Who was the most flawed genius of all time?

Schism

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Axl Rose

He's just an enormous arsehole, in my opinion.

goodie2shoes

shane magowan:p

Oranage2

I vote TeddyTedson - no doubt a genius the suffers from the mental!

Shryke

Sharpshooter wrote: »

LordSmeg wrote: »

Alan Turing was another one who got a raw deal. Poor old sod caught the ghey and it all went downhill.

Mod

He wasn't flawed though, can we stay on topic.

Sorry but you're wrong. He was flawed for the time he was living in. It caused him great pain and drove him to suicide due to cultural climate etc.
It want something that was wrong with him. Not a personal flaw, but a flaw for the time he lived in. mores the pity.
No need for knee jerk reaction.

Sharpshooter

Shryke wrote: »

Sorry but you're wrong. He was flawed for the time he was living in. It caused him great pain and drove him to suicide due to cultural climate etc.
It want something that was wrong with him. Not a personal flaw, but a flaw for the time he lived in. mores the pity.
No need for knee jerk reaction.

No knee jerk at all, in this the present day, he wasn't flawed.:)

Napper Hawkins

plasmaguy wrote: »

It's a total myth that Hitler was genius, he was anything but, he was an uneducated beerhall thug for the most part who brought the German people to their knees rather than helped them.

His constant interfering cost Germany the war.

He made mistake after mistake including badly treating the people he conquered who eventually rose up against him.

There are so many examples of his stupidity its beyond a joke.

So?

You can be those things and still a genius. He still almost took over Europe with his ideals. You give that a shot and see how easy it is. I'll wait. A scumbag and may he rot, but definitely a genius.

In fact, a genius is more likely to possess these traits than the average schmuck.

Mistakes?

Mistakes do not make an individual any less of a genius, merely human.

beano345

the unabomber

donegal_man

Richard Wagner. Genius: Composed some of the most transcendentally beautiful music of all time and revolutionized the way opera is performed.
Flawed: Exploited his friends especially Giacomo Meyerbeer who lent him the money to stage Rienzi, his first success and who was later abused horribly in Wagner's writings. Was so convinced of his own superiority to others that he alienated virtually everyone who came in contact with him and of course an avowed and virulent anti-semite.

mikemac1

Steve Jobs

One of the most succusful business executives of all time

I read the Walter Isaacson book about him and he was whining, petty and childish asshole

Was given up for adoption which had a huge affect on his life.
And then when he became a parent he walked out and abandoned his daughter, what a ****.

Would daily range from screaming to crying to everything inbetween.
HTFU man and keep your emotions in check

Finished that book and pretty much every bad habit and personality trait that I hate, Jobs had it

However as someone said on boards a few months back, nice people don't make it to the top of corporations. Nice people get nice results was a quote somewhere.
You need to ruthless, power hungry and possibly cruel to get there

St.Spodo

Hitler was anything but a genius in military terms. His early military successes were the work of his general such as von Manstein. Hitler made some monumental mistakes during the war. In terms of genius, you could argue his genius lay in speaking and his ability to ensure the loyalty and support of the masses, although fear and terror played a part in this.

Funglegunk

Shryke wrote: »

Tesla. He had many quirks but what let him down was that he was decent and good in a world full of pricks.

robbie7730 wrote: »

He was the first I thought of when I seen the thread title. Judging by today`s world, he would still have the same let down as in his own time.

The Oatmeal has a great poster on Tesla.

Sergeant

Thomas Midgley.

He introduced lead to petrol to stop engines from knocking, and to improve reliability and efficiency.

He then went on to invent the CFC, also in an attempt to improve efficiency, and to replace the supposedly more dangerous gases used in refrigeration at the time.

He was held in very high esteem while alive, including being voted onto the United States National Academy of Sciences. It was only after his death that people discovered the utter devastation that leaded petrol and CFC gases caused to the environment.

Teyla Emmagan

Had to look up this Tesla fella...

My name is URL

Sergeant wrote: »

Thomas Midgley.

He introduced lead to petrol to stop engines from knocking, and to improve reliability and efficiency.

He then went on to invent the CFC, also in an attempt to improve efficiency, and to replace the supposedly more dangerous gases used in refrigeration at the time.

He was held in very high esteem while alive, including being voted onto the United States National Academy of Sciences. It was only after his death that people discovered the utter devastation that leaded petrol and CFC gases caused to the environment.

He didn't have the most flawless of deaths either. After becoming disabled he designed a pulley system so that others could help him get out of bed, but ended up strangling himself on the wires.

mr kr0nik

George Best.

shopaholic01

Oranage2 wrote: »

I vote TeddyTedson - no doubt a genius the suffers from the mental!

Damn, beat me to it. Our Teddy really does start the most abstract of posts.


My second choice is Deus Ex Machina - blow up dolls, whiskey on erect penises, traumatising his friends etc. Legend

General Relativity

Grigori Perelman. -It's doubtful you've heard of him unless you've an intrest in maths.

paddyandy

Only a genius can evaluate another genius .Most of us can't .

Zulu

Tesla all the way.
Think about the towers!!!

Fratton Fred

Artemis Fowl, obviously.

Any key?

I would have thought Emily Dickenson.
Wierd,lonery,lady who locked herself in a gaff.
But oh.my.days.

juan.kerr

Bruce Banner

hyperborean

Napolean was up there with her hitler

kowloon

Sergeant wrote: »

He was held in very high esteem while alive, including being voted onto the United States National Academy of Sciences. It was only after his death that people discovered the utter devastation that leaded petrol and CFC gases caused to the environment.

