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Comment by daniel-cussen | Hacker News Reader

Not the world's most famous face by any means. Not a battle either.

As close as it gets to being an objectively clickbait title.

It’s probably impossible to figure out who the worlds most famous face is but given that constraint we can still do a thought experiment on who we think the worlds most famous face would be. I would pick Jesus but it’s questionable if he was even real and what he looked like if he wa. So going with faces we can be certain of, Einstein seems like a solid pick. Maybe Mona Lisa if the portrait counts.

Einstein is more famous than Jesus and Mona Lisa.

40% of the world population are from India and China (a Non-Jesus country).

Kids at a very young age are introduced to Einstein in pretty much every school. Mona Lisa not so much.

In fact, growing up, I didn't know about Mona Lisa till about age 20

There are many Christians in India and in China.

The Bible is the best selling book of all time. I'm certain that Jesus is more popular than Einstein. Not that care, but your post is not factual.

> Einstein is more famous than Jesus and Mona Lisa.

Also, we have very few photos of Jesus or the subject of the Mona Lisa.

You gotta be able to trust Da Vinci with his rendition of Mona Lisa, and for that matter, The Light of the World, about Jesus. So there is some stuff we know from different places about Iesus Nazareni Rex Iudaeorum, like that for instance he had hair like his FATHER, (Matthew KJV you cannot put one hair back on your head, paraphrased, which was a reference to Jesus having a full head of hair). Unlike Julius Caesar.

Plus you have iconoclastism. It is specifically forbidden in the Bible to make images of GOD, it was just done anyway after a war over that.

A lot of non Christians know about Jesus. There are millions of illiterate and uneducated people who don't know about Einstein but are aware of Jesus. So I'd wager on Jesus.

But Jesus’ face? I don’t think anyone today ‘knows’ what he looked like.

Also Hitler or Donald Trump

I would say this has >50% chance of being the right answer. I would also treat Gandhi, Mao, Che, and a few 'celebrities' like Cristiano Ronaldo and Leonardo DiCaprio as contenders.

+++By this point it is in fact Donald Trump. Hitler was famous once, not anymore, people don't connect with the Holocaust and WW2 like they did in the 90's. If you're born after 2000 it might as well be the Napoleonic Wars, some stuff that was on the test and nothing more. ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. But now it's Trump. Because of all the bad press. There was a slowdown in the media markets when he left the presidency because they were talking about him or his administrations in the majority of headlines. I judge 65% of big headlines were about him or his administration. Well you can't look at it objectively, it's different for every news source. ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ I'm going to swear this comment cryptographically, like I did in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31451260. Nonce: 27965+++

EDIT: I'm having difficulty working with HN, especially puncuation modifications, it's tricky to copy paste into eg https://geraintluff.github.io/sha256/

To get that oath, hash that message as ASCII, everything between the triple +'s, "+++". Keep those out. You must get

0002a29ee3e809d4dcf5adc2bc1fc7ed61a10a01efc37eb2207bdad9193b1ebf

But copy the string into the console, not in the entry. This is currently not an easy process.

Washington, Lincoln, or the Queen, due to currency. Maybe Mao for similar reasons.

Washington? I don’t know for sure what he looks like, feels quite US specific. But for some reason Lincoln I do know.

I would guess the “Mona Lisa”. Or maybe actors in popular films like Robert Downey Jr.

That's very US centric comment. I would need to think deep to picture Washington.

I tell you what - it's the face of the most advertised person. Currency is not used for advertising.

So out of three, it's easiest to recollect Lincoln with stove top with US flag and pointing finger. Her majesty comes second because all the memes of her longevity.

The most recognisable? Certain Hollywood actors. Period.

> Washington, Lincoln, or the Queen

How are those gonna do inside that surprisingly-small circle you can draw over Asia and Oceania that contains half the world's population? How about all of Africa?

Whichever face it is, it's probably recognizable to both Indians and Chinese people.

I wouldn't be surprised the winner's a well-known bodhisattva. Though that opens up the question of whether it has to be a photo, and if not, the Lisa Gherardini might be a real contender (though possibly disqualified, since that identification isn't 100% certain).

Like a third of Africa is in the Commonwealth, as is India and much of Oceania.

Maybe I've read too many articles about US currency being used across the world. That said, I've seen a surprising amount of foreign programs reference Lincoln's image. Considering there are hundreds of billions of pennies in existence I suspect he's more well known than you'd think, even though they primarily are in the US.

I have no idea what Washington and Lincoln look like, and suspect the vast majority of people in the world also don't, and probably haven't heard of them.

Would be Iron man or Spiderman, recent and popular across the world.

If you asked everyone in the world to draw Trump's face and Einstein's face I bet you more people would draw Trump more accurately. But both have crazy hair so maybe it would be a toss up.

Close, it's Buddha.

Who is the world's most famous face then? Hitler? Mona Lisa? Michael Jackson? Hide the Pain Harold?

I would bet there's a large number of people who know Harold more than the others :)

The smiley face.

I would have said Ghandi... though polling suggests it's actually Queen Elizabeth II.

That's interesting. Her face is on a lot of paper currency, I'm sure that contributes to her recognition.

That was originally the way money equalled fame. Also time in many monarchies was tied to the biography of the monarch. In Japan it was so, the Meiji period. In Matthew Mark Luke and John, KJV.

I was thinking Marilyn Monroe.

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