Jocko Podcast 306: Don't Let Your Mind Get Stuck. On The Psychology of Military Incompetence Pt.4

2021-11-04T10:16:16Z

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AI summary of episode

He may well strive to reduce dissidents by telling himself and others that the correlation between smoking and cancer could Just as well be taken to signify that people who are going to get cancer anyway tend to smoke in order to ward off the disease So you're just telling yourself lies to try to try and even out that disagreement in your own head Since it was first Propounded by a festinger in 1957 dissonance theory has given rise to a large number of empirical studies Through the though the precise nature of the underlying psychological processes as far from clear There are certain conclusions which could have serious implications for military decision making They may be summarized by saying that quote once the decision has been made and the person is committed to a given course of action The psychological situation changes decisively There is less emphasis on objectivity and there is more partiality and bias in the way in which the person views and evaluates the alternatives and quote in other words decision making may well be followed by a period of mental activity that could be described as at the very least Some what one cited Yeah, dude you I would he like I got halfway into that sentence and you were just shaking your head because you know you seen this happen totally and he you know He you did that list earlier and I the one that was Coming back to as you're talking about in the hard part about as you can you can I know what you're gonna say before He's saying and now you know what's coming when he's describing this is here's the plan Jocco's down in the front sends me a report. This is where we start to get a little psychological reference there that we have things in our subconscious that make us a certain way and one of the things he's saying is people that people that like things to be super orderly, super or orderly they don't like change, they don't like when bad things happen, they don't like when things that you can't control, they don't like those things. Maybe some people are not, you know, 0.01 but you got a spectrum and the case here is that if you look at the military and you see people that are all uniform and you see that everything's clean you look at that as a type of environment I might want to go into because I'm kind of like that and that's how you end up with people in this zone for what you guys wrote it down as like this guy is such a good idea. He says You know If Ellie how do we want proves one thing like you're you're you're pretty tough You know because he sees these guys after six days of freaking you know being awake and doing physical stuff You guys you have proofs one thing you're pretty tough and I actually said back to him I said you know there's a group of people that also Go go through hell week and make it through how weak and what it proves is that they figured out how to how to get through Because there's things you can do in hell week This was an assessment started as skipped it, but this was an assessment that got done of how they were training the Military the army officers and then it says much the same picture has been painted of Britannia four under of the Royal Naval College of Dartmouth Dartmouth again the emphasis was on blind obedience Sport and ceremonial with scant regard to intellectual pursuits and little pride in knowing one's job You know it's funny as soon as you say something like there's too much drill as soon as you say You know if you're maybe you're thinking hey man We're spending a lot of time just doing this like stupid drill stuff There's someone that's like You know, it's like I think I know who those guys are Yeah, and really Anything anything there's no there I'm trying to think of a job Where the full Where where the the primary thing is only intelligence only intelligence I'm sure there's some laboratory somewhere or some computer programming thing where Basically the smartest person is the person that we want that job But as soon as that person is in charge of people anyone else or in soon as there's some level of creativity or problem solving because there's You just you what you want is a person that's composite has a bunch of different skills. This is the important part Because with any situation that you have there's gonna be different sides to every argument There's gonna be different sides to be if we're gonna go to a taqatarget Part of your brain should be saying like okay, this looks like something we can get done part of it to say Okay, there's looks like there's a rata risks as well you got two different things in your head two different In congruent thoughts in your head they they're not the same and you know the different services and aviation have different sets of requirements and you know I think The Marine Corps has the the lowest I guess standard of academic excellence in terms like what you studied in how well you did I mean the old joke in the Marine Corps was you know if you got a 2.0 and underwater basket We even you could be a pilot you know as the joke and you know what they were saying really was But there's something a little different about the ones that make it up to that level and How it isn't quite just the same bell curve of everybody else where you got some smart people some you know middle-the-road folks Maybe some other folks and what I've been trying to Think in my mind about what that is is is kind of what you described is what's unique about those people those people Have figured out how to navigate the system this thing that we're all living in because when you join the military I don't count smart you are dumb But you wouldn't want to put them into a situation where they've got to stand up and talk from people if they don't have that skill So just because someone is smart that's only like one quarter of the of the of the of the math we got to do here totally and when you're thinking about it from a leadership standpoint and The recognition that that leadership requires a whole bunch of different things not just being You know smart and taking a test or being good at communicating it's the recognition that it requires so many different things None of these these profiles that he just revealed are a big shock to me Well, I got one shot up right wouldn't shot up Wait, what is pontificate talking talking carrying on talking especially things that you don't really know too much about It's also not a compliment like if somebody like what's like we're gonna the jacco But you know people might get the impression that oh, you know Jocco it's like at the master when I'm guess what I'm on stage I'm talking that's what we're doing Come to an echelon front meeting You know see who he's talking like see how much I'm talking It well a catch phrase or to be like we've we always done it this way or We need to stick with the plan right those are just catch phrases and that's what I'm gonna say or I just say We know Dave's always got his own freaking Dave's always on his own freaking program like I can I can ridicule you or I can just get mad That's what we sit So he's already building off of taller platform But also Cass Baroff said I think Cass Baroff was like 55 60 something like this Maybe let me know a little bit over he's like yeah, well, I'm older I mean you would think for being a pilot Uh There's gotta be you know that that like the spatial like when I took the officer candid Test and you've got to do the spatial recognition where how far away is this or is this aircraft or is this bird coming to you or going away from you? No that you know blowing things up sounds cool Being an intellectual doesn and if I can figure out early on What is it gonna appeal to you whoever my bosses are that school is or the intent is or the system and that's a Request of this is about the bellkers different of the top because they figured out how to navigate the system What the system wants and what the system wants is whoever's in charge that thing that appeals to them Which is things like What would you rather have someone who? and I say something like you know You know Here comes the new guy with a bread idea You know like to just kind of push you off Maybe that's our problem Another contribution to the incompetence tied up with age was the unhelpful tendency to Sack Fortunately retire or otherwise curtail the promotion of those young officers who unwisely failed to conceal their their lights But-neath bushels of conformity So real quick on the getting old part this is something that I was I think I talked about it on on the academy I heard that interview with Cass Baroff the chess player and Interview or acts actually I think it was Lex Friedman Lex asked him maybe it was Lex I think Lex asked him Not in a direct way, but basically could you beat Magnus Carlson who's right now like this phenom and And Cass Baroff said no and of the part of the answer which is what I talked about on the academy was part of their reason is because Magnus has got to see everything that Cost bar off done and study him. It's simple The subtitle that is simple clear concise communication So pontification is the opposite of that oddly enough Unfortunately such a predisposition it will be the strong the will be strongest in those like head masters judges Prison governors and senior military commanders who for too long have been in a position to lord over their fellow men Unfortunately such a predisposition will also be strongest in authoritarian organizations Where the preservation of apparent omnitions by those above Maybe deemed more important than the truth So this is that senior leader that Basically no one will tell them to be quiet and you know what's even worse than that People sit there with a big smile in their face nodding their heads cuz you know Yeah, I think it's the same I really do I don't think I don't think the personality profile You know or even just the motivational profile of A lot of people in the military is all that different certainly when I think about seals and pilots and as often as you and I kind of contrast those two types of people There's a ton of similarity there And that's what this number is number six an obstinate persistence in a given task Despite strong contrary evidence that was number six number seven of failure to exploit a Situation gained an attendancy to quote poll punches Rather than push home an attack Number eight of failure to make adequate reconnaissance Number nine a predilection for frontal assaults often against the enemies strongest point And again Even what's again at the master I'm Trying to explain to people because you know there's people that want that they would they just want to hear you say look So someone's called some problems. But you know, it's just a bad situation so these are the best things that could happen As response to that is no one would deny there's more to grain of truth and all these propositions cool Facts do get distorted and then the telling disasters are indeed more newsworthy than successes Riders undoubtedly do enjoy painting the worst possible picture of their particular Bet noires many Generals have had to contend with an up-to-toed Unformed interference and the stingingists of their political masters and of course things could have been worse There are counter arguments however because they are Surrogate father figures people are only too ready and anxious to love their adnelson generals particular a time of war We see that a lot right the if someone was in the military Then they must be awesome and And recent years that's gotten I would say even more prolific if someone's that then anything they say has some merit and value Okay, I always thought it was like kind of thinking and talking but in a good way I thought it was like hey, let's get to the bottom of let's listen explore it, you know, but No matter what's going on in your company, you think you got issues, you think you got problems, things are going wrong, things are going sideways. Yes, and although You can smell intent the system has a much harder time smelling intent A system has a much harder time smelling intent look they look at Dave Burke and they look at Jaco and they both went overseas Took a hard fill billet Jaco was doing it because he wanted to get promoted Dave was doing it because he had You know his kids had just left for for a college and so he felt like it was a good time What was the thing with like the bottom the atomic bomb like the technology was like Made for something or the or the idea was like the technology was made for something Gotta tell from looking at it Hey, obviously Someone could be really really smart and suck at that test right not to mention eyesight not to mention Reaction time like all those different things and then same thing with leadership You can have someone that's super articulate that's there's there's really articulate people that aren't really that smart It's, you know, the term self doubt doesn't have like this positive connotation, but it's like, oh, hey, I bet you're this bunch of things I don't know. Yeah, who's gonna weapon like someone's gonna weaponize it in it's like that's the fear like you put you and me in a room I'm gonna consider that I might be wrong and I'm gonna Moose slowly in this direction until we come to a the logical conclusion or I'm just gonna attack this target and run it over And the ones that figure out the system and have a navigate that it makes sense That at the top They actually use a different bell curve of people than those of us at the beginning who actually some of us Don't figure out how to navigate that system.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocopontcast number 306 with echo Charles and me. Jocoboiling good evening echo good evening
[00:00:05] And also joining us again tonight Dave Burke good evening Dave good evening
[00:00:11] So I said this book was gonna take a while I actually said that to you of a year ago that when we do this book's gonna take a while
[00:00:19] But we are going to continue our review of the book on
[00:00:22] These psychology of military incompetence which we started on podcast 303
[00:00:27] 303 304 305 here we are on 306 and there's gonna be more
[00:00:33] So if you haven't listened to 303 304 305 go back listen to those and if you have less than those then what you heard on those was basically the setup
[00:00:42] It was the setup it was the background information
[00:00:45] That we have been that we need to get into the actual theories of how psychology plays a role in military incompetence
[00:00:54] And with that let's let's get back to the book
[00:00:58] So this this part of the book is called part two and this is where we're no longer covering historical
[00:01:05] Incidents or battles
[00:01:08] Although the reason I had to read them all was because he does refer back to him quite a bit and I will say as I went through the as I as I was kind of navigating
[00:01:16] How to do this?
[00:01:17] I'm not going back as much as he is so when he goes back I might not cover every single one he goes back a little bit more
[00:01:22] but
[00:01:24] So
[00:01:25] This part of the book is what's
[00:01:27] What he's actually trying to figure out how does how does psychology play a role in incompetence?
[00:01:31] So here we go chapter 13 is there a case to answer
[00:01:36] He says that now that we have completed his survey of sorry covering
[00:01:40] 100 years of military misapps what conclusions can be drawn regarding the incidents
[00:01:46] of military incompetence. There are a number of possible answers first. The it could be argued that so called incompetence to high levels of command is really a
[00:01:54] Figma of the imagination of
[00:01:56] vindictive inaccurate or untrue throw historians
[00:02:00] So that's one conclusion a second conclusion might be what seems to have been military incompetence was really due to other non-military factors
[00:02:09] Such as governmental stingingists
[00:02:11] They grieve of the weather and sheer bad luck a
[00:02:17] Third conclusion might be that since every military action is an uncontrolled experiment in the sense that it can never be known what would
[00:02:24] Have been the outcome had been this had decisions been different there remains an almost unimaginable possibility that
[00:02:30] Things might have been worse that what was done did represent the least disasterous of
[00:02:37] possible courses open
[00:02:39] So
[00:02:41] There are some different reasons why you could say well, you know, it's not really military incompetence. It's just that historians or jerks
[00:02:48] It's just that there's factors that no one can control and that actually these decisions that were made were good
[00:02:56] But you know, it's just a bad situation so these are the best things that could happen
[00:02:59] As response to that is no one would deny there's more to grain of truth and all these propositions cool
[00:03:04] Facts do get distorted and then the telling disasters are indeed more newsworthy than successes
[00:03:11] Riders undoubtedly do enjoy painting the worst possible picture of their particular
[00:03:16] Bet noires many
[00:03:18] Generals have had to contend with an up-to-toed
[00:03:21] Unformed interference and the stingingists of their political masters and of course things could have been worse
[00:03:28] There are counter arguments however because they are
[00:03:32] Surrogate father figures people are only too ready and anxious to love their adnelson generals particular a time of war
[00:03:40] We see that a lot right the if someone was in the military
[00:03:45] Then they must be awesome and
[00:03:48] And recent years that's gotten
[00:03:50] I would say even more
[00:03:53] prolific if someone's that then anything they say has some merit and value and then you figure if they're a vet
[00:04:01] Whatever they say has merit value if they were an admiral or they were in a general then they must just be awesome
[00:04:06] They just must be speaking the truth
[00:04:10] Which we know not to be true?
[00:04:13] I'm gonna fast forward a little bit under the circumstances this book takes the view that certain sorts of incompetence have been an enduring
[00:04:21] Feature of the military scene and that amongst the millions of officers and men who have fought heroically and efficiently
[00:04:28] Often under the most trying conditions. There have marched a small
[00:04:32] But influential number whose ability has fallen far short of that required by the positions which they held
[00:04:39] So again, he likes to point this out from time to time and this is one of those times that
[00:04:43] This isn't about every military officer and I'm not making this about every military officer
[00:04:48] I worked for awesome military officers Dave
[00:04:51] Yeah at every level there are great military officers every level every service
[00:04:55] There's great military officers, but it is interesting he says a small but influential number
[00:05:02] So these are people that are totally inept at being military leaders and yet they end up in really powerful positions
[00:05:09] He says two questions and then occur is there any common pattern to this incompetence and
[00:05:15] If there is when's does it arise as
[00:05:18] a first step towards answering these questions. Let us try and summarize that data contained in the foregoing chapters in brief then
[00:05:27] military incompetence involves
[00:05:31] one
[00:05:32] A serious wastage of human resources and failures to observe one of the first principles of war economy of force
[00:05:42] This failure derives in part from an inability to make war swiftly
[00:05:47] It also derives from certain attitudes of mind which we shall consider presently
[00:05:52] So that's the number one thing that's showing that someone's in a nepp leader is when they have
[00:05:58] Massive wastage of human life
[00:06:03] Number two a fundamental
[00:06:05] Conservatism and clinging to out-worn tradition and inability to profit from past experience
[00:06:13] Owing in part two refusal to admit past mistakes G
[00:06:21] Do we even have to go any deeper on that one or is everyone just immediately understanding what's going on with that if you can't admit your past mistakes
[00:06:28] If you can't take ownership of human snakes, you don't make any improvement. It also involves a failure to use or tendency to misuse
[00:06:35] Available technology
[00:06:39] This one's in massive
[00:06:41] profit from past experience
[00:06:44] Failure to profit from past experience. You don't learn anything
[00:06:47] Number three a tendency to reject or ignore information
[00:06:51] Which is
[00:06:53] Unpalatable or which conflicts with preconceptions
[00:07:00] Number four a tendency to underestimate the enemy and overestimate the capabilities of one's own side
[00:07:05] Indecisiveness number five indecisiveness and a tendency to
[00:07:12] Abdicate from the role of decision maker
[00:07:16] Number six an obstinate persistence in a given task
[00:07:20] Despite strong contrary evidence
[00:07:25] Obstint persistence in a given task. That's when you are this is a
[00:07:28] I don't know if you guys have anything like this Dave, but when you're parachuting
[00:07:32] What one of the ways that people die when parachuting is they have a problem with their main parachute
[00:07:39] And they just keep trying to fix that problem. They get target fixation and they just they just and they never go to the reserve
[00:07:46] They never go to the reserve
[00:07:48] Yeah, can that happen in the cockpit? Yeah, absolutely and I
[00:07:52] Maybe a slightly different different version of that is you can have a system that is a you know
[00:07:57] It's a critical system that you need but it wouldn't be the difference between returning home safely and not
[00:08:03] And but you'll you'll spend so much time trying to resolve the problem that system is causing that it can lead you to
[00:08:08] Focusing on that so much that that you stop paying attention other things and a lead you to a misapp
[00:08:13] When even though it could be a real problem
[00:08:15] It should never lead you down the path of of crashing or losing the airplane and
[00:08:20] What you really need to do is
[00:08:22] It ignores probably the wrong word, but if you can't solve this move move on to something else and get the airplane back safely
[00:08:27] And they'll spend people who devote 100% of their attention to that
[00:08:31] All the way to the point that they crash their plane as a result of it when it would would not have caused a crash
[00:08:35] It's kind of crazy and that human element of
[00:08:38] The fixation I think is the word you use the fixation on that
[00:08:41] You know I was just talking about this at the master we are genetically programmed to fixate yes
[00:08:47] Because if you're a caveman and you can't concentrate on the tiger that's you know styling up on you and you're distracted by other things
[00:08:55] Then you're gonna die right so we're programmed to focus on what's right in front of us
[00:08:59] That's why people so often lose strategic vision
[00:09:02] And they can't detach and they don't see what else has happened on that's that's why you get flanked
[00:09:06] That's why you keep trying to fix your parachute until you hit the dirt or why you concentrate on some instrument panel
[00:09:12] Until you run out of fuel or you run into a mountain exactly
[00:09:15] What's the term when someone hit some mountain with no
[00:09:22] Like no brakes or whatever yeah
[00:09:25] We call it see fit controlled flight into terrain
[00:09:30] Which means you're fully in control of the aircraft as you do it as you hit that mountain
[00:09:37] Because you are so fixated on something else
[00:09:40] You know it's not like hey, I'm tumbling out of the sky. I'm trying to save this airplane
[00:09:43] I hit the ground it's like hey I'm flying perfectly
[00:09:47] Normal flying I might be I'm focused I'm fixated or focusing on something that's a problem
[00:09:51] But I'm going to fully control the level flight into the ground into the mountain that is totally avoidable
[00:09:55] Had it not been for that fixation. It's common
[00:09:58] It's as far as miss abskow it's not uncommon. It's not uncommon
[00:10:02] Well the the first time I remember hearing that was when Kobe Bryant's helicopter crashed and I think that was because they couldn't see
[00:10:10] Right they they couldn't see but there was nothing wrong with helicopter all they were just supplying and he
[00:10:15] Obviously, they I think they were in a fog and so got disoriented and just flew just full speed no factor into the into the mountain yeah and like the worst versions of that is
[00:10:27] They're all terrible is
[00:10:29] I'm I'm I'm in a dive like I'm in a deep 45 degree dive. I'm diving down towards the target
[00:10:34] Which is what you're supposed to do you're going to get it to it out to it and you're going to dive down towards the target to help
[00:10:38] Refine we're going to drop the bomb and I'm going to focus on the display that make sure that my
[00:10:42] Targeting my reticle the aiming point is exactly where I want it. I'll just keep it adjusting that targeting point to be exactly where I want it
[00:10:50] And I'll go through my minimum altitudes and I will fly straight into the ground all the while just
[00:10:55] Focusing on that targeting point and I'll never try to pull up. I'll never try to recover
[00:11:00] I'll ignore warnings that say your altitudes getting low and
[00:11:03] Pile to fly directly into the ground working on something else in a perfectly safe effective finding. Yeah, no problems at all
[00:11:09] That is literally the exact same thing. It happens to guys skydiving well
[00:11:12] It's a little bit different because of where the guy's skydiving there trying to fix a problem
[00:11:15] Usually I'm supposed to throw some cases. You know, this is why
[00:11:19] But again, refer to back to the most girls talking about the the leadership loop and yeah
[00:11:24] The main bullet at the bottom both for the who to loop and the leadership loop is you can't get stuck
[00:11:29] You can't get stuck focused on one thing and
[00:11:32] And when you do get focused on one thing
[00:11:37] There's just there's just there's the rest of the world doesn't stop
[00:11:42] Right whenever you're focusing one thing in life the rest of the world doesn't stop
[00:11:46] The rest of the world's gonna keep going if you don't look around it's gonna be a problem
[00:11:50] And that's what this number is number six an obstinate persistence in a given task
[00:11:55] Despite strong contrary evidence that was number six number seven of failure to exploit a
[00:12:01] Situation gained an attendancy to quote poll punches
[00:12:06] Rather than push home an attack
[00:12:10] Number eight of failure to make adequate reconnaissance
[00:12:14] Number nine a predilection for frontal assaults often against the enemies strongest point
[00:12:23] And again
[00:12:25] Even what's again at the master
[00:12:27] I'm
[00:12:29] Trying to explain to people because you know there's people that want that they would they just want to hear you say look
[00:12:35] So someone's called some problems. You just gotta go direct it. That's what everybody wants to hear and it makes
[00:12:40] So much intuitive sense to think you know what I don't like Dave's plan. I just need to go tell him Dave. I don't like your plan
[00:12:48] And it's just
[00:12:50] So obvious that when I say Dave
[00:12:52] I don't like your plan immediately Dave is defensive you by the way once you get defensive
[00:12:57] You're not listening to anything else. I say and now we're not making a new progress
[00:13:00] So even though it seems like it's the most efficient thing to do it's not
[00:13:03] The most efficient thing to do is say hey Dave. I'm looking at your plan
[00:13:07] Can you expand on a couple of these points because I don't think I understand them and now his defenses are down
[00:13:12] We're having a real conversation my mind is actually open. It's not just a little
[00:13:17] Fugazi it's real
[00:13:19] And we're having a real conversation we can make progress
[00:13:21] But the
[00:13:22] Predelection for the frontal assault both on the battlefield and in a conversation with another human being is bad and it leads to failure
[00:13:31] Number 10 a belief in brute force rather than the clever roost
[00:13:38] So there you go the jujitsu people just cheered
[00:13:43] A failure to make use of surprise or deception
[00:13:47] Judging people just cheered again. This is the kind of thing when I say that jiu jitsu affected my brain
[00:13:57] These are the kind of things those three right there frontal assaults bad that's jujitsu
[00:14:05] Believing clever roost instead of brute force that's jujitsu make use of surprise and deception
[00:14:11] That's jujitsu
[00:14:13] I had a buddy I start he trained you to do i train jitsu but he was very he was sort of
[00:14:21] Not training a lot and this was early 90s he trained you know some you know
[00:14:26] And I
[00:14:28] Was like in my first month of training jiu jitsu all the time with Fabio Santos
[00:14:34] And one day this is my buddy Jim I said I
[00:14:38] Told him I came back after like a month of training. I said hey man here's the deal
[00:14:42] I just I just learned this you can't do one move a one move by itself doesn't work because it's too easy
[00:14:49] Defend you got to set people up that's what this whole thing is it's like a trick it's a big trick
[00:14:55] And about three days later he and I were rolling
[00:15:00] And he freaking was syncing in a choke syncing in a choke
[00:15:04] Syncing in a choke and I was like do this guy's not gonna be able to choke me. I know exactly boom you're on lock me
[00:15:10] Hahaha
[00:15:14] And I was like whole I any he he won hundred percent he got it he was like dude
[00:15:20] That's what you just told me and I was like oh my god
[00:15:24] so
[00:15:26] And he you know
[00:15:27] At he
[00:15:29] Got me because of that thing right there
[00:15:32] He listened to me and this guy ended up uh we ended up working together a lot and actually
[00:15:38] Just an awesome guy but anyways
[00:15:42] He used that thing
[00:15:44] He said it up
[00:15:45] That little that little surprise number one. It was a surprise number two. It was a roost and number three. It wasn't brute force. It was technique
[00:15:56] number 12
[00:15:58] An undo readiness to find scape goats for military setbacks. Oh, this is to use Jason Gardner's
[00:16:08] term blame thrower these people get out the blame thrower
[00:16:13] And the opposite of extreme ownership right I'm just gonna find who I'm gonna blame
[00:16:19] A suppression number 13 a suppression or distortion of news from the front usually rationalized as necessary
[00:16:28] For morale or security. Oh, you know what that is a really nice way of saying
[00:16:34] A suppression or distortion of news from the front usually rationalized as necessary from morale or security
[00:16:40] What we're saying here is lying to the troops
[00:16:44] Lining to the troops
[00:16:49] And then number 14 this one's a little strange a belief in mystical forces
[00:16:55] Fate bad luck etc
[00:16:59] So there's your there's your list of 14 things that military incompetence involves
[00:17:08] That's from all those historical features those are sort of the common themes here
[00:17:13] Fast forward a little bit on logical if not humanitarian grounds that maintenance of an efficient force should be the first
[00:17:19] Consideration of a military commander other qualities of general ship will avail him nothing if he has no one left to do the fighting so he's focusing on that first one saying
[00:17:28] You should keep people alive
[00:17:31] And this is something that you know sometimes people ask us
[00:17:36] Well, you got the mission and you got the man which one's more important and
[00:17:40] It's very easy for me to answer that question
[00:17:42] The people come first because if you don't have people you can't do any more missions
[00:17:46] So
[00:17:49] Yes, the mission is absolutely a top priority
[00:17:54] But it's not the top priority you got to take care of your people
[00:17:57] Continuing on here excessive loss of life and high casualty figures would therefore seem like a likely indicator of military incompetence
[00:18:04] Noon cases of what seemed to be purely administrative incompetence as for example in what John Laffin has described as the imbacill
[00:18:18] Waltern expedition of 1809 though the purpose of this expedition was to attack Antwerp the troops were in fact
[00:18:26] Captain waiting for eight weeks on unhealthy
[00:18:29] Watcher in island in Zeeland in the event and owing to the procrastination of the military commander
[00:18:38] Lord Chatham and the naval commander serritchered straight in
[00:18:44] 7,000 men died
[00:18:46] 14,000 had their health permanently ruined and thousands more became ill mostly from malaria
[00:18:54] Only 217 were killed in action
[00:18:56] So I just the occasion catch that 7,000 died from disease and
[00:19:04] And
[00:19:07] Just a disaster from an administrative perspective but only 217 were killed in action
[00:19:14] While the while men were while dying men were given no attention and little to eat as Laffin remarks sick men were expendable
[00:19:21] Fast forward a little bit the second class of man power wastage is that involving casualties from
[00:19:31] Enemy action as a result of the incompetent planning of senior military commanders the men who perished in the attack on for Ruyah in the
[00:19:39] Indian mute mute me the thousands of casualties from the German's use of gas in 1915 the 13,000
[00:19:45] Winning to captivity following the siege of cut and the 138,000 casualties of Singapore the 8,500 Americans who died in the
[00:19:52] Arden's offensive
[00:19:54] 1944 and the 17,000 British American impolish who were killed wounded or reported missing at RM RM
[00:20:01] Fall into this category
[00:20:03] So he's got these I should have broken this out earlier
[00:20:06] He's going through the
[00:20:08] The three different types or the different types of how you waste
[00:20:11] People's lives the first one is just administrative
[00:20:16] The second one is bad planning and in the third one is the third and most
[00:20:22] Cossely type of man power wastage is that resulting from a deliberate policy of attrition adopted by
[00:20:29] Commanders who regarded soldiers as wholly expendable
[00:20:32] Generals for whom the conservation of human life rank lower than in importance than in various other criteria which were governing their actions
[00:20:43] This is when your plan is oh a lot of people are gonna die
[00:20:53] Fast for a little basis in all this we are anticipating a theory of military incompetence rather different from that held by
[00:20:58] Proponents of the so called bloody fool theory
[00:21:03] Perhaps we are being too complicated perhaps intellectual deficit could explain the data less than before
[00:21:08] Considering the other factors contributing to military incompetence first examine this older and more favored hypothesis and so what are you saying here?
