While Sun Ra’s idea is interesting, it’s not for me. I’m not a hugely social person, by any means. I can deal with small groups, or larger groups where I know many of the people. Not very large, though. But, ok, he only said ten people. Trying to entertain ten people known to me by reputation only, though, would be pretty tough. Really, what would I say to Winston Churchill? “Hey, great speeches” doesn’t get me very far.
But with Ra’s ten people, there’d be no way to keep track of the sub-conversations. Most of those on the list are people that Ra just wants to talk to, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And some people really need to be in a social environment. Oscar Wilde, for example. Sure, he’d be interesting in a one-on-one conversation, but I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t impress him all that much. Maybe if I had a fancier watch. But I’m guessing that he’d need to be in a room with other luminaries to really shine.
Plus, all of the less modern sorts are going to be staring at the light bulbs. Showing them television or the Internet is probably something to avoid.
“So you see, Alexander, people have put all of this information…er, well, where you can get to it. Like this, see? Yup, that’s the Earth, from space. Ok, let’s look up something Greek. Oh. That’s porn. Yes, there is quite a lot of it. Um, yes, rather large, indeed. No, not real. See, there’s this thing called plastic surgery…”
Really, what would shatter your preconceptions more completely than having the great minds of history ogling Internet porn?
Plus, would you want Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan in the same room? Wait, yeah, that would actually be interesting. Maybe toss in Napoleon and Saladin. Then throw Sun Tzu into the mix so that everyone else can smack him around for talking about things that are bloody obvious.
I mean, of course you want to have numerically superior forces before launching an attack. How the hell is that a revolutionary idea? It’s not as though prior to 500 B.C. all attacks were made in a Small vs. Big fashion. I think it’s pretty damn obvious that if you’re facing an army two, three, or ten times the size of yours (all other things being equal), you do your best to avoid conflict. Perhaps I’m wrong, though, and people were just very stupid back then. It would explain why it took them so damn long to get a working lightbulb.