There was some pretty good evidence that lead tetraethy was dangerous, not least from deaths in the plant. These things get conveniently brushed aside.

kraggy

delad wrote: »

Pete Doherty

Genius me hole.

bb1234567

Hitler was far from a genius...more like psycopath with a lot of guns,bombs,tanks and followers nothing more...

flanno_7hi

Russell "Stringer" Bell.

Zinedine Zidane and the nerd in me would say A.C. Clarke and Tesla.

donegal_road

Mozart, Caravagio, or Hendrix

du Maurier

Peter O'Hanraha-Hanrahan

juan.kerr

kraggy wrote: »

Genius me hole.

Dirty junkie more like.

mikemac1

Al Gore

He invented the internet.
If he followed up properly he could have become the richest man in the world

Instead he went off to focus on something else

du Maurier

mikemac1 wrote: »

Al Gore

He invented the internet.
If he followed up properly he could have become the richest man in the world

Instead he went off to focus on something else

He did not:pac:

grizzly

du Maurier wrote: »

He did not:pac:

He did too and he also taught Elvis Presley how to play karate.

WatchWolf wrote: »

Perhaps not a genius, but Charles Manson was actually a very talented musician.

I was going to disagree, but thought I should educate myself more on some of his stuff. Not bad...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae_0j3byq4w

mikemac1

du Maurier wrote: »

He did not:pac:

Yes he did

There would be no boards.ie if it wasn't for Al Gore

I am pie

juan.kerr wrote: »

Dirty junkie more like.

The genius of Mr Doherty is that he has been able to ride Kate Moss, make a decent living out of peddling his diabolical music and appear on tv the odd time all whilst having zero discernbile talent and with a face like scarecrow after being left out in a storm.

Miserable toerag.

mongdesade

Lenny Bruce

CruelCoin

TeddyTedson wrote: »

I think it has to be Hitler.
Revolutionised the medical world, wanted to create a master race, he fits the bill perfectly.
I don't think anyone can trump him,
but lets see...

You forgot how he was an economic genius also.

Pity about the whole 6 million jews thing.

Kinda put a smear on his CV

kowloon

Talking about Nazi types: Hjalmar Schacht and Albert Speer.

FlawedGenius

Me:cool:

Fluorescence

I'm gonna have to, rather predictably on my part (:pac:) go with Beethoven. He was a music genius who created some of the most iconic and most loved pieces in the entire world. He was at least 100 years ahead of his time in terms of using dissonance and resolution in his music. He wrote some of his best works (such as Symphony 9 and the Missa Solemnis) after he became totally deaf. Yet it's thought that he inadvertently afflicted himself with deafness by repeatedly submerging his head in ice cold water as a young man in an attempt to stay awake at night.

He was also a grumpy and irritable man with few friends, who tended to alienate most of the people around him (although he did have a small, close-knit circle around him his entire life). He rather cruelly took custody of his nephew after his brother's death in a desperate attempt to make his own family (he never married and was rather unlucky in love throughout his life). He refused to allow this nephew any contact with his mother as he thought she was unworthy. Lastly, he allowed Schindler to continue being his secretary despite showing himself to be a thief and a despicable human being. Schindler destroyed over half of the written sources that existed about Beethoven after his death so that he could write a fabricated biography that pleased him.

He also had to revise his one and only opera Leonore (now Fidelio) three times; the first two editions were financial failures due to Beethoven's refusal to admit the deep flaws within his work.

mattjack

rednik wrote: »

George Best of course.

mr kr0nik wrote: »

George Best.

The wife beating alcoholic,

opinion guy

Newton spent 20 years in isolation trying to decode the formula for turning stuff into gold from the bible after he published his Principa Mathematica.

Hes was apparently very socially dysfunctional for alot of his life until he packed in the alchemy after 20 years of failure and married someone thereafter

BarnhallBull

mattjack wrote: »

The wife beating alcoholic,

I think that might be the flawed bit...

FloatingVoter

Jesus Christ - lived at home with his mum until well into his twenties, lousy carpenter and worse fisherman by all accounts (they're called fish not men for a reason), never got a paying job - just lived on handouts, had the gift of the gab and founded a World Religion.
Unfortunately it ended badly (or did it ?)

TeddyTedson

Oranage2 wrote: »

I vote TeddyTedson - no doubt a genius the suffers from the mental!

more like a retard mental but suffers from occasional sanity:pac::P
Alex Higgins?

TeddyTedson

Garrincha also deserves to be a contender.
Amazing footballer with bandy knees, an alcoholic and apparently lost his virginity to a goat...

flyswatter

Van Morrison. Musical genius. Grumpy cunt.

charlemont

FloatingVoter wrote: »

Jesus Christ - lived at home with his mum until well into his twenties, lousy carpenter and worse fisherman by all accounts (they're called fish not men for a reason), never got a paying job - just lived on handouts, had the gift of the gab and founded a World Religion.
Unfortunately it ended badly (or did it ?)

I'm convinced he got his beliefs in the east maybe around the Hindu Kush region, Its possible he done what a lot of youth at the time in his region did and travelled east. Sure isn't there a gap of several years in his life story....

marcsignal

God

bnt

opinion guy wrote: »

Newton spent 20 years in isolation trying to decode the formula for turning stuff into gold from the bible after he published his Principa Mathematica.

Another vote for Isaac Newton here. On top of the Alchemy stuff, he lost a lot of money when the South Sea Bubble burst, and got in to very nasty wars of words with Leibnitz over Calculus, abusing his position in the Royal Society to that end.

He remained an unorthodox religious nutter who wrote more on the Bible and the Occult than he did on Science - though that wasn't all that unusual for the time. He was appointed a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and that meant he was obligated to become an ordained priest in the Church of England. (He managed to put that off and eventually got an exemption from the King.) He tried to "rationalise" religion, but only up to the point where it ran in to his fundamental irrational beliefs.