Is it possible to value the importance of one human to another?

What is Importance? What makes someone Important? and more importantly, What makes someone more Important/Influential than someone else?
Is it possible to value the importance of one human to another?

Interesting Topic Imo.

Recently, in an interview, an interviewee pointed out to famous football manager that two footballers are in the top 100 most influential people in the world, Ronaldo (30th) and Messi (45th), he replied: "It's absurd! We don't save lives!"

Adding: "How can you compare a football player, a football manager with a scientist, a doctor? You cannot compare."

Would be nice to know what people think about the questions I have raised in this thread and what you think about about his response to finding out that sportsmen are in the top 100 most influential people.

 

This is the age old conundrum of objectivity vs relativity. Objectively nothing is more important than the other until we as humans place a relative value on it, based on what we view as "good" or "bad".

I suppose in this case anecdotes are all we really have; I value some of my friends far more than blood relations, for example. But it's relative to me and can't be applied to anyone else.

 

What makes someone more important/influential than someone else is completely subjective. What I find important someone else may find completely irrelevant.

Now as for being influential (at a large scale, I'm not talking about a parents' influence on a child), you need to be: famous, have an exorbitant amount of money, or be a very charismatic leader. These do not have to be exclusive to one-another and in no way is this a full list, it's not expansive to say the least.


Fame brings money
With money comes power
With power comes influence

Fame also brings followers/supporters
They are heavily influenced by you
Your loyal following adds to power
Things you believe trickle down, other people believe them, can bring issues to light/shape public policy from an "outside" perspective.

Charismatic leader falls into the same things as above.

Yeah a scientist may do something significantly more beneficial towards humanity than soccer per say, but they often don't have money/following to be incredibly influential. Sure scientists can be influential towards policy, but look how far that gets you. Charisma/Money (power)/Following > Science when it comes to influence.

 

You both kind of said the same thing; the influence on a person is relative to the people the influencer was influencing therefore its only common sense to believe people will value importance depending on who they have encountered weather that be from a book, in real life or even virtually.

Although, is there common ground in importance? Could we one day figure out a universal scale to value the importance of one being from another?

Well, I think we have and many factors already coincide with your importance such as wealth and power. Most people would agree that you and I are not as important to the world as Barack Obama is.
If you delve deeper into this subject, everybody virtually has some sort of "Card Weight" which can get heavier depending on your lifestyle. The card weight determines how important you are viewed by the world as a whole.

I came up with this theory that everyone has some weight albeit how minuscule which coincides with your importance. Although I think the most obvious way to measure ones importance must be to look at their significance after death.

Look at Shakespeare, I doubt many would of classed him as an important/influential fellow when he was breathing, now his significance in aspect of english literature is astronomical.

It bring me onto another realm of my topic, what is better ? Importance or Legacy? Some have both but I want to know which takes the crown.

 

Well, if you consider a newborn baby a human, then you could easily argue that a doctor (or most adults) are far more important than the baby.

 

Do they not go hand-in-hand? If you are important, you will likely have some type of legacy, at least immediately after your death. I don't see why someone whom is not important would not have a legacy.

It completely depends on someone's definition of importance and whether one believes all humans are equally important due to the fact that they are human; or if their accomplishments/what they do, is what makes them important.

 

Well yes, in one sense, the entire question is subjective, and the answer varies from person to person, based upon opinion. We're discussing which opinion is "right", though, so the "wrong" ones can be thrown out.

 

"What is Importance? What makes someone Important? and more importantly, What makes someone more Important/Influential than someone else?"

In the case of the list its simply a subjective value judgement. Obviously it could be based on many things. Merit, character traits, looks, wealth, etc.

 

The answer has an infinite number of answers tailored to each person and what they believe. Personally I think the main ones we seem to notice are the abilities of one person, being anything from emotion, communication, any range of skills (computers, programming, cooking, cutting hair, etc.), likability, wealth, career, birthing hips, beauty, and just the overall benefits they may have to the future of anything including but not limited to building your family. If any number of scientists or the people that created the technology we use today were murdered before ever getting into their field we may not have that device or invention till much later or at all. The ideas and experiences that shape you, and what you can bring to the table, are the things that define your value in my opinion.

 

On a more cynical level I guess you could make the argument that those who reproduce the most are the most important.

Other than that see above, importance is relative to the point of reference etc. I tend to be of the variety that, when asked about complicated philosophical questions, will just think of our reality as being pretty insignificant. So nobody is important

 

From an objective standpoint, no one is important. If anyone were to die, there would be no physical relapse in the functionality and continuation of the world, it will keep moving regardless. You can argue that titles are important, and by association also makes that person important, but again as previously stated, it's relative to yourself, and only serves a political purpose.