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.
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?
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.
aebtebeten•1mo ago