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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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Related enough to add some commentary.

I can say what I honestly wish I saw more in movies and shows these days:

Competent teams of people coordinating their unique skillsets in interesting ways, where the success or failure of the whole venture depends on everyone fulfilling their role with precision.

That guy is the polyglot, that one there is the martial arts expert, she's got a PhD level understanding of volatile chemicals, and this last dude trains seagulls to steal jewelry from tourists. A rich benefactor is paying us to deliver a donor heart to a hidden village in China to be transplanted into a sick child for unknown reasons.

Ocean's 11 is maybe the ur-example here. "We want to complete an extremely specific set of tasks for the possibility of a singular, massive payoff if everything goes well, and possible ruin if any piece of the plan fails." Maybe Mission Impossible is a better standard example, but the later movies really lean towards "everyone is omnicompetent at whatever talent the plot requires." I still like them, though.

Despite what cynics say, I think the "team of people overcoming massive odds through sheer skill" is a winning trope, and for good reason. I think that's TRULY what makes heist movies appealing.

I also suspect, for example, Star Trek, USED To be about this to a large degree! Everyone on the ship has their specialization and their duties. And as long as they had a competent Kirk, Picard, Janeway, to get everyone to do their job correctly and align their objectives, this was enough to achieve victory against unknown opponents and strange phenomena.

I gather that Modern Trek has discarded much of that framework in favor of more emotional drama and angsty grit.

There was definitely some kind of trend of "swiss army knife" heroes in the 2000's. They spoke every language (or could learn them overnight), they had combat skills, hacking skills, engineering skills, charismatic and witty personalities. Often they were really good at chess. Basically, Mary Sues, with better writing.

Tony Stark being able to build an advanced exosuit in a cave with a bunch of scraps sort of deal. Batman in the comics, for damn sure.

And yes, it has become absurdly obvious that human beings with broad skillsets that are all at least two standard deviations above the average really do not exist. There are grifters who make money presenting themselves as this sort of person (and pay me $100/month I can teach you, too!) but is not anyone out there who can infiltrate the CIA and assassinate a high ranking official then hack the database to erase their own existence, all by their lonesome (or with a handful of supporting cast). Anyone that MIGHT be able to do that probably works for the CIA already.

Humans can specialize very well. But only in like two, maybe three things at most. Scott's review of "Raising a Genius" touched on this. If you're genetically predisposed and trained from near birth at a given talent, you can become world-class at that thing! But the time spent on that training probably precludes being exceptional at much else, for the same reason.

Elon Musk probably can't throw a decent punch. The world's best martial artists are likely piss-poor programmers. Genius-level intellect does not, in fact, guarantee massive financial success. Although it helps. And that's leaving aside the "fooled by randomness" aspect where sometimes, seeming outliers kind of just bungled into their own success.

Nothing wrong with imagining the existence of such people in fiction. I'm a huge fan of the Jason Bourne series myself. But they're probably better categorized as 'modern mythology' than anything else. And this trope is getting WAY less credible in a world that, as you say, becomes more complex to navigate on a yearly, maybe monthly basis.

Watch a kitchen sometime. While The Bear is an extended exercise in stress and heavily recommended, I believe the much-more-feel-good but overly sentimental/dramatic Japanese show Grand Maison Tokyo is also worthwhile as a team competence exercise.