[00:21:16] There's a lot of people that just say oh they people make mistakes and they make mistakes because they're dumb
[00:21:20] They're just dumb
[00:21:22] dumb military leaders and that's why they make these mistakes
[00:21:25] they're just stupid and
[00:21:27] Well, he's gonna talk about the fact that yeah, you can account for some of that
[00:21:32] but a
[00:21:34] Lot of times you have very intelligent
[00:21:37] Leaders making really stupid decisions and obviously his high-profile offices. That's because of their psychological nature
[00:21:48] So here we go in the chapter 14 the intellectual ability of senior military commanders
[00:21:52] T.E. Lawrence Lawrence of Arabia said I feel a fundamental crippling
[00:22:00] In curious and curiousness about our officers too much body and too little head
[00:22:06] So obviously he's a military guy and he was very very smart
[00:22:10] But he's just saying look I see a lot of people in our ain't too bright too much body too little head
[00:22:16] What grounds are there then for the most popular explanation of military incompetence stupidity
[00:22:21] There's there's a suggestion that the arms force armed forces do not attract the best brains
[00:22:26] A call-up serving the survey in the United States put the status of army officers below that of professors
[00:22:31] Physicians clergymen and school teachers
[00:22:36] As Morris Genowitz remarks a liberal ideology hold that since war is essentially destructive the best minds are attracted to more positive endeavors
[00:22:46] Um, that's like one of those statements you got well, you know if you're making that statement
[00:22:53] You would if you're a really smart person. Are you thinking hey what do I want to do to I want to go out and
[00:22:59] Build the the next great energy platform?
[00:23:03] Oh, do I want to go out and kill a bunch of people you think oh well
[00:23:07] Maybe the people have a little bit smarter are gonna lean towards building the next great energy platform
[00:23:12] That's the that's the statement anyways
[00:23:14] Yeah
[00:23:15] What was the thing with like the bottom the atomic bomb like the technology was like
[00:23:21] Made for something or the or the idea was like the technology was made for something
[00:23:26] But then you got another group of people were like, oh, that's cool technology. Let's use it for this automatically
[00:23:31] You know like for bad stuff. That's all what we always think right a lot of the time where it's like oh, that's good technology
[00:23:37] Yeah, who's gonna weapon like someone's gonna weaponize it in it's like that's the fear like you put you and me in a room
[00:23:42] And they're like hey, we've we've created this thing that can create a massive amount of energy and you're thinking cool
[00:23:49] We can power the world and I'm thinking cool we can blow up our enemies
[00:23:55] Yeah, that could be somebody's got to think that way. Yeah
[00:24:02] It says here in training for general strip it seems that intellectual ability has not always counted for very much even
[00:24:07] Hague the educated soldier became commander and chief of the British army in the first world war despite a poor academic record
[00:24:14] This dowerland scott this dower lowland scott described by duff Cooper as the dunce of the family and by Lord George as utterly stupid
[00:24:23] So so you are getting some dumb people here
[00:24:28] Fast forward a little certainly a brilliant performance in military schools is no guarantee of subsequent ability
[00:24:33] General colleague who's the session of defeats culminated in 1881 in his own demise at Mujaba Hill
[00:24:40] Had the distinction of passing out of snath college with the highest marks on record
[00:24:46] The irrelevance of early scholarship to subsequent general ship also find support in Napoleon and Wellington both of whom achieved very low grades at school
[00:24:54] And in more recent times the early academic brilliance of lieutenant general
[00:24:58] Perseval evidently availed him little at Singapore so he's given all these other examples right you got Perseval who led that total disaster in Singapore
[00:25:07] Who was
[00:25:09] Academically brilliant
[00:25:11] Napoleon and Wellington who were great generals who were junk at school and another guy
[00:25:16] General colleague who is a disaster on the battlefield and yet had the highest marks on record
[00:25:22] So the statement is like hey
[00:25:26] You could be really smart and do well you could be really smart and do horrible you could be moderately smart and do well
[00:25:32] You could be moderately smart do horrible so I think the statement here is like well
[00:25:38] It's not intellect is only part of it right intellect is only part of it
[00:25:46] What about fighter pilots?
[00:25:49] I mean look so in the seal teams for a while they were recruiting these really really smart
[00:25:53] Ivy league you know Harvard Yale there's all this whole crew of officers that were coming in
[00:25:59] They were clearly highly intellectual smart people and
[00:26:04] They stopped recruiting those people so heavily and the reason they stopped recruiting those people so heavily was two reasons
[00:26:10] So one was they would do their
[00:26:12] One-platoon or two-platoon to get out and go to business school or whatever and two was they weren't that good
[00:26:17] Yeah
[00:26:19] There there was no there was no correlation
[00:26:21] To someone that was really smart to someone that was a really good leader in the battlefield
[00:26:25] Yeah, I think it's the same I really do I don't think I don't think the personality profile
[00:26:31] You know or even just the motivational profile of
[00:26:36] A lot of people in the military is all that different certainly when I think about seals and pilots and as often as you and I kind of contrast those two types of people
[00:26:43] There's a ton of similarity there and you know the different services and aviation have different
[00:26:48] sets of requirements and you know I think
[00:26:50] The Marine Corps has the the lowest I guess standard of academic excellence in terms like what you studied in how well you did
[00:26:59] I mean the old joke in the Marine Corps was you know if you got a 2.0 and underwater basket
[00:27:03] We even you could be a pilot you know as the joke and you know what they were saying really was hey
[00:27:09] You know we don't really care what you studied now you got to have a college degree and I think that does demonstrate some
[00:27:15] willingness and ability and I'm not sure which is more important to get through a a long-term
[00:27:21] Project hey I'm gonna dedicate four years of getting this degree that demonstrates hey you've got some planning
[00:27:26] You got some interest you've got some intellect something that's gonna reveal that you're you are have something that's gonna be hard to do
[00:27:33] You're gonna be willing to do that and you're getting a four point. Oh, you know in you know
[00:27:37] Air aerodynamics versus a 2.0 in polysai we don't really care you know that was kind of the Marine Corps's
[00:27:45] Genre General approach a little bit different for the other services
[00:27:47] But I was kind of laughing and trying to
[00:27:50] Thinking about this thing from a larger standpoint of these great military leaders that
[00:27:55] Maybe didn't have the best records academically
[00:27:58] In the two thoughts that I had is
[00:28:01] The academics and the military aren't that hard
[00:28:03] You know me like you don't need to be a genius to get perfect scores on your tests
[00:28:11] And I think the ones that don't do that well academically that are that still really do well
[00:28:16] There's probably a piece in there they're thinking like
[00:28:19] This is dumb. There's a waste of my time. What's the what's the minimum grade requirement?
[00:28:23] Yeah, cool. I'm gonna get that and there that actually reveals some level of intelligence
[00:28:27] I'm not gonna waste my time and all this stuff that I don't really want to be doing
[00:28:31] But I'm not gonna fail either so for for you to sort of explain
[00:28:36] There's some really good leaders that didn't do so hot and then there's some guys that just were absolutely brilliant on paper that were terrible
[00:28:42] That is not a stretch for me and all to picture that in aviation or anywhere
[00:28:46] You know, it's like I think I know who those guys are
[00:28:49] Yeah, and really
[00:28:51] Anything anything there's no there I'm trying to think of a job
[00:28:56] Where the full
[00:28:58] Where where the the primary thing is only intelligence only intelligence
[00:29:04] I'm sure there's some laboratory somewhere or some computer programming thing where
[00:29:11] Basically the smartest person is the person that we want that job
[00:29:15] But as soon as that person is in charge of people anyone else or in soon as there's some level of creativity or problem solving because there's
[00:29:23] You just you what you want is a person that's composite has a bunch of different skills. I mean you would think for being a pilot
[00:29:32] Uh
[00:29:33] There's gotta be you know that that like the spatial like when I took the officer candid
[00:29:38] Test and you've got to do the spatial recognition where how far away is this or is this aircraft or is this bird coming to you or going away from you?
[00:29:45] Gotta tell from looking at it
[00:29:47] Hey, obviously
[00:29:49] Someone could be really really smart and suck at that test right not to mention eyesight not to mention
[00:29:56] Reaction time like all those different things and then same thing with leadership
[00:30:00] You can have someone that's super articulate that's there's there's really articulate people that aren't really that smart
[00:30:07] I mean I served with some people like that
[00:30:10] They're really articulate they can put a word together. What did people call them when you you know
[00:30:15] That's a skill set that like a salesperson. There's really good salespeople. They're not the smartest people normal
[00:30:19] But they're incredible at their incredible conversational us. Yeah, right?
[00:30:23] But you wouldn't want to put them into a situation where they've got to stand up and talk from people if they don't have that skill
[00:30:28] So just because someone is smart that's only like one quarter of the of the of the of the math we got to do here totally and when you're thinking about it from a leadership standpoint
[00:30:38] and
[00:30:40] The recognition that that leadership requires a whole bunch of different things not just being
[00:30:46] You know smart and taking a test or being good at communicating it's the recognition that it requires so many different things
[00:30:53] None of these these profiles that he just revealed are a big shock to me
[00:30:57] I'm like yep yep. Yep. Those all make sense seals pilots ever in between and yeah
[00:31:03] In aviation is there are a couple things that might incline you down that path like if you can naturally get a sense
[00:31:07] If they show you a diagram of an airplane descending turning and and slow and then you have to match it up
[00:31:12] That some people's brains maybe. I can't I can't see that as well as somebody else. Yeah, I could see that and that's gonna account for a small part of it. It might be good to know
[00:31:21] But that by itself is it's gonna
[00:31:26] It's gonna have almost no influence in the long-term success of this person in his career in the military that I could identify
[00:31:32] Relatively early on of what the spatial orientation of an airplane was in relation to the ground. Do you want that?
[00:31:38] Yeah, that's a good idea. I don't want someone who gets confused
[00:31:40] But you don't want someone that's totally lost right. I mean even on that test you all you have to do is pass it right
[00:31:45] No, that's how you have to and then you know if you and I were in the same thing and I was a little bit worse
[00:31:49] I would study it more right figured out more or I'd just after
[00:31:52] Whatever two months of looking at this stuff. We're the same. Yes because I figured out how to figure it out. Yeah
[00:31:58] That's right. Check
[00:32:03] Fast forward a little bit. Fortunately, there are some who have seen the threat to originality and intelligent thinking
[00:32:11] The Duke of Edinburgh
[00:32:13] felt it necessary to say finally as you grow older try not to be afraid of new ideas new original ideas
[00:32:20] Can be bad as well as good but whereas an intelligent man with an open mind can demolish a bad idea
[00:32:27] by reasoned argument
[00:32:30] Those who allow their brains to
[00:32:32] Attrophy report resort to meaningless catchphrases to
[00:32:37] Duration and finally to anger in the face of anything new
[00:32:41] This is you know this is Prince Philip
[00:32:44] Duke of Edinburgh recently died
[00:32:46] I don't know if you saw this funeral, but if you have any
[00:32:50] Any
[00:32:52] Warm place in your heart for the brits which I certainly do
[00:32:54] They is his hurts was a land rover a military land rover that he had had some hand in design he was some sort of
[00:33:04] Special transport and that's what they that's what they care of his body and
[00:33:09] But here he is this is a this is just an incredible
[00:33:13] Thing to think about
[00:33:15] And it's an incredible thing to be on watch for you know
[00:33:18] I said at the monster I said aim this book at yourself and then I said aim these things to yourself
[00:33:23] When you hear stuff like this when I hear stuff like this I aim it at myself
[00:33:29] Don't be afraid of new ideas and this is what an intelligent man
[00:33:34] With an open mind can demolish a bad idea by reasoned argument and
[00:33:39] And what I like about that is I
[00:33:41] Always say to myself it Dave if you come to me with a plan or you come to me with an idea and I can't
[00:33:47] Convent you that your plan isn't good or that there's a hole in it there's a problem
[00:33:50] Then there's something going on here maybe it's my ego maybe it's my emotions maybe I just don't like you
[00:33:56] But if I can't explain to you
[00:33:59] Why your plan isn't good and the only thing I can find is you know what we're doing it my way
[00:34:04] The only way I can overcome you is by you know
[00:34:07] It well a catch phrase or to be like we've we always done it this way or
[00:34:11] We need to stick with the plan right those are just catch phrases and that's what I'm gonna say or I just say
[00:34:17] We know Dave's always got his own freaking Dave's always on his own freaking program like I can I can ridicule you or I can just get mad
[00:34:25] That's what we sit yeah that third level too
[00:34:28] I forgot what the middle one was when he talked about the meeting that's catch phrase and then the third one like resorting to anger
[00:34:32] Yeah, you know it's basically just degrees of your ego of just being out of control
[00:34:35] Yes, the first one's like I'm just gonna be dismissive of you by a catch phrase of
[00:34:39] Jocco talks to me about an idea and I say something like you know
[00:34:43] You know
[00:34:44] Here comes the new guy with a bread idea
[00:34:46] You know like to just kind of push you off and then if you persist and we kind of get to the second level
[00:34:51] And I've got some other responsive isn't working the end all about left as I get mad at you
[00:34:57] And if I out rank you like the military this whole military experiment then I automatically win
[00:35:03] I automatically win because I'll just shut you up because I'm now mad and I'm just gonna resort to what I got as hey
[00:35:09] Why don't you just go back to your desk and let me let me let me let me let me
[00:35:13] Lead for a little while here since I'm in charge. Yeah, and then you just kind of walk away and that's the end of it
[00:35:16] What you want to do is you want to be the Jeff Glover of ideas
[00:35:19] So Jeff Glover will go out on the map with you and you you will let you put him in any position
[00:35:24] Because he doesn't care he knows you just do and he can get out of it and if he doesn't get out of it
[00:35:28] He so if you tap him out and he's like oh, yeah, that was good way to finish because because you know
[00:35:33] You started with the rear naked choke and you were able to finish it. Jocco good job, you know like
[00:35:38] He doesn't care he's he's he goes not involved at all
[00:35:41] And he doesn't care and most of the time by the way he gets out because he knows the truth
[00:35:47] So that's why I try and be when someone confronts me with an idea. I'm stoked
[00:35:51] Oh, you you've seen you got me off balance awesome either I can recover myself because I have good information or a better
[00:35:56] Perspective and we can discuss it logically and I can say oh, yeah, and I can point it out to you or you caught me off balance because I'm wrong
[00:36:03] And I had a hole in my game and it didn't make any sense
[00:36:07] So I'm actually happy about that
[00:36:09] Open your mind
[00:36:14] Fastwater let this inbreeding of the uneducated however was resisted by by the later massy committee who
[00:36:21] Depressed by what they found considered that
[00:36:24] one the general education of cadets should be continued
[00:36:28] To few young officers showed any capacity for command
[00:36:32] This was an assessment of what that they were doing three there was too much drill too much rigid discipline and too much cramming for marks
[00:36:42] Number four the instructors or mediocre and selected for prowess at games and smartness
[00:36:49] Rather than for their knowledge of the subject they had to teach or their qualifications as teachers
[00:36:55] Much the same again. This was an assessment started as skipped it, but this was an assessment that got done of how they were training the
[00:37:04] Military the army officers and then it says much the same picture has been painted of
[00:37:09] Britannia four under of the Royal Naval College of Dartmouth Dartmouth again the emphasis was on blind obedience
[00:37:17] Sport and ceremonial with scant regard to intellectual pursuits and little pride in knowing one's job
[00:37:24] You know it's funny as soon as you say something like there's too much drill as soon as you say
[00:37:32] You know if you're maybe you're thinking hey man
[00:37:35] We're spending a lot of time just doing this like stupid drill stuff
[00:37:38] There's someone that's like oh you understand the diss what the people and that's what this whole actually that's what this whole book is about
[00:37:45] This whole book is about the people that when you threaten the the the norm and you threaten the hierarchy
[00:37:52] You threaten the things that provide them with their security
[00:37:55] Which is rigid discipline when you threaten those things they get mad and they attack yeah, they get mad
[00:38:01] that
[00:38:02] You started this whole part and you used a word and I think you pulled it from the book twice and then I think you said it once and I wrote it down
[00:38:09] It was all this is a feature of the system like all this is a feature and he I think he was using it initially in this part of
[00:38:17] And if I'm just trying to paraphrase more what you said was hey
[00:38:23] Listen, you know the bell curve is kind of exists everywhere
[00:38:25] But there is something a little unique about those that sort of make it to this level of
[00:38:30] Senior leadership we're talking about generals and animals or you know lowerage or whatever
[00:38:33] But there's something a little different about the ones that make it up to that level and
[00:38:38] How it isn't quite just the same bell curve of everybody else where you got some smart people some you know middle-the-road folks
[00:38:43] Maybe some other folks and what I've been trying to
[00:38:47] Think in my mind about what that is is is kind of what you described is what's unique about those people those people
[00:38:53] Have figured out how to navigate the system this thing that we're all living in because when you join the military
[00:38:59] I don't count smart you are dumb you I don't care who or what you are what rank what service or where you came from at the beginning
[00:39:05] You're just trying to figure out how the system works and if you figure out go oh
[00:39:10] This class that I'm in that job was in charge of
[00:39:14] At the end I get my choice of assignment strictly based on my GPA. Oh
[00:39:20] Okay, get you know guess what a lot of folks you're gonna do that figure that out
[00:39:23] I'm gonna get mom's gonna worry about the great oh
[00:39:26] Jocos got this thing for drill. It's this thing cool and so when you say hey we're gonna go drill
[00:39:31] Bill yeah
[00:39:32] Let's go do some more drill or hey Dave you got some free time. What do you want to do? I I think hey boss
[00:39:37] You know what we should do we should go drill and all of a sudden I kind of start maneuvering my way through the system to appeal to what I know is what you want
[00:39:44] And I kind of wrote down some of the words of of things that are appealing brute force is appealing
[00:39:50] It's a peel and sounds cool. You know what doesn't sound cool deception
[00:39:55] Like I'm gonna I'm gonna take it indirect approach that that doesn't sound cool
[00:40:00] Um caring about people doesn't sound cool being nice doesn't sound cool being an intellectual for the military
[00:40:07] No that you know blowing things up sounds cool
[00:40:09] Being an intellectual doesn and if I can figure out early on
[00:40:12] What is it gonna appeal to you whoever my bosses are that school is or the intent is or the system and that's a
[00:40:19] Request of this is about the bellkers different of the top because they figured out how to navigate the system
[00:40:25] What the system wants and what the system wants is whoever's in charge that thing that appeals to them
[00:40:29] Which is things like
[00:40:32] What would you rather have someone who?
