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Time Person of the Year 2013

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Re: Time Person of the Year 2013

#81

Post by bargl »

phryk wrote: post #57
bargl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are doing the same thing by assuming that Snowden's influence is as vast as that of Christianity. If you compare the percentages of people on the internet VS those who are Christian (at this point in time) you get approximately the same amount sitting at 32-34%. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/dec…

You are doing the same thing by assuming that Snowden's influence is as vast as that of Christianity. It's not "just" about the internet, or even IT - it's the revelation that we are forced into a panopticon, that all of us are spied upon. Christianity has nothing real at it's base. It's just mythology . Yeah, there are a huge number of people who "believe" it. In contrast IT shapes just about every damn aspect of ou…

>Christianity has nothing real at it's base. It's just mythology. Yeah, there are a huge number of people who "believe" it.

It has historical relevance, the influence of the church throughout history not the stories in the Bible. AKA Inquisition, influence on the Monarchies, crusades, etc.

It has a huge base of believers who listen to a clergy man every Sunday and some (not all) take to heart what he has to say, this is passed down from the head of the church (the pope and cardinals).

It has huge political sway. Just like the revelations that Snowden did.

In contrast, Snowden revealed something of great importance to the First World (which is probably why you are all fired up about it). He pointed out something that really could be disastrous for our nation. However, the adoption and acceptance of Homosexuals in the third world is also important and Francis could have an affect on that.

>There's about 2 billion Christians. And about 6 billion cellphone subscriptions.

And if the poles are to be believed only 50% of Americans care about this. I can guarantee you there are less Bolivians and Haitians (who have cell phones too) that give a crap about NSA Surveillance. Rest assured, I'm in the percentage that cares, but I'm also not going to write off the contributions of Pope Francis. But this isn't as relevant to EVERYONE as you seem to assume. Also, these are very bad metrics for the affect EITHER Snowden or Francis will have on history.

>So please don't go yapping about how fucking important some half-dead fairytale is. This is inappropriate and you were being a dick. Yapping? Seriously? I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are just being silly here...

Edit: TL;DR; Even if you take away the belief system in the Catholic church and the Pope has an affect on a huge number of human beings, and that is really what this is all about...

Re: Time Person of the Year 2013

#82

Post by GnwbZHiU »

philtar wrote: post #24
r0h1n wrote: post #14

For crying out loud! What difference has the Pope made to the world (and do remember, the world does include non-Christian countries...or roughly 5 billion out of 7 billion people...and I'm not even getting into Catholics vs. non-Catholics here). Colour me cynical, but any publication that declares anyone other than Edward Snowden as the Person of the Year in 2013 has to have some pretty BIG reasons for doing so. And…

Sure Snowden opened up a dialog when it comes to privacy etc. and that's a big deal for us because we live on the internet. This pope however is so transformational he could seriously do a lot to bring peace to the world. Potential wise, this guy trumps Snowden on every level. Take a moment to think about how powerful this guy really is. P.S I'm muslim.

I agree that the Pope is powerful & very influential. But that's always true, or at least generally true, not specific to 2013.

Re: Time Person of the Year 2013

#83

Post by GnwbZHiU »

Why do people angry? It's Time person of the year, they have their own criteria, they can choose anyone they want, they don't need to justify it. If you want, you can also publish your own person of the year.

Re: Time Person of the Year 2013

#84

Post by dragonwriter »

yapcguy wrote: post #62
skwirl wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. If your life is lived online, especially in the tech community echo chamber, Snowden is going to mean a lot more to you than he does to most people. There are 1.2 billion Catholics in the world. I attended Catholic church growing up, and the pope has a lot of influence on Catholics. Many of these people have portraits of the pope (at the time it was John Paul II) in central areas of their homes. If you aren'…

> The topic is humility, compassion, and charity. When is the last time these topics really had a globally influential champion? Er, since the last pope?! What makes this pope special from the others?

> > The topic is humility, compassion, and charity. When is the last time these topics really had a globally influential champion?

> Er, since the last pope?!

No. I mean, to be sure, humility, compassion, and charity are topics that the Church has discussed under every Pope, but not ones for which the Pope has been a visible model the way Francis -- both as Cardinal Bergoglio and since becoming Pope -- has.

Re: Time Person of the Year 2013

#85

Post by dragonwriter »

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #72
andrewcooke wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he's significantly more liberal. that is the whole point, really. maybe you should read the article?

"significantly more liberal" in this context means he's a slightly less hateful reactionary bigot. If the pope ran for election in the average western democracy he would be far right, next to the neo-nazi's and the anti-immigrant parties. But because it's the catholic church we even use the word "liberal" to describe his ideology.

