Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
The Smartest Person Project
7 points by smoyle 5548 days ago
So there we were, having dinner, embroiled in conversation. "Who is the smartest person you know?", he asks. After an indepth conversation about intelligence and the different meanings of the word, we wondered: "What would happen if we asked everyone we knew to identify the smartest person they know, then asked the next set of people and so-on...."? Well - that is what we are doing: www.thesmartestpersonproject.com
4 comments

The problem with how you've set this up is that you are not taking into account if the user personally knows the person you are asking them to recommend. Without that qualifier, you are likely to get a popularity contest and not an actual index of more accurate judgements.
Thats a great point, and we did think of that. My hypothesis is that there are more people out there who will actually take it seriously than not. Thanks for your POV - I appreciate it.
I'd prefer some sort of quicksort to a bubble sort. Maybe a merge sort, for the amusement of shuffling people.
I have all kinds of reports set up and ready to roll - Im working on a "results so far" view so we can see what is happening along the way.
Great Idea. I participated in it just for fun sake and I have to wait for it for too long. Even thats ok, but what's this:

"depending on the amount of money that we spend on this project, we may sell the results to recoup any costs. However, if we can avoid it, we will. Expect no more than $5."

Great idea.

But why do you need to know the color of my navel for me to sign up?

In this case adding facebook/google/twitter connect is probably the best way forward.