[00:40:36] a pragmatic thinker who's willing to to
[00:40:39] Give up on its plan and go in a different direction or someone who never gives up
[00:40:43] You know like how many times is we talk are we to talk about the direct approach and
[00:40:49] Not forget the idea that that that sounds appealing
[00:40:53] It sounds right. I'm just gonna come at him and tell him the truth as to those
[00:40:58] I I'm gonna play the long game. I'm gonna thanks strategically
[00:41:01] I'm gonna keep my ego in check. I'm gonna consider that I might be wrong and I'm gonna
[00:41:05] Moose slowly in this direction until we come to a the logical conclusion or I'm just gonna attack this target and run it over
[00:41:11] And the ones that figure out the system and have a navigate that it makes sense
[00:41:16] That at the top
[00:41:18] They actually use a different bell curve of people than those of us at the beginning who actually some of us
[00:41:24] Don't figure out how to navigate that system. Yeah. Yeah, and well
[00:41:26] I don't know if I necessarily fully agree with you
[00:41:31] because
[00:41:33] I think that the system
[00:41:35] the system but you're gonna agree with me. I said this anyways, but look at that that system
[00:41:40] There's people that that learn how to figure out the system
[00:41:44] Because they lack the ability to actually transit through the system on their own merit right?
[00:41:48] So that's one group of people. There's another group of people that
[00:41:52] Travel transit through the system and promote through the system because they're good and as we mentioned at the beginning
[00:41:58] This you and I both worked for incredible officers at all levels
[00:42:02] Incredible senior enlisted at all levels and some of those
[00:42:06] The people that were awesome. They made it through the system the system worked
[00:42:11] They didn't have to they didn't have to play a game. They have to manipulate
[00:42:14] They did what they knew they should do and they went up through the system and they were great
[00:42:19] But there's another group of people that's a group of people you're talking about that
[00:42:23] They don't have the capability but they figure out you know at Adam McGuire
[00:42:28] We were talking one day and he said
[00:42:32] He said you know if we I think he had gone over to see some
[00:42:35] The seals secure or the bud students secure from hell week and he came back. I didn't go with him for whatever reason he came back. He says
[00:42:42] You know
[00:42:44] If Ellie how do we want proves one thing like you're you're you're pretty tough
[00:42:50] You know because he sees these guys after six days of freaking you know being awake and doing physical stuff
[00:42:55] You guys you have proofs one thing you're pretty tough and I actually said back to him
[00:42:58] I said you know there's a group of people that also
[00:43:02] Go go through hell week and make it through how weak and what it proves is that they figured out how to how to get through
[00:43:07] Because there's things you can do in hell week and
[00:43:10] And it's it's actually a little different now when I went through hell week
[00:43:15] You you just if you didn't carry the head if you didn't put your head under the freaking boat
[00:43:19] I know this doesn't sound like that big of a deal
[00:43:21] But you carry these freaking boats on your head for a week straight and guys permanently lose
[00:43:26] Some guys not all guys some guys permanently lose their hair on the top of their head
[00:43:31] Because it gets so that freaking boat is just grinding on it and
[00:43:36] And it's it hurts hurt your neck hurt your head you have freaking scabs on the top of your head
[00:43:41] Whatever
[00:43:42] But there's some guys that figure out how to now you can't just take your head off the boat
[00:43:48] But you also you know maybe you don't quite
[00:43:52] Put as much into it
[00:43:54] There's guys that figure out
[00:43:56] You know when you're carrying the boat at a low ready, which is just carrying it your side
[00:43:59] Which again doesn't seem like a big deal until they fill it with sand and water and also it's you know half your back and
[00:44:05] So so you can kind of slack off a little bit and so there's guys that figure out
[00:44:12] Where to come in on a run where they're gonna get the least amount of attention?
[00:44:15] They figure out where to be in the chow haul line where no one's gonna pay any attention to them
[00:44:19] They they they figure out how to get through and and I would say how weak is probably a pretty small amount of those people
[00:44:26] But
[00:44:27] You certainly would see a couple guys and you'd go man. How does he look fresh right now?
[00:44:33] Well rest is so I'm gonna as you look oh that guy's fresh because he's a badass
[00:44:37] So I'm gonna as you'd be thinking how's that dude look fresh right now? What just happened?
[00:44:42] So yeah in any system there's gonna be a way to
[00:44:47] Manoeuvre and manipulate through the system where if you don't have the chops to actually get it done
[00:44:52] You can still get there and yeah, obviously I do agree with that and I think that's why there is a
[00:44:59] little bit more of a contrast at the top
[00:45:01] Then there might be elsewhere
[00:45:03] When you're looking at the types the different types of people and the contrast to his point
[00:45:08] Usually doesn't reveal itself until you get to this and he illustrates all these catastrophic things and you're looking back and thinking how could someone be in that position?
[00:45:17] Do the things that they're doing and that's really I think what you're describing is
[00:45:22] There's two different types of people that can get to that place now the ones that are doing it like you said on their merits
[00:45:28] They still have to be doing a good job you can't not not having maneuver in the system and be terrible at what you're doing
[00:45:34] But you can find your way to kind of maneuver up that ladder maneuver inside of that system and
[00:45:42] Be in that category of people that sometimes will go oh well he's he's a general he must be awesome
[00:45:48] This is how this person got there, but you you won't see that
[00:45:52] It won't be revealed as to what this person is until it's in he's in one of those situations and I think that contrast that he's a looting to is like it's a little bit different there
[00:46:01] Is more stark because at the at the very beginning
[00:46:05] None of us have figured either of those things out yet. We're still figuring out hey, what do we need to do and how does the system work and the I
[00:46:13] You should blend the two I want to work inside the system. I want to buck against the system and be so resistant to the system that the system gets rid of me
[00:46:20] Yo, I was about to say what about those
[00:46:22] Leaders that are incredible leaders that are dynamic that have these great personalities. They have good tactical science
[00:46:27] But they can't play the game at all. I can't play the game at all right, and now they'd never get promoted
[00:46:31] And they have no influence. That's right. I'm gonna tell me hackworth didn't play the hackworth played the freaking game for a long time
[00:46:37] Played the game like
[00:46:38] Massively
[00:46:39] Massively and he loved it. He wasn't even playing the game. He was in the game. He was the he was the freaking player
[00:46:45] And he's an example of a guy that he played the system. He got those jobs
[00:46:50] He did those things, but he also was highly skilled as a leader. Yes, and there's plenty of people that would have done
[00:46:57] And there's plenty of people that did the exact same thing as hackworth
[00:47:02] Minus the leadership capability. There was a hard job. What would you call hard fill billet right? Yeah in the sealed things
[00:47:07] We had the same thing you got a hard fill billet somewhere after you do your hard fill billet
[00:47:11] They literally will give you any job you want. Well cool
[00:47:14] Hey
[00:47:15] I'm not gonna promote it on that, but I'm just gonna jump on that hard fill billet
[00:47:18] Get done with that. They send you overseas on the company for two years
[00:47:22] Boom and you come back now. There's some guys that do that
[00:47:26] Because they're freaking good team players. They're you know what? I don't want someone else to have to do this
[00:47:30] You know what my my kids just left for college
[00:47:32] I'm gonna be I don't have anything to worry about for two years boom
[00:47:36] I'm gonna go take this hard fill billet take one for the team. There's some people that do it for that reason totally
[00:47:41] There's some people do it because they're going I can get promoted next after this so let's check in the box and that piece when you talk about the leadership
[00:47:48] All I'm thinking is he actually cares about the people. Yeah, he actually cares about the people around him
[00:47:53] And so that maneuver to gain the influence is
[00:47:59] Is by design to be able to help people yeah because you know there's peace
[00:48:03] There's features in the system. He's got to protect them from yes. It's it's all about the intent. Yes, and although
[00:48:11] You can smell intent the system has a much harder time smelling intent
[00:48:15] A system has a much harder time smelling intent look they look at Dave Burke and they look at Jaco and they both went overseas
[00:48:22] Took a hard fill billet
[00:48:24] Jaco was doing it because he wanted to get promoted Dave was doing it because he had
[00:48:28] You know his kids had just left for for a college and so he felt like it was a good time
[00:48:32] And he could take the strain off of someone else that might as calf kids so at all
[00:48:36] Yeah, but what did they see on the paper? They don't see any of that. They can't see that intent
[00:48:39] They can't see it. They've they knew us they could smell it. Yeah, but they don't get close enough on the promotion board
[00:48:45] Some people around you know
[00:48:49] Fast forward a little bit general Robert E. Lee admitted that the greatest mistake of my life was taking a military education
[00:48:57] And general still well said it is common knowledge that an army officer has a one track mind that he is personally interested in stirring up wars
[00:49:05] So that he can get a promotion and be decorated and that he has an extraordinarily limited education with no appreciation of the finer things in life
[00:49:12] That's a heavy statement again. Are there some guys like that? Absolutely. That's not the majority for sure
[00:49:19] Fast forward a little bit more the saddest feature of anti intellectualism is that it often reflects an actual
[00:49:26] suppression of the intellectual activity rather than any lack of ability
[00:49:31] This is suggested by the rapidity with which so many military men rush into print as soon as they ever retired
[00:49:39] This talking about people right in books
[00:49:41] Evidently there was something waiting to get out
[00:49:47] Unfortunately as Lidel heart points out a lifetime of having to curb the expression of original thought
[00:49:53] culminates so often in there being nothing left to express
[00:49:57] So this is talking about I mean this guy is right in the spoken 1976
[00:50:01] So he's talking about guys world world world world world war two as soon as they get out of the military they write these books
[00:50:06] a guy like BHL heart
[00:50:08] He writes books because he had all this stuff pen up and he also got out early because he had so much stuff
[00:50:14] Pen out pen up inside of his head
[00:50:15] This guy's in a lot of times by the time they get out. There's no freaking creative thought left. There's no new ideas left
[00:50:22] Research on the relationship between mental activity and cerebral blood blood flow adds to point that the old belief that the brain like muscle
[00:50:31] Attrophies from prolonged disuse but perhaps this touches upon the real cause of military incompetence age
[00:50:39] Since traditionally promotion is dependent upon seniority commanders generals and above have tended to be old and since thinking
[00:50:48] Memory intelligence and special senses all deteriorate with age
[00:50:51] Then maybe bad generals are just old generals again. He's making an argument. Well, maybe these guys are just old. Maybe that's our problem
[00:50:58] Another contribution to the incompetence tied up with age was the unhelpful tendency to
[00:51:05] Sack
[00:51:06] Fortunately retire or otherwise curtail the promotion of those young officers who unwisely failed to conceal their their lights
[00:51:16] But-neath bushels of conformity
[00:51:19] So real quick on the getting old part this is something that I was I think I talked about it on on the academy
[00:51:28] I heard that interview with Cass Baroff the chess player and
[00:51:34] Interview or acts actually I think it was Lex Friedman Lex asked him maybe it was Lex I think Lex asked him
[00:51:41] Not in a direct way, but basically could you beat Magnus Carlson who's right now like this phenom and
[00:51:47] And Cass Baroff said no and of the part of the answer which is what I talked about on the academy was part of their reason is because
[00:51:58] Magnus has got to see everything that
[00:52:01] Cost bar off done and study him. It's like a jitter guys now. They're like you know you got to
[00:52:05] You took you seven years to figure out the 50 50 position
[00:52:10] I got to learn that in 20 minutes on YouTube, right?
[00:52:12] So I can start building off that immediately and that's the same thing with Cass Baroff is that is that Magnus Carlson has seen all of his moves
[00:52:19] And everyone else's moves and studied him in books
[00:52:21] So he's already building off of taller platform
[00:52:24] But also Cass Baroff said I think Cass Baroff was like 55 60 something like this
[00:52:28] Maybe let me know a little bit over he's like yeah, well, I'm older now
[00:52:31] Yeah, and that brain ain't working as good
[00:52:33] So that which really surprised me because I didn't understand that I thought hey you get older you get smarter and
[00:52:40] And once you reach a certain point now you're heading in the other direction
[00:52:44] So that's what he's bringing up and he said hey could that be his part of it?
[00:52:48] Um
[00:52:51] He says such was the case of major general JFC Fuller on December 13th, 1933
[00:52:57] Fuller one of the most intellectually gifted man ever to serve in the British army
[00:53:01] Was placed on the retired list this waste of talent resulted from the prejudice aroused by his fully borne out prophecies
[00:53:09] And the fact that he adhered to criticize those less gifted than him
[00:53:14] Now let's think about that we could be mad at the military for kicking him out
[00:53:18] But guess what he didn't do
[00:53:20] He didn't play the games also criticizing people is probably telling them that they're dumb. Yeah, yeah
[00:53:24] He didn't play the game properly. So if you would have played the game a little bit and
[00:53:28] Not been a prophet as be a slow-dell heart
[00:53:30] Said instead been a leader maybe he could have slowly got some senior officer to understand it make it his ID and all of a sudden
[00:53:36] His ideas are getting pushed forward by this in your audience said he gets put on the freaking retired list yeah
[00:53:42] And this this thing that you've you've mentioned the past pint isn't exactly a fit here
[00:53:47] But that idea of have you're so smart why aren't you winning?
[00:53:51] You know like well for a freaking great quote just yeah
[00:53:55] This is my tip of if you're smart as you think you are why can't you figure out?
[00:54:00] I'm a newver through this this
[00:54:01] Labyrinth of chaos. Yeah, you know which by the way if you're so smart how hard how hard could it be you haven't figured this out yet
[00:54:07] Right you haven't figured this out yet that
[00:54:10] Question which I originally asked myself when I was like an e4 in the sealed teams when I wasn't getting promoted and other guys were
[00:54:16] Was hey wait a second if you're so smart freaking their Rambo why aren't you getting per why aren't you winning?
[00:54:22] What's wrong with you? Yeah, you idiot, but that's one of my favorite questions to ask people
[00:54:27] Hey, because they'll be telling me this and this and this and this and this complaint this other complaint and how this is messed up and the other things messed up
[00:54:35] And it's like if you if you are so smart if you're so freaking smart why aren't you just maneuver through this system?
[00:54:40] Yeah, what's wrong with you
[00:54:44] And by the way
[00:54:47] Fuller like they were gonna bring him back in and they offered him something and other guys
[00:54:52] I mean, he's just like made it made it too hard on himself, man. Smard us what did this?
[00:54:58] What did you say? One of the most intellectually gifted men ever deserved in the British Army
[00:55:04] But he wasn't quite winning was he because he got freaking put on the retired list
[00:55:09] And look maybe there was some situation where they were asking him to do you know hey
[00:55:13] We don't want to see another people like but even if that happens what do you do you say okay?
[00:55:17] Go how can I refraise this how can I adjust my message what people can I make allies if you're so freaking smart then go win
[00:55:26] Fast 40 yet yet another way in which age determines in competence is through the voluntary resignation of intelligent young officers
[00:55:34] According to Janowicz a study of US Army lieutenant suggests that the brighter ones resigned as soon as they have completed their obliquity
[00:55:41] Obliquity service while those less well equipped remain
[00:55:47] That's again, is that all across the board? Absolutely not and there's freaking incredible officers that are smarter than any civilian out there
[00:55:54] That's staying the military and they do 20 30 40 years for sure
[00:55:59] And there's also guys that are going
[00:56:02] You know I got my paycheck coming in every two weeks kind of regard this of what I do
[00:56:07] Mama stick it out and there's a little joke in the military too that that at each love of you you move up. It's
[00:56:15] That there's some some truths to it which is hey you got promoted. Yeah, all the good guys got out
[00:56:19] Yeah, that's why I got promoted. Yeah, hey, hey Dave you made major. Yeah, all the best captains
[00:56:24] Let left so then we're going to enjoy so the joke about bad is you know some truth
[00:56:28] There's absolutely some truth of oh I'm glad these two guys bailed because I would have been competing with them
[00:56:33] And I don't know if I would have made the cut if they stuck around yeah, but they're left with me so I'm going to I'm going to get that promotion
[00:56:38] Yeah, there's absolutely some level of truth to that yeah someone that looks around the military
[00:56:44] You know one of the one of the things that made me
[00:56:48] One of the one of the things that had a little bit of an influence on my decision to retire was it's a communist
[00:56:56] Environment right it's a communist environment you
[00:56:59] You you're getting the same promotion rate. I mean what did you get advanced early a couple times?
[00:57:05] No, no really promotions to Marine Corps
[00:57:08] So that that that says that's there is right so it doesn't matter what you do
[00:57:13] So you were you were an F-18 pilot you were top gunners, are you all these things and how how much faster do you advance than did someone that was uh, you know
[00:57:21] Running whatever
[00:57:23] Freaking supplied in the middle of nowhere
[00:57:26] What how much early did you get advanced zero days zero days zero days?
[00:57:32] So I got
[00:57:34] Advanced early one time which is which was like I only know of one other person
[00:57:40] I don't know one person that got promoted early twice. There's probably more but one of the I know one of the person
[00:57:45] It got advanced early. He got advanced early twice and that's dealt it Charlie by the way
[00:57:50] Delta Charlie talk about play the game DC
[00:57:54] He was maneuver
[00:57:56] And awesome, but so so I'm looking around and look was either best guy. Absolutely not
[00:58:03] But I looked around some guys I said wait a second
[00:58:06] Of all the stuff I've done I've been going on back to back to deployments doing whatever I can do
[00:58:12] doing a good job
[00:58:14] In combat doing a good job
[00:58:16] Just doing just doing a good job right look I wasn't the best but I wasn't doing bad
[00:58:20] But then I had look at some other knucklehead
[00:58:22] That was actually doing bad who had a bad reputation, you know some knucklehead that you know wasn't even in the game
[00:58:30] And guess what these getting promoted? Oh, I got promoted one year ahead of that way and by the way
[00:58:34] I'll bunch of other great guys that I knew are getting promoted the same time at him. I was like man
[00:58:39] That is freaking not right
[00:58:41] It wasn't as much of a meritocracy as it should have been and that bummed me out
[00:58:45] It bummed me out because I was looking at probably another seven years before I would have been in charge of something again
[00:58:52] Which is a long time to be waiting to get in charge. We chuckle that out over there. I quit Charleston
[00:58:57] Every time you see that bummed me out first and reason that's always funny to me
[00:59:02] Yeah, yeah, it did though it bummed me out
[00:59:06] Sorry
[00:59:07] This thing's not bummed you out. They do but that expression is funny especially when you say
[00:59:12] Yeah
[00:59:13] Check
[00:59:15] It's a little bit of a communist system. It's a little bit of a socialist system where if you stay in and you check the boxes
[00:59:22] Whether you check those boxes with freaking
[00:59:25] Big giant checks or you check them with a little nickmark. It doesn't matter you check it you're good
[00:59:35] Notwithstanding these considerations ages far from being a complete explanation of military incompetence for
[00:59:40] There have been plenty of old generals and some remarkably inept young ones
[00:59:45] Or sorry there's been plenty of able old generals and some remarkably inept young ones
[00:59:51] So he's saying look even though old people might have a hard time there's been freaking incredible generals that were super old and there's been young generals that were idiots
[00:59:57] So that argument doesn't really hold as it backs noted the generals of AD
[01:00:03] Generals who were sick of body and even in mind have one important victories. So there you go age
[01:00:10] You can't put all this stuff on age, but let us look at another aspect of what appears to be in intellectual incompetence the urge to pontificate
[01:00:20] In accordance with the principle that nature of horrors of vacuum ignorance tends to evoke pontification and those that wish to conceal their lack of knowledge
[01:00:29] Or for whom ignorance of the facts means that they feel free to express strongly held beliefs of a contrary nature
[01:00:38] This is an interesting one and it really if you
[01:00:43] You ever seen to movie the six cents. I know you have echo you seen it Dave have and
[01:00:47] You know when you get to the end you look back and you see all the things are obvious
[01:00:50] This one right here when I read this I was like oh man this is good
[01:00:53] You look back at your career and to think of all these people that like to pontificate and you think I knew that guy was maybe it
[01:01:00] Well, I got one shot up right wouldn't shot up
[01:01:04] Wait, what is pontificate talking talking carrying on talking especially things that you don't really know too much about
[01:01:10] It's also not a compliment like if somebody like what's like we're gonna the jacco and I'm like he likes to pontificate a lot
[01:01:15] That's not it that's not me saying he's a big thinker
[01:01:17] He's me like they do like to hear himself talk he weighs a lot of time thinking out loud and it's all at the end
[01:01:23] You look back like that's a complete waste of time
[01:01:25] So it's not a good thing. I'd say maybe you the expression hot air
[01:01:30] That guy's filled a lot of hot air. This is a nice way of saying
[01:01:33] That guy's full of water. Oh, it's not even a nice way of saying as Dave's doing out
[01:01:37] You don't say someone hey jacco did a great job pontificating at them at the master
[01:01:41] They were you and say that
[01:01:43] Some timing associated with it too. He wants a chime in like we need to go a step out and he's like hey
[01:01:48] And he wants to start talking and yeah, and we're forced to sit in and listen to him and it's not just what he's saying
[01:01:54] It's also the time of which he's saying it. You're just thinking dude
[01:01:57] Okay, I guess we're gonna sit here and listen him talk
[01:01:59] Okay, I always thought it was like kind of thinking and talking but in a good way
[01:02:05] I thought it was like hey, let's get to the bottom of let's listen explore it, you know, but me okay, I get it now. Oh
[01:02:16] So with pontification in a calling where the accuracy of communication may be a matter of life or death
[01:02:22] The predispotent position to pontificate is a dangerous liability by the way
[01:02:28] We have something called the second law of combat leadership. It's simple
[01:02:31] The subtitle that is simple clear concise communication
[01:02:36] So pontification is the opposite of that oddly enough
[01:02:41] Unfortunately such a predisposition it will be the strong the will be strongest in those like head masters judges
[01:02:47] Prison governors and senior military commanders who for too long have been in a position to lord over their fellow men
[01:02:56] Unfortunately such a predisposition will also be strongest in authoritarian organizations
[01:03:02] Where the preservation of apparent omnitions by those above
[01:03:08] Maybe deemed more important than the truth
[01:03:12] So this is that senior leader that
[01:03:15] Basically no one will tell them to be quiet and you know what's even worse than that
[01:03:20] People sit there with a big smile in their face nodding their heads cuz you know oh
[01:03:26] Chocolate's talking oh yes boss that sounds great. Plus. Please tell us more. It's all a lie
[01:03:32] They're really thinking shut up dude
[01:03:35] That's what's going on yeah and some of those people are going oh
[01:03:40] If I ever get to that's this is how many get to that spot. I'm gonna do that
[01:03:44] What a follow like that's what I do that's that's how the system rewards me or I can't I can't navigate that system is
[01:03:51] I can do the same thing
[01:03:52] It's awesome. I can't wait to let me tell I already get people have to listen to this in me. I can't wait
[01:03:58] I know this
[01:04:03] Because we sit here and talk for hours of the time as our freaking job not only here, but in echelon front
[01:04:08] That's our actual job as to talk to people. I mean echelon front actually our job a lot is to listen as well
[01:04:13] But you know people might get the impression that oh, you know
[01:04:17] Jocco it's like at the master when I'm guess what I'm on stage I'm talking that's what we're doing
[01:04:23] Come to an echelon front meeting
[01:04:25] You know see who he's talking like see how much I'm talking right it's come to a task in a bruiser meeting
[01:04:32] See how much I'm talking come to a
[01:04:35] Seal team seven echo put to in meeting when I was a student commander
[01:04:38] Am I the one that's talking all time absolutely not
[01:04:41] So although we talk a lot here. This is not the norm
[01:04:48] But the important thing about pontification is that though an intellectual exercise
[01:04:54] It's origins are emotional
[01:04:58] closely allied to pontification and no less hazardous is
[01:05:03] conditive dissidents
[01:05:05] Now it just just to just to talk about dissonance just the word
[01:05:12] It means
[01:05:14] Technically what it means is an in-harmonious sound that's technically what it means
[01:05:18] It's it sounds that don't match together
[01:05:21] So like if you play piano there's certain there's certain keys of the piano
[01:05:25] You can hit at the same time and you are right guitar
[01:05:28] You can hit certain strings and certain you doesn't sound right that's because they don't match because they're in congruent
[01:05:33] They're in disagreement those noises are in disagreement
[01:05:37] So cognitive dissidents means that you have things in your head that don't agree
[01:05:42] There's things in your head that don't agree and it's what people do and how people handle things in their head that
[01:05:49] Don't agree. This is the important part
[01:05:52] Because with any situation that you have there's gonna be different sides to every argument
[01:05:58] There's gonna be different sides to be if we're gonna go to a taqatarget
[01:06:01] Part of your brain should be saying like okay, this looks like something we can get done part of it to say
[01:06:04] Okay, there's looks like there's a rata risks as well you got two different things in your head two different
[01:06:10] In congruent thoughts in your head they they're not the same
[01:06:14] So so cognitive dissidents means I have two things in my head that don't match
[01:06:20] How do you handle it that's the question how do you handle it?
