Star-man
Elon doesn't have a LinkedIn account—Star-manning as a rhetorical device— Editing the final details.
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I would normally not spend much time adding my voice to whatever the current thing is, but since I spent a solid hour perusing through Elon’s text messages, and since this story is in the grand scheme of things meaningful, I thought I’d share a few nuggets. We’ll make more sense of this as the story unfolds. (Talks have now resumed and Musk is once again offering to buy Twitter for the original deal price.) — A happy accident occurred when I stumbled upon “star-manning” as a rhetorical device, which fits the whole Musk/Twitter thing well, on many levels — LJ
What Did You Get Done This Week?
It’s hard to resist reading what’s on Elon Musk’s phone if it is made public, especially in the context of the Twitter coup that’s been unfolding in the last few months. Mike Solana has an interesting take on the substance of the messages and media coverage around it.
Here are my own clippings:
Beyond the billionaire shenanigans and governance drama, how Twitter evolves in the context of the culture wars, polarization and —frankly— the future of democracy, feels very meaningful. We should pay attention.
Pro-tip —> for all the legal documentation lovers out there: did you know that since IOS 15, you can copy and translate text from photos on your iPhone or iPad? So useful!
A rhetorical step above the steel man
A while back, I made a note of this concept of “Star-manning” in argumentation. I knew about the straw-man fallacy, I try to practice steel-manning (“the act of taking a view, or opinion, or argument and constructing the strongest possible version of it. It is the opposite of straw-manning”) but I was until recently unaware of the star man.
I’ve adopted the term star man to describe a rhetorical step above the steel man—a kind of platinum rule to improve upon the golden one. To star-man is to not only engage with the most charitable version of your opponent’s argument, but also with the most charitable version of your opponent, by acknowledging their good intentions and your shared desires despite your disagreements.
Useful mental crutch.
How does a person spend what he knows are his final months of life?
Jack Thomas, a journalist until the very end, on editing the final details.
Does the intensity of a fatal illness clarify anything? Every day, I look at my wife’s beautiful face more admiringly, and in the garden, I do stare at the long row of blue hydrangeas with more appreciation than before. And the hundreds and hundreds of roses that bloomed this year were a greater joy than usual, not merely in their massive sprays of color, but also in their deep green foliage, the soft petals, the deep colors and the aromas that remind me of boyhood. As for the crises in Cuba and Haiti, however, and voting rights and the inexplicable stubbornness of Republicans who refuse to submit to an inoculation that might save their lives — on all those matters, no insights, no thunderbolts of discovery. I remain as ignorant as ever.
and…
Atop the list of things I’ll miss are the smiles and hugs every morning from my beautiful wife, Geraldine, the greatest blessing of my life. I hate the notion of an eternity without hearing laughter from my three children. And what about my 40 rose bushes? Who will nurture them? I cannot imagine an afterlife without the red of my America roses or the aroma of my yellow Julia Childs.
Focus on what counts people, our time here is short.
(Thanks to the excellent Mathew Ingram, who was a guest contributor in our third issue for alerting me to this story.)
On that note, Recall Bronnie Ware, who was briefly an internet sensation in 2009 when she published on her blog the Top five regrets of the dying (later turned into a book), which outlines the five main regrets she heard while working for eight years as a live-in carer for terminally ill patients:
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
I wish I hadn’t worked so hard
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
I wish that I had let myself be happier
I call them tickets because they opened a door in my mind and briefly turned me into an investigator, wanting to know more. Perhaps they will have the same effect on you.
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