A battlefield of thinkers

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker in this world----Ralph Waldo Emerson

I've been having this thought for quite a while in my head, about how this world has really been a battlefield of thinkers, and how the lives of 'doers' have been shaped by thoughts of thought leaders.

If we look at major revolutions such as the rise of communism, the rise of democracy, rise of quantum theory etc... You may realise that they are merely the thoughts of one or one group of people. Communism is the brainchild of Karl Marx, democracy...not very sure, perhaps George Washington, and the Copenhagen Intrepretation, the group of physicists who discussed it in Copenhagen.

But these were not the only thoughts that had existed in their fields, they were merely the thoughts that 'won'. Communism as of now has mostly been defeated by democracy, and the Copenhagen interpretation had dominated over another 14 or so schools of thought for quantum mechanics. Even in religion, we see stuff like 'orthodox' Christianity, but whose authority was it to decide that this school of thought was 'orthodox' or not?

Ultimately, we see that pretty often, there are large battles fought amongst the thought leaders, and it is usually the thought that 'fits in' with the majority of the populace that wins. In the past, burning heretics at the stake was 'ok', now it is just wrong. A new thought had overpowered the old thought, and that's why everyone's thinking like that today.

Even things like moral values, those are really just the 'winner' of a large battle of values.

In my opinion, this is really an interesting phenomenon. The world can essentially be divided into 2 groups, thinkers and doers, as I have already mentioned. The thinkers fight, and the doers follow the winner. Of course, it is not all pleasant when doers start to kill doers of a rival thought faction, but that aside, it is interesting to think about how thoughts would evolve over the next hundred or so years.

Would religion still exist? Would science still exist? Would we start burning people at the stake again? Would we be wearing clothes? It's really a matter of whose thoughts win.

I would like to begin observing thought leaders from around the world to see what is their progress in the 'battle'. I am also interested to know whether there has ever been a 'walkover'. Perhaps some day, I would join in this battle as well, just to see how far I can go.