I didn’t?? Did Bush win the election fair and square? Did Florida never occur? What world do you live in?
You know what’s so funny about this little squabble between Ringo and noname regarding the Bush-Gore election? It proves my point about the fleeting nature of fame (or even infamy). Do you remember the Hayes-Tilden election? Of course you don’t. Well, if you research it out you’ll see it was far more scandalous and subversive than Bush-Gore. Yet today people go, “Hayes-Til…who? Huh…?”
Trust me, nobody mentioned thusfar (…except possibly N.A…) will be anything close to well-known 500 years from now. (Though, I agree, some yet-to-be-named artist-writer-designer-composer-type living today probably has the best shot at it.)
You realize that the election is not as cut and dried as you make it sound, right?
For one thing, the very act of counting the ballots was changing the results, as chads were knocked off the ballots through the recounts.
The real answer is that this thread isn’t the place for this discussion, and you shouldn’t have started a rant on this topic here.
Neil Armstrong.
Tim Berners-Lee could come into the frame… it depends on future developments.
Sports and film stars have only been around for the last hundred years or so, so it’s difficult to gauge how they will be viewed in several centuries time.
There is another forum on this message board. Over there they keep a horse. He’s rather dead, but they’ll let you whip him.
Whip as hard as you like, and he still can’t cite any elections that Al Gore won in 2000.
Looking back to see who we do remember is not a bad guide. But the acceleration of change makes me wonder if a linear temporal comparison will work. Who was famous 100 years ago? How about 25 years ago versus 450 years ago?
Well, to give us some sense of how long 500 years really is, let’s look at relatively recent survivors of the half-millenium fame game:
Gutenberg & Columbus made it.
Now let’s see who’s still in the oven:
Shakespeare’s got 115 years to go.
Galileo’s got 140 years to go.
Mozart and Ben Franklin have got 290 years to go.
Napoleon’s got 320 years to go.
Beethoven’s got 325 years to go.
(All durations aproximate based on death year. Notable persons chosen at stuyguy’s whim.)
What does this prove? Well, I think if you asked anyone if Beethoven would be well-known 500 years after his death they would say “Sure!” But the guy’s still 75 years away from the halfway mark! How can you be so sure? Hell, even Shakespeare’s still got a *century[/] to go!
500 years is a long, long time to stay relevant.
Nothing really to add except that I agree with Armstrong and that King Tut is a bad example because he was an absolute nobody for thousands of years. It was only the remarkable chance that no robber broke into his tomb before it was discovered in modern times that he is famous today.
Good Point Stuyguy.
Take drm’s nomination of QE2. Her reign will just about cover the achievements of those alive now. Has there been any monumental changes in that time? Something to mark a beginning of something which wll be remembered for 500 years?
** and ** be attributed to a single person? IMHO current Art, Sculpture, and music trends all beging before the war.
Outside of the advancements in global communications, I don’t see any major groundbreaking achivements by our current cohort. Even landing on the moon will be insignificant 500 years from now unless we make a major breakthrough in space travel to meke colonization of other planets feasable
There was one election is 2000. It’s hard to argue that Gore won it, because after all, the referee jumped in and decided that Bush had won it. That doesn’t mean it was a fair decision, a reasonable decision or a decision that reflected the votes cast. It just means somebody had some people in an influential position.
Were articles about Shakepeare or Galilieo published in newspapers? Could I buy a Mozart or Beethoven CD, and then watch documentaries on them, go see them on tour and buy a t shirt? Anywhere in the world?
The world has changed. We keep better records. Fame is often worldwide, not limited to a few countries in Europe. It’s silly to look to the past to try and work out how today will be remembered.
gex, forgive me, but I’m having a hard time getting your point here.
Are you are contending that Elvis’ popularity (to take just one fun example) could endure 500 years because we’ve got such a complete record of his life? Well you could be right, of course, but as far as I can tell all the CDs and other media are adding to the clutter and the fleeting nature of fame, not subtracting from it.
I will concede the point (and maybe this is what you were ultimately getting at…) that future developments may so alter the meaning of “fame” that any of our predictions (and my naysaying) become meaningless. Say, for example, that brain enhancements eventually make “forgetting” obsolete: everything you ever learn stays locked in your mind in some limitless and flawless database. Well then, what is fame?
Today we can each hold (yes, I’m making these numbers up!) say 5,000 people in our memory; 1,000 of those people are in most other people’s heads too. (The other 4,000 – people like my destist and my sister-in-law – are in relatively few others’ heads). The 1,000 widely-shared people are “famous.” But in the world of 2300 where at the age of 10 a kid goes to “school,” gets hooked into a machine that downloads everything in the known universe into his/her head – including everybody’s dentists and sister-in-laws, plus the biography and song catalog of that ancient old singer-guy they called Elvis – everybody (and thus nobody) will be famous.