Miley Cyrus is currently winning, and probably will win. This isn't the NSA hacking Time or any other conspiracy. Miley Cyrus is more popular than Edward Snowden, and more people are likely to want Miley Cyrus to win than Edward Snowden.
This entire poll is, like any poll, a popularity contest. If you think Edward Snowden is more popular than Miley Cyrus, then you're far too isolated and need to leave the tech bubble to talk to some humans.
This seems to contradict earlier reports in this thread, so there's probably a lot of volatility due to Time removing what they see as fraud. I stand by my original prediction[0], however.
The Time poll for person of the year is notorious for being rigged. In 2009, 4chan got moot to the top, in addition spelling out "marblecake also the game" with the first initials of the 21 top nominees. [1]
It's worth noting that the TIME person of the year and the 'winner' of this poll are not necessarily the same. The TIME editors will choose whoever they like.
TIME magazine jumped the shark a very long time ago. I remember a time when everyone was curious who would win and it was a really big honor. Today you're sharing the honor with the likes of Moot from 4Chan. I think I am going to go off and vote for Miley Cyrus.
Not that this poll really matters as it is not really who gets it. That is picked by the staff/editor. But historically, the Time POY is not always a "good" person: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Person_of_the_Year
So what ever you feel about Snowden (or Cyrus) really doesn't mean they couldn't win. Hitler won for fuck's sake.
Everyone here is well aware that TIME's editors choose the person of the year, and that the poll is a mere sideshow which at most might influence the editors' choice, right?
The numbers are being modified. In the other thread, someone posted a screenshot of the then-current results for snowden: http://i.imgur.com/jv9t4X0.png
Yes, I saw ~200,000 votes for Snowden when I voted earlier today, and now it's just 37,000. What's going on?! Is Time changing the numbers, or is NSA that petty and hacked them?
you are right, it is a naive high level view and a deeper analysis is probably warranted... but i think its a pretty defensible position once you start looking at details, and especially if you are willing to lay the entire of WW2 at his doorstep... certainly in terms of human life lost and impact to industry and economy, its hard to think of a 'single event' from the past 100 years that even comes close.
These are good examples, Henry Ford is an especially good example, as the pioneer of much of what we consider to be common sense or standard working practices today.
I'd disagree on Oppenheimer though - other than his media popularity for the famous comment on the atom bomb and the trial, his contributions to physics, whilst considerable, are easily trumped by his contemporaries in that field. Dirac, Feynmann, Einstein, Pauli, Fermi to name a few...
Its an interesting topic for discussion to be fair. Probably worth more thought than I give it credit...
The poll software is totally broken.
Not that Snowden had 300k votes some hours ago.
But right now if you open up the single pages of Cyrus (21,338 votes) and Snowden (37,756 votes) the total does not check out at all.
i applaud his bravery but its utterly misguided, as is all of the hype around this.
whilst i'm sure the specifics are very helpful i still wonder "well what did you think the NSA and GCHQ were doing if not /their jobs that we pay them to do/"
the naivete of the web elite is constantly disappointing.
edit: tempted to delete because it is yet another rage response to this situation, but curious to see how it goes.
This entire poll is, like any poll, a popularity contest. If you think Edward Snowden is more popular than Miley Cyrus, then you're far too isolated and need to leave the tech bubble to talk to some humans.