[01:06:24] This uncomfortable mental state arises when a person possesses knowledgeable beliefs
[01:06:28] Which conflict with a decision he is made so that's going even one step further. I've made a decision
[01:06:34] And now I'm getting some different information
[01:06:37] The following hypothetical situation should make the matter plain a heavy smoker
[01:06:41] Experiences dissidents because the knowledge that he smokes is inconsistent with the
[01:06:48] Knowledge that smoking causes cancer since he finds it impossible to give up cigarettes. He tries to reduce
[01:06:54] dissidents
[01:06:56] By concentrating on justifications for smoking and ignoring
[01:07:01] Evidence for its risks. He may tell himself that the revenue from tobacco helps the government
[01:07:06] That it keeps his weight down and then it is a manly
[01:07:09] sociable habit at the same time. He may well refrain from reading the latest report on the relationship between
[01:07:15] Smoking and lung cancer if on the other hand he cannot avoid being confronted by tiresome statistics
[01:07:20] He may well strive to reduce dissidents by telling himself and others that the correlation between smoking and cancer could
[01:07:27] Just as well be taken to signify that people who are going to get cancer anyway tend to smoke in order to ward off the disease
[01:07:34] So you're just telling yourself lies to try to try and even out that disagreement in your own head
[01:07:41] Since it was first
[01:07:42] Propounded by a festinger in 1957 dissonance theory has given rise to a large number of empirical studies
[01:07:51] Through the though the precise nature of the underlying psychological processes as far from clear
[01:07:57] There are certain conclusions which could have serious implications for military decision making
[01:08:02] They may be summarized by saying that quote once the decision has been made and the person is committed to a given course of action
[01:08:11] The psychological situation changes decisively
[01:08:15] There is less emphasis on objectivity and there is more partiality and bias in the way in which the person
[01:08:22] views and evaluates the alternatives and
[01:08:25] quote in other words decision making may well be followed by a period of mental activity that could be described as at the very least
[01:08:35] Some what one cited
[01:08:37] Yeah, dude you I would he like I got halfway into that sentence and you were just shaking your head because you know you seen this happen totally and he you know
[01:08:48] He you did that list earlier and I the one that was
[01:08:51] Coming back to as you're talking about in the hard part about as you can you can I know what you're gonna say before
[01:08:55] He's saying and now you know what's coming when he's describing this is here's the plan
[01:08:59] Jocco's down in the front sends me a report. Go hey boss things are mess things are messed down here
[01:09:04] I'm like
[01:09:05] No, they're not that better, we're fine
[01:09:07] We need it. We're just gonna keep doing this or like hey listen it's got much worse and
[01:09:14] Rationalization all those words, but the the
[01:09:18] willingness to just ignore the truth because it is inconvenient with the conclusion I've already drawn and how quick let I can go
[01:09:25] You know what his feedback is you know It's based on what he's seeing
[01:09:30] It's not really he doesn't know it's going on it's that other big picture so we're just gonna keep it
[01:09:34] plus chocolate's kind of emotional.
[01:09:35] Plus he's, you know, it just started.
[01:09:38] He has now that much combat experience.
[01:09:39] He's getting shot at, yeah, she's freaking out.
[01:09:41] But this is, he doesn't see where I'm trying to get.
[01:09:42] I mean, you just rationalize that shit all day long.
[01:09:44] All day.
[01:09:46] You know, here's another thing you were talking about.
[01:09:50] Like, what is it?
[01:09:51] What is the cool military leader?
[01:09:53] What do we think of, here's one.
[01:09:57] Would you say, I want to promote this guy
[01:10:00] who has a lot of self doubt, right?
[01:10:03] Are you?
[01:10:04] We're not promoting that guy.
[01:10:05] But what's interesting is I am so filled with self doubt
[01:10:09] that when I come up with a plan and Dave Burke sends a report
[01:10:12] back from the front line is like, hey, Jock,
[01:10:13] we got heavy reasons here.
[01:10:14] I'm like, okay, I must have been wrong.
[01:10:15] I'm sorry.
[01:10:16] I'm missing something.
[01:10:18] Does this mean I'm not gonna freaking push forward?
[01:10:20] No, it doesn't mean that.
[01:10:21] But it means I'm actually doing the opposite of this,
[01:10:23] trying to balance out the dissidents.
[01:10:25] I'm paying more attention because I think I might be wrong.
[01:10:30] The irony in that truth, the irony is
[01:10:33] is how you've described you having a reputation
[01:10:36] of being so decisive in your time and the teams
[01:10:39] was based on that belief that you could be wrong,
[01:10:42] which is why you've made these incremental decisions.
[01:10:44] It didn't or commit to the end.
[01:10:47] Was actually driven by what you just described.
[01:10:49] It's, you know, the term self doubt
[01:10:51] doesn't have like this positive connotation,
[01:10:54] but it's like, oh, hey, I bet you're this bunch of things
[01:10:57] I don't know.
[01:10:58] So you know what I shouldn't do over commit.
[01:10:59] Which was based on you having a reputation of being decisive
[01:11:05] which people can equate to the opposite of self doubt.
[01:11:10] I'm so secure in my decision making process
[01:11:13] that I know the outcome and this is the course
[01:11:15] that we're going on.
[01:11:15] It's exactly opposite of what you're doing,
[01:11:17] which is the incremental piece and go,
[01:11:18] hey, I got some feedback.
[01:11:19] Yeah, boss, here's some feedback.
[01:11:21] This was this blew up in our face.
[01:11:23] We ran into a brick wall.
[01:11:24] Three vehicles are down and we can't keep going.
[01:11:27] And you're gonna go, oh, we need to do something
[01:11:29] different right now as opposed to,
[01:11:32] hey, just keep going.
[01:11:34] We're sticking to the plan.
[01:11:35] Yeah, and that's true, not only on the battlefield,
[01:11:39] but it's also true in a conversation
[01:11:40] with another human being.
[01:11:42] It's also true when I say, hey, Dave,
[01:11:45] what's your plan with this client?
[01:11:48] Or here's how I think we should approach this client.
[01:11:50] I'm not saying this is how we should approach the client.
[01:11:52] I'm like, hey, I got an idea of what we could do
[01:11:54] with this client, what do you think?
[01:11:56] It's having a freaking open mind is what it is.
[01:11:59] And the minute, I said that while I go like,
[01:12:02] are people's minds, they're either opening or closing.
[01:12:07] And we can have some control over that.
[01:12:08] You can control whether you leave your mind open
[01:12:11] or whether you let your mind close,
[01:12:12] or at least I think.
[01:12:13] Well, let me, let me rephrase that.
[01:12:15] I think people have the ability to control
[01:12:17] whether they open their mind,
[01:12:19] but they don't have as much control over.
[01:12:20] If you're not conscious about your mind, just close up.
[01:12:22] And oftentimes we're looking
[01:12:24] our cognitive biases to just close that mind.
[01:12:27] I don't wanna hear what Dave has to say.
[01:12:29] So I think what we have to do is you have to form
[01:12:31] a habit of trying to keep your mind open,
[01:12:34] pouring it open.
[01:12:35] And I have to go back to the muster,
[01:12:37] I went back to that old conversation.
[01:12:39] How often do I have to admit that I'm wrong?
[01:12:41] And you know, I asked them,
[01:12:42] entire crowd at their muster.
[01:12:44] How often do you think I have to admit that I'm wrong?
[01:12:46] And everyone thinks I'm humble,
[01:12:47] they go all the time, yeah, probably 10 times a day,
[01:12:49] you admit that I'm wrong.
[01:12:50] And I'm like, no, almost never.
[01:12:52] I almost never admit that I'm wrong.
[01:12:54] Why do I almost never admit that I'm wrong?
[01:12:56] Because I never go into a conversation,
[01:12:58] telling everyone that I'm right or even thinking that I'm right.
[01:13:02] Yeah.
[01:13:03] So therefore I don't go in the conversation,
[01:13:05] saying, Dave, we need to do this with the client.
[01:13:08] And then Dave goes, well actually,
[01:13:10] I talked to the client,
[01:13:11] here's what's going on, here's what they actually need
[01:13:12] and I have to go damn it, I was wrong.
[01:13:13] No, instead I say, hey, Dave,
[01:13:15] here's what I'm thinking, what do you think?
[01:13:17] Yeah, that's one example of a hundred conversations
[01:13:20] that I have where I could go in there
[01:13:22] and try and be right.
[01:13:24] But instead I go in there with an open mind,
[01:13:26] instead of a close mind, it's so counterintuitive
[01:13:31] to think the connection between never being wrong
[01:13:34] or never having to, or rarely having to admit to the wrong
[01:13:36] isn't because you're right all the time.
[01:13:37] It's because you never entrench yourself in a position
[01:13:41] and the saying could be said for why you and I,
[01:13:46] whatever the better word is for argue, for disagree.
[01:13:48] Like how often you duck a disagree on a plan.
[01:13:51] It's like, well almost never.
[01:13:53] Like, oh, you must be perfectly on a line of everything.
[01:13:55] No, I just, I haven't predetermined the next 37 steps
[01:13:58] that we're gonna do neither a C and we'll move
[01:14:00] and I'll do it his way sometimes.
[01:14:02] We'll do it.
[01:14:02] My will get somebody else's input
[01:14:03] and none of us are committed to an outcome
[01:14:05] and the reason why we're disagree,
[01:14:07] we don't disagree on what we should do
[01:14:09] is that neither one of us come in
[01:14:10] with the conclusion of what we should do
[01:14:12] and how counterintuitive that is is the idea
[01:14:15] that the more committed you are,
[01:14:18] the less you will, the less you'll admit that you're wrong.
[01:14:23] And the exact opposite to show is the reason
[01:14:25] I'm doing it that I'm wrong, very often,
[01:14:27] it's because I don't walk in thinking that I'm right.
[01:14:28] Yeah, and actually you and I are very committed to an outcome.
[01:14:31] We're committed to having the best possible outcome we can have.
[01:14:33] With nothing to do with which outcome,
[01:14:37] which course is how we get there.
[01:14:39] It's like, oh, this is the best possible outcome.
[01:14:41] Dave came up with a way to make this the best outcome.
[01:14:43] Well, possible outcome, that sounds awesome.
[01:14:45] I'm in.
[01:14:46] We'll do that all day long.
[01:14:47] Yeah.
[01:14:47] Ah, fast forward a little bit.
[01:14:54] By the way, you get the book.
[01:14:56] I haven't said that yet today.
[01:14:57] So we're skipping all kinds of stuff,
[01:14:58] but there's so much information in this book.
[01:15:00] Those commanders with weak egos,
[01:15:03] with over strong needs for approval
[01:15:06] and the most closed minds will be the very ones
[01:15:10] least able to tolerate the nagging doubts
[01:15:13] of cognitive dissidents.
[01:15:15] In other words, it will be the least rational
[01:15:20] who are the most likely to reduce dissidents
[01:15:24] by ignoring unpalpable intelligence.
[01:15:29] So the person who can't tolerate those doubts
[01:15:35] will just shut them out, which is a horrible thing.
[01:15:42] Fast forward a little bit.
[01:15:43] No better example is this an afforded by Townsend's
[01:15:45] Occupational Cut since the advance up the Tigris
[01:15:48] was totally unjustified by the facts
[01:15:49] of which he was fully aware his dissidents,
[01:15:52] when disaster struck must have been extreme
[01:15:54] and to a man of his egotistical nature
[01:15:56] depending of incident resolution.
[01:15:59] So again, in the face of much contrary evidence,
[01:16:01] he withdrew into cut.
[01:16:03] The wiser and possible course of retreating debaust
[01:16:05] would have been a greater admission of the lack
[01:16:07] of justification for his previous decision
[01:16:10] by the same token once inside cut.
[01:16:12] Nothing would budge him because to break out,
[01:16:15] even to assist those who had been sent to release him,
[01:16:17] would have emphasized his lack of justification
[01:16:19] for being there in the first place,
[01:16:21] ensure an inability to admit one has been in the wrong
[01:16:25] will be greater, the more wrong one has been
[01:16:28] and the more wrong one has been,
[01:16:30] the more bizarre will be the subsequent attempts
[01:16:33] to justify the unjustifiable.
[01:16:36] This is when people may just seem like they're freaking crazy.
[01:16:39] We can now see the relationship between pontification
[01:16:43] and cognitive dissidents.
[01:16:45] Pontification is one of the ways in which people
[01:16:48] try to resolve their dissidents.
[01:16:52] I'm sorry, dissidents.
[01:16:54] But there is another aspect of decision making,
[01:16:56] no less hazardous, it is riskiness.
[01:17:00] Research has shown that people vary in the degree
[01:17:04] to which they adjust the riskiness of their decisions
[01:17:07] to the realities of the external situations.
[01:17:10] Individuals who become anxious under conditions of stress
[01:17:15] or who are prone to be defensive
[01:17:17] and deny anything that threatens their self-esteem
[01:17:21] tend to be bad at judging whether the risks they take
[01:17:24] or the caution they display are justified
[01:17:27] by the possible outcomes of their decisions.
[01:17:31] For example, they might well adopt the same degree
[01:17:35] of caution whether placing a small bet
[01:17:38] getting married or starting a nuclear war.
[01:17:42] There is a sad irony about this state of affairs
[01:17:45] for it means that those people who are most sensitive
[01:17:49] to the success or failure of a decision
[01:17:52] will be the very ones who make the biggest mistakes.
[01:17:57] Conversely, less anxious individuals
[01:18:01] will act more rationally
[01:18:02] because they are able to grow the vote greater attention
[01:18:06] to the realities with which they are confronted.
[01:18:10] So when you got people that are nervous about decision making,
[01:18:14] they're nervous about failing, they're nervous about,
[01:18:17] oh, I better win this.
[01:18:18] It's like what you see happen in sports, right?
[01:18:20] Basketball teams up by 10, 12 points,
[01:18:24] they're doing good.
[01:18:25] They go up by 20 points, they start hitting three pointers.
[01:18:28] There's no pressure anymore.
[01:18:29] They're just like letting it fly.
[01:18:31] That's when they do their best.
[01:18:33] So someone that can go into a situation and say,
[01:18:36] yep, there's some risks here, but I'm not worried.
[01:18:39] If I look stupid, whatever, I'm doing the best I can.
[01:18:41] Cool.
[01:18:42] And then you look at the rational situation.
[01:18:44] If you're in the like, oh my God,
[01:18:45] I'm gonna look like such an idiot if I don't get this right.
[01:18:47] This is gonna be horrible.
[01:18:48] Guess where your focus is.
[01:18:49] It's not on the realities of the situation.
[01:18:51] It's not on rationalizing a good decision.
[01:18:54] It's just focused on how bad you're gonna look if you screw it up.
[01:18:57] So you make a bad decision.
[01:18:59] So you're more likely to screw it up.
[01:19:02] It's crazy.
[01:19:04] Once I call it just to set,
[01:19:05] under stress,
[01:19:06] men are more likely to act irrationally
[01:19:09] to strike out blindly or even to freeze into stupid
[01:19:12] immobility.
[01:19:15] That's what stress does to people.
[01:19:16] I've seen it.
[01:19:17] You know, when you see that,
[01:19:19] I've seen it in like a few cases
[01:19:20] where someone stressed out and combat,
[01:19:22] I may kind of lock up and you gotta kind of shake them out of it.
[01:19:25] I've also seen it on you.
[01:19:28] If you look at it,
[01:19:29] broadly over a full deployment.
[01:19:31] And you see people that are usually pretty solid
[01:19:36] and they start either getting angry.
[01:19:37] You start rational,
[01:19:38] they start making dumb decisions.
[01:19:39] And like, this stress is getting to you, man.
[01:19:42] That's what's going on.
[01:19:43] You gotta back them off a little bit.
[01:19:47] But why should anxious and defensive individuals,
[01:19:50] those who are,
[01:19:51] those who have the most to lose,
[01:19:52] act more irrationally than those less afflicted,
[01:19:55] afflicted by neurosis.
[01:19:56] Two reasons have been advanced.
[01:19:58] The first has been well-stated by Deutsch,
[01:20:01] some guy, I don't know who it is.
[01:20:02] Didn't look it up, sorry.
[01:20:04] Nervousness, the need to respond quickly
[01:20:07] because of the fear one will lose
[01:20:09] either the desire or ability to respond.
[01:20:12] Enhances that likelihood that a response
[01:20:14] will be triggered off by an insufficient stimulus
[01:20:17] and thus makes for instability.
[01:20:21] You know, it's a freaking good example of that.
[01:20:24] Someone, you put someone in like a shooter situation
[01:20:30] with simulation and you're like,
[01:20:32] all right, go in the house.
[01:20:33] If they've never done it before,
[01:20:34] are they super nervous?
[01:20:35] They're freaking shoot in the first person
[01:20:36] that they see whether all the weapon or not, right?
[01:20:39] They're gonna be quick to respond with fear
[01:20:41] because they're nervous.
[01:20:43] And the more you train them to that,
[01:20:44] the better they'll get.
[01:20:46] The second reason why I'm a proportion of people
[01:20:48] will make irrational decisions
[01:20:50] whose riskiness is unrelated to reality
[01:20:52] is because being neurotic, they will strive
[01:20:55] to maintain an image of themselves
[01:20:57] as either quote bold and daring and quote or quote
[01:21:02] as careful and judicious decision makers and quote
[01:21:07] and the urge to sustain their particular conceit
[01:21:10] will take precedence over the need to behave realistically.
[01:21:16] So, luckily for me, like you were talking to
[01:21:19] about me making small decisions,
[01:21:21] luckily I figured that out
[01:21:22] because I like being a person that's known as decisive
[01:21:25] but luckily I figured out I could look and appear
[01:21:27] and be decisive by making small decisions.
[01:21:30] So I didn't have to try and figure everything out
[01:21:31] everything I want, which is what I recommend to people do.
[01:21:37] He closes out this chapter saying,
[01:21:39] since decision making is by definition
[01:21:42] a cognitive process, then obviously the oldest theory
[01:21:46] is in one sense of tourism.
[01:21:49] But it by no means follows that the simple hypothesis
[01:21:53] of low intelligence fits the bill.
[01:21:55] Again, this whole chapter is about intelligence
[01:21:56] so he's saying, listen, decision making is about how fast
[01:22:00] you can think in your cognitive capability,
[01:22:02] but it doesn't cover everything.
[01:22:04] On the contrary by looking further into the nature
[01:22:07] of decision making process where you're compelled to entertain
[01:22:10] another rather different possibility,
[01:22:12] namely that the apparent intellectual failings of some military
[01:22:16] commanders are due not to lack of intelligence
[01:22:19] but to their feelings.
[01:22:23] Cognitive dissonance, pontification, denial,
[01:22:26] risk taking an anti-intellectualism
[01:22:30] are all in reality more concerned with emotion
[01:22:34] than with intelligence.
[01:22:38] I mean, it's not another thing we say at the mustard.
[01:22:41] Who here has made a great decision
[01:22:43] when they were super emotional?
[01:22:44] No one raises their hand.
[01:22:46] That's why we teach people to detach from their emotions
[01:22:48] so that you can make good decisions.
[01:22:50] Do you detach 100%, no, but you need to detach
[01:22:52] so that they're not driving your decision-making process.
[01:22:55] The susceptibility to cognitive dissonance, the tendency
[01:23:00] to pontificate and the inability to adjust the riskiness
[01:23:03] of decisions to the real situation
[01:23:05] are a product of such neurotic disabilities
[01:23:07] as extreme anxiety under stress,
[01:23:10] low self esteem, nervousness, the need for approval
[01:23:14] and general defensiveness.
[01:23:17] These, it seems, over and above his level of intelligence
[01:23:22] are the factors which interfere with what a man decides
[01:23:26] to do in a given situation.
[01:23:29] They keep made a pretty good case for that.
[01:23:31] Not about a smart, you are, it's a smart place, some role.
[01:23:35] I mean, obviously, if you're an idiot,
[01:23:36] you can make a bunch of bad decisions,
[01:23:38] but that's not the major number in this equation.
[01:23:42] Most people are making bad decisions based on their emotions,
[01:23:46] based on their feelings, based on their psychology.
[01:23:51] And this whole thing ties into Dave,
[01:23:52] this is what you were getting at earlier.
[01:23:53] You got about a whole chapter here talking about what you,
[01:23:56] what you started, the road you started to go down,
[01:23:59] this chapter is called military organizations.
[01:24:02] And it says military organizations make
[01:24:03] for military incompetence in two ways,
[01:24:05] directly by forcing their members to act in a fashion
[01:24:08] that is not always conducive to military success
[01:24:11] and indirectly by attracting, selecting and promoting
[01:24:14] a minority of people with particular defects
[01:24:16] of intellect and personality.
[01:24:18] So this is what you were talking about.
[01:24:20] Yeah.
[01:24:21] How the system will set up to promote,
[01:24:24] and this is going one step further.
[01:24:25] You talked about how the system can promote people,
[01:24:27] they can figure out how they're way to get through it.
[01:24:29] And also can attract people like this.
[01:24:31] Yeah.
[01:24:32] People that are looking for a system
[01:24:33] that they can figure out how to get through.