> If the pope ran for election in the average western democracy he would be far right

The fairly harsh criticism of modern capitalism in Evangelii Gaudium is hardly consistent with the far right. Certainly, the Church has right-wing positions on some issues -- which are in many cases the issues Francis has said the Church tends to excessively focus on and needs to not overemphasize -- while on others it has fairly left-wing positions.

Re: Time Person of the Year 2013

#86

Post by croisillon »

Maybe that's my trope as much as Snowden looks like a trope to some other commenters here but 2013 was the perfect timing[0] for a POY "LGBT Recognition" or so.

Anyway, I'm betting on a science-related POY in 2014, remember to check if I was right ;)

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage#Timeline

Re: Time Person of the Year 2013

#87

Post by dragonwriter »

thrillgore wrote: post #60
philtar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure Snowden opened up a dialog when it comes to privacy etc. and that's a big deal for us because we live on the internet. This pope however is so transformational he could seriously do a lot to bring peace to the world. Potential wise, this guy trumps Snowden on every level. Take a moment to think about how powerful this guy really is. P.S I'm muslim.

>he could seriously do a lot COULD. Snowden HAS.

Snowden and the Pope both have, but mostly -- in both cases -- in terms of provoking conversation and debate, with only fairly modest impacts in terms of substantive impact.

OTOH, that's not really inconsistent with what the "Person of the Year" normally means.

Re: Time Person of the Year 2013

#88

Post by dragonwriter »

ernestipark wrote: post #32

I'm not saying Snowden or the Pope should or shouldn't be the POTY... but the narrow mindedness here is pretty silly (yet predictable). Maybe it's hard for atheist technologists living in the tech bubble to fathom, but the Pope is unbelievably influential to not just the millions (or even billions) of Catholics around the world, but even those who are not Catholic/Christian. I'm not sure whether Pope Francis will/has…

> I'm not sure whether Pope Francis will/has inspired policy change, moved political waves, etc

There's some indications that it may have, if not spurring political change, at least reduced a barrier to it with some immediate effect [1].

[1] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2013/1106/As-Illinoi...

Re: Time Person of the Year 2013

#89

Post by dragonwriter »

yapcguy wrote: post #75
dak1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. When I saw the link on Hacker News, my gut reaction was that it was probably Snowden; however, I have to say I think the Pope was the far better choice (and I'm an atheist). He's the first Pope from what is often called the Global South, and really brings a different perspective and emphasis on cultural and economic issues that could have massive implications for the entire world (whether you're Christian, Mu…

Are awards being simply handed out for being the "first" at something? Also why do you think the Pope has any influence on a Muslim, Hindu or Jew? Do you think the local imam or rabbi is busy dissecting the Pope's latest press releases?

> Also why do you think the Pope has any influence on a Muslim, Hindu or Jew?

I'll let a Muslim activist provide one answer to that: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maha-elgenaidi/pope-francis-a-...

> Do you think the local imam or rabbi is busy dissecting the Pope's latest press releases?

Apparently, some of them do: http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20130413/muslims-say-...

Re: Time Person of the Year 2013

#90

Post by phryk »

bargl wrote: post #81
phryk wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are doing the same thing by assuming that Snowden's influence is as vast as that of Christianity. It's not "just" about the internet, or even IT - it's the revelation that we are forced into a panopticon, that all of us are spied upon. Christianity has nothing real at it's base. It's just mythology . Yeah, there are a huge number of people who "believe" it. In contrast IT shapes just about every damn aspect of ou…

>Christianity has nothing real at it's base. It's just mythology. Yeah, there are a huge number of people who "believe" it. It has historical relevance, the influence of the church throughout history not the stories in the Bible. AKA Inquisition, influence on the Monarchies, crusades, etc. It has a huge base of believers who listen to a clergy man every Sunday and some (not all) take to heart what he has to say, this…

Even if you take away the belief system in the Catholic church and the Pope has an affect on a huge number of human beings, and that is really what this is all about...

Yes, and it's about how many people are affected, not how many "care" about it.

You don't have to care about the Leaks in order for the revealed programs to affect you. And it's not only the first world, as every spy agency freely siphons any and all "foreign" data they can get their hands on. So third world countries are considered fair game by pretty much all spy agencies and are obviously spied upon (German authorities for instance often repeat the mantra that they spy on Afghani data traffic because terror). Even now the largest part of the third world population has a cellphone and is getting ever more connected.

The catholic church might have a good deal of political sway and lots of followers, but the Snowden Leaks affect as close to 100% of the global population as you'll ever get.

Edit: I'd also like to point out that the influence of the church is dwindling while the influence of digital communication is going to continue to soar.

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