"Person of the year 2013" isn't "person we're hoping will make a difference in 2014", it's "person who has made a difference".

The pope can pretty much do nothing that will affect me, but the bullshit the NSA pulls affect me every day.

>> "The pope can pretty much do nothing that will affect me, but the bullshit the NSA pulls affect me every day."

So Time should have checked with you first? I don't really care who they voted as person of the year (it really doesn't matter) but being annoyed they picked someone who doesn't effect you (but can effect millions of others) is pretty dumb and selfish reasoning.

Well, I was either using myself as a data point, or I meant that, since the pope can't affect me specifically, Time shouldn't have chosen him.

I'm glad you picked the more reasonable of the two options.

And in Obama's case, that turned out to be extremely premature. So learn from history? Then again didn't Time give this award to Hitler, too? So yeah, they don't exactly have a good record of learning from history.

Hitler was MOTY in 1938. Since he had a rather large effect on history, it seems as if they made a good call. Remember, this is not supposed to be an honor, it's supposed to identify someone who influences things.

Maybe Snowden beats Francis in the race for the next Nobel Peace Prize ;)

The actions of Snowden are far more likely to cause war than stop it. Some of Francis' actions are more cause to stop "holy war" than anything else.