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Groups never admit failure

nav.al

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Re: Groups never admit failure

#331

Post by xpe »

xpe wrote: post #153
azinman2 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without it the blog post is less interesting. Having listened to Naval on Clubhouse he's extremely confident in everything he says (/said on Clubhouse, which was largely political/covid/government/society/extremely broad categories). For people to find you interesting, unfortunately you usually need to project such confidence even if it's not technically true.

> Without it the blog post is less interesting. I disagree. When I see the author's exaggeration and overconfidence, coupled with a lack of examples, I stop reading. It reminds me of driving by a paper mill. Memorable, yes, in the wrong sort of way. I'll remember to avoid it in the future. I don't dig the writing. I find it uninteresting and unpersuasive. An author does not have to exaggerate to be interesting. Even…

typo fix above: become -> because

Re: Groups never admit failure

#332

Post by MontagFTB »

Eelongate wrote: post #304
ArnoVW wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he meant to write heating. Because the moderate (slow) parts leave, keeping the 'hot' members.

He meant to write cooling; the moderate (warmer) parts leave, leaving the fanatical 'cold' members. I agree that 'fanatical=cold/moderate=warm' seems a little backwards, but it's that way and not the other because it's an analogy to a real physical process, while evaporative warming doesn't exist. From 2007: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p/evaporativ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cool…

Distillation may be a more appropriate analogy. The unwanted part evaporates away, leaving the more concentrated solution behind.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#333

Post by snarf21 »

topspin wrote: post #240
snarf21 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I actually have moved since I saw them all time. I'm not far away but not on their flight path anymore. :(

Re: Groups never admit failure

#334

Post by dredmorbius »

mritchie712 wrote: post #300
dredmorbius wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The final round of the Soviet Union's collapse began on December 1, 1991. That day, a Ukrainian popular referendum resulted in 91 percent of Ukraine's voters voting to affirm the independence declaration passed in August and formally secede from the Union. The secession of Ukraine, long second only to Russia in economic and political power, ended any realistic chance of Gorbachev keeping the Soviet Union togethe…

Bu it's not "the same people" in the group. The Soviet Union lasted ~69 years, plenty of time for the original group to die out.

On 8 December 1991 "Gorbachev called it an unconstitutional coup.".

On 25 December 1991, in a nationally-televised speech, "Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union – or, as he put it, "I hereby discontinue my activities at the post of President of the USSR."[137] He declared the office extinct, and all of its powers (such as control of the nuclear arsenal[138]) were ceded to Yeltsin. A week earlier, Gorbachev had met with Yeltsin and accepted the fait accompli of the Soviet Union's dissolution."

You are claiming thse are two different Mikhail Gorbachevs?

That's without even considering the case of parliaments and leadership of the other former Soviet republics also discussed.

Your claim has no merits.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#335

Post by hef19898 »

native_samples wrote: post #330
hef19898 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academics mostly got it right, media thrived on conflict and false-balance while politics, especially German politics, were more concerned about elections than anything else.

How'd you figure that? Academics have been wrong about this from the start, I'd say. Their models are a byword for joke pseudo-science. But I guess your reference to "false balance" means we can infer what your beliefs are here. Groups never admit failure and one way they don't admit it, is by finding clever sounding excuses to not listen to those who were right.

Well, the RKI models pretty much predicted the German Wave Four. Case rates, hospitalization and so on was predicted pretty well. They missed the timeline by roughly two weeks so, if memory serves well. Little matter, since they first modelled that in summer.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#336

Post by selimthegrim »

wahern wrote: post #244
selimthegrim wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the new vintage of Hamas, brought to you by Israeli intelligence

Isn't Hamas an example of the opposite dynamic--of becoming less fanatical? Yes, Hamas leads violent, armed protests from the Gaza Strip. But there's arguably been less violence compared to the armed conflicts they induced on and across the Lebanese border. Once they began to independently govern (not withstanding lack of Israeli recognition) the Gaza Strip they had to soften their stance somewhat, similar to the PLO…

We're talking about the 80s here, when they wanted the PLO to be taken down a notch

Re: Groups never admit failure

#337

Post by cabalamat »

hef19898 wrote: post #318
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The better is gets - more time for career manoeuvring

And without the need of any domain knowledge or any other skills!

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

-- https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

Re: Groups never admit failure

#338

Post by hef19898 »

cabalamat wrote: post #337
hef19898 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And without the need of any domain knowledge or any other skills!

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective…

I never worked directly for an official bureaucracy, just indirectly. I have to say so, you find the same kind of people in all organizations being large enough to need more than one pizza to feed everyone.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#339

Post by hollerith »

Animats wrote: post #3

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.” 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…

You had me till "A-10", which has become completely useless except against adversaries like ISIS that none of the modern military powers like.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#340

Post by DarylZero »

MontagFTB wrote: post #332
Eelongate wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He meant to write cooling; the moderate (warmer) parts leave, leaving the fanatical 'cold' members. I agree that 'fanatical=cold/moderate=warm' seems a little backwards, but it's that way and not the other because it's an analogy to a real physical process, while evaporative warming doesn't exist. From 2007: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p/evaporativ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cool…

Distillation may be a more appropriate analogy. The unwanted part evaporates away, leaving the more concentrated solution behind.

In distillation, the whole input liquid is evaporated by heating, then condensed by cooling and collected.
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