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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

by r0h1n 13y ago

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 the Pope's just don't cut it.

kayoone 13y ago
Obama has been person of the year twice in the last 5 years and there seem to be other countries than the USA last time i checked.
- huherto 13y ago
  roughly 6.7 billion out of 7 billion people are not in the USA.
parasight 13y ago
Right now there are high hopes that the Pope will make a difference. Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize nine months after his election. For what reason if not high hopes? To a huge number of people on this planet the problems around the NSA are rather insignificant. EDIT: Typo
- StavrosK 13y ago
  "Person of the year 2013" isn't "person we're hoping will make a difference in 2014", it's "person who has made a difference". The pope can pretty much do nothing that will affect me, but the bullshit the NSA pulls affect me every day.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    >> "The pope can pretty much do nothing that will affect me, but the bullshit the NSA pulls affect me every day." So Time should have checked with you first? I don't really care who they voted as person of the year (it really doesn't matter) but being annoyed they picked someone who doesn't effect you (but can effect millions of others) is pretty dumb and selfish reasoning.
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      Well, I was either using myself as a data point, or I meant that, since the pope can't affect me specifically, Time shouldn't have chosen him. I'm glad you picked the more reasonable of the two options.
- salient 13y ago
  And in Obama's case, that turned out to be extremely premature. So learn from history? Then again didn't Time give this award to Hitler, too? So yeah, they don't exactly have a good record of learning from history.
  - parasight 13y ago
    Maybe Snowden beats Francis in the race for the next Nobel Peace Prize ;)
    - inafield 13y ago
      The actions of Snowden are far more likely to cause war than stop it. Some of Francis' actions are more cause to stop "holy war" than anything else.
  - leephillips 13y ago
    Hitler was MOTY in 1938. Since he had a rather large effect on history, it seems as if they made a good call. Remember, this is not supposed to be an honor, it's supposed to identify someone who influences things.
gmacdon89 13y ago
perhaps the rest of the world are not computer nerds
philtar 13y ago
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.
- kamaal 13y ago
  >>Take a moment to think about how powerful this guy really is. Symbolically yes. But the world has moved on. Power these days comes in the form of a well developed economy, powerful armies, weapons, lobbies etc. Spiritual power by and large means nothing in the current world. Its all power, wealth and interests that move around them.
  - andrewcooke 13y ago
    where i live abortion, in any form, is still illegal. this guy certainly does have power over many people. if you had a hugely successful campaigner in the usa that transformed the debate over abortion there, don't you think that would make news? this guy has the same potential, and that's just one small aspect, here in chile. and anyway, it is not about power. snowden has very little power, but we would all (well most of us) appreciate it if he had won.
  - kohanz 13y ago
    Which of the above factors did Nelson Mandela possess?
    - sys_argv 13y ago
      Beyond the symbolic stature that he possessed, what 'power' did he have?
- macspoofing 13y ago
  I like this pope, but anything coming out of Vatican is essentially white-noise when it comes to national and international policies. No world leader actually cares. So how does he bring peace to the world?
bargl 13y ago
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://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/dec/23/84-percent-world-population-has-faith-third-are-ch/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/dec/23/... Now I know that the internet is going to continue spreading to the point that it is at a much higher population than this, however, we are talking about 2013. Snowden did something awesome, and deserves to be up there in the finalists, but I don't like this sort of attitude that anything Christian has no relevance. Francis has had a huge affect on many Christians and non-Christians alike because he is attempting to depolarize the Catholic church and better integrate them with the rest of the world. Both people deserve renown for what they've done. So lets not diminish the work of either Snowden or Francis.
- phryk 13y ago
  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 our lives. Just about all financial transfers, personal communication, news, etc. etc. are stored on computers of some shape and travel the internet. The internet has enabled the arab spring, international scientific collaboration and many, many, MANY other things. As a little example of the real impact the Snowden Leaks have, just look at the number of Christians[1] vs. the number of cellphone subscriptions[2]: There's about 2 billion Christians. And about 6 billion cellphone subscriptions. So please don't go yapping about how fucking important some half-dead fairytale is. [1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number%20of%20christians https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number%20of%20christia... [2] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number%20of%20people%20with%20mobile%20phones https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number%20of%20people%2... Addendum: Please also note, that the Pope doesn't even represent all Christians but just catholic Christians, of which there's even less than a billion. Meanwhile, the Snowden Leaks are important to just about everyone. The only people who are unaffacted by this are people who live without any computers. But hey, if you live with some indigenous tribe in the jungle, you're (probably) in the clear; Until realtime surveillance with satellites becomes cheap enough at least.
mato 13y ago
For crying out loud! What difference has Edward Snowden made to the world (and do remember, the world does include people not connected to the Internet... or roughly 4.5 billion out of 7 billion people... and I'm not even getting into people with not enough to eat every day here). Colour me cynical, but any publication that declares anyone other than Chuck Norris as the Person of the Year in 2013 has to have some pretty BIG reasons for doing so. And Edward Snowden's just don't cut it.
jheriko 13y ago
my reason: he only enlightened very naive people with massive blinkers on their vision. although i'm inclined to agree he is a very good choice...
- antoko 13y ago
  This comment is so far away from the parent I can no longer remember who the "he" is referencing. I like that I can turn this both ways and have it be snowden or the pope.
  - jheriko 13y ago
    it was originally meant to be snowden... but you are right, it can apply to the pope... i'd never thought of what he does as 'enlightening' but i guess it could be construed as such by those he is there for... :)
staticelf 13y ago
I agree with you. Is HN being attacked by religious crazy people? The pope won't do shit. Seriously, he is more insignificant than any random educated citizen.
- narrowingorbits 13y ago
  > Seriously, he is more insignificant than any random educated citizen Wow. You're really living in your own little bubble.

