no composers then ...

Musical theory only developed during the renaissance and was basically formalized by the baroques i.e. Bach - and Moazart/Beethoven mastered it.

Music as we understand it really didn't exist before that. No real way to write it down, no way to create complex arrangements.

Italians thought of it, Germans formalized it and then mastered it. Nobody has pushed it much further since.

---> Scientists ...

Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes - not Scientists, but I get what you are saying - again I'd suggest that these are 'fundamentalists'. Founders of rational thought.

Newton = foundations of classical physics.

There are 1000x more Scientists alive today than ever before, and the only one we're going to remember is from 300 years ago? Point being - maybe there are no easy/major discoveries to be made so nobody will be remembered. Who will be remembered for CERN? Probably nobody.

[vadimberman]

> " Name a composer from 1300s or 1100s." > There were no composers then ...

Of course there were. There was music, so someone had to compose it.

But since the bulk of the mankind was struggling somewhere at the bottom of the Maslow hierarchy, nobody really cared about the nice sounds.

> Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes - not Scientists

Every encyclopaedia calls them scientists and, quite frankly, there is no reason to claim they aren't. Although Plato might be an exception.

> There are 1000x more Scientists alive today than ever before, and the only one we're going to remember is from 300 years ago?

The titular question is, who will be remembered in 1,000 years. I'm saying, those who have things named after them.

[Dylan16807]

> Of course there were. There was music, so someone had to compose it.

Not really, especially not someone who is a "composer".

[alexasmyths]

Yes, technically there were 'people who wrote music' but we wouldn't really call them composers, and we were not attributing anything to them.

And it wasn't a 'maslow' thing - it was that we had yet to develop proper instruments, scales, etc. etc.

FYI Music during about that time was mostly Gregorian chanting and what not - and for a time music was banned by the church, at other times it was only allowed to be made 'for God' type thing. Come to think of it there are I think some composers and attributions but minimal stuff. We don't 'remember them' because what they did was not remarkable like Beethoven.