A bizarre nerf ball accident has propelled your consciousness forward 200 years. When you come to, you find yourself looking at a list of the “Greatest People in History”, this list compiled in December, 2218.
Who, alive today (1-16-2019, 10:50 EST), do you see on that list? What is their chart position?
Zuckerberg and Bezos probably on that list, Obama, too.
Two hundred years from now? I doubt anyone alive today will be widely known, let alone considered among the 100 greatest people in history.
If it lists the greatest people in all of history, there shouldn’t be that many people that are alive today. Max of 5 maybe?
I don’t think widely known will be a problem. There are plenty of people that are widely known today from 200 years ago.
Naw, there will be a few. Recency effect* for one will almost guarantee it.
I’m thinking Putin might have a shot. He has weaponized the internet in much the same way that Luther weaponized the printing press, and if Putin has the same effect that Luther did, he’s a shoo-in.
*For varying definitions of “recent”, granted. 
Greatest in what sense?
Unless Facebook or Amazon make some large breakthrough in their AI research, I find Zuckerberg and Bezos, especially the former, to be incredibly unlikely. Zuckerberg is more likely to be on a list of shitty people.
I think Bill Gates is decently likely for his philanthropic work.
As in all my questions of this nature, you define the terms. Tell us what you mean by “Greatest” if that’s an issue with you. 
Assuming by greatest we mean influential, I’d pick Bill Gates. The development of personal computing is as big a historical event as the development of the printing press. And Gates has been a major figure in the field.
Elon Musk, for colonizing Mars, ranked #87
Yeah Bill Gates. For his technical achievements and hopefully for his philanthropic achievements.
Obama, for being the last U.S. President (only half joking)
If that’s the case, and the reason, there will be a lot of negative commentary on Obama’s legacy.
Why Obama? He didn’t do anything particularly earth-shaking- certainly nothing on the order of Lincoln, Washington or FDR.
I have a feeling it’ll be some scientist, engineer or inventor who’s working on something now that ends up being monumental in the future.
Bezos… that’s an interesting one. Kind of depends how Amazon continues to unfold, I think. If it ends up continuing to transform the retail industry and how people interact with the world around them, I could possibly see it, especially if he becomes more of a philanthropist than he currently is.
I think Gates is likely a shoo-in- he’s basically the closest thing we have to a 21st century Andrew Carnegie.
I think Buzz Aldrin has a good chance as being remembered as one of the first two men to walk on the moon.
Perhaps Tim Berners-Lee?
Really, without knowing what impact someone will have over the next fifty or one hundred years, it’s hard to say. Perhaps some scientist now alive will perfect fusion power and change the world as we know it.
Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or James Watson probably have the best chance but probably no one.
How inventors are seen in posterity is often disconnected from the brilliance and importance of thier inventions. You would have trouble naming a more remarkable invention than TV, which was not only an obviously important invention but was, in terms of how far forward a conceptual and engineering leap it was, one of the most amazing inventions of modern times. But most people don’t know who Philo Farnsworth was.
Well, one problem with that example is that Philo Farnsworth is not the undisputed sole inventor of television.
Along the lines of Bill Gates, I’d nominate Steve Jobs for reinvigorating the use of the internet for streaming purposes, putting a truly portable device (whether iPhone or iPad) into people’s hands to listen to music or watch video. His solution to illegal downloading of music by creating iTunes and getting studios and musicians on board revolutionized media distribution and probably saved the music industry. The iPod alone will probably show up in museums as an example of newly “discovered” streamlined devices that started showing up in the late 20th Century. #38 (or #438 if the list includes pre-1900 people.)