For reference

This was written about a year ago, and I think inspired my earlier post about the warrior mentality, so I'm including it for attribution purposes.

https://angrystaffofficer.com/2016/12/14/stop-calling-us-warriors/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

School Update

Finals are done (finally!), and I'm just waiting for the grades to come out.  I expect 2 As, and the other two classes are somewhere in the B+ to A- range, so we'll see what comes out of that.

During this winter break I set myself the goal of building a virtual sandbox and messing around with analyzing malware.  I bought the parts for a PC previously, though I set it all aside to get through finals week.  Yesterday I put the finishing touches on, booted it up...

And can't get it to work.  It keeps cycling through the reboot process, never displays anything on the screen or gets into the part where I can actually do something with it.  I can probably figure it out (I can search online with the best of them), but I'm not sure the time/effort is worth it...after all, if I spend all break making the computer work I'll never get to the point where I'm messing around with malware.  Or rather (what with the holidays and everything) I might not get much time before school starts up again.

So I'm debating taking the computer to a repair shop, see if they can figure out what's wrong.  I did do some initial tests (i.e. removed various components to try and narrow down where the problem is coming from, re-read the manuals on how to connect various cables, etc) but I'm worried it's something I did wrong with installing the CPU cooler.  I think the choice depends on how expensive it's likely to be.  :/

So anyways.  I figured I'd get back around to typing some of the other things I'd put on hold for the past week or so.

Lessons Learned

I got a 99% on one of my major semester programming projects.  I think it was the first truly complex programming assignment I've had (though that perspective might change as I get more experience) and I kind of wanted to jot down some thought on how it went.

When my previous workplace changed to our new Warehouse Management System, I experienced on a large scale something we all have as end users - attempts to fix one issue would often create another issue somewhere else.  It got to the point where every update we were left wondering what was going to go wrong this time, and how bad it would be.

For the first time, I experienced this from the other side.

We were simulating an ant colony, where each ant had specific tasks (i.e. the queen ant hatches new ants, the scout ant explores the area, the forager ant brings back food to the queen, and the soldier ant fights off enemy ants.)  I'd run it step-by-step for ten full turns, and suddenly all the ants would stop moving!
I'd figure out what was going on with that, would move on to other things, and then somehow whatever I did next would give me the exact same problem.  Again!  Though for a different reason of course...

You fix one thing, and it breaks something else.  It's very hard to capture the sheer level of frustration I felt as (yet again) my ants wouldn't act like they were supposed to!

On a related issue - I had a very hard time predicting how long it would take to finish the project.  I'd seem very, very close - ants were all acting perfectly - only to wind up right back where I started after making changes on something else.

I also learned that one of my dogs prefers to go out in freezing weather than sit in the warm, cozy living room while I  yell at my computer.

See, I have a bell hanging by the back door that they ring when they want to go outside.  I'd let out a particularly loud yell of frustration, and my dog would casually wonder over to the door and ring. 

It might be 10pm and below freezing outside, but she'll ring the bell.  And wait.  And if I don't get up to let her out, she rings it again.  And waits.   (To be fair, sometimes when I'm focused it'll take two or three rings before it registers that she's asking to go out).  I tell myself she's nuts to go out in weather like this, and she'll ring it again. 

When your dog is that persistent, then I guess she really wants to be outside.  In the cold.  (She generally gives a distinctive and repetitive yip at the door when she's ready to come back inside.)

So - right - my dog prefers freezing cold weather when I'm deeply frustrated.

Anyways, that's all done and I'm glad I got a 99%!  I missed one point on something that would have been an easy fix, and I probably should have caught it beforehand, but I'll take the 99%.  I've been a borderline A/B for this class and I really wanted to do well on this project.

A Continuation

Getting the right people in the right place with the right resources at the right time.

That involves the rather boring and unglamorous work of organization.  Org charts, supply chains, accountants, audits...all those things that most people hate in life.  Especially when it's done wrong, and supplies go to the wrong place, money goes missing, and nobody  quite knows who to go to in order to get the thing done.

It also requires leadership pipelines.  Identifying talent and giving people the right resources and experiences to grow into future leaders.  After all, experience commanding a platoon, company, and battalion will make you much more effective when given command of a brigade.

That's what the article on innovation reminded me of.  It's essentially saying that our innovation pipeline is broken.  That people with wealth, who are connected to a network of other innovators, are generally identified and innovating just fine.  But the system for identifying and developing innovators from the less advantaged is essentially broken.

See, here's the thing.  I've heard people at the top talk about a talent shortage, and for the most part I think that's BS.  Humans are just bursting with talent.  I am in awe, for example, of some of the talent you can find on YouTube, or Instagram, or what-have-you. 

