OT-Dream dinner conversation with five people?

Submitted by Lee Everett on

*Alive or dead on an individual basis.  
*Assume that there are no communication issues, no language barriers, everybody can understand each other.  Confucius could speak with Shakespeare who could speak with a 2017 English speaker living in the Midwest.
*Assume that you are meeting people in their physical and mental primes, be they dead or elderly or disabled.  Stephen Hawking is not necessarily wheelchair-bound or beholden to a computer for speech assistance.
*The individuals can discuss their entire history/body of work/life.  Albert Einstein could reflect on his entire body of work, with the benefits of hindsight and contemporary wisdom.
*You can establish the tone of discourse-all can be mannered and polite and honest and friendly if you choose, or it can be an argumentative and volatile shitshow.*  If there's a certain political figure you think is an imbecile, you could stage an intervention for him with the founding fathers.

Now that the technicalities are laid out...

Which five people throughout history would you like to have dinner with, and why?

Anonymous Coward (not verified)

May 15th, 2017 at 5:08 PM ^

your 4 sisters. They will all take turns sitting on my lap and we will talk about the first thing that pops up.

Manonthemoon

May 15th, 2017 at 5:16 PM ^

1) Me  2) Bon Scott  3) Jimmi Hendrix  4) John Bonham  5) Jim Morroson  6) Sid Vicious. We would skip dinner and go straight to drinking.

Manonthemoon

May 15th, 2017 at 10:56 PM ^

I still remember exactly what I was doing when I heard on the radio Kurt Cobain died. Same thing about Randi Rhodes. I don't know if the young people realize how big all of the hair bands of the 80s were. And Nirvana came out of nowhere and totally changed music for about 10 years.

Manonthemoon

May 15th, 2017 at 11:26 PM ^

Some Texans are mingling at a bar when a Oxford graduate walks in. "Howdy, stranger," one Texan says. "Where are you from?" 

The Oxford graduate answers, "I come from a place where we do not end our sentences​ in prepositions." 

"Oh, I'm sorry,"replies the Texan. "Where are you from, jackass?"

 

ST3

May 15th, 2017 at 8:24 PM ^

Top five:

John Belushi

Abe Lincoln

Bo Schembechler

Jesus

Raquel Welch

Bottom five:

Michael Eric Dyson

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Sean Hannity

Rush Limbaugh

Hitler

drjaws

May 15th, 2017 at 9:30 PM ^

1. Alexander the Great 2. Julius Caesar 3. Ivar the Boneless 4. Jesus 5. Jack the Ripper (so I could find out who he was once and for all)

uncleFred

May 15th, 2017 at 9:31 PM ^

the opportunity is to great to indulge my football obsession. In no particular order.

George S. Patton; Possibly the greatest general in the modern era, although Hap Arnold really make this a tough choice.

Neil Armstrong: The first man to walk on the moon. 

Nikola Tesla: Perhaps the most creative mind before technology started to become more science than art.

Edward Teller: The father of the hydrogen bomb.

George Washington: The father of our country, although Ben Franklin made this another tough choice. 

The Georges could talk about war, battle, honor and country. Ed and Nik could talk about technologies. Neil and I could listen and from time to time talk about space and how and why we've screwed the pooch for more than four decades. The cocktails would come early, wine with dinner to keep tongues lubricated, then cigars and cognacs far into the night.

2manylincs

May 15th, 2017 at 9:49 PM ^

Cormac mccarthy Ted williams Ho chi minh Oliver cromwell Isaac newton I have a feeling ho and cromwell get in a fight or become best friends step brothers style.. Number 6 is st peter.

Lee Everett

May 15th, 2017 at 11:21 PM ^

Hell yes.  I'd love to hear what the ancient inventors would think about how far things have come.  Like, tell the Wright Brothers about spacecraft, or have Marconi/Bell listen to a Steve Jobs presentation about smart phones.

Da Vinci and Elon Musk and Tesla and Archimedes and Ben Franklin, something like that, would be well-rounded.

Fuck Edison.  Guy would just talk about himself and start shit with my boy Nikola, though.

Lee Everett

May 15th, 2017 at 11:12 PM ^

Theodore Roosevelt is a good one.  Man's man.

I had a couple themes, and people that were assassinated was one.  I'd want to sit around with Lincoln and MLK and the like and just listen to them reflect on the outcomes of their movements that they prematurely missed out on.

Sam1863

May 16th, 2017 at 5:27 AM ^

I'd make it a Civil War dinner party: US Grant and William Sherman for the Union, Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet for the Confederates, and my Dad, who would sit there and tell them all, "Here's what you should have done ..."

Zoltanrules

May 16th, 2017 at 8:39 AM ^

Mark Twain, Robin Williams, Groucho Marx, George Carlin, Matt Groenig.

If I went the intellectually stimulating route off the board:  Al'Khwarizmi, Galileo, Confucius, Archimedes, Ben Franklin