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A philosophy-quoting homeless man in China has fled internet fame

washingtonpost.com

11–20 of 34 posts

Re: A philosophy-quoting homeless man in China has fled internet fame

#11
post #2

Fame is a disfigurement. As the costs of fame increase, how will this effect the distribution of people who seek to do great things? This is probably a much more important question than many things we worry about.

Alternatively, perhaps fame-seeking behaviour helps us identify frauds and hollow-men?

Re: A philosophy-quoting homeless man in China has fled internet fame

#12
I know a similar story of a semi-homeless man also from Chengdu who have been living in a university campus and attending advanced math classes for years. A guy with virtually no possessions except curiosity. It was pre-internet so only locals knew about him. The university even offered him a job in the cafeteria so he could feed himself.

Re: A philosophy-quoting homeless man in China has fled internet fame

#13
post #4

I'm surprised this piece doesn't mention The Life of Brian: Followers: "Speak to us master, speak to us!" Brian: "Go away!" Follower: "How shall we go away master?" (59 minutes into the movie)

(Group running)

Forrest Gump: “I’m tired. I think I’m gonna go home”

The followers: “What are we supposed to do?”

Re: A philosophy-quoting homeless man in China has fled internet fame

#14
post #2

Fame is a disfigurement. As the costs of fame increase, how will this effect the distribution of people who seek to do great things? This is probably a much more important question than many things we worry about.

Seeking to do great things is not linked to fame. The public is generally ignorant of every great person alive today, they just see the people who need to be seen because it supports their ventures.

fully agree. People conflate fame with impact. Everyone’s version of impact may be different but having Impact does not necessarily lead to the other.

Consider the case of Howard Thurman, not nearly as famous as Martin Luther king Jr[0], or Nelson Mandela[1]. Yet highly influential on them, and they went on to catalyse massive change.

So his impact if we consider social change, was massive and far outpaced his actual fame.

[0] he mentored Martin Luther King and otherS [1] Mandela came out of prison with a completely different philosophy to when he went in.Mandela appears to have been highly influenced by by his writing while in prison.

Re: A philosophy-quoting homeless man in China has fled internet fame

#15
post #2

Fame is a disfigurement. As the costs of fame increase, how will this effect the distribution of people who seek to do great things? This is probably a much more important question than many things we worry about.

Fame is a cost. Some important, meaningful, or even just fun things incur an increased likelihood of accumulating fame, though not all of them. If what you want to do is worth the risk of attracting attention, the tradeoff can be worth it, but I think you're right to say that the cost is growing higher.

Re: A philosophy-quoting homeless man in China has fled internet fame

#16
From my measly perspective, fame suuucks... there's really no upside. Anonymous obscurity seems a better camouflage rather than people getting up in someone's personal business documenting their every move, criticizing their every breath, treating them differently, expecting to impose on their emotional reserves and time, or acting goofy/toadyingly around them. All people put on pants one leg at a time unless they're missing legs or wearing a kilt. ;)

Re: A philosophy-quoting homeless man in China has fled internet fame

#17

Not a word about the content of his philosophy...

The SCMP has:

>In one of these videos, the scavenger was filmed discussing the merits of Liao Fan’s Four Lessons, a Ming dynasty work from the 16th century, and the Analects.

I presume in Chinese

Re: A philosophy-quoting homeless man in China has fled internet fame

#18

From my measly perspective, fame suuucks... there's really no upside. Anonymous obscurity seems a better camouflage rather than people getting up in someone's personal business documenting their every move, criticizing their every breath, treating them differently, expecting to impose on their emotional reserves and time, or acting goofy/toadyingly around them. All people put on pants one leg at a time unless they're…

Will Smith's contrary view is that fame is great. You get treated better everywhere and people listen to your mundane opinions on anything. The pain of being ignored or rejected is vastly reduced, whether it's in your personal life, career etc.

Re: A philosophy-quoting homeless man in China has fled internet fame

#19
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeking to do great things is not linked to fame. The public is generally ignorant of every great person alive today, they just see the people who need to be seen because it supports their ventures.

fully agree. People conflate fame with impact. Everyone’s version of impact may be different but having Impact does not necessarily lead to the other. Consider the case of Howard Thurman, not nearly as famous as Martin Luther king Jr[0], or Nelson Mandela[1]. Yet highly influential on them, and they went on to catalyse massive change. So his impact if we consider social change, was massive and far outpaced his actual…

So many examples of this. This highly charming piece by a former IAS director goes into this so well: https://library.ias.edu/files/UsefulnessHarpers.pdf

Re: A philosophy-quoting homeless man in China has fled internet fame

#20
post #7
post #2

Fame is a disfigurement. As the costs of fame increase, how will this effect the distribution of people who seek to do great things? This is probably a much more important question than many things we worry about.

Yeah, the guy probably thought interesting young people would come and have conversations with him after he became famous. Instead, he is just filmed all day on phones by visitors trying to bolster their social media likes with some desirable video footage.

And even if there were a few that would come to talk, they’d almost certainly also be turned off by the thousands filming.
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