The more incompressible you are, the more your reach will be indirect, via the few people who put in the work to read it
One reason it’s possible for even no-reach beginners to feel genuine pity for Tom Friedman is that The World is Flat is pretty well summarized by its title
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At the other extreme, James Carse Finite and Infinite Games is almost incompressible *despite* being highly redundant and repetitive
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But the people who *have* put in the work to read Carse have all been way more deeply influenced by it. I’ve read both. I never cite World is Flat except as a joke. I cite or use Carse almost every other thing I write. Often in a foundational way.
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Shall we call this the Velvet Underground effect? quoteinvestigator.com/2016/03/01/vel
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Spider webs of references are increasingly useless.
“I’m going to replace you with a short list of search terms”
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Took me ~3-4 years/200k words to learn to sufficiently disrespect the dialogues I was responding to without actually tuning it out. Fine line between arrogant ignorance of, and obsequiously worshipful immersion in, a discourse tradition
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