Another Blog, Another Site Title

I often hear the phrase “X is a great person” thrown around lightly, as though that person exceeds the thresholds to be considered “great”, while others fall short. The quality of any tangible object (or piece of software) can be measured by its ability to consistently score above other similar items when measured on a set of metrics. These might be reliability, durability, consistency, extensibility, efficiency, appeal, simplicity, and convenience.

Obviously, a human being cannot (and should not) be measured by the same metrics that we use to measure the quality of products. However, humans are always evaluated with certain “metrics” by just about every other human they interact with. Some examples of these metrics are reliability, honesty, achievement, wealth, education, status, employment, gender, ethnicity, cleanliness, humor, responsibility, appeal, religion, morals, habits, track record, interests, confidence, competence, and health.

Which of these attributes are evaluated to determine whether X is a “great person”? Because another human (person Y) is always doing this evaluation, the attributes that person Y selects to evaluate another person tells us more about person Y than person X! If person Y values religion, wealth, and responsibility — a person X scoring high in these metrics will likely be considered a “great person”, regardless of how unattractive, boring, and uneducated they may present themselves to be.

This supports two commonly known tropes. First, that there exists someone for everyone. Because there are over 8 billion people in the world, there are over 8 billion different thresholds for determining the definition of a “great person”. In a vacuum, this implies that nobody should have any trouble finding a friend, job, or significant other.

Second, people tend to judge others based on how they present themselves. No one can determine a person’s “actual” values of each attribute because this observation can only occur based on outward actions and words. This means that everyone must project the values they care about most in order to show others (that hopefully care about the same attributes) that they are indeed “great people”. Hence, those better at outwardly exemplifying more attributes will always have an upper hand in reaching better evaluations. For this reason, an extroverted “Jill of all trades” is more likely to be deemed a “great person” than a quiet unshaven introvert sitting alone with an anxious expression.

This means that however great person X’s thoughts might be, if this person does not know how to communicate these values in a way that exemplifies commonly desired metrics, this person may never be noticed. For some, this is arguably worse than being considered a “bad person”. Hence, this person may end up doing many things to be noticed.

At this point, is the “quality” of this person dictated by what sorts of routes are utilized to be noticed? For example, if this person creates a doomsday device, many person Ys will consider this person to be bad, despite never having privately met them. What if this person actually could have exemplified all important quality metrics that a bystander uses to determine that this is the “love of their life”? Instead, they are now just perceived as a menace and criminal mastermind.

The point of all this is that we really have no objective knowledge of anyone’s “quality”. We are all just humans doing what we can to survive, be noticed by others and achieve our own goals. There may be others in our lives that we legitimately care about, so is our “quality” determined by our ability to care for those people in our lives? Maybe I’m getting closer to the answer, but I have no right to declare this the truth.

Everyone may have a different view of what makes another human a “great person”, so no one person has the authority to determine what this truth is. In reality, this is where people look to religion, philosophy, or pop culture for assistance, which tend to create groupings of valued metrics rather than allow for 8 billion truly unique combinations. Perhaps this is why there are several “unanimously praised” individuals at the same time many others live their lives completely unnoticed.

The take away: try to spend time conversing with or getting to know someone who presents themselves as not having those qualities necessary for you to consider them a “great person”. If you approach this situation with a usual sense of prejudice, the interaction will not go well, and you will feel validated (seems like an attractive outcome). However, if you put aside these thoughts (while staying safe), you may end up broadening the scope of what you value in others, and begin the journey toward many great new connections!

Or you may just doubly confirm that X is indeed a “bad person”.