The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #105397 Message #2168912
Posted By: Bill D
11-Oct-07 - 12:45 PM
Thread Name: BS: Six Degrees Of Separation
Subject: RE: BS: Six Degrees Of Separation
Well...one needs to define the rules pretty carefully. Do we mean KNOW some who KNOWS someone who...etc...or just "I once MET X who met Y"..etc...
I have met & chatted with a number of well traveled and famous folkies...and with Allan Ginsberg, the beat poet...and with six term Congressman from Kansas, Dan Glickman. And I once shook hands with Marion Barry, the infamous mayor of Wash DC, but having met these folks is a pretty tenuous claim to being only 3 degrees from the queen.
So, it is unlikely that some Bushman in Africa & I can easily claim to be only 6 'significant' degrees apart.
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The real value of the concept is for those whose business or lifestyle needs contacts and the ability to get information and help.
The former Postmaster General of the US, James A. Farley, made semi-famous the idea of a Farley File, by which he USED notes on people he met, and thus achieved political ends and personal admiration. "What? You mean you remember me from 9 years ago?"
Not a bad idea...now if I could go back 45 years and apply it!