Nah I think you have it backwards. The ones who make it have that mindset throughout.

I don’t think your theory explains angry rich people or cutthroat billionaires or self-indulgent winners or any successful person who’s ever evolved from being mean to being nice.

We’re celebrating Kareem for how unique he is in his outlook because it’s so rare.

> > We’re celebrating Kareem for how unique he is in his outlook because it’s so rare.

How is he unique? No human could possibly still milking an achievement 35 years into past.

Financially maybe, but brain juice wise not so much.

Led Zeppelin hate to play Stairway to Heaven and Eagles have come to hate Hotel California and Tom Brady is for sure tired to explain for the 1000th time the game winning drive against the St.Louis Rams in SuperBowl 2001.

There is a reason why all the people above ask to get paid a whole lot in order to once again 'perform the classics'. The exception is the other way around.

> There is a reason why all the people above ask to get paid a whole lot in order to once again 'perform the classics'. The exception is the other way around.

Didn't know about that, but it explains a certain dynamic I've been wondering about. You go to a concert of a group that's been around for some years, maybe decades. You come there for the classics - the songs you've heard many years ago and grew to appreciate, the texts that you found some meaning in at some point in life. But the band plays new pieces, one after other, all inferior, all being not the thing you came for. You look around, you notice the facial expressions and body language of others in the audience. You know they came in for the classics too. The performers surely know that too. Yet they keep playing the new stuff, throwing in an older piece every now and then, seemingly oblivious to the meaning of applause and standing ovation they get each time.

I've assumed it's mostly that the group really wants to try new things. But it may just be that they're tired playing the old ones. Still, it's a conflict of expectation, and why I personally don't go to concerts much.

Clutch went through something somewhat similar, according to an interview with I think Neil Fallon. They burned out for awhile on playing "Electric Worry", but were convinced that it was worth playing because it was the ace up their sleeve- so long as they included it in a set, fans would be happy and overlook any experimental new stuff that didn't work out as well.

Of course, they also have a reputation for crossing into nearly every subgenre of rock, so their hard core fans are perhaps a bit more tolerant than other bands when they branch out. Even so, having watched a number of their concerts online (never had the opportunity to see a show live, sadly) they do seem to have a healthy blend of old and new in each set, and the atmosphere is always electric.

That's because say Page, Plant and John Paul Jones were there when they wrote and recorded 'Stairway to Heaven'. It's not like they felt something uniquely great about that piece of music, more likely they felt exactly the same as they did after writing and recording the other 300+ songs they recorded in their life.

They probably think we are idiots for elevating it so much, and demand a premium to play it for the 3000th time, and also demand a premium for talking about and put up the act of having to sell to people the illusion that they also thought that something metaphysical was happening in the studio.

Kids think 'doing it for the content' is something new, while it has always been around. People have 'done stuff for the content' for ages in order to buy nice cars, real estate, planes etc.

I'm almost sure that what we feel when we hear 'Stairway to Heaven' is approximately the same enthusiasm they feel when they dump 20M on a private island in the Bahamas or access some new designer drug that is only availible for the wealthy.

You can only unlock that type of enthusiasm if you are not involved in the creation and the promotion of the the thing being commercialised.

100 % agree on this. Rich people are nicer because they don't need much from the other party.

To be clear, what I really think is you need to be a little cynical in life to "make" it.

Or have wealthy parents (or grandparents, etc.).

Absolutely. Use all the advantages you have in life.

Kareem literally says this in his post:

> I don’t blame him for thinking that I might be bothered because he knows how competitive I used to be.

The 90’s were a funny time, history was over so we declared the best sports players at the time to be the “greatest ever.”

The only sports that have seen their best players already are Baseball and Cycling, because they’ve gotten good at catching steroid users.

The greatest of all time is always understood to mean the greatest of all time so far. Nobody is pretending this is predictive of the future. There might be a 9 year old out there right now that is going to grow up and destroy Jordan's legacy. But as of now, no other player to play the game has surpassed him.

Honestly, I'm a bit bummed that the 'greatest of all time' era was when this stupid 'illegal defense' rule, which is probably the stupidest rule ever in basketball, was deciding games.

Basketball isn't really a 5 on 5 sport with this rule. It's a 2 on 2 or a 3 on 3.

I remember in 2004, my brother's coach gave him a VHS collection of 60s and 70s NBA games because "that's when the US played team basketball, that's how I want you to play". I think he also gave him the spurs games of that year and a couple of eurobasket DVDs.

Yes and people try to put Lebron side by side with Jordan but he's not even the best Laker in my opinion. I'd pick 3 Lakers ahead of him if I was doing an all-time draft.

You forget javelin throwing, because the javelins were redesigned to keep them from possibly going into the stands

What? No. Bill Russell was the greatest. MJ is just the greatest that most people have seen (except that LeBron is making a better and better case...)

This has some truth to it, but it’s also a cynical middle-brow dismissal.

Plenty of rich are ultra competitive and plenty of poor people are collaborative. Also, older are generally a bit mellower and reflective, but even teenagers can demonstrate good team work and community thinking.

A viewpoint like Kareem’s should be celebrated, not doused with cynicism.

He's a Muslim, and Islam gives you that collaborative and content outlook.