Talent isn't the problem. 

Finding and developing it is the problem.  To get those awesome YouTube videos, for example, someone (or some search algorithm) has to look through a bunch of crap.  And there is a LOT of crap out there.

A Start

I've been re-watching some anime lately (Netflix is cheaper than feeding my book fix).  In particular Rurouni Kenshin and Bleach. 

Rurouni Kenshin is set in a very interesting era in Japanese history.  Japan was transitioning from a feudal system to a more modern nation/state, and much of the story arc is related to the upheaval this caused.  In particular, many samurai and warriors were at a loss about how to live in a world where they weren't needed - or wanted - any more. 

There's a particularly tragic episode reminiscent of The Last Samurai where a group of fighters take on government forces and get slaughtered by gunfire.  There are questions about the warrior way of life, about the values of the samurai and what it would mean when they are lost.

I find the storylines appealing because they touch on issues we deal with today - the paradoxical power and powerlessness that comes from living in a modern nation/state.  How do these empowered, highly skilled and dangerous people find purpose in a world that doesn't need them any more?

Isn't it a good thing, that we don't need to be skilled with arms any more?  That we have a society where the vast majority of us don't need to carry around weapons?  What have we lost,  in the process?

This tension between power through large scale organization and the loss at a more individual level is, in a sense, the same issue at the heart of the warrior/soldier debate.  The "Warrior Mentality" has been a big topic in military circles, and I don't want to sound overly critical with what I say next:

Warriors bring to mind lone fighters.  Skilled fighters, but a warrior essentially standing by himself.  The barbarian Goths, Vandals, Franks, etc. fighting as tribal or clan warriors. 

Defeated by the powerful Roman army, who were some of the best professional soldiers of the time.

Soldiering requires working as a team.  If you go off to be Rambo, you leave your team open and vulnerable.  Back in the sword and shield era you had to march in rank, because the shield in your left hand protected the soldier to your left...creating an impenetrable wall through which you could stab forward with your sword or pike.  This (naturally) limits the range of motion you can use in an attack.  Instead of a lone warrior standing in a circle, you have a group of people marching in lockstep.  A moving, spiky wall.  (In the modern era that tactic now makes you a major target for artillery and grenades, so marching in formation isn't a great idea.  You still, however, have to move in a different type of formation and anyone who leaves the formation leaves their team vulnerable.) 

To make that moving spiky wall, to succeed on the battlefield, you don't necessarily need the best swordsmen.  You need the ones best able to keep their shield up (i.e. stamina) and stay in formation.  Ones who can follow orders and shift (in sync with their fellows, without whacking each other with their shields or pikes or swords) to move in whatever direction is required.

If you talk about the 'warrior mentality' in terms of willingness to fight, to dedicate yourself to having the necessary skills, the ability to endure pain and difficulty in order to achieve your goal - with honor, and integrity - then soldiers do, indeed, need the warrior spirit. 

Yet they also need skills that are less glamorous.  Like giving up on individual glory in order to succeed as a team.  The Romans grew strong not because they had the best warriors, but because they had the best soldiers.

Warriors are sexy and glamorous.  They stand out from the crowd.  An army, on the other hand, is strong in the way of ants or bees.  Each individual isn't quite as important as the weighted mass of the whole, organized to put the right people with the right resources in the right place at the right time.

So many, many problems are because we are designed to work in a more feudal, personal world...and yet strength and power comes from those faceless organizations - bureaucracies and corporations - that excel at putting the right resources together on a large scale.

Or do they?

Currents of Thought

So the mixed jumble I want to make sense of includes such topics as:  inequality and it's costs, samurai, complicity in sexual abuse (I know I linked to this earlier and the NYTimes just released an article in a similar vein that I haven't read yet), how monkeys act when they see another monkey getting paid more for the same work, inflation and it's effects, a meme on the internet:

A discussion on neoliberal economic policy, as well as the warrior mentality, perennial human problems, chess endgames, talent pipelines, and our capacity for organization.

Whew.  That's a lot, no?  

My starting point for putting it all together has more to do with what I've read or watched most recently than anything else.  Different articles or TV shows remind me of different points on that list...though I'll have to give you more details before the points will make much sense.

So, after all that build up, I suppose it's time to begin.

What's the Point

The second issue with writing this post has to do with figuring out why I need to write it in the first place.

I keep coming back to "for my own clarity", and it's mostly for the following reasons:

I don't like to write something that is essentially saying "ditto" to what's already out there.  There's no value added, unless it's adding one more grain of sand or one more straw to a given point of view.  Yes, sheer weight does have a value of it's own.

