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And note the sheer time pressure. Many CEOs run more complex empire, but they do so one quarter at a time at a steady tempo for years on end, with no definite expectations. This was an intense 438 day heavy lift where 90% of the complexity was being wrangled all at once.
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I'd say during that one core production year, Peter Jackson was probably operating at like 3x Steve Jobs or Musk-level. A one-rep max, but still. I'm surprised he didn't break down into a screaming nutjob by the end of it.
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It's easy to get into flow if you mainly do 1 kind of thing in 1 kind of workflow. And once you get into flow, output is a simple function of raw physical energy/stamina and your leverage scaffolding. But doing it with 10 kinds of thing in 10 kinds of workflows is 1000x harder
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There should be a term for this. Something like breadth-first heavy-lift architectural intelligence. It's not IQ, it's a different trait. I've met people with genius levels of this, and they tend to be above average intelligence in trad terms, but not geniuses.
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"Architecture" is not quite it though. There's a full-stack, end-to-end quality to the thinking that architects of any sort typically lack. Talented architects are good at laying out strategic contours and key tactical details. But not heavy lifts like this.
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Like Tolkien himself would count as an excellent architect. But he worked primarily in a single strategic medium, the text. Closer to mathematics than epic cinema. On balance, I'd say making the films was a greater achievement than writing the books.
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Speaking of Tolkien, I recall an interview where he said he was often asked why the eagles couldn't just drop the ringbearer into mordor, and he said his response was "oh... shut up!" (good humoredly). Elegant architecture can get away with logic fails in a way movies can't.
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I wonder what the most full-spectrum complex thing humans do that is driven by a single individual. I think it's a three-way dead heat between bleeding edge space missions, complex movies, and computer hardware (bottom half of stack from silicon to low-level system software)
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Replying to
Too low-dimensional imo. The presence of a clear win condition under defined rules makes it a finite game vulnerable to Goodhart law impoverishment and no reason to rise to sublime. It closer to “IPO a unicorn company” I’d say. My other examples are infinite games.
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If that’s the standard, then “decolonization + nation-building” must be in this category, at least potentially. Think Ataturk, Nyerere, Sukarno, Nkrumah, Nehru, etc.
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Replying to
What distinguishes modern variety from old empire building? Trying to detect a strand of historically increasing complexity. Could you say that complexity increase from Alexander to Ataturk is comparable to Galileo telescope to JWST? Or Aeschylus play to Peter Jackson movie?
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