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Groups never admit failure

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Re: Groups never admit failure

#281

Post by cnlevy »

nradov wrote: post #239
Grambo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They have enough rockets equipped with ASAT weapons to destroy the Starlink satellites ? All 40 000 of them (planned, about 2500 already in orbit)?

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/12/spacex-prepares-for-air-forc...

Re: Groups never admit failure

#282

Post by verisimi »

Most groups will not admit failure. This is because (IMO) we do 'groups' wrong.

What is a group? Its a bunch of individuals that come together to do something.

The problem is that the 'thing' groups come together to do, is different for different individuals. Some people are looking to find completion, some community, some a specific goals, others a series of goals, others want control, others want to learn, etc.

Groups should come together for a specific goals, and then be disbanded when that goal is met or cannot be met. The issue groups do not come together in this way - instead we create a structure that potentially runs in perpetuity (the governance structure is the most egregious example of this.)

If the goals are unclear, if the structure can be hijacked so that one individual is in a position of power over the others, at that point, the group is in conflict - some are winners some are losers. The ostensible goal may end in failure, but only for some in the group. In fact, for the winners, a sort of strung out failure is success! Just look at our political class - the system is failing and no one is happy, but they have converted their parasitic position into a win.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#283

Post by HanaShiratori »

pvg wrote: post #273
HanaShiratori wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry what? I guess I don't get what you're saying

I didn't get what you were asking either!

Oh OK sorry I'm not a native English speaker so I might not chose the right words.

I was asking who spontaneously changes their mind without any event that would trigger such a change? If I believe in something, why would I have any motivation to change it if everything is running well / as planned?

Re: Groups never admit failure

#285

Post by BBC-vs-neolibs »

WalterBright wrote: post #148
kashyapc wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably that can be a useful insight in some specific circumstances as you describe, but it falls flat as a generalization. Allow me a snark: maybe a group of venture capitalists (many of whom call themselves "angels") might not admit a mistake. But many groups (not as grandiose as the military, though) jolly well admit and own up non-trivial mistakes. I participate in several open source projects over 13 years now.…

I have yet to make a mistake, but when I do I plan on publicly admitting it.

My father once thought he was wrong, but soon realised he was mistaken.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#286

Post by lifeisstillgood »

elabajaba wrote: post #269
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The survivability onion: https://i.redd.it/33lz51812ko31.jpg Gun anti-air(AA) is basically useless against jets at this point (they fly too high and fast). For missiles, you can't really evade them if you're in their kill zone (they can accelerate way faster and turn way tighter than a human can survive). Your hope to survive a missile is to either not be "seen" in the first place (whether that's radar, or at somewha…

I cannot help, when looking at the peer-v-peer model, to be reminded of acoup.blog's excellent analysis of WWI stalemate. The concepts put forward of "knocking out the opponents SAM capability and achieving air dominance" might not work so well when the opponent is trying to do exactly the same thing. This is just a uneducated thought so please comment but it interests me.

Its unlikely either side will throw 100% of its air assets into the mix to achieve complete dominance, so there is always some planes / batteries around, and we end up with "we dominate that area, you dominate this". At that point, no-one has air dominance, and there is a "no mans land" over which some aircraft might be yours, or theirs, but you have to go through that part.

As soon as we have that situation, there will be discussions on "break out" - land forces getting through the contested area, but when you do, guess what, you have broken into the are where their air is dominant.

It seems you either have air dominance, or you fight in the air till you do have. But committing all air assets to do that risks losing them all, so stalemate seems inevitable...

Re: Groups never admit failure

#287

Post by dash2 »

mro_name wrote: post #262

I wonder what academia (sociology, anthropology) says about the issue. Any pointers?

Janis Ian's "Groupthink" is the obvious one. Then there's the paper "Knee Deep in the Big Muddy" on the sunk costs fallacy. Treated as an individual "bias" but a lot of the examples (e.g. Concorde) come from group projects.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#288

Post by PoignardAzur »

Fnoord wrote: post #274
ancode wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure it took two tries also

Blaming WWI entirely on Germany is myopic, and is in part what set the social unrest in the Weimar Republic in the first place. The huge debt was put on Germany, and they were heavily dependent on loans. When the US economy crashed in 1929, they were done for. If Germany did not take the full blame for WWI, WWII arguably never happened. Because someone like Hitler wouldn't have been able to rise to power via a massiv…

I'd say the economic and political effects of the Versailles treaty are exaggerated (especially given how little it was enforced), but yeah.

The idea that Germany was in any way the single country responsible for WWI is absolutely ridiculous.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#289

Post by madaxe_again »

hef19898 wrote: post #254
madaxe_again wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That happens all the time. I think I am slowly getting the point of the story about Casandra. People that realize issues, voice them and raise them be properly addressed are almost never heard. Especially when these issues go against whatever group think narrative is in place. Those people also are the scapegoats when the bad things they predicted actually do happen. Because, hey, they knew it. So why didn't they do…

I ended up with an almighty Cassandra complex, and by the time I left I was almost prepared to believe that I was the source of the issues I flagged.

Hindsight, however, is everything - most of the engineering team left in my wake, and all that remains is a hollowed out core of sycophantic middle management. They went from an improbable 0% client churn to a revolving door of unhappy customers.

Truly, it was a shame - and remains so - for my sake, however, my departure was the best thing I could have done, as it saved what precious threads of sanity I had remaining. I still hope for the sake of the once-friend I started the business with that he yet learns something.

How does it go? For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#290

Post by pvg »

HanaShiratori wrote: post #283
pvg wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't get what you were asking either!

Oh OK sorry I'm not a native English speaker so I might not chose the right words. I was asking who spontaneously changes their mind without any event that would trigger such a change? If I believe in something, why would I have any motivation to change it if everything is running well / as planned?

Oh it's mostly a figure of speech - the point was that Germans 'changing their mind' was not anything close to 'spontaneous' despite the fact most of it was, over the long term, arduously accomplished by Germans themselves.
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