An Ancient Greek Philosopher’s Message Of Hope For A Modern Age
We may not conquer the globe, but can win in our small world
Published in
6 min readOct 8, 2021
“Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.”
The quote above may be true but doesn’t exactly inspire hope. Basically, an ancient Greek guy is mentioning most people on an endeavor are cannon fodder. Our only hope is one or a few magical human beings.
If you think about it, this sums up our modern world. In a Pareto Principle type distribution, the few chew up the multitude of the winnings.
- 90% of music streams go to the top 1% of recording artists.
- 15% of baseball players are likely responsible for 85% of the wins in baseball.
- 20% of bugs in software are accountable for 80% of crashes.
- Cities monopolize near 83% of the American population. Big cities suck up a large percentage of that.
So, what does that mean for us? Are we screwed? Does it just “suck to be us”? Are we doomed to continually miss out on desirable things, which go…