[01:24:35] The root cause of all this is that since men are not
[01:24:38] by nature, all that well equipped for aggression
[01:24:41] on a grand scale, they have had to develop a complex
[01:24:44] of rules, conventions, and ways of thinking,
[01:24:46] which in the course of time,
[01:24:47] ossify into outmoded tradition,
[01:24:50] curious ritual, inappropriate dogma,
[01:24:53] and that bane of some military organizations irrelevant bullshit,
[01:24:58] which we had a conversation on here about chicken shit,
[01:25:00] chicken shit and bullshit.
[01:25:01] I think chicken shit is the term that's used nowadays.
[01:25:05] He's used in the term bullshit.
[01:25:06] And he actually throughout this calls it
[01:25:08] bull.
[01:25:08] I think I'm going to call it bullshit most of the time.
[01:25:10] He calls it bullshit here.
[01:25:11] But this idea of bullshit, chicken shit stuff
[01:25:13] that you're polishing, your belt buckle,
[01:25:16] you're polishing your boots,
[01:25:17] you're doing all these things,
[01:25:19] these things in the military,
[01:25:20] you're going to call it chicken shit or bullshit.
[01:25:23] But those things are a huge part of some military organizations.
[01:25:27] And as we're going to find, there's some reasons for it,
[01:25:29] but there's also when it gets out of hand.
[01:25:31] Fast forward a little bit,
[01:25:32] probably speaking, human activities may be regarded
[01:25:35] as falling into one or the other of two main groups.
[01:25:39] Those which are directly instinctual
[01:25:41] and those which are not.
[01:25:42] So we all got some things that we instinctively want to do.
[01:25:45] Into the first, which involves what have been succinctly
[01:25:48] described as the three F's,
[01:25:51] feeding, fighting, and reproduction.
[01:25:55] Fall such robust pastimes as
[01:25:58] feudalism, professional piety,
[01:26:00] prostitution, and soldering.
[01:26:03] So look, we got these three F's feeding,
[01:26:06] fighting, and reproduction.
[01:26:08] And from that, we get things like boxing,
[01:26:11] we get things like professional piety,
[01:26:13] eating, and chefs, and restaurants.
[01:26:14] We also get prostitution.
[01:26:16] We also get soldering.
[01:26:18] Those are all kind of, you can marry those up
[01:26:20] from where those came from.
[01:26:22] Into the second group, fall all those other vocations,
[01:26:25] which, though, sometimes,
[01:26:27] subserving the basic drives,
[01:26:28] do not have as their end product,
[01:26:30] the original consumer territory response.
[01:26:37] Besides this most important difference,
[01:26:39] the instinctual vocations have three other characteristics,
[01:26:44] which differentiate them from those in the second category.
[01:26:48] They may involve unlearned patterns of behavior,
[01:26:52] are motivated by crude, if powerful emotions,
[01:26:55] fear, lust, and rage, and are designed to culminate
[01:26:59] in an unlearned response of a distinctly physical kind.
[01:27:03] So those are the three F's, right?
[01:27:05] They're, you've got powerful emotions tied to them,
[01:27:09] fear, lust, and rage, and they,
[01:27:12] where they get you is something physical.
[01:27:15] You're eating, you're fighting, or you're reproducing.
[01:27:22] It goes into prostitution, but prostitution is easy
[01:27:25] because the transformation of an unlearned drive
[01:27:28] into a money-making career is more a matter
[01:27:31] of realizing a potential than seriously modifying nature.
[01:27:36] And he goes into this thing about this guy
[01:27:38] who interviewed prostitutes, and this one prostitute said,
[01:27:41] I've been working in a factory for five years
[01:27:43] before I realized I was sitting on a fortune all the time.
[01:27:47] I kind of had to throw that quote in there.
[01:27:50] It goes on down the same path,
[01:27:53] talking about a professional soldier.
[01:27:55] The original purpose of interest species aggression
[01:27:59] is not destruction, but distribution.
[01:28:02] So why do people fight, why do animals fight?
[01:28:05] Because we got to freaking get away from you a little bit.
[01:28:07] You can't get too close to me, not too close to my resources,
[01:28:09] not too close to my woman, like you need to get your own
[01:28:13] activities going.
[01:28:14] This is my A.L. who's my area of operations.
[01:28:16] In lower forms of life, the instinct of aggression is controlled
[01:28:21] by a language of signs and countersign,
[01:28:23] so that everyone remains spread out with a minimum amount of bloodshed.
[01:28:26] Moreover, those animals best equipped to do each other.
[01:28:29] And injury are also those with the most effective controls
[01:28:32] against so doing.
[01:28:34] A dog, tackless enough to encroach upon a rival's territory,
[01:28:37] maybe come involved in a noisy scuffle,
[01:28:39] but has only to drop his tail, roll over,
[01:28:42] and urinate to terminate the attack upon his person.
[01:28:45] Right? So that's what animals do.
[01:28:46] And even going out, L.C.T.
[01:28:49] The elk, they fight hard and occasionally do kill each other,
[01:28:54] but most of the time, they just aim in, like,
[01:28:57] I'm dominant, you go away, and the guy's like, cool.
[01:29:00] So that's the way it's supposed to be.
[01:29:03] You're supposed to be able to sort of surrender back up,
[01:29:06] give some space, and that makes sense.
[01:29:08] So that's the difference.
[01:29:10] The point that he's trying to bear here is,
[01:29:13] hey, I'll prostitute, she's still doing something that just makes sense
[01:29:18] on an instinctual level, right?
[01:29:21] Whereas humans with war, things all of a sudden aren't so instinctual anymore.
[01:29:27] Because now, look, if it was in caveman days,
[01:29:31] and you came into my territory, I'd probably beat you up and you'd run away.
[01:29:35] And I'm not going to waste any energy trying to go catch you.
[01:29:38] I don't care, you just stay away from me.
[01:29:40] Well, when we get to war, now it's a lot different.
[01:29:43] So he goes into that a little bit.
[01:29:45] Humans, they have made up for a lack of natural weapons
[01:29:48] by acquiring some far more deadly artificial ones, right?
[01:29:51] We don't have horns on our head.
[01:29:54] We don't have big teeth where we can rip each other apart.
[01:29:56] Sure, we can choke each other if we have to do it.
[01:29:58] We don't.
[01:29:59] But we don't have these things so we make other weapons, right?
[01:30:03] Clubs, spears, knives, guns, missiles.
[01:30:11] Yet other difficulties, and this is where you're going to take
[01:30:15] everything we just talked about, and now we're going to take it
[01:30:17] into this military context.
[01:30:19] And this is something that I have talked about before.
[01:30:23] I've talked about the difference of decentralized command.
[01:30:27] And when you have centralized command,
[01:30:31] and the fact that when decentralized command
[01:30:34] started to come to fruition is when you didn't have conscripts anymore.
[01:30:38] You had people that you could say, all right, here's
[01:30:41] what we're trying to make happen, go make it happen.
[01:30:43] You have to say, this is what you need to go to go do it.
[01:30:46] And if you don't do it, I'm going to shoot you.
[01:30:48] That's a different type of discipline.
[01:30:50] It's imposed discipline versus unit discipline.
[01:30:58] So we're going to get into that a little bit here.
[01:31:00] Yet other difficulties have been posed
[01:31:02] by the sheer size of human-waring groups.
[01:31:04] With the transition from small parties of hostile tribesmen
[01:31:08] to large mercenary armies came problems of motivation and control.
[01:31:14] So if you, if there was just the five of us and our clan,
[01:31:18] and we were just event, I didn't need to motivate Echo
[01:31:20] to do his job.
[01:31:21] If you didn't do his job, we were all going to get overrun
[01:31:23] and we're all going to die.
[01:31:24] So there was no real reason for me to have to impose discipline
[01:31:27] on you.
[01:31:28] We just had it.
[01:31:29] We just knew that we had to fight together.
[01:31:31] We knew if we got overrun there,
[01:31:32] we're going to come and take our food and take our women,
[01:31:34] and that was game over for us.
[01:31:36] So there wasn't any real need to to vote, quote, motivate you.
[01:31:41] But things are bigger now.
[01:31:43] Since the history of warfare is largely that of many who,
[01:31:48] though through poverty or the press gang,
[01:31:51] were forced to take up arms for a cause
[01:31:54] which few could even comprehend the evoking
[01:31:57] and direction of aggression called for special measures.
[01:32:00] So once we have an army where Echo doesn't really quite sure
[01:32:03] why the hell.
[01:32:03] He knew when it was our cave, our little area
[01:32:07] and we were defending our tribe, he understood that.
[01:32:10] But once he's like, all of a sudden, he's in a foreign country.
[01:32:13] And I'm giving him a musket and I'm saying,
[01:32:18] OK, dude, we're going to fight.
[01:32:19] He's kind of thinking, wait a second.
[01:32:21] I don't even live anywhere near here.
[01:32:23] So now we need to come up with some special measures
[01:32:25] to get Echo to direct his aggression towards the enemy.
[01:32:29] How do we do that?
[01:32:30] These included devices to ensure group cohesion,
[01:32:34] to incite hostility, to enforce obedience
[01:32:38] and to suppress mutiny.
[01:32:39] Because once again, I put, I take Echo on a ship,
[01:32:42] give them a sword and be like, OK, dude,
[01:32:44] we're going to go and fight these people you've never seen before.
[01:32:47] They're not close to your family.
[01:32:48] They're not close to your area of operations.
[01:32:51] And not only do I need to get you to hate them,
[01:32:53] I need to make sure you don't freaking just turn that sword
[01:32:55] to me and cut my head off.
[01:32:58] Because it doesn't make any sense, right?
[01:32:59] It doesn't make any sense to Echo Charles,
[01:33:01] who's got his tribe.
[01:33:03] It doesn't make any sense for you to go to some other place
[01:33:05] and fight.
[01:33:06] So how are we going to make that happen?
[01:33:07] Well, we got to make group cohesion.
[01:33:10] We got it in sight hostility against the enemy.
[01:33:12] We got to enforce obedience and make sure we don't have a mutiny.
[01:33:17] They also included means whereby the intentions of leaders
[01:33:20] could be translated into a concerted action by followers.
[01:33:24] In short, it called for two other components of militarism.
[01:33:28] Firstly, a system of rewards and punishment of rank,
[01:33:33] metals, battle emblems and prize money.
[01:33:36] That's what's somewhat a dangling fun of you, carrot.
[01:33:40] Of confidential reports, court marshals and the lash.
[01:33:44] There's the stick.
[01:33:44] Don't do it to tell you, the court marshal you.
[01:33:46] I'm going to whip you, whatever.
[01:33:49] And secondly, a system of orders and overlearned drills
[01:33:55] whereby complex patterns of behavior
[01:33:57] could be set in motion by the briefest of instructions.
[01:34:02] So I'm actually going to train you.
[01:34:04] I like how echo Charles become my soldier today.
[01:34:07] You like that?
[01:34:08] I'm going to train you.
[01:34:09] So I got to end up with a pattern of behavior
[01:34:12] that becomes instilled in you.
[01:34:15] No less important for a theory of military incompetence
[01:34:17] is the means whereby militarism is administered
[01:34:20] and its continuity insured.
[01:34:22] Originally, so now we're going to get into this.
[01:34:24] Originally, since combat was largely a matter of brute force,
[01:34:27] we must suppose that the strongest came to the top.
[01:34:30] In fighting, as in prostitution, vital statistics gain the day.
[01:34:34] A sort of natural selection according to the criteria
[01:34:37] that were essentially physical.
[01:34:39] But in the course of time, the growing number of personnel
[01:34:43] involved and improvements in technique
[01:34:45] required some revision of earlier criteria.
[01:34:48] A distinction became necessary between organizers
[01:34:51] and the organized between the brains and the brawn.
[01:34:55] So now, just the fact that echo's the biggest, strongest guy
[01:34:59] that doesn't necessarily mean that's
[01:35:01] going to make the difference in the battle
[01:35:02] because we got a bunch of people.
[01:35:04] And if I can organize more people against,
[01:35:06] or if the enemy organizes five people just
[01:35:09] to fight echo echoes going down.
[01:35:10] So I need to get some people to support echo.
[01:35:12] Now we got to freaking army.
[01:35:16] To this end, civil government might have been expected
[01:35:19] to construct armies in which the dichotomies,
[01:35:23] in which such dichotomies obtained.
[01:35:25] One might have expected that officers would have been chosen
[01:35:28] for their brains and the hierarchy of command based
[01:35:32] upon merit and professional expertise.
[01:35:34] So echo, you and I were on the same tribe.
[01:35:37] We've formed an army.
[01:35:39] We take all the big guys and we're putting you guys
[01:35:41] in the front lines.
[01:35:42] That makes sense, right?
[01:35:43] Because you're the ones that are going to crush the enemy.
[01:35:45] We're also going to take our smartest dude
[01:35:47] and be like, hey, you're really good at organizing.
[01:35:49] People, you've got a loud voice.
[01:35:50] You come up with good plans.
[01:35:51] Cool.
[01:35:52] Dave, you're going to run this battalion over here.
[01:35:55] And Dave's like, cool, got it.
[01:35:57] That's the way we should do it.
[01:35:58] Dave's proved himself.
[01:35:59] He's smart.
[01:36:00] Right.
[01:36:00] So that's what we're doing.
[01:36:01] And that's what we think we're doing.
[01:36:02] That's what makes sense to do.
[01:36:03] Right?
[01:36:04] That clearly makes sense.
[01:36:06] However, for example, in Britain, civil government
[01:36:11] did nothing of the kind by methods of purchase and nomination,
[01:36:16] the control of the army was given over to men who,
[01:36:18] with nothing to gain from revolution,
[01:36:20] would remain the loyal, apolitical supporters
[01:36:23] of the existing regime, professional ability,
[01:36:26] energy and dedication of the job counted for little.
[01:36:29] So that's not how they selected.
[01:36:31] They didn't say, hey, who's better at decision-making?
[01:36:33] You know, echo, you know what?
[01:36:37] You're going to be front lines.
[01:36:38] Dave, you know, you got those quick thoughts.
[01:36:41] We're putting you in command.
[01:36:43] What the British do?
[01:36:44] No.
[01:36:45] You know what they said?
[01:36:46] Who's going to be loyal who can pay the most?
[01:36:48] We'll put you in command.
[01:36:50] By the way, so check this out.
[01:36:52] How does that work?
[01:36:56] Dave, you have money to buy a commission.
[01:37:01] What do you think of the system?
[01:37:05] What do you think of it?
[01:37:06] Yeah, I like this.
[01:37:07] You like the system.
[01:37:07] And you want to, importantly, you want to maintain the system.
[01:37:11] Absolutely.
[01:37:12] Echo, you kind of broke.
[01:37:14] Right?
[01:37:15] You don't, you don't really like the system.
[01:37:18] Because you have been able to succeed in it.
[01:37:19] You probably want to change the system.
[01:37:20] So you know what?
[01:37:21] I'm not putting you in charge.
[01:37:23] I'm going to put the guy in charge that succeeded in the system that wants the status
[01:37:27] quo.
[01:37:28] He wants to protect.
[01:37:29] He's going to fight and he's going to use you to fight, to protect what he's already
[01:37:34] got.
[01:37:35] Status and money.
[01:37:37] That's the dynamic.
[01:37:40] That's what he means when he says, man who, with nothing to gain from revolution, would
[01:37:47] remain loyal.
[01:37:49] He can pay for this.
[01:37:50] The reason he can pay for this is because he's done all right in the system.
[01:37:54] How do I benefit from a revolution here?
[01:37:56] Yeah, I don't want that at all.
[01:37:58] No, not at all.
[01:37:59] So you're willing to.
[01:38:00] So once I give you a position and I give you authority, you can actually use your authority
[01:38:04] now to maintain the status quo, which is what you want.
[01:38:07] And by the way, you can also impose your status quo.
[01:38:09] Because if you guys go take over another chunk of land, guess who's going to get it?
[01:38:13] Not Echo.
[01:38:14] He fought for it, but Dave's going to get it.
[01:38:17] Maybe we'll give Dave, we'll give Echo a little sliver of maybe you get some little bit
[01:38:22] of gold, you're in a little bit of booty for you.
[01:38:25] But Dave's going to get the land.
[01:38:28] So we'll keep you a little bit happy.
[01:38:31] But Dave wants this to succeed.
[01:38:33] And Dave's going to sacrifice a bunch of you, a bunch of echoes for this situation.
[01:38:41] Fast forward a little bit.
[01:38:42] The central nature of militarism should now be clear.
[01:38:44] We see it as an ever-increasing web of rules, restrictions, and constraints presided over
[01:38:48] buying a leap.
[01:38:50] One of whose motives was to preserve the status quo, exactly what I just said.
[01:38:54] How do I keep Echo in line?
[01:38:56] Here's the rules.
[01:38:58] Here's your uniform.
[01:38:59] Here's what you've got to do.
[01:39:00] If you step out of line, guess what's going to happen?
[01:39:02] You're getting the lash.
[01:39:05] You're getting punished.
[01:39:06] You're getting no pay.
[01:39:07] You're getting bread and water.
[01:39:09] So that's what we set up.
[01:39:14] But this incompetence is augmented by another factor, namely the characteristics of some
[01:39:18] of those attracted to the military.
[01:39:22] Let us examine this hypothesis by modern standards and viewed from the outside the nature
[01:39:26] of militarism may not seem very attractive, including as it does, a number of attributes
[01:39:32] which are positively repellent to those who value freedom, egalitarianism, and creative
[01:39:40] as opposed to destructive ends.
[01:39:43] So if you think about what the military is, hey, you're going to follow orders.
[01:39:47] You're going to have to dress the way you get told to dress.
[01:39:50] You're going to have to cut your hair the way you get told to cut your hair.
[01:39:53] You have to wake up when they tell you to wake up.
[01:39:54] You're going to go to bed when they tell you to go to bed.
[01:39:57] If you're a person that values personal freedom, why are you going in there?
[01:40:01] Why is that happening?
[01:40:03] If you want to create things in the world, why are you going in the military?
[01:40:07] You're going to military to destroy things.
[01:40:09] You're going to have to go to the military.
[01:40:14] He said, I would be left to kill people from my country.
[01:40:22] That's attracting a certain person, not someone that wants to create, someone that wants
[01:40:32] to destroy.
[01:40:35] Why then do people join the army and are there some characteristics of the military,
[01:40:40] which have a positively magnetic attraction for those who subsequent performance may be deemed
[01:40:45] incompetent?
[01:40:47] So who we bring it in here?
[01:40:49] He makes a comparison to alcoholics anonymous.
[01:40:54] He says, alcohol anonymous is anonymous.
[01:40:58] Can attract people an individual with particular problems of a psychological kind, maybe
[01:41:03] expect it to gravitate towards a group which he recognizes not only as containing fellow
[01:41:08] softwares, but also as having developed effective ways of dealing with special needs
[01:41:14] of its members.
[01:41:15] The therapeutic gain from such behavior during the Second World War has been noted by Robert
[01:41:21] Holt.
[01:41:22] He wrote, it was a common clinical observation during the war that military service was an
[01:41:28] unusually good environment for men who lacked inner controls.
[01:41:33] The combination of absolute security, a strong institutional parent substitute on whom one
[01:41:39] could lean on obtrusively and socially approved outlets for aggression provided a form
[01:41:46] of social control that allowed impulses to be expressed in acceptable ways.
[01:41:53] By the way, when you join the seal teams, you're joining the seal teams so you can kill
[01:41:57] people.
[01:41:58] Or at a very minimum, you're joining the seal teams knowing that you may have to kill
[01:42:03] people.
[01:42:05] If you're going to join the seal teams, you're going to go through that.
[01:42:08] There's got to be some actual, in my opinion, desire to kill people.
[01:42:11] That's what you want to do.
[01:42:13] Dave, you didn't go in the Marine Corps thinking, hey, I'd like to fly a jet.
[01:42:20] No, you want to fly a jet.
[01:42:22] That's what you want to do.
[01:42:24] This is an acceptable way that you can go fly a jet. Did you want to get in a dogfight?
[01:42:29] Yes.
[01:42:31] What's the outcome of a dogfight?
[01:42:33] Either winter you lose.
[01:42:35] What happens to the looser?
[01:42:38] The loser dies.
[01:42:39] The loser dies.
[01:42:41] Here all these military people are signing up for their aggression to be expressed in an acceptable
[01:42:49] way.
[01:42:50] Surrounding by people who see it the same way.
[01:42:52] That's the thing.
[01:42:53] You look at alcoholics and honest.
[01:42:55] These are the other people deal with.
[01:42:57] And you look at the military, like, what kind of law?
[01:42:59] That sounds like they're cool way to go.
[01:43:01] I also understand why you feel the way you do, why do you think the way you do.
[01:43:05] That scene that you can see, that connection.
[01:43:10] So easy to see that connection.
[01:43:13] He says even a troop of bad boons contrives a rigid dominance hierarchy where in each
[01:43:18] male knows its place.
[01:43:19] It's kind of like the military.
[01:43:21] Very nice, getting there and you can see when some people in the military, when they
[01:43:26] win their that bad boon that gets their spot in the hierarchy and they want to flex it on
[01:43:30] everybody.
[01:43:31] You can see those people all day long.
[01:43:33] And again, is this everyone in the military?
[01:43:35] Absolutely not.
[01:43:36] It's absolutely not.
[01:43:37] No, but there's a piece of that formalization of that hierarchy.
[01:43:42] And in the military, I'm sure it's the same way with you.
[01:43:44] There is still an unspoken hierarchy.
[01:43:47] There is a pecking order that isn't written down.
[01:43:52] There's a roster that we don't write on the boon and go, okay, you know, Jocco's one
[01:43:56] echoes two, Dave's three.
[01:43:57] It doesn't say that, but everybody kind of knows this stuff.
[01:44:00] And if it's not pure, there's at least some groups, some catty like a couple guys here
[01:44:04] come guys here.
[01:44:05] And everybody knows it.
[01:44:08] But the system can offset that a little bit by creating, well, utilize that deliberate hierarchy.
[01:44:17] Which means like maybe Dave's like seven kind of sucks.
[01:44:22] But I do whatever I can do.
[01:44:25] I'm maneuvering.
[01:44:26] I actually I get promoted or I get a task or I get actually some deliberate hierarchical
[01:44:30] authority.
[01:44:31] Right.
[01:44:32] And now I can kind of like, now you know why revenge can get past.
[01:44:36] Yes, because I hate, hey, we all know where I was, but that was unwritten, but I'm
[01:44:39] in charge now.
[01:44:41] And then the psychology of that power, which sort of fixes the problem with the unspoken
[01:44:47] hierarchy, and the things on the, you know, in that, you know, those bad boys don't have a chart.
[01:44:51] They just know.
[01:44:53] And there's nothing that number seven's going to do to go, well, I got a formal piece over
[01:44:56] here that sort of allows me to impose my will on you.
[01:44:59] And I mean, I've been writing things on self esteem ego, the 20 different versions of that
[01:45:03] word that he's used so far in this book, which all comes down to the insecurity, all those
[01:45:07] different words that he's using.
[01:45:09] The military delivers some authority for the people that have that that is kind of undeniable
[01:45:16] in the system.
[01:45:17] And again, not everybody, just like you said, this is not everybody, but it is there.
[01:45:21] It is there.
[01:45:23] There's, there's nothing worse than when somebody who thinks they should be in charge,
[01:45:30] actually gets in charge.
