Comment by aebtebeten

Thanks!

The law of large numbers suggests that all of the hegemons:

  bellatores  military  ML
  laboratores economic  IEF
  oratores    political DI

should optimise their practices and procedures for the population mean[0]: although one of them will obviously have slightly better people at any given point, which one is subject to time and chance, and the odds that that advantage would be larger get exponentially smaller.

(then again, the boundaries are more porous[1] than in the feudal days; I know of at least two MGIMO alums moonlighting in the economic realm)

[0] we've already covered 孫中山's triad, right?

[1] or are they? I think a typical "retirement plan" for an aging but rich bellator was to endow[2] a monastery with a comfortable amount of land, and then take orders there, because who would bump off an orator[3]? In the modern world, I see RAK (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/12/29/world/29FACEBOOK-...) has grown a long beard since I last saw him; is he in the process of transitioning from bellator to orator? Maybe not: he seems to be feeling acutely unwell.

[2] compare El Cid's provision for his wife and daughters; or even Goldmund's father "gifting" Blaze the pony

[3] compare "Hideyori's son, Kunimatsu (age 8) was captured and beheaded; his daughter Naahime (Princess Naa) (age 7) was sent to Tōkei-ji, a convent in Kamakura, where she later became the twentieth abbess Tenshūin (1608–1645)."