Interesting Article

This seems a bit relevant to yesterday's post

https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-rapoport-rules-criticism/

Decision Making, Feedback, and Democracy

 I'm pretty sure I've previously mentioned the points I'm about to make, I'm just not so sure I put them together in this order and explicitly drawn the connections between them.

 How a group of people make decisions is pretty important to me, particularly so we can avoid failures from groupthink, and more importantly - get the positive synergies that come from bringing a bunch of people together. (As opposed to negative synergies. Both are entirely possible, and deliberately achieving a positive one is more of an art than a science.)

So let's illustrate this with one of my preferred examples:

You and your forces are trying to defend a location near a mountain range. The approaching enemy has only two options to pass through the mountains and reach your location - a wide and pretty obvious pass, and a narrow and more difficult pass.

You may choose to set your defenses up along either pass, but if the enemy doesn't do what you expect then it can leave you vulnerable. 

If they choose to take the unexpected route and you expected them to come through the main pass, all your defenses may be set in the wrong location and they may surprise you and hit you from the side. 

If you instead focus on the smaller pass, then the enemy may easily and quickly come through the main pass.

In the course of analyzing your options, you may decide a couple of things.

1) Set up some method of watching both passes, so that you can determine which way they are coming and shift your forces accordingly. (An intelligence collection plan, basically).

2) Set your forces so that you can easily shift to cover either pass. I.e. maybe you set up your main forces faces the big pass, but you still set a small force near the smaller pass, and you place other forces close enough that they can support either location depending on which route the enemy takes.

And so on, and so forth. 

This later plan is more complicated of course, but it's also more robust and resilient and helps make sure that you're ready no matter which way the enemy comes. Hopefully.

Obviously this is better than having someone decide the enemy is going to do one specific thing, and then setting up only for that thing. First of all because your plan only will work if the enemy plays along. Also because it indicates an unwillingness to thoroughly explore the possibilities, which may or may not work out for you in this specific instance, but eventually will lead to you making a mistake. You will overlook something, and nobody will notice until it bites you in the butt.

Also, going back to positive and negative synergies, you and/or your team may easily get into pissing contests as you debate which course of action is best, and then people's egos get involved, and then they stop really focusing on the problem at hand and start focusing on defeating their own internal 'enemies'. That is, if someone argues the enemy is going to come down the main pass and someone else just as vehemently argues that they'll come down the smaller pass, it's entirely likely they will lock up all the time and energy arguing over this and then whichever plan chosen is the 'winner' of the argument, and they never bother considering how to make a more robust and resilient plan in the first place. 

Whether they're right or wrong in that specific instance is, in some ways, less important than that the decision making process is corrupted and politicized and leads to outcomes that aren't actually all that good but are the result of internal politics.

In a more extreme case, you could even picture someone who firmly believes they're right dismissing the signs and signals they're wrong. As in, if they bother with an intelligence collection plan like I mentioned above, and have some sort of monitoring going on for both passes - they will dismiss the signs that the enemy is going through the other pass. If the sensors are the kind that can just tell that bodies are passing through, but may be triggered by animals - they may argue that it was just deer or mountain goats passing through. 

The desire to prove you were right grows more important than actually paying attention to the signals in front of you.

But those are all mayhaps and maybes. People are unique (despite some similarities), and every time you throw a bunch of people together you will get unique combinations and permutations. The robust and resilient plan I mentioned above?

It is possible that one wise and experienced commander could come up with it on their own.

It's also possible that they're completely incompetent, but they have a wise and experienced subordinate that they're willing to listen to, and the group as a whole still comes up with a good plan.

Or it could be that they had a good brainstorming session, that the intel staff present it's three possible enemy courses of action (most likely, most dangerous, etc) and the operations folk and intel folk and all the other members of the staff work together to create that more robust and resilient plan.

What I dislike about the first two options is that they depend on one particularly wise person. First, it's never good to depend entirely on one person because if they get removed then everyone else is screwed. In war, especially, that's a bad idea since you never know when someone might get killed or injured or captured or some other thing that takes that critical person away at a critical time. It's much better to make sure you train your people right, have that leadership pipeline in place, and make sure that as many as possible have the skills you need.

Second - no one person can know everything. Plus we all have our blindspots and biases. It's better to have a group that learns how to cover for those gaps, systemically, regularly, and consistently.

Maybe at the lower level someone can master an area of expertise and not need to rely on others, but the more complicated the issue or the higher you rise, the more you will depend on other people to be the experts you need.

Even in the tech world - perhaps you're a master programmer, great at coding anything and everything.

If you get into a management position, pretty soon you will not have the time to code much. Instead, you will be managing the people under you - and they will be the ones coding.

And the thing is, skills like that are use or lose. (This is part of why the military spends so much time training. It's not like you can teach them how to fire a gun once and expect them to be ready when they go into combat. You have to do it often enough to actually retain the skills.) Going back to a techie person - they may still have skills, but it's a lot harder for them to stay up to date. Plus if some newer language starts gaining traction, or some other tech takes off? They have to put a LOT of effort into staying up to date.

Of course, most of my focus was more on issues like national security and public policy, and the issues that we struggle with there tend to be complex and wicked.

If I were to picture my ideal way of handling those, it would be to get a group of relevant experts (i.e. economists, business people, at least one person to represent the average American, and so on and so forth.)  Said experts would depend on what exactly the issue being tackled is (i.e. if it's healthcare related you might need more healthcare professionals, and if it's military related you'll need the relevant armed forces represented), and would ideally have a cross section of political positions and socio-economic status.

The point is to make sure it's not all a group of people that think the same way and basically rubberstamp a decision without really reviewing it.

