[url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html?aid=434&from=o&to=http%3A//www.tim
me/magazine/article/0%252C9171%252C1569514%252C00.html]Check out Time’s Person of the Year[/url]
In posting
it here, I just had to quote Dash there. Freakin’ lazy editors…
To use another Incredibles quote: "Lame, lame, lame, lame,
LAME!"
Seriously, saying that “we are all” Person of the Year is the sort of thing that you
say on little kids’ shows. There are in fact great
individuals in the world who make huge differences!
That’s the whole reason for having the Person of the Year, to recognize one of those individuals! Honestly,
Time. Was 2006 really that awful? 
Well, I wouldn’t say that the sole purpose
of “Person of the Year” is to recognize great individuals, considering that infamous people (e.g., some
dictators, most of whom, I’m sure, a lot of you know) have been given such an
“honour”. But I have to say that assigning “You” as People of the Year sort of takes away its
purpose, in the sense that notable individuals (whether they be famous or infamous) are no longer… well…
noted. True, MySpace, YouTube, etc. have had a great impact in the Internet; but that’s what Invention of the
Year is here for…
Wow, I feel special now. But I can
name some people who would deserve to be person of the year.
I…really don’t know what to say on this subject. Frankly, I would be more
interested in reading someone’s story of how he/she cooked a marshmellow in a microwave…
Yeah, I know; I guess “great” wasn’t really the best
word to use, but I guess you could still think of the word as applying to some pretty bad people. But I know
that there definitely have been some People of the Year who weren’t the nicest folk out there. I mean, myself,
one of the first things I thought when I saw this was that I would’ve been happier with Kim Jong-Il being Person
of the Year instead of… this. 
Even though he really only would have fit as Person of A Few Months This
Year, so I can understand why they didn’t choose him. But still!
Yeah I heard about that. What a cop out! There had to have been somebody specific who made an
impact this year!
Ha, I opened
this topic up in the computer science lab, and the guys saw. Their commentary? "Lame. What is this,
1995?" In other words, we’ve been exploiting the capabilities of the internet since we were in middle
school or earlier, so we don’t see what the big deal is now, or why Time thought it was a good idea.
I think this pretty much says that
this year, no one person stood out as contributing to the world in a major way, so they just said that we all
did. Just saved them a difficult decision, if you ask me, but now they’ve used their get out of jail card once,
they can’t do it again.
ok - Time for me
to rush to Time’s defence on this one. Maybe I’m a bit biased since as creator of Pixar Planet I fall highly
into this category by default but I digress. This isn’t the first time something so abstract has been chosen,
previous large groups include American Women (1975), the US Military (1950 & 2003), the under 25 generation
(1966), and Middle America (1969). Also in the abstract category you will find the Computer (1982) and the Earth
(1988) as non-human representatives. The Person of the year is supposed to "feature a profile on the man,
woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that 'for better or worse, has most influenced events in the
preceding year.'" While frequently there is one person that stands out among the rest, some years it just
isn’t so. This appears to be one of those years.
Now I’ll admit there is certainly a sizable amount of
contraversy regarding the selection of less amiable people but the title (not award) is for the person who most
affected the world that year - for good OR bad. This was the standard set with the back to back recognition of
Hitler (1938) & Stalin (1939) even if they were still considered somewhat decent people at the time. This
trend has been more ignored of late though as after the Ayatollah Khomeini was picked in 1979 and there was a
mass cancelation of magazine subscriptions by people who thought it was an honor being bestowed on him. Some
believe this is in part the reason for Rudolph Guiliani being taken over Osama Bin Laden in 2001 and Albert
Einstein being taken over Hitler for Person of the Century.
My argument though is that while the front
runners were negative figures, what real impact did they have on the world? Let’s consider
them…
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (President of Iran) - While Time makes no secrets that he was the front runner
for the title his impact this year has been one of mostly empty threats. He’s declared an interest in making
Iran a nuclear power, he wants to wipe Israel off the map, and he got up before the UN and declared how evil the
US is. Regardless he never succesfully achieved any of these and the statements themselves are nothing new from
Iran save the fact they are boldly being made in public. If he continues down this road though and we don’t act
on the lessons of 1939, then look for him in 2007 to be Tyrant of the Year at least.
Hugo Chavez
(President of Venezuela) - While he’s been seen shmoozing all the big Communist leaders, again he hasn’t
actually done any thing. All talk and no impact.
Kim Jung Il (President of N. Korea) - He was certainly a
front runner going into the fall with the DPNK practically on the verge of going nuclear - a prospect that could
throw the whole orient into an arms race. But when the nuclear test failed and every thing went to the back
burner with no additional attempts here three months later, the region is the same as it’s been since the end of
the Korean war.
Fidel Castro (President of Cuba) - His health nearly failed him this year and regime
change there would’ve changed the face of North America but as long as he lives nothing significant will come
from that island.
The Democratic Party & Nancy Pelosi (Speaker-elect of the House) - Speaking of
regime change, both houses of Congress fell to the Democrats with them taking a slight majority in each changing
the face of the US government and signifying the people were not happy with the direction we were going. But is
this really news? And more importantly what will really change? Even under Republican control the Congress was
so evenly divided that the Bush administration couldn’t push legislation through - now with a nearly split
control to the Democrats, you can expect deadlock through the end of 2008.
