farmdoc's blog post number 379

Farmdoc’s Blog readers know I’m a list maniac. So I must  write about the 2009 Time 100 list – Time magazines’s seventh annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people. Wikipedia says the list was first published in 1999 when Time named the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. That list was so popular, i.e. it increased sales so much, that in 2004 Time began compiling an annual list of the 100 people most influencing the world that year. Making the list isn’t necessarily an honour – because recognition’s for changing the world, for better or worse. The list of 100 comprises 20 slots in each of five categories: Leaders & Revolutionaries, Builders & Titans, Artists & Entertainers, Scientists & Thinkers, and Heroes & Icons. The selection method’s described here. Time says influence is hard to measure, and it looks for people whose ideas, example, talent, discoveries transform our world; also influence is less about the hard power of force than the soft power of ideas and example. As for the 2009 list, released last Thursday: there are no Australians (I think); there are two Israelis (Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and entrepreneur Shai Agassi); Pete Seeger’s not on it (he should be); but Amory Lovins is (he should be). And the readers’ votes produced a farcical result: someone called moot polled 16,794,368, with the second place-getter way back on 2,316,378. Ho hum.