International standard of famous

[jack]

When thinking about David, the question came up of the most famous piece of art (Mona Lisa?), and how to measure that, and swiftly thence to people. A similar criteria of famousness, say "percentage of people who have heard of", can apply equally well to people, art, and other things.

The obvious suggestion was to normalise between 0.0 and 1.0. It was originally going to be normalised to Jesus at 1.0, but that was probably not complete, so I decided 1.0 should be things known to everyone. That provides some baseline. Say "the sun" is up at 1.0.

I guessed Jesus would be the most famous person (including mythology), being as how people have heard of him all over the world. However, Livredor pointed out that it's quite possible he's not known all over China, and getting 1 biln people in China is a noticeable chunk of that elusive 1.0 score. If you are known to everyone except China, your fame is 0.83 or similar. On the other hand, Chairman Mao has been pretty well known everywhere else; is it possible he actually was more famous than Jesus?

Is there anyone else with a score of 80%+? Real or mythological? You can come up with other concepts in that range. (eg. "Ocean" is known to most adults, but not all. "God" probably doesn't include all small-g gods though.)

Another approach would be to integrate population over time. Jesus, being so widley known for 1000+ years probably beats out anyone mainly known in their own lifetime or own continent. However, he probably also beats out anyone known for N thousand years before that, due to recent explosive population growth.

Another would be to integrate percentage over time. I'm not sure what effect that would have. Anyone from the start of time would be known to everyone, if they could just stay famous long enough, but more recent people may have more staying fame if they do manage to be widely known. Will someone famous for millennia in late BC beat out both?

Comments

[robhu.livejournal.com]

John Lennon ? ;-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Probably too late even for English teenagers... :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

The question of how to decide is interesting. In western anglophone countries, the metric of google hits is a skewed but traditional first approximation.

But this is almost definition covering places where the internet doesn't. Probably the only way is to go through the most populous continents and for each guess the percentage penetration.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

In case it's not obvious what I'm referring to...

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Are you replying to yourself because of a genuine multiple personality disorder?

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I'd imagine that any incumbent US president is always pretty well known across the world, at least by name.

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

The smaller population in BC times might skew things a bit.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, of course! Sorry.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

No.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

He's lying!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

No, only one of us is lying!

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

Interesting topic :)

robhu beat me to the John Lennon joke.

On the other hand, Chairman Mao has been pretty well known everywhere else; is it possible he actually was more famous than Jesus?
I expect a lot of relatively uneducated people in this country and the US haven't heard of Chairman Mao, particularly younger people.
Also, there are tribes without much contact with the rest of the world, who have been reached by missionaries; they'll have heard of Jesus, but they won't know any recent-ish history except their own and possibly a little bit of the missionaries' country, so they won't have heard of Mao.
And I expect the proportion of Chinese who've at least heard of Jesus is way more than the proportion who are Christians.

A Western celebrity or cartoon character who's also big in China might be a contender, at least in the short term. Also, perhaps a fictional or mythological figure who exists in different variations in different cultures, if you're prepared to count them as the same person.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

ROFL.

You should use different icons to distinguish between one another as that other LJer with a multiple personality disorder does :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I mean. If you count population over time, anyone famous this millennium is probably going to win because there are more people.

On the other hand, at a time when there are many fewer people, it'd be easier to be known by all of them. But that doesn't help in itself if nowadays there are _some_ people known by most people alive. But it does mean the modern age doesn't automatically win, so if you could famous long enough in BC, you could still win.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Coke > Jesus? Discuss (15 points)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I guessed that link was going to go to cartesiandemon :)

Oh, that's nice. I hadn't actually noticed (I don't know them well). So thank you for pointing it out :)

Except, I'm not sure I have two distinct personalities. There's the one who just said something, and the one who's about to disagree with that. (Like British politics?) But I don't think it's stateful :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I don't know :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, very good points.

I expect a lot of relatively uneducated people in this country and the US haven't heard of Chairman Mao, particularly younger people.

Yeah, that's what I thought. I changed the tenses in my post to be past tenses, from when we were discussing it before.

