Apple veteran once described executive success culture there as 2 rules: do the right thing, keep Steve happy. Not a polarity but the sort of orthogonality tension that makes for good 2x2s. Ones that resolve via actual creative solutions rather than collapse into a zen degen Mu.
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Zen degens are the worst
Anyone who ever says Mu should be sent to live with cows
Anyway
Wonder if this is why I like 2x2s 🤔
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Been thinking of my own orthogonality rule
I think it is: do the sublime thing, make money
Very unstable quadrant. You constantly risk slipping on one or both.
Replying to
Sublime + run out of money = interesting art
Not sublime + makes money = selling vitamins online
Not sublime + does not make money = identity expression art
Sublime + make money = lucky art
Art that brings luck is my preferred mode
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Speaking of zen degens, I read a good book that said good characters are expressible as paradoxes
Like: “Kid born poor wants to be rich BUT keep all his childhood friends”
Good book, though the recipe is hard to follow in an imaginative way
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The more literary the story the more you get a tragic zen degen character with an unsolvable dilemma. The more it’s a genre story, the more you get a solvable 2x2, though at the risk of cliche solutions to cliche character paradoxes
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Good one. Zemblanity = certain doom/unsurprisingly unlucky
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Replying to @vgr
Non-degen resolution may be "crisis arrival"
Crisis from Foundation: "As long as more than one course of action is possible, the crisis has not been reached"
Arrival as in the movie / Story of Your Life (Chiang) – you abide until the future is simply something you have to enact
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