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to your point, imagine the bed-ridden mother of a tribesman of a remote village in Sub-Saharan Africa and you easily tack on 2 more degrees of separation (the t
by awl130 11y ago
to your point, imagine the bed-ridden mother of a tribesman of a remote village in Sub-Saharan Africa and you easily tack on 2 more degrees of separation (the tribesman who has infrequent contact with a nearby city and then his senior-aged mother).
- alexleavitt 11y agoTo be realistic, too, the original "six degrees of separation" did not take into account this international context.
- umanwizard 11y agoYes it did. "Gondolier from Venice" is right there in the article.
- mseebach 11y agoWe're considering connections analogus to Facebook friendships, not currently open lines of communication. The mother, having lived a long life, likely knows hundreds of people in the village and the next few over (several of whom have moved to a number of different cities, a few quite far), so her son doesn't automatically tack on a degree of separation.
- aaron695 11y agoNot the point. All it takes is one real example and you add to everyone. IE a remote mother who has had a child is an automatic + one. A 13 year who's been born remote and has a child remotely is plus two. I could imagine a child this age only having ever met village members somewhere creeping off to have a baby. Facebook is cheating by averaging.
- morsch 11y agoIt's an average, not a maximum.
- Scarblac 11y agoBut that's cheating, isn't it? I'm quite sure the quote the article starts with that mentions six degrees means that that is the maximum.