by r0h1n 13y ago

kayoone 13y ago

Obama has been person of the year twice in the last 5 years and there seem to be other countries than the USA last time i checked.

huherto 13y ago
roughly 6.7 billion out of 7 billion people are not in the USA.

parasight 13y ago

Right now there are high hopes that the Pope will make a difference. Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize nine months after his election. For what reason if not high hopes? To a huge number of people on this planet the problems around the NSA are rather insignificant. EDIT: Typo

StavrosK 13y ago
"Person of the year 2013" isn't "person we're hoping will make a difference in 2014", it's "person who has made a difference". The pope can pretty much do nothing that will affect me, but the bullshit the NSA pulls affect me every day.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "The pope can pretty much do nothing that will affect me, but the bullshit the NSA pulls affect me every day." So Time should have checked with you first? I don't really care who they voted as person of the year (it really doesn't matter) but being annoyed they picked someone who doesn't effect you (but can effect millions of others) is pretty dumb and selfish reasoning.
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    Well, I was either using myself as a data point, or I meant that, since the pope can't affect me specifically, Time shouldn't have chosen him. I'm glad you picked the more reasonable of the two options.
salient 13y ago
And in Obama's case, that turned out to be extremely premature. So learn from history? Then again didn't Time give this award to Hitler, too? So yeah, they don't exactly have a good record of learning from history.
- parasight 13y ago
  Maybe Snowden beats Francis in the race for the next Nobel Peace Prize ;)
  - inafield 13y ago
    The actions of Snowden are far more likely to cause war than stop it. Some of Francis' actions are more cause to stop "holy war" than anything else.
- leephillips 13y ago
  Hitler was MOTY in 1938. Since he had a rather large effect on history, it seems as if they made a good call. Remember, this is not supposed to be an honor, it's supposed to identify someone who influences things.

gmacdon89 13y ago

perhaps the rest of the world are not computer nerds

philtar 13y ago

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.

kamaal 13y ago
>>Take a moment to think about how powerful this guy really is. Symbolically yes. But the world has moved on. Power these days comes in the form of a well developed economy, powerful armies, weapons, lobbies etc. Spiritual power by and large means nothing in the current world. Its all power, wealth and interests that move around them.
- andrewcooke 13y ago
  where i live abortion, in any form, is still illegal. this guy certainly does have power over many people. if you had a hugely successful campaigner in the usa that transformed the debate over abortion there, don't you think that would make news? this guy has the same potential, and that's just one small aspect, here in chile. and anyway, it is not about power. snowden has very little power, but we would all (well most of us) appreciate it if he had won.
- kohanz 13y ago
  Which of the above factors did Nelson Mandela possess?
  - sys_argv 13y ago
    Beyond the symbolic stature that he possessed, what 'power' did he have?
macspoofing 13y ago
I like this pope, but anything coming out of Vatican is essentially white-noise when it comes to national and international policies. No world leader actually cares. So how does he bring peace to the world?

bargl 13y ago

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://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/dec/23/84-percent-world-population-has-faith-third-are-ch/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/dec/23/... Now I know that the internet is going to continue spreading to the point that it is at a much higher population than this, however, we are talking about 2013. Snowden did something awesome, and deserves to be up there in the finalists, but I don't like this sort of attitude that anything Christian has no relevance. Francis has had a huge affect on many Christians and non-Christians alike because he is attempting to depolarize the Catholic church and better integrate them with the rest of the world. Both people deserve renown for what they've done. So lets not diminish the work of either Snowden or Francis.

phryk 13y ago
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 our lives. Just about all financial transfers, personal communication, news, etc. etc. are stored on computers of some shape and travel the internet. The internet has enabled the arab spring, international scientific collaboration and many, many, MANY other things. As a little example of the real impact the Snowden Leaks have, just look at the number of Christians[1] vs. the number of cellphone subscriptions[2]: There's about 2 billion Christians. And about 6 billion cellphone subscriptions. So please don't go yapping about how fucking important some half-dead fairytale is. [1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number%20of%20christians https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number%20of%20christia... [2] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number%20of%20people%20with%20mobile%20phones https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number%20of%20people%2... Addendum: Please also note, that the Pope doesn't even represent all Christians but just catholic Christians, of which there's even less than a billion. Meanwhile, the Snowden Leaks are important to just about everyone. The only people who are unaffacted by this are people who live without any computers. But hey, if you live with some indigenous tribe in the jungle, you're (probably) in the clear; Until realtime surveillance with satellites becomes cheap enough at least.

mato 13y ago

For crying out loud! What difference has Edward Snowden made to the world (and do remember, the world does include people not connected to the Internet... or roughly 4.5 billion out of 7 billion people... and I'm not even getting into people with not enough to eat every day here). Colour me cynical, but any publication that declares anyone other than Chuck Norris as the Person of the Year in 2013 has to have some pretty BIG reasons for doing so. And Edward Snowden's just don't cut it.

jheriko 13y ago

my reason: he only enlightened very naive people with massive blinkers on their vision. although i'm inclined to agree he is a very good choice...

antoko 13y ago
This comment is so far away from the parent I can no longer remember who the "he" is referencing. I like that I can turn this both ways and have it be snowden or the pope.
- jheriko 13y ago
  it was originally meant to be snowden... but you are right, it can apply to the pope... i'd never thought of what he does as 'enlightening' but i guess it could be construed as such by those he is there for... :)

staticelf 13y ago

I agree with you. Is HN being attacked by religious crazy people? The pope won't do shit. Seriously, he is more insignificant than any random educated citizen.

narrowingorbits 13y ago
> Seriously, he is more insignificant than any random educated citizen Wow. You're really living in your own little bubble.