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Replying to and
A more intriguing connection is to Carse. Is Arendtian public life a finite or infinite game. IMO, as it is actually practiced it is a finite game. Very rarely, someone elevates it to an infinite game. I can't think of one in my lifetime.
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Yeah, this is generally a safe inference, modulo the fact that public figures can actually alter truths with their alliances. Like being on Oprah back in the day could determine the truth of "this book is a bestseller"
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Replying to @vgr
If true, this model means that the actions of public figures don't track truth and when they do they still won't be viewed as truth tracking, so if you want to communicate anything except alliances you have to avoid being a public figure.
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But to the extent the truth is NOT a function of political alliances and the ceremonial public performance thereof, it cannot be altered by the calculus of public life, or the backstage shenanigans that script it. So public life can be a waste of time.
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A mild counterexample would be something like Terence Tao using his public stature to coordinate a large-scale assault on a math problem (refining Yitang Zhang's bounds on the twin primes conjecture), but even there...James Maynard made a big leap on his own private track
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If you do want to shape the course of events but lack the public-figure capital to do so, backstage influence is still a mechanism of course, but there you're essentially supporting someone else's public maneuvering.
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The only way to "become" a public figure is to either represent old power, OR create _and_ control a new source of power.
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It can, but only by way of activating new actors in public life or deactivating existing ones. Everything that's directly about public figures influences public life through this mechanism of gatekeeping who "counts" in public.
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Replying to @vgr
This implies that discovering/communicating information that isn't about allies, or engaging in actions not about such allies, cannot shape the course of events. An even stronger claim.
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For eg. if you invent a time travel machine, and manage to hold on to the political capital that entails instead of ceding it to Putin or Thiel or AOC, you're now a public figure, congrats.
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Again, referring back to Arendt, she claimed that this sort of thing happened only thrice in history before modernity: 1. Galileo turning telescope to heavens 2. Martin Luther doing his theses 3. Columbus discovering America These introduced "new information" into public life
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I am personally not sure about the second one. New *information* entering the public sphere via new actors who represent it politically is really, really rare. Most of the time, entries and exits of actors does not introduce or remove information from play.
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Arguably, blockchain is potentially the first new thing to enter the public since Galilean science via genuinely new actors who cannot be co-opted by existing interests. Even nukes did not really meet the bar (they were just very big bombs). Nor did Apollo (that was Galileo+++++)
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Arendt's criteria are very demanding. Random discoveries don't qualify. Basically, the "new information" has to create a materially new perspective from which to view the the human condition (space and America respectively for 1 and 3).
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Replying to @vgr
#2 isn’t information and surely there are more things like #1 and #3
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Historical episodes when politics and public life briefly displayed an "infinite game" character. Probably include MLK during civil rights, Gandhi during Indian independence, Mao in WW2, Andrew Jackson inventing modern clientelism...
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Replying to @vgr and @TheZvi
What might that look like? Going to war with someone as a public figure could easily be a finite game. Guess you'd have to deploy consequential allyships in a generative, open-ended way.
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Winning by the rules isn't enough. You have to materially rewrite the rules in a way that make it hard or impossible to go back. Trump almost managed it, but he ended up not really changing the game but re-popularizing an old playbook.
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Don't mean to give the impression that public life is a useless theater we can do without. Public life has critical value. It creates the spillover space for value from all other activities, and the compounding raw material of grand narratives. It's like a drip pan of meaning.
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Without it, anomie and nihilism basically take over and eat the human condition, and nothing compounds that's worthy of names like "progress" or "decline" which make life worth it (the valence actually doesn't matter so much as there being a secular trend of any sort).
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The optimal amount of anomie and nihilism in the human condition is not 0%, but it's also not 100%. The correct amount is 42%.
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This sense of public figure I think largely tracks the definition used in the legal system when it comes to slander/defamation lawsuits against journalists by famous people. It's probably tighter in some ways.
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Also, the "public" is an unqualified, unrestricted space within a connected social geography. You cannot for eg. be a "public figure in tech" or "a public figure in music." You're either a public figure or you're not. Sectorally restricted public figures are... not really
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Yes asymmetric cryptography was the discovery, but blockchain was its debut event in the public sphere. Before that it was consequential, but not in a public way. Like og human discovery of America vs. Colombian moment that connected it to old world.
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Replying to @mreliwjones and @vgr
Asymmetric cryptography is the truly original thing here.. people are just taking their sweet time fully grasping how to take advantage of it.
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I'm inclined to suspect that the former is a null set. They can be influencers and powerful marketers, but not really public figures. Arts and entertainment celebs are particularly clear examples.
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Replying to @vgr
I think there's a distinction to make here between those who are powerful because they are public figures, and those who (may be) public figures because they are powerful.
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A rough test of public-figureness is whether somebody makes it into *general* history books. A few scientists do, but almost no artists do, which says a lot. For eg. Shakespeare in a general history is usually just a data point on the cultural flowering of the Elizabethan era.
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This is why, all due respect to musical prowess, Kanye is not quite a public figure in the largest sense. He's struggled to have a consequential impact beyond music. It is entirely possible to ignore him entirely so long as he ignores you.
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Being valued, admired, even nationally treasured, is irrelevant. You’re only a true public figure if you’re acknowledged as someone involved in steering the general human condition. You can be pretty obscure and qualify. George Kennan probably does for eg.
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