Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I have yet to make a mistake For some carefully chosen definition of mistake.
I believe that was humor, my friend
The post you replied to was also humor, btw.
Groups never admit failure
231–240 of 370 posts
Re: Groups never admit failure
#232How does that fit into IT team landscale ?
Do teams of developers that built something together but is not what was really needed gonna admit they made a mistake? Or just gonna iteratively change to something they should have started with?
Re: Groups never admit failure
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the ascendancy of drones and the usefulness of the A-10 Its really a popularity problem in that there is a doctrine of "we need something survivable in BVR and active ADA" but we don't like talking about that situation as much as pew-pew A-10s are cool and we always plan to fight the last war where there was no BVR or ADA threat (not after the first few days...) Inevitably we will someday go up against an opponent…
what are "BVR-proof and ADA-proof weapons systems". Are there planes that can survive being shot at by air defence? Or can evade missiles ? (Is this "stealth" as the answer? If so it seems the war is based on the targetting / anti-targetting arms race?) I am not trolling - just asking as it does seem that all the advantages are with cheap missiles hunting expensive planes (a very similar situation to naval warfare I…
Nothing is completely invulnerable to a modern integrated air defense system, but the F-22 and F-35 are specifically designed to have at least a chance to survive. They have low observability which makes them difficult to target, good sensors for avoiding SAM radars, and high power-to-weight ratios that give pretty good odds of evading missiles.
If those 5th-generation fighters are able to successfully suppress the air defenses then A-10s and other obsolete fighters can come in later for strike and air support missions. But against an intact IADS they would take extremely high casualties.
Re: Groups never admit failure
#234> A group will never admit they were wrong. A group will never admit, “We made a mistake,” because a group that tries to change its mind falls apart. I’m hard pressed to find examples in history of large groups that said, “We thought A, but the answer’s actually B.” Just because the author can't think of an example doesn't make it true. In fact groups of people, typically businesses, admit failure all the time. And i…
One of the best contemporary counterexamples, and incidentally one of the largest organizations in the world by official membership, is the Communist Party of China. A lot of Mao Zedong's policies are viewed as mistakes by the Party , including the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. Heck, Mao himself publicly admitted that the GLF was a mistake for which he takes responsibility. Yet the CPC, as an organizati…
The CCP under XiaoPing Deng creates indeed a schism. It no longer takes communism seriously. Its legitmacy comes from economic growth, rather than from whatever Mao cared.
Re: Groups never admit failure
#235Re: Groups never admit failure
#236That a group doesn't treat failure the same way as an individual is practically tautological in the sense that the power of a group vis a vis outcome (whether ~success or ~failure) is precisely that it's not an individual, but a proxy, "holding" it. In other words it makes no sense for a "group" to admit failure - that's why you put the group together, and that's why, generally speaking, not everyone gets fired when shit hits the fan. What is the insight here?
Re: Groups never admit failure
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But governments have improved, and improved radically over the years. In the 1960s and early 1970s, there was a sizable research field devoted to trying to help make human organizations function better (it was most of what used to be called "operations research", but went far beyond the for-profit corporation version of this concept). For reasons I don't understand, that project appeared to almost completely shutdo…
OR does survive, largely as a study of technical operations , far less social , organisational , or political ones. The other major similar school was Norbert Wiener's cybernetics , and also systems theory (Jay Forrester/MIT). These took a far broader approach, and were even considered for integration into (and ultimately redefinition of) the social sciences. A fascinating book I have is Alfred Kuhn's The Study of So…
Thanks for those insights.
Re: Groups never admit failure
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the essay is strongly written — never is a strong word — but it resonated with me because of a personal experience. In that experience part of the problem was that those who disagreed with the group were purged out of the group one way or another, either because they chose to exit out of disgust or because they were driven away, or something in between. So there was a "survivorship bias" in the group, where "…
Indeed - my personal experience of this was at my business - I would admit my and our mistakes to the extent that the perception became that I was the source of all of our failures. My partner was and is a person who is never wrong, never fails, never makes a mistake - it’s always someone else who stymied his ambitions, or circumstance, or just bad luck. Never an error. I left, after a decade. It was partly of my own…
My father incites me to apologize often for saying true things that aren’t nice. There are two approaches, and I believe you are pointing something correct. If you apologize on any aspect, it is a well-known effect that you entirely revoke your legitimacy from the group. In the woke culture for example, the first who apologize has to also quit and lose its career entirely, it’s a recurring problem. The second approach is never to apologize. It’s annoying, but it keeps people in check. It’s an attribute of real power: making huge visible mistakes and not having to say something about it. And this is what wins in our current culture. People will accept your authority and you will avoid being the scapegoat, people will criticize a bit but much less (and that it the surprising effect) than if you say “I’m sorry”. The looks of an apology seems to trigger a reaction of entire reject from the group, even if your words were carefully measured and balanced.
I empathize that you’ve lost your business to this. I sounded like you would instill an awesome culture where people recognize mistakes…
Re: Groups never admit failure
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Now, the US military is struggling with the "Fighter Mafia", which tends to run the USAF despite the ascendancy of drones and the usefulness of the A-10. Duuuuude, the Fighter Mafia was active in like the '60s and '70s, and some of its members were involved in the design of the A-10 (in line with their strong advocacy against multirole aircraft). Do you have any evidence that current USAF strategic policy is dictate…
There was a recent story about the Air Force trying to kill off one of their most cost effective aircraft, whether that's evidence of a "fighter mafia" or not is debatable, but it does show the USAF's proclivity for expensive high-tech over cost effective platforms. https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-reaper-drone-retir...
The MQ-9 Reaper is cost effective for counter insurgency missions but it requires reliable high-bandwidth remote control data links to operate. In any conflict with a peer adversary they will shoot down the communications satellites and jam other links, making such drones mostly useless.
Re: Groups never admit failure
#240A group will never admit they were wrong. A group will never admit, “We made a mistake,” because a group that tries to change its mind falls apart. I’m hard pressed to find examples in history of large groups that said, “We thought A, but the answer’s actually B.” Now that is a useful insight. It's a big problem for voluntary associations. Companies can sometimes change their culture, but it usually requires replacin…
It is the same old thing, they became successful doing X and that works great until X isn't the optimal thing. However, after 50 years doing the same thing, they are a one trick pony. Also, the A-10 is one heck of a plane and always my favorite. Largest caliber nose cannon and the ability to limp back to base on one engine and one rudder is so freaking cool. There is a National Guard base nearby and it is so cool wat…
> There is a National Guard base nearby and it is so cool watching them do flybys on the small mountains.
I'm near a different A-10 base. I've noted that they've stepped up training flights during the last two weeks. I'm wondering if it's related to the Russian build up on the Ukrainian frontier. Have you noticed more flights?