History's Attention Gap

17 points by samgilb 177 days ago | 8 comments

I wish the order of presentation were different, because it starts with incorrect and misleading claims and then only later fixes its trajectory.

It starts with...

> MIT says these are history's most important people. Wikipedia says the internet disagrees.

Importance of the sort it is _eventually_ clearly talking about and attention are not the same thing.

> This peer-reviewed metric synthesizes Wikipedia presence across 25+ languages, article length, and sustained view counts over time to measure lasting global influence.

Influence of the sort it is _eventually_ clearly talking about and attention are not the same thing.

> Some of history's most consequential figures are practically invisible online

Wikipedia traffic and invisibility are not the same thing. Wikipedia and online are not the same thing.

It then continues though...

> Not because they don't matter, but because pop culture has moved on.

> Note how modern political figures dominate attention while foundational thinkers fade

> The gap reveals something uncomfortable: we've built an internet that amplifies controversy over wisdom.

Yeah, ok. This is what they should lead with. It's an important message. And they should drop the false equivalences.

maldeh 171 days ago | |

> I wish the order of presentation were different, because it starts with incorrect and misleading claims and then only later fixes its trajectory.

I wouldn't hold my breath, every inch of this article is evidently AI-generated - you can tell not only from the meandering narrative but also from the "Not because X, but Y", the short punchy sentences to reiterate the same point, the really strange cherry-picked examples for head-to-head comparisons, and the sincere concern over simplified generalisms.

> Yeah, ok. This is what they should lead with. It's an important message.

Is it? Your optimism in hoping to find some point to all this restores some of my faith in humanity, but I think it's misplaced here. The entire premise of the article is bizarre - why should it be surprising or bad that historical figures from 1000s of years ago, regardless of their historical importance, don't have proportionate representation in contemporary discourse?

kayo_20211030 171 days ago |

Maybe. I'd propose that Louis XVI is more or less historically irrelevant. He just happened to be the king on the throne when the real historical figures came for him - Robespierre, St. Just, Danton etc., and they then were followed by Napoleon, who, no matter how you look at it, must be high on the HPI scale. Louis XIV, and even Louis XIII, seem to me more fundamentally "historical" than poor old sixteen.

achierius 171 days ago | |

I think it's very plausible, looking at the individual events of the revolution, that a different king could have averted what eventually came to pass -- certainly, it could have been possible to have a much more 'moderate' result adjudicated entirely within the Estates General, or even without calling it at all. That alone is enough to suggest that Louis XVI, while 'unremarkable' in and of himself, was historically quite relevant precisely in that he was unremarkable. A remarkable king could have resulted in a very different result and thus course to history overall.

lkbm 171 days ago |

A bit of an aside, but the importance ranking seems...utterly insane? Pope Francis is one of 266 Popes, and is more important than the other 265? Really? Just so happens that the Pope who served the past few years beats out literally every other Pope, including Leo X, Paul III, and Peter, and also Jesus (who is in turn outranked by Mary)?

speak_plainly 171 days ago |

The Historical Popularity Index (HPI) and Wikipedia pageviews are incommensurable data points.

HPI measures the global archival presence of a figure, while pageviews measure current search frequency. These quantify different variables that lack a direct logical relationship.

scelerat 171 days ago |

I wonder if there is a somewhat predictable formula for the shape and size of the tail of a "death spike" based on rankings or other factors within this study?

aebtebeten 176 days ago |

I'd like to believe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror is gaining in popularity because Prince (as he is now) William, if he makes it to 84, will have the opportunity to end the monarchy on 14 Oct 2066, going down in history for styling himself "William the Last"...