The Supreme Court - Over the
Summer there was a major change at the nation’s highest court which has been in a delicate balance for a long
time and two prominent figures (it’s leader and key swing vote) left the court almost simultaneously. The court
could have changed dramatically but with John Roberts taking over for the late Chief Justice William Rhenquist
and the only slightly more conservative Sam Alito taking over for Sandra Day O’Connor the court is ideologically
almost unaltered and now much more youthful in its lifetime apointees.
George W. Bush - While nearly every
President has been named since Person of the Year began, none (President or not) have been named more than twice
and Bush already has (2000 & 2004). Also with everything in such a lock in Washington and the poor
performance by his party, his impact has been less than stellar this year.
Donald Rumsfeld & Bob Gates
(US Secretaries of Defense) - If Gate’s appointment had come earlier in the year and we’d had time to see a
change in the Iraq strategy then this might have been very probable. Look for Gates to be a contender in 2007 if
he shakes things up for the better.
Two other slightly less broad abstracts come to mind as
well.
Oil Industry - This has a major effect on our economy and way of life but even oil prices have been
comparitively neutral this year compared to recent changes.
Big Bussiness Mergers - (this one actually has
a Pixar link) This has been a major year for mergers including Disney/Pixar and AT&T/Bell South/SBC. These
have had a major impact on the market and consumers. But saying it was the biggest impact might be a bit
much.
Last let me offer another very abstract item…
American Consumers/Home Owners - These two
ecconomic sectors single handedly drove the market to its biggest highs ever finally making up for the dot com
bust of earlier this decade. Although its been pushed back in the media this has been among the biggest impact
on lives around the world.
But, back to the actual Person of the Year - You. That’s actually the one
thing all of this has in common. The fact that we’re all digitally connected has been responsible for driving
up the market. It was the key player in this year’s election and all other current events as bloggers (mostly
amateures) passed on their knowledge, hopes, and fears to the world around them. I for one realise how big this
is. This year alone my voice has been heard on every continent but Antarctica courtesy of Radio Pixar and I’ve
had an impact on Pixar fans in nearly every nation. This wouldn’t be posible without the World Wide Web.
Otherwise my ideas would never have left Florida. People are interfacing in new ways - hooking up accross the
miles - I can attest to that. And when you think that one individual today has as much influence as a prominent
politician did 50 years ago and then multiply that by the billions of internet users around the world - I can see
why You are Time magazine’s Person of the Year.
I guess my point is that people have been doing this for
years- I mean, take a look at the Star Wars online community. I started playing video games with people all over
the world in 1998. About that same time I subscribed to an e-zine out of Australia and mailed just about
everywhere. I joined StarWars.com in 1999, and TheForce.Net in 2003. Through TheForce.Net I’ve become involved
in the FanForce community, through which I got involved in costuming, which led me to the Rebel Legion, an
international costuming organization founded in 1999. Please not how I have not used a date sooner than three
years ago. This hasn’t changed at all, certainly, but it’s not exactly what I’d call
news.
Knowing
that TIME has done this sort of thing in the past, and the fact that I am a big internet user (even though I
haven’t founded anything online), I’m relatively fine with this.
But I will agree that if TIME watched
The Incredibles JUST a bit more, they probably wouldn’t have done this . . . .
Maybe I’m lost on this, but
what did The Incredibles have to do with 2006?
~~=oP
I think Phoenecian is refering to Incredibles in the aspects of how it goes
against those whole PC “Everyone is special/a winner” sentiments
Ohhhh. Haha. I getcha.
~~=oP
Thanks, FigmentJedi. Sorry if I was vague . . .
Nah, you weren’t vague. I was thinking in terms of
yearly events and not the principle of the matter.
~~=oP
I think this actually goes hand in
hand with The Incredibles theme. Nobody did anything special this year so we’re not going to aknowledge it.
We’re not going to play up a mediocre achievement. And while yes we’ve been exchanging information and
networking through the internet for several years would you not agree that this is the first year that it has
been more influential on the world than any single individual or small group? I think that’s a major step in
human history - for the first time ever the masses have had more influence than a single leader or group.
That’s pretty impressive - and scary too. But until someone can show me someone who truly deserved the title
and can say why he/she/they deserved it then I’m sticking with this choice. =)
Well, if you want to go with that theme, then why not give credit where credit
is due? None of this would be possible without the computer nerds. Not just the people who sit around and edit
HTML and all that jazz, but the people who developed the software that makes a lot of this stuff
possible.
Take computer animation, for example. Granted, the
animators/modelers/etc. deserve a lot of credit (and usually get it) for all the work they do with the tools
given to them. But, speaking as someone who walks both sides of the line in the graphics industry, my undying
respect goes to the people who write the tools. The things they do are incredible, and you don’t usually hear
much about them. You want to give a bit of recognition to an unrecognized group? I vote for the Code Monkeys of
the world. They slave away over obfuscated code for hours and hours on end, so that you- the end user- can have
an easy interface to use. Give credit to the compiler writers, constantly trying to make more efficient and
effective ways of translating higher-level languages into something the machines can understand. Give credit to
the hardware engineers, working to make hardware faster and more effective. Heck, give credit to the
theoreticians who come up with efficient solutions to difficult problems and lay the groundwork for new languages
to be developed.
Maybe I’m just sore because programming is a thankless job, and will suck your soul out
if you let it. But it’s still true that none of this would be possible without the people who made the system
work in the first place.