[01:45:32] Those people are the worst.
[01:45:36] The people that sit there and think, churches are just fuming.
[01:45:40] They're thinking, Archbishop, I can do such a much better job and they're, what their
[01:45:44] thoughts are and when they actually get put in charge, they're a freaking disaster, they're
[01:45:49] nightmare.
[01:45:50] Oh, they become the head baboon.
[01:45:56] As at a human level, armies resemble the authoritarian family group, just as the ethos
[01:46:01] of an upper class Victorian family totally forbade any show of aggression by the child
[01:46:06] toward its parents.
[01:46:07] But encouraged, organized, aggression towards contemporaries in such school pursuits as boxing
[01:46:14] and sanctioned a bullying.
[01:46:16] So in the army, the slightest hint of in-subordination, I.E. aggression directed towards
[01:46:21] superior, is severely punished while aggression towards the enemy is encouraged and rewarded.
[01:46:26] Got to set that up.
[01:46:28] Got to keep it under control from a psychological point of view, therefore militarism strives
[01:46:36] to maintain that paradoxical state of affairs where feeling angry may well be totally split
[01:46:43] off from aggression.
[01:46:45] One in which a soldier is required to suppress his aggression towards his superiors whom he
[01:46:50] may loath while venting it upon a hypothetical enemy towards whom he well may well entertain
[01:46:58] no hostile feelings.
[01:47:02] The class example of this on Orthodox behavior occurred on Christmas Day, 1914, when British
[01:47:07] and German troops joined together for convivialities in no man's land.
[01:47:14] This guy's vocabulary is very impressive, by the way.
[01:47:17] Needless to say, these reprehensible flickering of humanity were quickly stamped out by the
[01:47:22] generals on both sides.
[01:47:23] We all know what happened.
[01:47:25] The Germans and the Brets were like, we're not fighting anymore.
[01:47:27] We're not playing soccer.
[01:47:28] We're not playing soccer.
[01:47:29] And then the generals like, no, you will bomb them.
[01:47:32] They'll Roger that.
[01:47:35] It is just because the business of a soldier is destruction and violence that need to take
[01:47:41] general precautions against disorder becomes so pressing.
[01:47:46] Because you really, you got a bunch of freaking, you're training people to be aggressive.
[01:47:51] And you've got to somehow make sure they don't point that aggression at you.
[01:47:55] The aspects and question may be assumed under the general, effinkly impolite heading
[01:48:01] of bullshit.
[01:48:02] So important is this curious phenomenon that it deserves a section to itself.
[01:48:06] So now we have a chapter that's called bullshit, which I already mentioned.
[01:48:10] This is the little stupid things that you're doing.
[01:48:13] So this is covered in this next section, this next chapter, which is entitled bullshit,
[01:48:18] chicken shit, whatever.
[01:48:21] According to Eric Partridge, the word was coined by Australian soldiers in 1916 coming
[01:48:27] from a country whose armed forces have always been relatively free from this element of
[01:48:31] militarism.
[01:48:32] They were evidently so struck by the excessive spit and polish of the British army that
[01:48:36] they felt moved to give it a label.
[01:48:40] Going a little further back at his possible at the expression has its origin in a bull,
[01:48:46] the false hairpiece worn by women between 69,000, 1770.
[01:48:51] This would be consistent with the fact that modern dictionaries defined bull as quote,
[01:48:56] a ludicrous, just, a self-contradictory statement to cheat, empty talk, absurd, fussiness,
[01:49:03] overdress, and quote.
[01:49:05] Whatever its etymological significance, such definitions certainly capture the military
[01:49:11] nature of bull, one of the most astonishing, apparently irrational, and yet significant
[01:49:16] aspects of militarism, one which connotes an attitude of mind, a pattern of behavior as
[01:49:23] and an end product.
[01:49:25] As implied by the old jingle, quote, if it moves, salute it, if it doesn't move, pick
[01:49:32] it up, if you can't pick it up, paint it and quote.
[01:49:37] The phenomenon involves ritualistic observance of the dominant submission, relationships
[01:49:43] of the military hierarchy, extreme orderliness, and a preoccupation without word appearances.
[01:49:50] This is what we call chicken chicken.
[01:49:51] The term painting rocks comes from the Marine Corps, right?
[01:49:55] I think so.
[01:49:56] I've heard that, Kermit 1000 grams.
[01:49:58] I can't say that I know for sure, but I think that's right.
[01:50:02] I can definitely say I have seen way more white painted rocks on the Marine Corps bases than
[01:50:07] any other base.
[01:50:10] Right.
[01:50:11] So does it mean they'll take rocks and paint them white in black color and white.
[01:50:15] Oh, I'm like bullshit.
[01:50:16] How about you, kiddo?
[01:50:17] It's rock, kiddo, I'm like the paint is a rocks before.
[01:50:22] He's painted some rocks.
[01:50:24] So in the military manifestations of bold range from such minor apparent absurdities as
[01:50:32] the polishing of the backs of cap badges.
[01:50:34] So what that means echo is you're polishing something that's never going to be seen.
[01:50:38] But someone's going to inspect it.
[01:50:40] It can't be seen, but you're going to do it.
[01:50:42] The blanking of trees for forthcoming general general inspection, I look up blanking because
[01:50:50] I didn't know what it was.
[01:50:51] So blanko was like a powder paint that they used to issue so you could camouflage things.
[01:50:59] But eventually, of course, took it to the extreme and now we want all the trees to be the
[01:51:03] same color.
[01:51:04] So we're going to mix this powder paint, which is a military thing and we're going to paint
[01:51:07] the trees.
[01:51:08] So they're all going to be whatever gray.
[01:51:10] That's the kind of that's chicken shit stuff going on right there.
[01:51:15] Besides this emphasis on appearance and its constraining aspects of bullshit also involves
[01:51:21] a compulsive concern with cleanliness.
[01:51:23] In this respect alone, it may achieve impressive levels of irrationality to make it white.
[01:51:28] Webbing equipment might be boiled almost to the point of destruction while the blankets
[01:51:33] at one sleep that the owner sleeps in stay on washed for weeks.
[01:51:36] There are, of course, good arguments for bullshit.
[01:51:39] So here's some reasons why it exists, some of the positive reasons.
[01:51:42] It ensures a level of alreadyness, orderliness, cleanliness, discipline, personal pride, obedience,
[01:51:48] and morale, which so it seems could not be reached in any other means, I.e. by reasoned
[01:51:53] as opposed to compulsive behavior.
[01:51:56] By the same token, it achieves a level of uniformity that makes for solidarity and group
[01:52:00] cohesiveness.
[01:52:01] So there's some good reasons for it.
[01:52:04] However, the case against it is also strong.
[01:52:06] It's time wasting, excruciatingly boring for all those with more than the most mediocre
[01:52:11] intellect and a poor substitute for thought.
[01:52:14] Since it aims to govern behavior by a set of rules and defines a rigid program for different
[01:52:19] occasions, it cannot meet the unanticipated event.
[01:52:23] So you're getting trained not to think, you want to do, did you go to OCS?
[01:52:28] Yeah.
[01:52:29] Okay.
[01:52:30] When I went to Navy OCS, the belt buckle that we got.
[01:52:31] We had to polish the coating off. There's a coating that comes on the belt buckle's
[01:52:36] echoed Charles.
[01:52:37] That keeps it shiny.
[01:52:39] No matter what, like you can, it's going to keep shiny.
[01:52:42] You actually polish that off.
[01:52:45] So that it can get eroded so that you have to polish it more.
[01:52:51] That's some chicken shit.
[01:52:53] Some bullshit right there.
[01:52:55] We had anodized and non-anodized.
[01:52:58] Anodized is the permanent thing that is always brass or shiny.
[01:53:02] You are not a lot of, you have anodized gear.
[01:53:05] So all of your stuff, your belt buckle's everything.
[01:53:08] None of it could be anodized.
[01:53:09] That was reserved for like some other people.
[01:53:12] And so you had to, by the unanodized and then shiny to make it look like it was.
[01:53:16] Yes.
[01:53:17] Good use of time.
[01:53:18] Wait, we had to, man you were, yeah, unanodized.
[01:53:21] Right, it's the freaking belt buckle's.
[01:53:22] And next level, you could see it slowly coming off and you sitting there with a cotton swab
[01:53:27] and just hours.
[01:53:29] See, even echo's confused by this.
[01:53:31] Yes, kind of nonsense.
[01:53:32] It's total nonsense.
[01:53:33] It's called brass.
[01:53:34] Oh, brass.
[01:53:35] Yeah, you definitely use brass.
[01:53:36] That's what got it off.
[01:53:37] Right.
[01:53:39] Like any compulsive symptom, bull shit and it's cousins, ritual, dogma and superstition have
[01:53:47] put themselves so far beyond reason thought that they could, that they create resistance
[01:53:52] to change and the acceptance of new ideas.
[01:53:54] Take military drill.
[01:53:56] This starts as a skill adapted to a reality situation.
[01:53:59] Right.
[01:54:00] We used to have to do close order drill for combat.
[01:54:03] It develops into a rigid pattern of behavior by becoming automatic takes the load off
[01:54:07] of memory.
[01:54:08] So you drill that and we still do this today.
[01:54:10] You don't call it military drill, but when you're doing immediate action drills with
[01:54:13] your weapon, you're learning how to wrap tack and bang, you're learning how to solve problems
[01:54:17] without having to think about them.
[01:54:18] Takes the load off the memory.
[01:54:20] Once learned, it is, it is directed by processes of which we are scarcely conscious
[01:54:25] and which leave the limited channel capacity of conscious experience, mercifully free to deal
[01:54:30] with other more pressing events.
[01:54:32] That's why you can reload your weapon without having to think about it and that way you can
[01:54:36] figure out where I'm going to maneuver my element to last.
[01:54:38] Next, that's drill.
[01:54:40] That's good.
[01:54:41] It is drill in such a sense which ensures that most motorists let off the handbrake
[01:54:46] before engaging the clutch and that most speakers construct their sentences according to the
[01:54:51] rules of language.
[01:54:52] Right.
[01:54:53] We don't have to think about that military drill.
[01:54:54] This way, the devices which could eventually weld together a group of uneducated peasants
[01:55:01] into a single corporate machine that did what it was told.
[01:55:05] This was all good except for one thing.
[01:55:07] Ritualization implying the tendency to transform means to an ends.
[01:55:11] Thus the battle drill of one error becomes the ceremonial drill of another.
[01:55:15] What started out as a functionally useful maneuver becomes a highly stereotyped pattern of
[01:55:19] movements on the barracks square.
[01:55:22] And itself, this may be no bad thing.
[01:55:26] So this is where these things come from.
[01:55:27] That's where they came from.
[01:55:28] When you see the people doing the closer to drill, like the Marine Corps silent drill team,
[01:55:34] it used to have a purpose.
[01:55:37] And it's not a bad thing necessarily.
[01:55:38] Ceremonial can be pleasing to the eye and anoddine for taxpayers and even on occasions
[01:55:45] a device for raising charitable funds.
[01:55:47] Dude, you're talking about the blue angels.
[01:55:49] The hundred percent.
[01:55:50] Yeah.
[01:55:51] And I mean that in like you subscribe in a good way.
[01:55:55] Right.
[01:55:56] That's a good way.
[01:55:57] And it's based on at one point, hey, we're going to fly together.
[01:56:00] My wingman's going to be a cup, you know, whatever.
[01:56:02] Very close to me.
[01:56:03] But now we're going to take what is there seven of them flying at the sun?
[01:56:07] Six.
[01:56:08] Now we're going to take six aircraft where we three inches from each other.
[01:56:10] And it's taken to the extreme.
[01:56:13] And it has some benefits.
[01:56:14] It's going to recruit people.
[01:56:16] It's going to be the taxpayers can see that we've got something.
[01:56:19] And we can raise money.
[01:56:20] So it's positive thing.
[01:56:22] But unfortunately, Ceremonial drill like other forms of bullshit is addictive.
[01:56:26] And by being so who serves the time and energy, which should be devoted to other more
[01:56:30] adaptive pastimes, it then becomes a substitute for doing something else as when the conservative
[01:56:36] element in the brigade of guards resisted the adopting of new battle drill because it would
[01:56:42] interfere with their existing Ceremonial procedures.
[01:56:45] So now we're starting to say, hey, we can't do that because that's not how we do our
[01:56:49] Ceremonial stuff.
[01:56:52] Fast forward a little bit as a factor in fighting efficiency.
[01:56:55] Bull has also been unhelpful in the Navy.
[01:56:58] If we were, if we assume that one of the main purposes of the Navy is to defeat the enemy,
[01:57:03] and that is in the past anyway achieved by shell fire, it might be supposed that much
[01:57:08] time would have been spent on practicing gunnery.
[01:57:12] But in the British Navy in the years before the first World War, ship commanders were
[01:57:15] actively discouraged from gunnery practice because the smoke might mark the paintwork and
[01:57:21] soil the gleaming decks.
[01:57:24] The price for this was paid at Jutland.
[01:57:27] Did you, when did you came in the Marine Corps in what 1994?
[01:57:31] Commission 94.
[01:57:32] Commission 94.
[01:57:33] Did you start your camis?
[01:57:37] Oh yeah.
[01:57:39] I got into the era of starch.
[01:57:41] Okay.
[01:57:42] I started before we, we obviously don't do that anymore.
[01:57:43] I'll go back in the memory banks.
[01:57:45] Yes, totally.
[01:57:47] We starched our food camis in the seal teams for almost my entire career.
[01:57:52] You had a pair of starch camis.
[01:57:54] Yes.
[01:57:55] And I remember when the Marine Corps at one point they stopped starching, I was like, they
[01:57:59] are so freaking square away.
[01:58:00] Yes.
[01:58:01] And I remember that time, I mean, you had your set of starched inspection ready camis.
[01:58:05] And when you brought them in, they would ask you the level of starch that you want.
[01:58:09] Yes.
[01:58:10] And you'd say galactic.
[01:58:11] Yeah.
[01:58:12] I don't want to be able to move.
[01:58:14] I want this to be body armor.
[01:58:16] I had starch camis that would stop a freaking 7, 6, 2 by 3rd time.
[01:58:20] I thought that when you said it because we went away from a pretty, pretty war.
[01:58:24] Right.
[01:58:25] It was prewar.
[01:58:26] Yeah, so I was working on that.
[01:58:27] That's even more impressive.
[01:58:28] Yes.
[01:58:29] I could see him doing it after September 11th, maybe two years later, be like,
[01:58:32] all right, we got a freaking stop.
[01:58:33] These, no, you actually did it before the war started, which shows you somebody, this
[01:58:37] is why we know we have some good officers out there.
[01:58:39] Right.
[01:58:40] Because somebody looked and said, wait, why am I seeing this freaking, they lands corporal over
[01:58:43] here and it starts to get a camis.
[01:58:45] And I feel like overdo it on this, but that piece you said is actually really important.
[01:58:49] And using that example is a good example because the new camis, the Marine Corps got, not
[01:58:53] only within outstarts, they were designed to be washed and not even ironed, which was
[01:58:57] somebody going, hey, ironing your camis is dumb.
[01:59:03] And it takes a long time.
[01:59:05] And we're going down the path of we're going to start measuring Marines based on how well
[01:59:09] they iron their camis, which is a skill that I don't care about.
[01:59:12] Yes.
[01:59:13] And just no more starratives, you can take them out of the wash and flat, you know, slap
[01:59:17] them out and put them on.
[01:59:19] And they weren't going to go in and look at crap.
[01:59:21] And it is the example of what you just described.
[01:59:23] It was like there actually some good people going, this is stupid.
[01:59:26] This is chicken shit and we're not doing this.
[01:59:27] Yes, that is outstanding.
[01:59:29] Also, somebody that needs to be a chicken shit review board.
[01:59:32] If I was benevolent dictator of America, I would have a chicken shit review board for each
[01:59:36] branch of the service and then I'd have a chief chicken shit review board officer who would
[01:59:41] be like a Mustang freaking UDT guy from NAMM.
[01:59:46] Also, when I came in, the Marine Corps, there was no name tags.
[01:59:51] Did you, did you, were you in that air?
[01:59:52] That was.
[01:59:53] So you were just, you were just staff sergeant.
[01:59:56] What was your name?
[01:59:57] My name is staff sergeant.
[01:59:59] You can just call me staff sergeant.
[02:00:00] That was, that was freaking outstanding.
[02:00:02] That was pretty cool.
[02:00:05] Fast forward a little bit.
[02:00:06] Now that we have touched upon some of the more obvious manifestations of the phenomenon.
[02:00:09] Let us examine its deeper causes and relevance to the central thesis of this book.
[02:00:14] Okay, so why is this chicken shit come from?
[02:00:16] First start, it seems to be a natural product of a authoritarian, hierarchical, or organizations.
[02:00:21] Secondly, though it's outward and visible signs are manifold, they have three common denominators.
[02:00:27] The first is constraint.
[02:00:30] We're trying to constrain people.
[02:00:32] The second is deception, which sounds a little bit weird.
[02:00:35] The third is substitution for thought.
[02:00:39] The deception part is like, oh, we can have you do this instead of doing something else.
[02:00:45] The constraint is we're going to control you in the substitution for thought is we don't
[02:00:47] want you thinking.
[02:00:49] Fast forward a little bit here.
[02:00:52] Perhaps the single most important feature of bull is its capacity to delay anxiety.
[02:01:00] So, and I'm just going to get into it.
[02:01:03] At conscious rational level, or greed or delineus, cleanliness, punctuality, and discipline,
[02:01:10] clearly make for efficiency, the knowledge that one belongs to an organization which
[02:01:14] puts a premium on these laudable traits that ones rifle or fire, and there is a key for
[02:01:21] the bully beef tin obviously makes for confidence.
[02:01:24] So these are really positive things about this level of discipline.
[02:01:30] At a conscious rational level, therefore, even those aspects of bull, which reflect the
[02:01:34] grossest exaggeration of these traits, must seem like steps in the right direction.
[02:01:39] This confidence, of course, may be displaced.
[02:01:44] That a commander insists upon meticulous attention to detail down to the last shining
[02:01:48] button is no guarantee that his strategic thinking is anything other than pure aisle.
[02:01:55] Indeed, he could well be unwittingly substituting a lesser for a more important area of
[02:02:02] general ship.
[02:02:04] That's the substituting part.
[02:02:06] Look, as we were saying earlier, Dave, I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but
[02:02:11] if I can polish this belt buckle and I can put on this uniform and I can get my platoon
[02:02:15] to do all that correctly, I'm going to look good.
[02:02:21] Nevertheless, there are good grounds for believing that those situations in which bulls
[02:02:25] shed flourishes are ones in which it reduces anxiety because orderliness is fairly vital
[02:02:33] to survival.
[02:02:34] Again, the imposed uniformity, which is part and partial of the bulls, should obviously
[02:02:39] make for group cohesiveness and that we're all in it together feeling which combat's
[02:02:43] fear.
[02:02:45] We must suppose to, that the heightened conformity which it imposes will, like other forms
[02:02:50] of perceived conformity, encourage people through a diffusion of responsibility to perform
[02:02:54] acts which they might otherwise avoid.
[02:02:56] So we've built a team and we've used this to build a team which is okay.
[02:03:01] I have a common bond with people that went through OCS that we sat around and Pauls these
[02:03:04] things.
[02:03:05] It's a real thing.
[02:03:08] Yet another useful feature of bulls shed and so it has been said as its role as a
[02:03:12] distractor and time filler according to this theory a mind preoccupied with buttons and
[02:03:17] cocaps has little room for gloomy for bootings.
[02:03:20] The point is well made by AB Campbell when writing of naval customs quote, it is the guiding
[02:03:27] principle of naval service that the ships company should be constantly employed and this
[02:03:31] is the reason apart from the necessity for scrupulous, cleanliness, why there is so much scrubbing
[02:03:36] of decks and polishing of bright work.
[02:03:38] There's making people have dumb shit to do because we want the groups to be troops to
[02:03:44] be busy.
[02:03:45] In the same context this writer compares naval and civilian routine.
[02:03:50] There's a reason I read this whole section.
[02:03:52] It is safe to say that there are many jobs, many short job routine routines which destroy
[02:03:58] initiative.
[02:04:00] This also applies to many factory workers but it's not so in the Navy.
[02:04:04] A routine job builds up a blue jacket's character as to why the end quote, as to why the
[02:04:09] naval and civilian characters should require such a dramatically different treatments, Campbell
[02:04:14] refers to the moments of danger which occur for the former but not the later.
[02:04:19] Later, this begs of course, several questions.
[02:04:23] He said this writer is saying that in the Navy all this bullshit work builds character,
[02:04:31] but in this civilian world they don't need it.
[02:04:36] They don't need it and it it it it it it hurts their initiative.
[02:04:39] The reason that it's okay is because in the Navy you've got to face all these threats
[02:04:44] danger.
[02:04:46] He says it confuses loss of initiative and blind obedience with the building of character
[02:04:50] and makes the unwanted assumption that naval ratings face greater danger than many civilians
[02:04:54] including merchant seamen, steeple jacks, racing motorists, mountain climbers, single handed
[02:05:00] yachtmen, coal miners, madda doors, not one of whom has to fortify his character by
[02:05:05] polishing grass or scrubbing wood.
[02:05:08] It would perhaps be true to say that since the imposing of bull upon troops serves to reduce
[02:05:16] initiative it will thereby increase the feeling of dependency which they have toward their
[02:05:21] superiors this in turn will increase their obedience and loyalty.
[02:05:26] So we're getting a little brain washing going on.
[02:05:29] You do what I tell you to do.
[02:05:30] You do it over and over again.
[02:05:32] You become dependent on me telling you what to do and that's what I want.
[02:05:36] I don't want to have any initiative.
[02:05:37] I don't want you thinking for yourself.
[02:05:39] I just want you doing what I tell you to do.
[02:05:40] That's why when I am a tyrannical leader or a authoritarian leader I'm super concerned
[02:05:46] about your freaking buttons.
[02:05:52] Finally at a conscious rational level there are aspects of bull which may well help combat
[02:05:58] social anxieties and military men, gorgeous uniforms, martial music, prancing horses
[02:06:03] and even being saluted are obviously bomb to tender egos and by promoting soldier repried
[02:06:10] do much to offset the hostility and ridicule to which the military are from time to time
[02:06:15] subjected to by those in other walks of life.
[02:06:21] But there's another less obvious reason for bull namely that it serves to reduce
[02:06:24] deeper seated feelings of anxiety which may well have their origins in events unrelated
[02:06:30] to here and now of which the subject remains blissfully unaware.
[02:06:35] This is where we start to get a little psychological reference there that we have things
[02:06:38] in our subconscious that make us a certain way and one of the things he's saying is people
[02:06:43] that people that like things to be super orderly, super or orderly they don't like
[02:06:48] change, they don't like when bad things happen, they don't like when things that you can't
[02:06:51] control, they don't like those things.
[02:06:53] And we're going to get to this but kind of person you want the military someone that
[02:06:56] can't handle change and unexpected things this is the wrong person.
[02:06:59] So if you're a person that looks at the military and goes damn I want a uniform I can
[02:07:02] just wear what they tell me to wear I can polish it and nothing changes and that's what
[02:07:05] I want, that's great on the parade field it sucks in combat.
