six-degree world!
Ok for me, this was a very interesting and toughtful theory i just heard last night.. And here was what happened..
Yesterday i took a friend of my friend didin, nisa, for sight-seeing around harbour and marina area because this morning she had a flight home to jakarta so she wanted to use most of her time here.. She called a guy she knows, indra bacol, who’s been studying here for quite a while.. And as he showed up and we were wandering around and talk, ofcourse we talked about our friends and realized the connections we had before we actually met and began to know each other..
so my connection with nisa before i met her:
i know didin, didin was nisa flatmate in bandung.. (me-didin-nisa: Third degree)
Nisa went to the same school with my ex.. I know my ex.. (me-my ex-nisa: Another third degree)
nisa knows my friends who took same study.. (Many more third degrees)
and connection with indra bacol:
i know didin, didin’s ex flatmate was nisa’s sister, nisa’s sister’s friend was bacol’s ex..(me-didin-nisa’s sister-bacol’s ex-bacol: So there was five degree!)
But then, i realized that bacol and i went to the same highschool, so many of my friends he know.. (This shorten us into third degree)
and as time went by, we encountered many of new connections, which then made us wondering, how small, yes how small, our world is because we inter-connected in many ways.. Then bacol stated this theory about all people in the normal world connected at least within their six degree.. Then i went, how can i connect with Saddam Husein? (Saddam was premature sample of i would have thought to be the most impossible connection)
so he went like, his father knows indo’s president SBY, SBY knows president of Iraq, and this president must have know Saddam! There’s six degree! Now there would be more chance of shorten the connection, like maybe i know someone who knows president of Iraq, or perhaps SBY knew Saddam personally.. but I wasn’t so enthusiastic to find out my connection with one of the worst dictator in the world, so i qucikly accepted the theory of maximum six-degree connection!
well, maybe this theory won’t be such an important or helpful fact in my life, but i’m quite happy to realized that i’m probably within six-degree connection with ben folds, those guys in the killers, incubus or franz ferdinand, stephen spielberg, or any other celebs.. Maybe i also connected with a girl in a nomadic herd in mongolian mountains, or an art-performer in theater in Rome, or even a striptease dancer in NYC or a serial killer in britain..
Those facts are quite overwhelming at first, aren’t they? Well, it’s just helped me to realized that world that we’re live in wasn’t big at all, and humans are nothing but a big community, regarding their races, religions, nations, genders, or any phisical differences.. Wow.. I wish more people would realized that, and hopefully there will be no more stupid wars among us..
yes, six-degree world! This would help me to enjoy movies like BABEL or ‘my date with DREW’.. And now i’m starting to wonder if it has something to do with the show ‘lonely planet six degree’ that i like but never know what’s the meaning of the title.. Anyone wants to confirm or explain about this? 
cheers
February 12th, 2007 at 4:39 am
^^ all the world and its people are interconnected to one another and also with the universe…
about the 6 degree world, martin also told me when we just known each other. off course, he was a 2nd degree by then, but internet has a different state of friendship degree, since it’s almost without boundaries. we couldn’t get any points to anywhere other than to link ourselves among the net people.
but hey, it happened between me, Young Jin and Leon (you remember him?)..!! i know Leon from school. I know Young Jin in Germany. And Leon knew Young Jin from an youth seminar in Korea. Surprising!! i still marvel at that even up until now. wow!! the degree of friendship even surpasses the boundaries of countries, even without the internet. i know i’m on 3rd or 4th degree with Jon bon Jovi, although off course Jon has no idea that i existed. hahaha…!!
cute isn’t it?
we all have evidence that the world is so small… and i wonder why people are still at war with one another. should we awaken them that we’re all friends?
February 12th, 2007 at 7:20 am
So fatma, you know someone who knows jon bon jovi? That’s cool! Next, make jon your 2nd degree!
anyway, it’s confirmed.. Did a little research on wiki and i found out that lonely planet six degrees had the concept..
read more in http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/six_degrees
February 27th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
six degrees of seperation, huh? it’s something that the globalisation era discovered (internet: friendster as an obvious example). Tapi kita sll anggap ini sbg angin lalu aja. it’s something that is considered as a “good-to-know” thing. yaa krn mau gimana lagi? wot wld u do if u knew that u’re related to plato or nietczhe or aristotle? ah well, it’s good to know that in the end, we’re merely human in this overrated small world.