Also, there are tribes without much contact with the rest of the world,

Yeah, indeed. And indeed, probably rural/poor people of many countries may not be that isolated, but not receive any international news either. But I'm not sure how many. Lots? Millions? Billions?

And I expect the proportion of Chinese who've at least heard of Jesus is way more than the proportion who are Christians.

I'd assume so :)

A Western celebrity or cartoon character who's also big in China might be a contender,

Yeah, that's a good thought. If they're not that famous, but everyone tends to have heard of them. If they can cross of America/Europe and China, they're off to a good start.

perhaps a fictional or mythological figure who exists in different variations in different cultures,

I was thinking about this, though I don't think I know enough mythology; I couldn't think of anyone likely to be as universal as Jesus (livredor suggested contenders).

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I think it'd be much harder to be known by everyone pre-mass-communications. Up until a couple of hundred years ago there were entire continents that didn't have external contact.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I would say the reference points here should be Elvis, Jesus and Coke.

In a diagonal mental leap from that, has livredor encourraged you to read any Jack Womack yet ?

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

*ROFL*

Does one of you always lie, and one of you always tell the truth, and one of you does both, by any chance?[1]

[1] Waaa, haven't seen Labyrinth for too long!

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Jesus or the Devil?

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Perhaps saying the devil here is like saying god, the devil might get more recognition than Jesus, but probably only in the same way that 'god' is not a word that refers to a single deity (but rather a term for lots of different deities).

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm saying that 'god' or 'the devil' are more like categories / concepts than individuals, whereas Jesus is an individual. So it's probably cheating to try to mix the popularity of Jesus and the Devil (err...).

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's nice. I hadn't actually noticed (I don't know them well). So thank you for pointing it out :)
Yes, I have to refer to the personalities as either Mr [Bad username or site: toothycat' / @ livejournal.com] or Mrs [Bad username or site: toothycat' / @ livejournal.com].

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

Confucius and Moses are probably both in the running.

I think integration over time is important, but not using a metric of known to number of people because of population increase. Fame is often transient, so being famous for a long time seems more important than just being widely known for a short time. It just seems more important to me to be Gilgamesh, known for over 4500 years, rather than David Beckham who just happening to be (probably) transiently famous at a time when the world population is 6bn.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Does one of you always lie, and one of you always tell the truth, and one of you does both, by any chance?

Maybe...

Waaa, haven't seen Labyrinth for too long!

*hugs* Do you have the DVD? You can come round and watch mine with mead if you like :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Wow, confusingly, you seem to be turning into me...

I think that makes sense. Even if not, I'd guess amongst religions which have neither Jesus is probably slightly more famous, and most non-monotheistic religions probably don't have an "ultimate evil" character, connected to the devil or not.

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

what if the metric was known to % of people, rather than known to # of people?

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

... but which of you?

[scribb1e.livejournal.com]

There's also the question of whether 'heard of' is good enough. I will frequently recognise a name as that of someone famous but be quite unable to say who they are. In some cases, I can't even say whether they are real or fictional.

So do you think people ought to have a clue about who/what the person/thing is, as well as simply recognising the name?

How about Karl Marx? Known in China, known elswhere. Probably not heard of by small tribes in Papua New Guinea, but you never know.

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

A Western celebrity or cartoon character who's also big in China might be a contender, at least in the short term.

Mickey Mouse, traditionally.

Adolf Hitler also has a reasonable chance simply because schoolchildren on almost every continent are taught about him.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I think "heard of" was probably the right place to start, though because (a) it's easy to define (b) it probably (though not certainly) correlates well with people knowing in more detail. I'd be curious work out for whom different metrics would give different answers, though.,

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hitler also came up, and is always a very good example, but while I assume (rightly?) he's viewed as a byword for evil much the same everywhere, I thought the repetitive schooling was a lot less outside Europe and America[1].

[1] Australia came up in the original conversation, and for these purposes we agreed to ignore it, since the population is weenier than the margin of error for the population of Europe/America. In fact, hold on, let me find a few basic stats on world population.

[redbird]

At one point, the most famous American was Muhammad Ali. These things get complicated.

