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Six degrees of separation theory
Ben_Copland
Posts: 4,602 Forum Member
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Only just recently come across this and it's quite an interesting theory indeed. For those who don't know, it basically means that you are within 6 steps of being introduced to absolutely anyone alive in the world. There's a lot to read up about it, which I've skimmed briefly on the Wikipedia page..
Do you think it could possibly hold true? It's hard to picture myself inadvertently shaking hands with Kim-Jong-Un through mutual friends of friends, but then again, is it impossible? We have no idea who friends of friends of friends of friends know.
Do you think it could possibly hold true? It's hard to picture myself inadvertently shaking hands with Kim-Jong-Un through mutual friends of friends, but then again, is it impossible? We have no idea who friends of friends of friends of friends know.
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For example, I found out once that I'm 3 steps removed from someone famous. I'm not though, it's meaningless, there isn't a chance in hell that I would ever be able to use that connection for, well, anything.
That hit home hard
I have worked out only five stages from myself to Kim-Jong-Un *probably only four.
Here it is; I had a neighbour who worked in the film industry as a technician who had worked with Angelina Jolie. She knows (and apparently hates) Madonna. Madonna dated Dennis Rodman (basketball player) who is one of the few people from the west to have visited Kim Jong-un (in 2013).
*It is highly likely Jolie has met Rodman so that is one less.
Not
Proof! Just six degrees of separation between us
Read Granovetter's 'Strength of Weak Ties' (1973). I'm quite lucky in as much as my Strong Ties (father, husband), place me one handshake away from Downing Street (and therefore 2 handshakes from most world leaders), and also one handshake from the Queen. By extension, if I'm the node, then you are now one additional handshake away from that network. Job done.
You will never shake hands with Kim Jong-un. The idea is that someone you know personally knows someone who knows someone, et cetera [x6] ..who knows Kim Jong-un, or whoever, not that you will ever be introduced to everyone in the world!
It does indeed hold true and has been proven mathemagically.
That's a average though. Some people will be connected to others by 1 mutual person but others may be 100. The idea that's only and ever 6 is not true.
What about a person with no friends or known relatives? The people you read stories about being found in their house dead five or so years after they actually passed...
They can never be connected with any other person and all other people can never be connected to them.
I can do it in three- a friend of mine used to write for Terrorizer magazine and became good friends with Milan Fras, the lead singer of the Slovenian industrial band Laibach, who last year became the first Western band to play in Pyongyang, where they were introduced to Kim.
...all of which means everyone in this thread is now within six steps of the fella, if we count conversing online...
(I've also been in a film with Angelina Jolie- I was an extra in one of her scenes in Hackers. But it's apparently a rubbish film, so that might not count).
Yes, that works for me too. My parents had dinner in the presence of the Queen (and met her, obviously) who has connections to many people, some of whom I feel sure must have met Kim Jong Un.
In that case I am definitely only 4 from Kim because I have of course met you.
Laibach are ace. I corresponded with Trent Reznor for a good few years so that should net me a good few oddities from film and music. Arnie in 2 or 3 for example.
Trent'd instantly get you anyone from Genesis P-Orridge to David Lynch, Oliver Stone or Lindsay Buckingham...
You have indeed! Which also, though I don't like to mention it, puts you at one remove from Buzz Aldrin.
Of course, on one level this is how conspiracy theories work...
It's odd how on a local level it's sometimes a bit round the houses to get a link but internatonally many people are 1, 2 or 3 away from megastars and politicians etc.
I also have an Uncle who headed up a forensic psychistry research project in secure hospitals in England which would net me some unusual names and deeply unpleasant people like Beverley Allit.
Indeed I was going to make that my original example of being only two from the first man on the Moon i.e. you-Buzz-Neil - but I remembered how reluctant you are to make your link to Buzz public.
It's OK. We're among friends-of-friends-of-friends.
Oooh, get me
Wow; Edith Head she must be on more film credits than other person living or dead apart from Dolby and even more than Ken Morse.
However, Dad told me that he'd been at school with Stanley Baxter and it didn't take much effort to find out that Baxter had worked with British stars such as Ronnie Barker, Leslie Phillips, James Robertson Justice, Julie Christie, John le Mesurier, Terry Scott, Dennis Waterman, Frankie Howerd and Eric Sykes ... to name but a few. I'm pretty sure Baxter must have met the Queen at some point, but even if he didn't, several of those on the list certainly did, so that also opened up a long list of world leaders.
In addition, Baxter appeared in a Bing Crosby Christmas Special, which also featured David Bowie, so there was an immediate connection to the film and music industry here and in The States across several decades.
I've actually just followed that one up ... with an interesting outcome.
1. My father who was at school with ...
2. Stanley Baxter who appeared in a TV special with ...
3. Bing Crosby who sang a duet with ...
4. Marlene Dietrich who was friends with ...
5. Ernst Udet, the WWI fighter ace, who became the Director-General of Equipment for the Luftwaffe in WWII so often met with ...
6. Adolf Hitler!