I found my house through 6 degrees of separation (opens in new tab)

A relative was recounting a story about the training program for people who have recently been promoted to Managing Director at a bank:

"One of the first classes was about how to leverage our social networks.

The instructor gets up and says 'What is something that you are interested in that you have no idea how to make happen?'

Someone raises their hand and says 'My wife really loves Shakira and it would be amazing if she could perform at my wife's birthday.'

Instructor: 'Anyone able to help with this?'

Hand shoots up: 'My old college roommate works for Shakira's manager. I can put you in touch with him' "

I also remember how some of the older social networks (Friendster and A Small World come to mine) would actually show you the "Kevin Bacon hops" between you and any other member. I always thought it was a cool feature although I can also see how it could be abused for Social Engineering.

This is one of those things that seems interesting/meaningful until you give it more than 10 seconds of thought, and then you realize this is just how life works.

I could whip up an infinite amount of articles explaining how I "Found X through Y degrees of separation", where Y is unexpectedly large. It's trivial to work backwards through your life and reshape everything as a series of coincidences that got you to where you are.

I got my job through 129 degrees of separation! You see, I was born in A, where I went to B school, and met C, who got me interested in D, which led me to discover I had a talent for E, and ... etc etc etc

Hey let me tell you how I found one of my jobs!

I just moved to a new room and was speaking spanish on the phone. My new neighbor stopped me and asked if I could help their son to study Spanish. I accepted to do it for free. Since I didn't take a payment, the wife invited me for dinner as payment. During dinner I met the husband, who just happens to be a directive for a local company. After talking, it turns out that they were looking for a programmer. I was also looking for a new job.

Of course this is a pointless anecdote. Rather than individual anecdotes, I prefer to look for a general framework, such as the luck surface area [1].

[1] https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/surface-area-of-luck

This is not really the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon thing. He knew Pete already, so it's a direct referral, how he got to know him is not really interesting. I mean for him it definitely is, but I'm not sure what to get out of this :)

I read a book years ago called "Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives" that talked a lot about this. A lot of opportunities in our lives come from two or three levels out in our social circle. IIRC, the book specifically mentions friends of friends as one of the most common ways to find jobs.

My favorite thing they talked about was how behaviors travel through social circles. A person you may not even know quitting smoking or losing weight could be the catalyst for you doing the same thing.

Huh, after he concluded the story, it got a bit rambling and pop-philosophical. Featuring that Steve Jobs quote that might as well be printed on wood and be sold as kitsch decoration...

Wahey, it's the season to be nice and jolly!

Everyone in the whole world is separated by a limited number. The notion that everyone is separated by six degrees [0] is apparently considered an urban myth, but social networks seemed to have an average of six jumps to reach everyone else (see link). Curious how it holds up nowadays.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation

I had an odd experience where I found my last apartment 5 months after receiving a (wrong number) call from the owner. It was a surreal coincidence.

We actually aren't dealing with whole population of the planet, or even a country. Show the graphs in locations you attempt to connect to are much much denser.