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Musashi: the age we live in (or something)

September 11, 2025

“We live in an age when a clever publicity seeker can rule the roost, at least as far as ordinary people are concerned.” (Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi)

One reason Musashi is known as the greatest swordsman ever is that he wrote about being a great swordsman. I’ve done the cursory reddit search and the overall vibe seems to be that, no, he wasn’t the greatest swordsman ever.

But, hey, a portion of the world thinks he is so that’s still an accomplishment.

Persuasion was and will always be powerful. Even in the age of AI, some of the problems stem from an LLM response being pretty good at checking boxes for persuasion even in cases when facts are wrong.

Today everyone can be a clever publicity seeker. And more ordinary people than ever are seeking publicity. Clever ordinary people even realized they could rule the roost by highlighting just how ordinary they are.

There seemed to be a vacuum when Hubs life fulfilled the very ordinary dream of leaving the ordinary 9-to-5 for full-time content creation. And you likely know at least one person who’s a full-time content creator. So even that is becoming somewhat ordinary.

So how do you rule the roost today?

Define your own roost with a purple cow swimming in a blue ocean.

Or something.

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