I like the metric of percentages of people, and am not at all sure whether someone who would say "Oh, right, Muhammad Ali, wasn't he an athlete or something?" would count. Ditto people who would respond to a name with "All I know is I heard on the radio that she broke up with someone, but I don't actually know who either of them is." There's also the category of people who will think any not-too-alien name is vaguely familiar even the first time they hear it, and the related category of "heard of someone else of the same name"--that covers politicians named John Smith, and possibly people who would tell you they'd heard of Sarah Palin but, when asked further, talk about Monty Python's Flying Circus.

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

I assume (without going to the any effort to acquire evidence) that Facism is used as a byword for evil by Russian-influenced China and British-influenced India as well.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hold on, let me get some stats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population may be helpful, particularly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:World_population_pie_chart.PNG.

The main page also includes guessed historical populations. Those are notoriously difficult to know for sure, I've no idea what the error may be in those figures. FWIW, according to them, a very rough guess would have been a billion people living BC.

The pie chart is probably most useful for current population. According to it, you might break the population down very roughly by region into:

* 1.5 biln. China and East Asia
* 1.5 biln. India and South Asia
* 1 biln. Europe and North America.
* 0.75 biln Africa
* 0.75 biln North Africa and West Asia
* 0.75 biln Southeast Asia
* 0.75 biln South and Central America
* 0.0 biln Oceana
* 0.00000 biln Antarctica

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Good point. I wouldn't be surprised, that would make sense, though nor would I be surprised if more local/current politics dominated the teaching or propaganda. Anyone else know?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

At one point, the most famous American was Muhammad Ali.

:) Coolness.

whether someone who would say "Oh, right, Muhammad Ali, wasn't he an athlete or something?" would count.

:) I'd exclude people who have a vague sense of familiarity, but was intending to include people who could place them even in the most general terms, including "athlete or something", so long as that is obviously referring to the same person.

But as I was saying to scribb1e, I'm not at all sure that's the best definition of fame, it just seems most convenient for these purposes, as otherwise it'd be just too hard to know where to draw the line, whereas with "heard of", you can easily check with someone if you want to. And for the most famous people we're thinking of, I'm guessing/hoping the number of people who know who they are trails in about the same amount the people who've heard the name.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I would say the reference points here should be Elvis, Jesus and Coke.

:)

In a diagonal mental leap from that, has [info]livredor encourraged you to read any Jack Womack yet ?

Thank you! Just now. I had Random Acts of Senseless Violence from her last visit, and read it just before this one. It was... interesting. And depressing. The more I thought back on it, the more I appreciated how well done the characters were, and the world, and the language.

I read about his other books. I would have said not the sort of thing I read most, but I admit I want to know what he _does_ in them.

Jesus or the Devil?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Jesus! Choose Jesus!

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

There are still some completely uncontacted tribes in the world (Survival International estimate there are more than a hundred groups who still reject all attempts at contact, mostly in South America and Papua New Guinea) so I think there probably are no individuals, real or mythological, who will be known to everyone currently alive.

Re your extension of the question to knowledge of concepts (e.g. the Sun), my PhD research involved collecting concept lists which would be known to humans living in any location, at any time since the development of modern humans (and, it is often argued, modern-type language). (I did this by looking for concepts given distinct roots in four reconstructed proto-languages: Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Austronesian, Proto-Afroasiatic and Proto-Sino-Tibetan.) These were the concepts (represented by their closest English word) which were found across all four proto-languages, which thus provide a decent estimate of the maximum size of such a concept list:

(function words) not over this two three four

(adjectives) big long old other thin

(nouns) blood bone darkness day fire foot head house light liver meat moon nail (on finger) name path/road person salt shoulder sky snake stomach sun tree water

(verbs) to blow to breathe to carry to come to cry to cut to defecate to die to eat to give to go to grind to grow to hide to hit to lie (down) to press to see to sleep to smell (intr.) to split to spread to suck to take to turn to wrap

Just thought this might be of interest!

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Maybe...

Ah, but which one of you is sayong that?

And thanks, that's a great idea. Ooh, and that reminds me that I never did manage to reply to your email before you got back from Florence. I'll try and fix that today :) *hugs*

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes, that's really interesting.