[02:07:13] The most extreme examples of this phenomenon occur in obsessive compulsive neurosis a condition
[02:07:18] which the patient feels compelled to follow a pattern of ritualistic thoughts and acts
[02:07:22] that these often include such bizarre symptoms as compulsive handwashing.
[02:07:26] This is OCD, a preoccupation with timing and counting, recurrent, rumenative, ideas, stereotype
[02:07:31] that verbal utterings and always standing with one toes absolutely in mind has obvious
[02:07:37] significance for more military versions of the malaise.
[02:07:42] You remember while we were talking about the degrees of insane, right?
[02:07:46] Everyone's in say, because everyone's reality is a little bit different.
[02:07:49] Well everyone has different degrees of how OCD they are and everyone has some level.
[02:07:56] Maybe some people are not, you know, 0.01 but you got a spectrum and the case here is that
[02:08:03] if you look at the military and you see people that are all uniform and you see that
[02:08:07] everything's clean you look at that as a type of environment I might want to go into
[02:08:11] because I'm kind of like that and that's how you end up with people in this zone for
[02:08:17] what you guys wrote it down as like this guy is such a good idea.
[02:08:20] He called it bomb to the tender ego.
[02:08:23] I get it's such a great, it's such a great medicine for that like oh buttons are shiny.
[02:08:30] Boots are lined up on the line, perfectly height order, everything is how I want it.
[02:08:38] And that is such a good medicine for me, you know, for my tendencies where they came from
[02:08:42] and then just like you said is and I made the reference to the bluangles from my they're
[02:08:47] literally called the flight demonstration team.
[02:08:51] But if you had the mindset that this is a reflection of combat, if this is a reflection
[02:08:54] of the challenges you're going to face in the real world, I mean the disconnect there
[02:08:59] seems like it'd be so obvious.
[02:09:01] But all those stories that he's telling and the first three sections we did to this
[02:09:05] is that people going oh my we close order joy of the best close order jope will tune
[02:09:11] we're going to be the best blu-tune combat.
[02:09:13] Dude yeah it's the I wish that with the this the disconnect was talking about something
[02:09:21] else but the end state of all this is real people die at the end of all these stories
[02:09:26] which is the worst part about it and then then the ultimate manifestation of that is
[02:09:30] is a world of war and of like we are going to get online just like we did on the
[02:09:35] break deck we're literally going to get in a line and move in in a line.
[02:09:42] I guess insane maybe is a better word.
[02:09:44] Yeah.
[02:09:46] Yeah speaking of the degrees of what you're OCD he says such symptoms are not of course
[02:09:52] confined to the chronic sick so you don't necessarily have to have some big issue milder
[02:09:57] forms may well occur in normal population during times the stress bead counting foot
[02:10:02] tapping and the mowling of dogma like the compulsion to make things clean and tidy during
[02:10:08] periods of menstruation well known palliatives for the stressed psyche.
[02:10:15] So this is something that you see people doing when they're stressed they'll say the
[02:10:18] Lord's prayer or whatever except for Rose, Fug Rose.
[02:10:23] Hmm remember when she fought for the first time against that Chinese girl what's your name?
[02:10:28] If you know it.
[02:10:29] Oh no it was against Johanna it was against Johanna and so Johanna Dave was like just on a
[02:10:37] tear destroying everyone and she had the super hostile aggressive attitude just you know
[02:10:44] getting people's faces and she'd been crushing people and she fought thug rose and they
[02:10:49] squared off in the face off and Johanna's getting all crazy making their mean face and
[02:10:54] everything and thug rose just just straight normal face just saying the loud Lord's prayer
[02:11:01] for you to look the growth.
[02:11:06] Um he says let us not be around the bush at the risk of offending those with delicate susceptibilities
[02:11:13] or though or who themselves have problems in these areas they must be said that they
[02:11:18] involve four matters of primary importance in every human life sex elimination eating and death.
[02:11:25] These are things that cause us concern.
[02:11:30] The greatest anxieties concern death and unconstrained disorder since the two are
[02:11:35] inexperably related a defense against one is a defense against the other also this is perhaps the
[02:11:41] crux of the origins of bullshit. So we're afraid to die death is a form of disorders we want
[02:11:48] to get everything in order. Let us approach this from another standpoint whenever whatever
[02:11:52] it's particular form of bullshit results in a state of affairs which is opposed to what many
[02:11:58] people would regard as a primary source of delight the natural diversity of nature towards such
[02:12:04] diversity it is impeccably hostile. It is no exaggeration to say that this aspect of militarism
[02:12:13] is dedicated to the ironing out of differences the efficiency with which it destroys variety
[02:12:17] imposes uniformity is matched only by its demand for conformity. So we are going against nature
[02:12:23] when you're making everything the same and nature's death is part of nature.
[02:12:27] This is against uniqueness uniqueness as market value not for nothing does current advertising
[02:12:34] for the quote best car in the world make only one specific claim that no two roles
[02:12:39] voices are alike. So there's what we're devaluing uniqueness but bull inverts these values
[02:12:46] it worships homogeneity and frowns on deviants whether it's toecaps buttons or dressing by the
[02:12:53] left hair length, kit inspection or marching feet the quintessence the quintessence of
[02:13:00] perfection resides in conformity to a regulation pattern. This conformity is the product of constraint.
[02:13:07] It seems that since bull is primarily concerned with substituting pattern for randomness
[02:13:12] it evidently reduces anxiety behind the reduction of uncertainty. So there's a whole idea
[02:13:18] psychologically that we just want to make things more certain less random how do we do that? Well
[02:13:24] we just make everything the same. If I'm a person that is as anxiety and fear of the unknown
[02:13:33] what am I going to do? Let's start trying to make everything the same. That's cool if you're on
[02:13:40] the parade field that type of personality is actually awesome if you're on the parade field.
[02:13:45] That type of personality that doesn't want anything to be shocking is a nightmare on the battlefield.
[02:13:54] Anyone who doubts these soothing effects of bull has only to consider two other situations
[02:13:58] of frightening uncertainty, marriage and death, few of played even a minor role in these events
[02:14:04] would deny the emotional support that comes from the time-honored ritual of weddings and funnels.
[02:14:07] I never thought that before. There's a reason you gotta do this this way. Here it is.
[02:14:12] Let's face it. If you didn't set that day on the wedding, if you didn't set that day and have a bunch
[02:14:17] of people invited and there wasn't a thing going on, you probably get 50% less of weddings
[02:14:22] because people are freaking out. They're like, I'm not going through with us.
[02:14:28] Two overlapping theories can be invoked. The argument is simple. Living organisms are complex patterns
[02:14:33] which persist for a time within the essential disorder from which they came and to which they
[02:14:37] will with equal uncertainty return. So you live, you're nothing and then these random,
[02:14:43] freaking biological components fall into a pattern for a certain period of time and then
[02:14:48] they all break apart in your debt. Which is a really whippazar way of him saying what I just said.
[02:14:54] I think he gets an F on simplicity of that one. Whether it is a single cell,
[02:14:59] the integrated systems of the total organism or the external social order,
[02:15:04] there exist regulators, controls and constraints whose function it is to preserve the pattern to
[02:15:08] keep it from keep to keep this from that to maintain purity and separateness. This holds as true
[02:15:15] for biological process as it does for the construction of an urban sewage system. You have to put
[02:15:21] controls around things. Indeed, life can be construed as a fight for orderliness in the course of
[02:15:29] which much behavior both voluntary and involuntary, both external and internal is directed to this end.
[02:15:36] Laws and rules of hygiene, prophylaxis, antibiotics, rejection mechanisms, adrenaline secretion,
[02:15:44] and new year's resolutions are just some of the devices which aim to stem the perpetual
[02:15:49] drift toward disorder. So that's what life is. You have to stay in order to stay alive.
[02:15:57] And you do like you work out to keep everything in order. You try and eat right to keep everything
[02:16:02] in order. You make new year's resolutions to try and keep everything in order. You clean your
[02:16:06] teeth to try and keep everything in order. It's a fight. It's a fight to keep things in order.
[02:16:10] It is of course losing battle. As Oscar Wilde said, good intentions are useless attempts to
[02:16:16] metal with the laws of nature. Bullshit represents an extreme manifestation of a general
[02:16:25] and necessary propensity on the part of living systems to resist randomness. This would account
[02:16:31] for the fact that the satorial aspects of the syndrome are concerned with removing dirt
[02:16:40] with maintaining separateness, with keeping green, green and white white, with preserving
[02:16:43] status quo, keeping hair short, brass, shiny, rifles, clean, and with maintaining uniformity
[02:16:48] by written order shouted commands and other behavioral constraints. But like waking consciousness
[02:16:56] in contrast to the dream and normality and contrast to psychosis, bullshit makes its effect
[02:17:02] by constraint upon the creativity of thought. He just said all that other stuff that I just said
[02:17:07] for that. I'm sorry, it took a little longer. I should have skipped a little bit more. But
[02:17:12] all that stuff of trying to maintain order is negatively impacting creativity. That's what
[02:17:18] it's doing. And the more you focus on that stuff, the less creative you're going to be.
[02:17:23] Bullshit may be regarded as an organization's response to the threat of its disintegration.
[02:17:30] So if you're in the military and you don't keep order, there's actually a threat of
[02:17:35] your organization falling apart. In the military, this threat has two sources, the external
[02:17:42] enemy and the aggressive impulses of its own members. In either case, the greater the threat,
[02:17:48] the greater the constraints, which means when you add conscripts that you were trying to get to fight,
[02:17:56] you had to freaking tighten those people up, you had to keep it super rigid. You get in a special
[02:18:01] operations. That's probably the least rigid because everyone volunteered through your four times to get to
[02:18:07] that point where now, hey, I want to be here. So there's a much less constraints.
[02:18:15] So that's where we're at. Now, at this point, Dixon, who wrote this book, goes into a bit of,
[02:18:22] he goes down some Freud activities here, Sigmund Freud, which is, if you don't know anything about
[02:18:29] Freud, Freud was a cocaine addict, I mean, he's at least, he was kind of a liar and a bit of a crack.
[02:18:38] He basically spewed out all kinds of crazy theories and a majority of them, I don't know
[02:18:46] from my little ones in this, but I'm pretty sure I'm the guy. A majority of them were wrong. A
[02:18:51] majority of them were just batshit crazy. Like just weird theories that he thought up, but so
[02:19:01] and I would tell you that, Dixon, well, this is again, he wrote this in 1976, this hadn't
[02:19:07] progressed. People didn't have as much knowledge. Freud had more people hadn't understood how
[02:19:12] we would freaking disaster. Freud was, but he, but Freud did just like a broken clock is right
[02:19:20] twice a day. Freud did come up with some concepts that are still used and one of them is just that
[02:19:25] we have a subconscious. Now, what Freud thought was that our subconscious was was basically built
[02:19:32] before the age of five based on your arrogginess zones and all this weird stuff, right? And that
[02:19:38] you, you just weird, just weird stuff. But you do have a subconscious and it does drive things.
[02:19:45] It's not based on the way you are potty trained, which a lot of this Freud stuff is based on weird.
[02:19:52] I think that dude had some issues. It's some serious issues. You know, I need to get Deryl Cooper on.
[02:19:58] We need to do a freaking Freud breakdown with Deryl Cooper and see what's up. But the bottom line is
[02:20:03] this guy's a cocaine addict and he's a bit of a quack, but some of his theories were correct.
[02:20:11] And then on top of that, regardless of where people develop their personality, we all know that people
[02:20:18] have personalities. And you know, like one of those personalities is, comes to the word comes
[02:20:24] directly from Freud, which is like an anal, retentive personality. What we all know that type of personality,
[02:20:29] it's a type of personality. Does it develop from where someone is how someone is potty trained?
[02:20:33] No, actually, it's not where it develops from. We develop from a whole bunch of different things
[02:20:37] and a bunch of different people from a different background can end up with that type of personality.
[02:20:42] So he was wrong about where these things came from, but there are certain personalities that people have
[02:20:49] and some of these things are reflected. We have to deal with. And is someone that's anal-retentive
[02:20:56] going to be more apt to look at the military and think to themselves, that looks like my kind of scene,
[02:21:01] absolutely. Is someone that's listening to rock and roll and their beds not made and they're
[02:21:09] they got the crap on their fort? Is that the part type of person that's like I'd really like to
[02:21:13] join the military? It's not, right? It's not. Echo Charles, you weren't like, oh man, you know what?
[02:21:19] I'm kind of cruising over here. I'm kind of getting up around the crack of 10 30 in the morning.
[02:21:24] Maybe the military's my route, right? That's funny. You said that because I remember back when
[02:21:28] my friends were joining the military and you know, military's always an option for kind of floating around
[02:21:34] when you're young or whatever. The one thing that stood out to me was like having to wake up at a
[02:21:39] search at times. Weird. Yeah. Oh, check. So you got, so he starts focusing on this type of personality.
[02:21:47] I'm going to fast forward through some of the Freudian weirdo crap that he talks about a little bit.
[02:21:52] He doesn't go. He's only a few pages, but he says it does not need any vast stretch of the imagination
[02:21:59] to see more than a passing similarity between these obsessive traits and the practice of bullshit.
[02:22:04] But bull also has a two-pronged purpose to combat dirt and prevent illegitimate outbursts of aggression.
[02:22:12] Aggression that is towards the superiors and potentially dangerous towards parent figures, right?
[02:22:19] So that's one of the reasons we impose these things. It's to keep people in check.
[02:22:24] At this stage in the argument, it is necessary to issue a caution. We are not saying that military
[02:22:30] organizations are hotbeds of obsessional neurosis, nor that those given to bullshit are
[02:22:36] necessarily manifesting compulsive symptoms. On the contrary, all that we have tried to show
[02:22:42] is that the anxiety reducing aggression controlling and tenacious nature of bullshit
[02:22:47] comes at least partly, explicable. So that you can get it. You can kind of reason with it.
[02:22:56] And it's not all bad. And hey, I was freaking very, I mean, I was very into, you got to look
[02:23:02] square away. My boots were always highly polished. My uniform was always
[02:23:07] starched even my freaking camey uniform. That's the way I was. You know, task unit bruiser,
[02:23:11] if you, here's an interesting dichotomy. Once you left our base, our little compound over there,
[02:23:18] which was originally called shark base, and then called camp markedly,
[02:23:22] if you went off that base, you were in a square away uniform. When you were on that base,
[02:23:26] I didn't give a shit what you were. You could wear a freaking whatever, flip flops and a pair of
[02:23:30] surf shorts. I did not care. So I wasn't like, you know, I wasn't a militant. I wasn't obsessive about it,
[02:23:38] but I understood the value of it in certain situations. Research has shown not only that
[02:23:44] psychological arousal is decreased by ritual, but also that under threatening conditions, normal
[02:23:51] individuals like compulsive behave like compulsive neurotics. This is when you see people freaking out a
[02:23:56] little bit. And they start doing weird, you know, start focusing on some little thing,
[02:24:01] because they're freaking out about what's going on around them. Since military organizations
[02:24:06] represent par excellence outlets for and consequently defenses against aggression and disorder,
[02:24:12] they will tend to attract people who have some difficulty in reconciling these conflicting needs,
[02:24:16] people who overvalue aggression, order and obedience. No doubt. This conclusion is supported by the
[02:24:24] finding that patient suffering from obsessional neurosis, show improvement during military service.
[02:24:31] So if you got a little bit of that activity in your brain, you're probably going to do pretty good.
[02:24:35] Then he's got this whole flow chart set up, get the books so you can see it, but you got combat.
[02:24:42] And combat causes a bunch of anxiety, death disorder, social disapproval, fear of being
[02:24:50] called a coward, fear of your own aggressive impulses. That's what combat inflicts on you.
[02:24:55] So how do you deal with that? How do you deal with that? Well, one did way to deal with it is
[02:24:59] bullshit, like chicken shit, like polish your boots, dogma, ritual, codes of honor. So we put
[02:25:07] these codes in place to sort of defend against all this anxiety. What is that result in? Rigidity,
[02:25:13] conformity, traditionalism, over obedience, aversion to progress. And all those things attract
[02:25:20] people with personal anxieties about dirt, aggression, disobedience. That's where it gets you.
[02:25:27] And what does that do? Increases military incompetence, which by the way then increases the combat
[02:25:36] scenarios that you read, which is a freaking nightmare. If the other thing it does, is it attracts these
[02:25:46] people. Attracts these people that have, you know, that are the care about appearance, promotional
[02:25:52] prospects, disapproval of those higher in their military hierarchy. They're scared of that.
[02:26:00] So this is just this horrible cycle that we end up in. Where the anxiety creates this freaking
[02:26:09] bullshit and this ritual and rigidity and conformity. And those things actually create, you
[02:26:16] to perform worse in combat, which means all those things get worse and you end up in a horrible cycle.
[02:26:20] As opposed to someone that's like, hey, now's not the time for that. We got to go fight. We
[02:26:25] are that you can actually break out of this cycle. Did it so hard to listen and explain this,
[02:26:30] even just something as simple as the word dirt. Like the idea that, and he did it well. Like you
[02:26:39] get dirt in a right place. You should shoot a rifle. That's the problem. So we need to be able to
[02:26:42] respond to dirt, but the responsive, or I want people that don't want dirt. So I'm going to create a
[02:26:46] scenario by which it repels the dirt and doesn't allow the dirt into my system. It's actually not what you
[02:26:51] want. If you want something goes, yeah, it's going to get dirty here. And we're not going to react to
[02:26:56] the dirt by creating a system that doesn't let the dirt in. We're actually going to encourage
[02:27:00] a system of things get dirty. Like, no horse, we can, we can, we can deal with that. Not by
[02:27:05] repelling the dirt, but by accepting the fact that it's going to get dirty. And we're going to clean
[02:27:10] and deal with those things. But just the way he paints that picture of that cycle of the
[02:27:16] psychology of, do you want someone who doesn't like dirt or someone who does like it to be able
[02:27:21] to deal with it? And the irony that's inside that is what it attracts is the person that can't handle
[02:27:27] it, which is the thing that's going to get you killed. Yes. God, it's part of listen to it is it,
[02:27:32] just to just to use these words again. So there's a, there's a dichotomy of leadership, right?
[02:27:36] And everything has to be balanced. Right. And yet, when you think of these words, you think of a
[02:27:41] military stereotype, rigidity, conformity, traditionalism, obedience. Those are military characteristics
[02:27:51] and they are good. Right. They are good. You've got to be, you've got to have some level of
[02:27:56] rigidity. You've got to want to conform with what's happening. You've got to be into those traditions.
[02:28:01] You've got to be obedient. Those are those are totally awesome military qualities.
[02:28:07] And you also got to be able to buck all of those qualities in order to survive and order truly
[02:28:14] excel. So even these, these characteristics that he's talking about, you can see that anyone that
[02:28:22] has those is going to be attracted to the military. In some level, or I'd say most people that
[02:28:27] have some of those characteristics are going to be attracted to the military. The problem comes
[02:28:32] when you have a lot of people like that attracted and even bigger problem comes is when people are
[02:28:39] getting promoted based on those things and they're not getting promoted based on creativity.
[02:28:43] They're not getting promoted based on not being a yes man. They're not getting promoted based on
[02:28:49] new ideas. That's not, none of that is happening. You're getting, oh, you're more obedience.
[02:28:55] So you're going to get promoted. Hey, if you are going into combat, do you want to work for someone
[02:29:01] that has been promoted for 19 years because they've been obedient and rigid and conformed?
[02:29:07] Hell, no, hell no. And inside the reaction to the dichotomy to subscribe to
[02:29:14] the less balanced you are with that reaction. The more extreme your reaction is, the worse things
[02:29:19] are going to be. And if the system reinforces it and the person goes in that direction,
[02:29:24] that the inability to react to the dichotomy by being balanced is, yeah, look, do we want someone
[02:29:31] that, you know, that will never conform? No, you don't want someone that's never going to
[02:29:35] conform. Do we want someone that just can't obey? No, we don't want anyone like that. We're not saying
[02:29:39] that. But man, you don't want to go to the extreme or it's going to suck. Yes. All right, one last thing
[02:29:45] before we close this section out, he says in other words, this is basically what you and I were
[02:29:50] just saying to have. In other words, those very characteristics which are demanded by war,
[02:29:56] the ability to tolerate uncertainty, spontaneity of thought and action, having an open mind to the
[02:30:04] receipt of novel and perhaps threatening information are the antithesis of those possessed by people
[02:30:12] attracted to the controls and orderliness of militarism. That's exactly what you and I were just
[02:30:21] saying. And that statement is important to remember. It's important to remember that the best qualities
[02:30:31] for good performance in war and therefore good performance in business and life are the ones
[02:30:39] that we talk about here all the time. What he just mentioned, the ability to tolerate uncertainty,
[02:30:43] spontaneity of thought and action, having an open mind, open to new ideas, even threatening ideas,
[02:30:52] having an open mind to threatening ideas, you have many discussions I've had where I won in the
[02:31:00] initial conversation in the first four sentences because when Dave came to me and said,
[02:31:06] I think we should do this a different way and I said, oh, sounds like you fought this through,
[02:31:10] what do you want to do? Do you know how many times I've just had a immediate victory,
[02:31:15] immediate victory? And by a victory, I mean, all of a sudden, Dave's not coming on the offense.
[02:31:21] He's opening his mind. We're going to be able to come to a positive net outcome
[02:31:27] because when he came to me with, I don't like the way we're doing this and instead of me saying,
[02:31:32] that's because you don't understand what's happening and all of a sudden we're arguing. And
[02:31:35] then I say, oh, really, please, please tell me what you think we should do. Oh, it's so easy.
[02:31:43] Wow, critical is that you just to, when you define the winning is getting the out the right
[02:31:49] outcome, not winning the arena, and I won because I want the outcome to be right. Yeah, I won because
[02:31:55] we figured out the best way to do this and it wasn't Dave's way and it wasn't my way,
[02:31:59] either. We actually compromised and figured out the best way to make this happen right.
[02:32:04] For you can ridiculous. Those are the qualities we should want. Those are qualities we should
[02:32:09] strive for. So we can be better leaders and better people. We'll continue this book next time.
[02:32:17] For now, echo, speak of getting, speaking of getting better. Yes. You got neum ways that we can get
[02:32:24] better. Yeah. I'm speaking to where it's Dave. I know you got some stuff to do. I do. Why don't you
[02:32:29] kick on out of here, man? Right on. And with that Dave Burke had to go, obviously busy.
[02:32:38] And well, nonetheless, we're here. We're trying to get better. So what do you got echo, Charles?
[02:32:47] Oh, well, I could go into the whole intelligence thing, but in the sake of saving time,
[02:32:55] let's just think of the smart thing to do on this path that we're on to improve ourselves.
[02:33:01] We're working out, we're reading. So through these workouts and training, we're
[02:33:05] so physically and mentally. We might need some help, some supplementation that provides
[02:33:10] benefits. Do we all need help? Maybe maybe not. I'm going to say I haven't met people that
[02:33:19] didn't need. Okay. They might not. I needed help. But who does not voluntarily accept some
[02:33:28] beneficial benefits? We're all going to benefit from benefits. So one of those benefits that we can
[02:33:34] have is from a new energy drink that we have. Jockel, discipline, go. Healthy, not unhealthy. So
[02:33:43] usual legacy energy drinks that are unhealthy. They provide a good front end benefit, but they
[02:33:49] not healthy back end detriment. This one healthy and tastes good and gives you energy all upside.
