Live versus dead players

Whether you are examining past societies or living and acting within one today, it’s important to distinguish between live and dead players. A live player is a person or well-coordinated group of people that is able to do things they have not done before. A dead player is a person or group of people that is working off a script, incapable of doing new things.

In a well-argued essay, Samo Burja talks about the difference between live players and dead players, and why that matters. Beyond the interesting thoughts, what I found striking was how the same reasoning works for things as big as nations, as diverse as companies, and as small as a single individual.

He goes on to describe how a live player can become dead, and perhaps most importantly, how a dead player can be revived. “It only takes one great person to revive a dead player”, and when the player is oneself, there is only one candidate.