The epistemology of top ten lists and other rankings

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

I remember reading a lot of books about Japan when I was a teenager, and each one was full of dumbfounding and sometimes envy-inducing statements to the effect of "Japan has the most _____ in the world." It seemed like a pretty extreme place, that tended to take either number one or dead last place (but usually the former) in whatever someone cared to measure. But why did someone take the time to quantify such a thing, I'd often ask myself. Why should such a factor, and a country's ranking on that factor, influence the way I regard that place? Obviously it must matter to someone which country's cities have more green park space and which country's factory workers work the longest hours. But certainly they don't matter to everyone, even everyone who calls that country home. Everyone and everything is king of something. Give me enough time and I'll come up with a whole list of things that I'm indisputably number one at. But to someone who doesn't place a whole lot of value on any of those things, I'd be, as they say, big in Japan.

Rankings are popular. People read magazines full of detailed rankings on a whole variety of subjects, and we seem to always want to know who's the best at something. But I suspect that in a lot of cases this competitive showcasing of a certain class of item isn't really all that helpful to most people who'll look at it. Why should I care who topped the list of best colleges in US News and World Report, if that college doesn't have a program I want? How does it help me to know what the most powerful CPU on the market today is, if it won't fit in my motherboard? If I don't care for "Stairway to Heaven", of what use to me is the song's consistent topping of classic rock radio's top songs of all time? And yet many of us look and remember anyway, often without a glance at the criteria (and relative weights for each) used to determine ranking, much less the people compiling the data and their backgrounds and biases, much much less the quality of the raw data they collected. Such skepticism instinctively feels unwarranted -- I just want to know who made the top ten!

What useful application do top ten lists and other rankings have? Why do they arouse such intrigue, and why are we so apt to trust them? How can the makers of such lists (let alone the readers!) be so sure that they've found all possible contenders and vetted each properly?

What is the most egregiously pointless or unhelpful use of a top ten (or top n) list you've seen?

 

[panic in paradise]

here in the USA, it seems the TV channel VH1 are the masters of this, VH1 and E!.


for the media source, i imagine it beneficial because no matter what it is, we allow ourselves to transcend with the progression of entries, we guess at who will be next or in the top 3, so after seeing 10-7 of the worlds dumbest hot dog vending machines, one will be as enthralled as if it were on a topic of actual social or personal relevance.

~
sitting at home, with your ego looking for somewhere to attach if there is not much "anchoring", the ego then has a source of perceived esteem and relation to progressing series of events, which are of no use to anyone.

 

[herbavore]

reminds me of this:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/236982

 

[Mu-ham-mad]

1 cocktail
2 slices of lemon
3 minutes preparation time
4 ice cubes
5 sips
6 y sexy sexy sexy
"you ain't got a thing if you ain't got that swing"
2 - 2 tired to complain!