[02:33:55] You know what else provides like a front side kind of up feel good moment. Like, like,
[02:34:03] legacy energy drinks. Crystal method. Sure. I'm just saying. Yes, you're the legacy energy
[02:34:11] drinks. Think about what they do. They make you feel good for a very short period of time
[02:34:18] and then they kill you. Yeah, which is what a traditional legacy crap energy drink is going to
[02:34:27] do. Make you feel good for a little bit and then over time you die. Yeah. It's true. Whereas
[02:34:34] miraculously miraculously we have made something that gives you all the upside of an energy drink.
[02:34:44] Meaning you will feel energized. But later you won't be coming down with multiple diseases
[02:34:55] caused by this thing that you put in your body. In fact, the opposite true, you will be more healthy
[02:35:00] when you get done drinking one of these than you were before you drink it. Think about that.
[02:35:05] There's no one else that's going to say that because they can't because they didn't go to the
[02:35:10] degree that we went to to make sure we were making something good for you. Yeah, yeah, man. Yeah,
[02:35:15] that's one of those no brainers for sure. And it tastes good. A bunch of different flavors
[02:35:19] mangoes the best. My opinion, not Jocca's opinion. But in opinion is one of these things that,
[02:35:25] you know, my, okay, my favorite is Jocco Palmer, which is like the, the Tekken Arnold Palmer.
[02:35:34] I would not, I don't, I love it. I love it. And it's number probably like five or six out of the
[02:35:42] rankings, the sales rankings. All right, like you're not. I don't like it so much because Arnold
[02:35:47] Popper is popular. You can go, let me put it this way. You can go to a restaurant tonight and you
[02:35:53] can order an Arnold Palmer because people drink Arnold Palmer's and it's a normal flavor for people to
[02:35:58] want. Wait, but is that a good one restaurant tonight and get mango drink the answer is no.
[02:36:02] Yeah, probably not. So why is that? Why is why is mango, which it is more popular than Jocco Palmer?
[02:36:09] Well, it depends. So, wait, is Arnold Palmer an alcoholic drink? No. It's half ice tea.
[02:36:14] Yeah, I'm right up. Yeah, I guess. I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's seen. I have no idea.
[02:36:19] Here's the thing. Here's, there's, we've been trying to figure that. I've been trying to figure that out.
[02:36:22] Part of the reason I think is because I called it Jocco Palmer, which is like an inside joke that
[02:36:26] only I got. I don't think people understand Jocco Palmer is kind of a joke about Arnold Palmer.
[02:36:31] Oh, and we didn't even spell it like Arnold Palmer. We abbreviated it so I don't get sued.
[02:36:37] Oh, yeah, all right. Maybe. Can't be jack and a dude's name and just putting it on your can.
[02:36:42] No, it's called a Jocco Palmer POMR. POMR. POMR.
[02:36:45] And it, so we're probably going to put it. We're going to we're going to make it more obvious as to
[02:36:50] what it is because like I said, I'm not rolling into a restaurant tonight with my wife for dinner
[02:36:56] and ordering a mango drink of any kind, right? But I am ordering an Arnold Palmer possibly.
[02:37:02] Right, but I guess, and not to go too deep into it, what it like, it's not like you're going to
[02:37:07] have a discipline go with dinner most of the time. Seems same. It's like they're just different
[02:37:13] context of when you. So if I go to the store randomly, any a snack, I might get one of those little
[02:37:19] mango smoothies, I'll be like, oh dang, that's because mango taste good. You see what I'm saying?
[02:37:23] Sure, that's like a, this is a drink, bro. Yeah, I'm saying they're all drinks and they're all
[02:37:28] drunk. You're going to be one to drink. Yeah, but yeah, I guess no one really drinks mango juice
[02:37:34] on a regular basis. But no mango soda. Yeah, but there's smoothie, there's like ice cream, there's
[02:37:40] like frozen yogurt, there's like mangoes and go away for this pistachio ice cream too,
[02:37:45] when I'm not getting a pistachio soda. But pistachio is a good flavor in general. And that's,
[02:37:50] that's my whole point. It's under a defense on the context and what you're experiencing, the flavor.
[02:37:56] Do you know what I'm saying? Hey, look, I like jocopommer. I do. I like mango better. Of course,
[02:38:03] but either way, it doesn't matter because each person's opinion is individualized to them.
[02:38:07] Doesn't matter. You could like jocopommer at a level literally level 10, like the it cannot get any
[02:38:12] better. It has no bearing on my own or in my opinion. Oh, what I like? Well, that's where I'm at level 10.
[02:38:17] And if you want to get some, get some. Yep. So yeah, again, different flavors.
[02:38:23] Get the one you want. Try them all. That's what I would say. Because the mango seems more
[02:38:28] risky because it's exotic. Orange, not so much. Seems to be in true. So you might be like,
[02:38:33] oh, that's a safe one. You know, but hey, man, with great risks come great rewards, as
[02:38:39] a wise man once said. Awesome. Also, on this path, you want to look up after your joints and
[02:38:44] immunity joint warfare, super cruel oil. Vitamin D3, cold war. These are all immunity and joint
[02:38:51] protective supplements. Don't forget about the mok. Don't forget about the mok, which is the
[02:38:57] dessert. It's a dessert that is also good for you. Again, there's not too many desserts that you can eat.
[02:39:05] You can relish the flavor and the texture and the whole thing from a, like a taste perspective,
[02:39:16] but there's more than that. The whole thing, the whole consumption, you can relish and when you get
[02:39:22] done, you're stronger. You're better. The whole experience. Yeah. It's not like when you go down the
[02:39:27] freaking. You go down to the local ice cream store in the order of mint chocolate chip milkshake,
[02:39:34] and they make it right. And it's good. Yeah. Get a good experience. We're not mad at that.
[02:39:38] And then when you get done, you know what just happened. Yeah, you poisoned yourself. Yeah.
[02:39:44] That's what happened. You pay a bit of a price. You're paying a big price. And you for sure can't
[02:39:48] do it again. The next in the next in the next day. Oh, you don't do that. Don't do that. Yeah,
[02:39:52] don't do that because there's something called type 2 diabetes, what you're working on. It's true.
[02:39:58] You're in route. Yeah. You're in route. Oh, yeah. If that's what we're doing. If that's what we're doing
[02:40:02] every day. It's true. All kinds of heart disease. You got problems. Yeah. Don't do that. Yeah. So you kind of
[02:40:09] get a day away from that one. Play this weird balancing game. There's no reason to balance right after
[02:40:14] you can go. You can get milk. You can get done with your dinner. You have that sweet tooth,
[02:40:20] which is fine. Normal. But you can follow that sweet tooth right to the milk container.
[02:40:28] You're going to play any, you don't have to play any balancing game. You just go. Yeah.
[02:40:31] As much milk as you want. Much more straight up. You want five scoops of milk?
[02:40:36] Good. Gonna be thick. Oh, it's gonna be thick unless you add some more milk. Are you going to
[02:40:40] put a scoop of milk? I'm going to put on a three scoop of milk. Yeah. Three is my next five would be.
[02:40:46] You're going hard. But you know if they're if you're there. Right up to you. Yeah. Get it.
[02:40:51] Call it. Get it man. Get it. Fise because that's a hundred grams of protein. Yeah.
[02:40:55] Hundred something. Yeah. Hey, you know, this stuff at jockelfuel.com. If you want to get free shipping,
[02:41:00] which look, the reason this isn't a hey order now and get free shipping. There's not what we're doing.
[02:41:05] Right. Here's what we're doing. We're competing with one of the biggest companies in the world
[02:41:11] who offers you free shipping. Cool. They got a big log algorithm that's figuring this stuff out
[02:41:17] and they got all this mass scale and all this things going on. They're trying to get your information.
[02:41:21] They're trying to get you into the zone where they can own you. Which is understandable. We get it.
[02:41:28] We want you to have an option to still get free shipping and not end with the matrix.
[02:41:33] So you go to jockelfuel.com. Stay out the matrix. Oh, yeah. And if you subscribe to one of these
[02:41:39] items, which you should, because then you'll be able to get it with free shipping. There you go.
[02:41:44] Jockelfuel.com. You can also get the get-in at the vitamin shop. You can get the drinks,
[02:41:50] the energy drinks at wall-walk on the East Coast or working on some other convenience stores.
[02:41:54] Right now, sorry, West Coast. The convenience terrain, a little bit rough, a little bit rough.
[02:42:02] The way it split up and what's where. So we're working it. But if you got a vitamin shop near you,
[02:42:07] where you are, you may have worked whatever. Grab it from there. Oh, for sure.
[02:42:11] Oh, good. 100%. 100%. There you go. Check it out. Yeah. It's good. Also,
[02:42:17] you just do. We're doing jiu-jitsu. To know jiu-jitsu or to not know jiu-jitsu, which one is more beneficial?
[02:42:24] We want to know jiu-jitsu. Yes, or we do. I don't care if you know one day of jiu-jitsu.
[02:42:28] Spend it in zero days of jiu-jitsu anyway. When you do jiu-jitsu, you're going to need a key.
[02:42:32] Yep. Hey, I can only train jiu-jitsu one day a week. So I'm not going to train. It's not the answer.
[02:42:39] Yeah, it's true. The answer is I can only train jiu-jitsu once a month. So I'm doing it once a month.
[02:42:44] Oh, that's the answer. Yes, sir. You get the chance to train jiu-jitsu. That's what we're doing.
[02:42:48] It's true. So when you get your gear, you get the best gear that you possibly can.
[02:42:52] Made an America by the way. An origin gear. Go to origin.usa.com for these things.
[02:42:56] You get rash cards on there as well. Somebody's on there. Also, from origin. USA.
[02:43:02] American-made denim jeans. Come on, Delta 68 jeans. My favorite jeans.
[02:43:09] Of all time, by the way. Yeah, and FYI, lay fit me up too because you got, you got a pair of
[02:43:15] Delta 68s. And we recut the Delta 68s, probably like, I don't know, six months or something like that.
[02:43:23] And to provide more comfort. I dig it. Yeah. So Delta 68s, the best, most comfortable
[02:43:32] things that you can put on your legs. And they look good too, by the way. So here, and maybe you
[02:43:36] care about this. Maybe you don't. But here's the thing. Factually, this is what happened.
[02:43:40] So boom, I don't. I didn't even have to go to called the master. My daughter heard of it.
[02:43:44] War the Delta 68 origin jeans to the master. They're pretty new too. And we're a white t-shirt.
[02:43:52] My wife likes me and a white t-shirt that don't ask why. It's just how it is. Let's just know that.
[02:43:58] These are all things I do not care about. Yes, but the concept, the underlying concept,
[02:44:03] I think most of us, it has some value. So she was like, hey, you're looking really nice.
[02:44:11] Boom. So you got a no brand Delta 68s. Functional, made in America, look good. Um, you know,
[02:44:17] durable, all this stuff. Get these jeans and echo trolls's wife will think you look good. No,
[02:44:23] she'll probably won't look at you. Oh, hopefully, don't look at you. But she thinks I look good.
[02:44:27] So maybe if you're married or have a girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever, they'll think you look good.
[02:44:33] And I'm too. We got work. We got work where coming out, by the way. If you don't know that,
[02:44:37] we got work where coming out. So you, when you're out there on the construction site,
[02:44:42] you're out there as a lineman, you're out there on the farm. Whatever you're doing, you're working.
[02:44:48] We got work where calling, which is made in America. But for real made in America, every ounce of
[02:44:56] that thing, every rivet, every, every, every thread, every, every, even the thread itself.
[02:45:01] We're making work where for workers, for American workers, made by American workers.
[02:45:09] That's what we're doing. Yes, sir. Orgen, USA.com. Also, if you want to get a shirt or had a hoodie that says
[02:45:17] discipline equals freedom, or you want to represent this path in any way. Go to jockelstore.com.
[02:45:23] That's where you can get this stuff. Some good stuff on there. Some new stuff on there.
[02:45:28] So you get to stuff on there. Oh, so you get to stuff on there.
[02:45:30] You get to do this section, you know, where look, if you do, you get to. And you kind of want to
[02:45:36] represent the path and you get to kind of a hybrid representation scenario. You can do that.
[02:45:42] You know, it's cool. I noticed at the master. We have a jiu-jitsu night, the second night. We do
[02:45:48] jitsu introduction to jiu-jitsu. And there's more people now. The use of it was no one did
[02:45:55] jiu-jitsu. And now, majority of people have done jiu-jitsu. So we're getting in the right direction.
[02:46:01] Yeah. We want everyone to do jiu-jitsu. We could keep it a secret, right? That's a kind of an
[02:46:07] ego thing, right? If I don't tell anyone about this, I'm just going to be the baddest man on the
[02:46:12] board. Just so much more superior. I'm so much more superior. That's a, that's a,
[02:46:17] dork. Dorky. Yeah. Because actually, no, you know what? I don't think that's, that's not
[02:46:23] called for the dork. That's enough. Go move. Yeah. That's just pure ego. I'm gonna, I'm not going
[02:46:27] to teach you anything. Yeah. I'm just going to keep this special thing, this superpower to myself.
[02:46:32] Yeah. Because it's kind of surprising that the graces, I think the graces did it right because I think
[02:46:39] that as they broke it out, then they started promoting it and teaching it and spreading the word.
[02:46:45] I think if they would have failed to do that, they would have been five years behind.
[02:46:50] It would have taken an extra five years for people to start kind of figuring out on their own,
[02:46:55] just from videos and UFC and all those things. But it just would have been bad. They did the right
[02:47:03] thing when it was time to bring it out. They brought it out and started teaching it to people.
[02:47:07] Well, actually, I'll kind of in a way do you want better? Probably not even five years when you think
[02:47:12] about it because you said because you said they, they, they might figure it out because of videos
[02:47:17] in UFC or whatever, the whole existence of UFC is because of how you're crazy. So it's, they
[02:47:22] wouldn't have had the UFC. The straight of wouldn't exist. Because it's all it was essentially
[02:47:27] demonstration of how effective you did to it and it would be. Essentially what UFC won was.
[02:47:33] So, man, that wouldn't exist. No one would do it. It'd be probably relegated to little secret
[02:47:38] sex. Yeah. Like Brazil, little secret dojo's, doing their secret art, just rolling every
[02:47:45] place there. So it's there for everyone to get into. Yeah, it's not like that. And if you want to
[02:47:48] get a T-shirt that talks, you know, represent. So is that you're on the Jitu path?
[02:47:52] I don't even have a job. I'll store it now. Yeah. But just stuff on there. We have a subscription
[02:47:56] situation as well called the shirt locker. It's a new creative. I was at the
[02:48:01] master. Myder herd of it. And everyone's well, well, let's face it. Every day, I was wearing a
[02:48:07] different shirt from the shirt locker. Every single shirt that I wore, someone asked,
[02:48:14] hey, where did you get that shirt? Including people who weren't even there for the master.
[02:48:19] Like where did you get that shirt? The support song. That was a good one. A lot of people ask about
[02:48:24] tell them to go to them. Now, the last good shirts on there. So yeah, you get a new shirt every month,
[02:48:29] creative designs kind of new designs, creative outside of the box designs. But relative.
[02:48:37] It's been very awesome. Good feedback on that one. Yeah. Also, if you're going to subscribe to
[02:48:41] the things, you might as well subscribe to this podcast right here. Leave a review and all that stuff.
[02:48:47] Also, we have a couple other podcasts. We have Jocco and Ravling with myself and Darl Cooper DC.
[02:48:52] We have the ground of podcast. We have the warrior kid podcast. We have the Jocco Underground
[02:48:58] Jocco Underground.com where we have an alternate universe where in the event of tyrannical
[02:49:06] activities in this country and no one knows what to do. We'll be able to tell you what to do.
[02:49:14] We'll be there. We'll be on the Underground Jocco Underground.com. We made it. So we had
[02:49:17] an alternate platform in case something happens with this platform. And because we did that,
[02:49:23] it cost money to do that. And if you want to support that, it cost you $8.18 a month. And in order
[02:49:30] to give you something back for that in the immediate, we do another little podcast on there. We
[02:49:35] talk about some, we do some Q&A. We talk about some alternate things. So if you want to
[02:49:41] subscribe to that, do it. We appreciate it. Also, if you can't afford it, we understand things are
[02:49:46] tough out there right now. If you can't afford that $8.18 a month, just email assistance at
[02:49:52] Jocco Underground.com and we will take care of you. And we also have a YouTube channel where we make
[02:49:58] videos. I'm sort of the brains behind them. And I'm sort of the person that thinks of the
[02:50:04] ideas and then echo is the technical guy that does the follow the mechanics of making them. Sure.
[02:50:09] And if you want to subscribe to that. Yes, sir. You can do that. Oh, yeah.
[02:50:12] Big brothers, you bro. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. It's so bothersier.
[02:50:17] Yeah. Actually, more than it bothers me, you're just really, really happy about it. That's more
[02:50:22] the contrast. You know, they'll take this video stuff a room. It's just, it's just a thing.
[02:50:28] You know, it's just a thing. I didn't realize how much of a world though video thing is.
[02:50:33] Like, they're so. What do you mean? I mean, it's like, uh, it's a little thing, right? It's a little,
[02:50:38] it's a little ecosystem. What? That you're in. Oh, like the industry, whatever. That's your
[02:50:44] cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You kind of size each other up and so. I don't know if I
[02:50:50] size people up, but I don't. You size up their cameras. Oh, yes, I definitely. You
[02:50:55] size up their videos. Yeah. I mean, they create a field like, are you trying to act like you,
[02:51:01] you don't. Obviously, I might say something like, oh, I saw this video. Look,
[02:51:05] pretty cool. You're like, oh, I sent it to you. And you'll be like, um, you know,
[02:51:11] I don't know what their aspect ratio is. What would have room? I was okay, bro.
[02:51:16] You frame rate is off. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, look, you might be right. I don't know. If you want to check
[02:51:21] out Echo Charles's expert video production, then you can check out our YouTube channel.
[02:51:27] Sure. Jockel podcast. Hey, origin has a call to origin USA. If you want to see what
[02:51:31] 's going on up there, you can check that out. Also, psychological warfare. If you want to hear
[02:51:37] jot, no, no, no, not if you want to hear, if you're struggling to get past the moment of
[02:51:43] weakness and you need to hear someone with integrity. Name Jockel. Tell you why, hey,
[02:51:51] this moment of weakness is fleeting and it's insignificant. If you want to hear that in
[02:51:56] whatever way, psychological warfare won't get down. It's an album with tracks of him helping
[02:52:01] you pass these moments. You suck. We all have them. Don't forget about flipsidegames.com,
[02:52:05] where Dakota Myers selling cool stuff to hang on your wall that's also made in America.
[02:52:09] Got a bunch of books, new book coming out called Final Spin. You have better order it now. If
[02:52:13] you want that first to dish, look, that's what you got to do to support. There's what's the
[02:52:19] publisher thinking? They're thinking, well, you know, Jockel, you're really not a novelist. You've
[02:52:23] written some nonfiction, but you know, you're not really a novelist. That's true. We, we, we
[02:52:29] shouldn't really make too many of these. Well, then the first reviews came in and they were like
[02:52:32] damn. So anyways, if you want to check that out, if you want to order that first dish,
[02:52:37] if you want to support the cause, you want other people to get this message. Check out Final Spin.
[02:52:43] It's available now for pre-order to be. It'll be to you in a week, by the way.
[02:52:49] It's coming out. So check that out. Leadership strategy and tactics field banning all the code
[02:52:53] devaluations to protocol. This one, it goes freedom field manual. Way the word get one, two, three,
[02:52:57] four. So many people at the monster came up and said, thanks for run that book.
[02:53:00] Mike in the dragon's same thing. If you got kids, if you know kids, get them, get the freaking kids,
[02:53:04] those books. Get the, get the kids that you know. Actually, one of your jutsu guys, he's instructor,
[02:53:11] blackbelch. He said he just carries word where your kid in his back. Oh, then. He meets a kid.
[02:53:17] He's like, here you go. Here you go. Can you imagine the impact that's going to have? If I would
[02:53:22] got that book, I would be, I would be ruler of the world right now. Yeah. And a benevolent ruler of the
[02:53:28] white. I'd be nice. Sure. I want to be a bully. I'll be a warrior kid. So get warrior kid for your
[02:53:35] kids, for all kids, about face by hack worth. And then of course, extreme ownership and that I kind of
[02:53:40] that kind of, that kind of leadership that I wrote with my brother, left, babin. Also, Esslon front speaking
[02:53:45] of life babin. We have a leadership consultancy. He solved problems through leadership. No matter
[02:53:49] what's going on in your company, you think you got issues, you think you got problems, things are going
[02:53:52] wrong, things are going sideways. Guess what? Leadership is the solution. Go to Esslonfront.com to
[02:53:58] see how we can help you solve your problems, whether it's us coming directly to you to consult,
[02:54:03] whether it's you coming to the master, whether it's our field training exercises, EF battle field.
[02:54:09] We've got all kinds of things that we do to help you get through your situations utilizing leadership.
[02:54:18] And that includes, we have an online training program, an online leadership training program,
[02:54:25] extreme ownership academy. This is where you can learn to lead and you can stay ahead of the game
[02:54:31] and you can practice and you can rehearse and you can take courses and you can come on live and ask
[02:54:36] me questions. You don't learn leadership in one day. It doesn't work. You need to constantly train
[02:54:43] just like you go to the gym, just like you do to jitter. Extreme ownership.com if you want to check that
[02:54:49] out. And if you want to help service members active and retired service members, if you want to help
[02:54:54] the families, if you want to help gold star families, you can check out Mark Lee's mom,
[02:54:59] Mamla Lee, she's got a charity organization and if you want to donate or you want to get involved,
[02:55:03] go to americazmightyoriors.org and if you want more of my P-brained pontifications, or you need more of
[02:55:14] Ecos ridiculous ramblings or Dave's enthusiastic extras. You can find us on the in-a-webs.
[02:55:21] I'm Twitter. I'm the Graham and on that. Dave's at David Arborke, Echo's at Equitrals and I am
[02:55:30] at juggle willing. And thanks everyone out there worldwide in the military, standing,
[02:55:35] watch to keep us safe. Thank you. Also thanks to our police law enforcement, firefighters,
[02:55:41] paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, board of patrol, secret service, and all
[02:55:48] first responders. Thank you for standing. But watch here on the home front to keep us safe.
[02:55:53] And everyone else out there, keep an open mind. Free your mind. Don't think you have to control
[02:56:03] everything because you can. You're not going to be able to put everything in perfect order.
[02:56:08] That is not possible. Instead, be ready to shift, be ready to change, be ready to adapt,
[02:56:14] be ready to adjust the new environments and new information. Don't let your mind get stuck.
[02:56:21] Don't let it get trapped. Instead, free your mind. Free your mind. And until next time,
[02:56:35] Zekko and Joko out.