Still, if I see that others have said the same things (and often better), I don't really see the point in adding my two cents. 

And some of what I planned to write - well, for the bulk of Americans they're kind of "no duh".  The problem is, for a small subset of our population, it isn't.  So I can add my weight to the mountain of people who agree that (as an example): the Republican tax plan sucks (not that tax reform itself is a bad idea, just this particular attempt at it) , or that net neutrality matters (or at least not ending it in this boneheaded way), or that we should do something about the shrinking of the middle class, or that we should decriminalize marijuana...but then it's another "ditto" post...

Or I could try to explore why the heck someone in power would say something like this:

“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies,” he told the paper.

Those types of posts are mostly just guesswork, though, as it's not like I have one-on-one conversations with anyone in the top 1%. 

And I'm not sure that what I say would make a difference to anyone who was.  Like - if they're in so much of a bubble that they honestly don't see the problems here, it's because they're not really looking.  Don't care to look. 

Have no incentive to look.

Or maybe they look, and acknowledge the problems, but their proposed solutions will only exacerbate things.

Either way, what's the point in writing for some fictional one-percenter?

So these days I'm writing either because I see something I can uniquely contribute, or I'm waiting until the swirling jumble of ideas are at the point where I need to jot them down.  There's a clarity that comes from writing a blog post that I just can't get if I don't. 

I know when I was younger I disregarded the idea that journaling mattered, but since I started blogging I've changed my mind.  Writing these things down helps me connect thoughts in a way I just can't otherwise.  I get the beginnings, generally, but then life happens.  It's time to do homework, or make dinner, or what-have-you...and they all just blow away.  I don't get to delve that deep into them.

Writing it down, however, lets me make connections and dig deeper.

So anyways, on to the latest bit of mindstorm.

Framing Events

I've had some thoughts jumbling around in the ol' noggin, though I have had a hard time figuring out which parts to get into, and in which order.  (again).

It doesn't help that it's the end of the semester, which means I mostly have been putting it aside to focus on homework.

Part of the issue is that I can't figure out what 'story' I want to tell.  The way you frame the issue shapes everything.  So, for example, I could go with a "We're headed for World War II and we're all going to die!!!" or "Here comes the American version of the French Revolution!!!" or any other disastrous prediction.

Or I could go with some version of "Nothing to see here, move along".  After all, the status quo is a powerful force - right up until it isn't.  (I distinctly remember some analysis on intelligence efforts that discussed the problems with accurately predicting the future.  There's so much incentive to foresee - and hopefully forestall - negative events that predictions are slanted towards disaster, even though most of the time those dire predictions don't really occur.  The only problem with that is we then become complacent and assume that the status quo is going to stay, right up until the Soviet Union topples or the French revolt or whatever.  All of which we can find the evidence for when we look back, yet always miss when surrounded by the regular white noise of our own time.)

After all, despite the noise and furor over whatever horrible news story is out there today, most people are still quietly just going about their lives, doing their own thing.  (Though there are undercurrents of potential problems.  There always are.  I heard a couple people say we need to completely overhaul or system, maybe have another Constitutional Convention.  People are pretty fed up with the system as is, and they're looking for alternatives.  In counterinsurgency terms - the public has grievances.  It remains to be seen whether our system can address those grievances legitimately (i.e. through elections, as we've done - more or less - for the past couple of hundred years) or whether the perception that our elite have locked down the system to such an extent that elections are useless will grow.  With potentially dire consequences down the road. (God, I hate predictions like that!  You can't really set a time or date.  Can't say if it's 10 years, or 100 years...and there's so many things that can happen to forestall or foster such an event that it's almost useless to say.  And yet...and yet there's the ring of truth to it.  Mostly for reasons I planned to cover in the jumble of a post coming up.)


It also doesn't help that we, Americans at least, put serious pressure on ourselves to always be upbeat and positive.  I find that I don't really want to write anything too negative for a couple of reasons - it's probably not going to get that bad, too dire a prediction doesn't really give us much of an option to do anything about it (i.e. if World War III is right around the corner, then screw it!  I'll stop trying to be sensible and just blow all my money living it up until we die in a nuclear conflagration.  Yes, I'm exaggerating that for dramatic effect), but  mostly because I hate feeling like a Debbie Downer.

So most of what I shoot for is clear-eyed, open analysis of our system that confronts our problems head on while making it clear there's still room for hope.

Which is tricky.  For example, when I said "we're losing our democracy" in an earlier post, it was meant more as a call to action, a dire prediction meant to help encourage a discussion regarding what we can do to avert that disaster.  Not as a cynical statement of hopelessness.