And you'd use some of the various tools in the kit bag for making sure the group works together productively, rather than devolving into ego battles.

Sometimes that might mean making sure they meet without the pressure of their bosses. Or maybe it means cutting in when people start pointing fingers or getting overly personal. Maybe it means breaking the ice with a question, not so much because you really need it answered, but because some of the less confident people won't speak up until someone else does it first. 

There's too many possibilities, all of which depend on the people involved and their own skills. (I personally like to think I help any team I'm part of, not just because of whatever I'm hired for, but because sometimes asking the right question at the right time or bringing people back to a more task-focused mentality can bring out those positive synergies and help the team perform better as a whole... but that's all fuzzy stuff that's really, really, really hard to capture on a resume or explain in an interview.)

And now, to tie this all in with something else - our Constitution, democracy, and decision making as a nation.

As I mentioned in my scenario above, it's true that a particularly wise and experienced individual can lead to good decisions. But historically?

We've been pretty terrible about consistently putting such individuals in charge.

That's part of why we've shifted away from monarchs, I think.

Sure, you might get a particularly wise one... and then their son or daughter is average, and their grandson or granddaughter is a disaster.

Our system has its own issues - mostly, I think, that negative synergy I mentioned. People get caught up in their own egos, they get focused on being 'right' and 'winning' and lose sight of their real goals and purpose (i.e. whether the enemy comes from the main pass or the side pass, everyone wants to defeat them... unless you're a spy or saboteur or traitor of course. In the same way, whether you're Republican or Democrat I would expect that you want the United States to be healthy and strong, and that you just disagree on what would make that happen. Unless you're a spy or a saboteur or a traitor, and there's definitely been conspiracy theories going around that some of them are exactly that.)

But on a meta scale? Not focusing on the issues of the day, but looking at how our nations make decisions as a whole?

Well... 

Nations, as a whole, have a tendency to get stuck and stagnate... and it's often because some group of people gain control over the levers of power and manage to block any changes they dislike.

I, like many people I think, used to believe that democracy prevented that sort of problem. That regular elections provided a systemic way of getting feedback and ensuring we had legitimate processes of change.

That any such change might be difficult, naturally. But it was possible. And without needing to violently overthrow people like the French Revolution, without an upheaval like so many other nations have had. 

We could resolve them with votes.

Except...

Remember those studies showing that the preferences of the average American have little impact on policy?

... Yeah

That feedback mechanism is broken. We don't have government by the people, for the people, and of the people.

Not really.

I think that's part of why Trump happened, tbh. People are fed up with both parties because they're really not responsive to the average American any more.

I just wish they hadn't chosen someone who clearly wasn't going to do what he'd promised in that regard, but I don't want to get diverted onto that topic right now.

See, it's easy for the powers-that-be to believe that they know better, to believe that the general public is too dumb to really matter, and to think it's better for everyone if they gain control....

But that is a lie. 

Or rather, it's like that point in a chess game where the decision you make will inevitably lead to checkmate.

Because generally the way that they gain control and diminish the power of the general public is by concentrating all the decision making and power into the hands of the 'trusted' few - who think exactly like they do.

In other words, it's centralizing and consolidating power and creating more authoritarian systems. 

It makes them more fragile and less resilient, too.

It might work if the ones doing so are particularly wise and experienced. 

Maybe.

Possibly.

But only if that 'wisdom' involves knowing how to create those decision making systems with positive synergy like I discussed above. I.e. someone who is able to bring experts in from all over. Who can ensure they have productive discussions that actually result in solid solutions, and then have the experience and skill to implement those solutions well.

It definitely isn't going to come from the people leading today's polarization. Not unless they go through some serious life changes, I think.

Oh...

And it definitely won't come when people are more concerned with manipulating data to support their politics, rather than actually caring about the truth.

If your response to scientists telling you something you don't want to hear is to decide that they're all part of some conspiracy, and then to go cherry pick someone with nominal credentials to support your belief?

You're more concerned with proving yourself right than with actually being right, and any decision-making you attempt is corrupted by that. Just like the ones trying to disregard signs that the enemy was coming through the other pass in my example earlier.

I do not know when that will come back to haunt you, I just know that eventually it will.

Musings

 I think I mentioned that I had stepped back to think a bit, this past week or two.

Doing so is important, I think. So much of our time is spent just getting by - go to work, get home. Fix dinner. Relax for a bit, sleep, then do it all again the next day. 

Try to fit in friends, family, house cleaning...

When do people have time to really just sit and think?

In some ways, that's what I liked about the church retreats when I was a child. Or camping. It's good to step away from it all for a bit. 

There are things that get pushed down and unnoticed, that in a moment of quiet will draw your attention.

Resolving those things is.... hmmmm. I think it helps us have integrity. In that sense of being whole and undivided.

But there's a danger to it, too.

Well, I wouldn't call it danger, really. I think being whole and undivided is a good thing. It's just that when people really have the time to sense and deal with those quiet moments, it can become the impetus for major change.

I think if people don't periodically have such moments, that that's how you wind up ten or twenty years down the road suddenly realizing you aren't where or who you want to be, and suddenly have a mid-life crisis or one of those moments people make movies out of where people make drastic changes to their life.

Better to just... pay attention to yourself, and figure it out before you've wasted a good decade or two on something you don't really enjoy.

Of course, modern life doesn't make it easy. 

Especially if people truly do believe... what was that comment? That people have to be afraid? That if nobody was worried about needing food or paying the bills that somehow the economy would ground to a halt? (I think this is bullshit, personally. And if it isn't, then what does that say about the system in the first place? That it's basically built on fear, which is probably why it's so shitty anyway. But it's the kind of idea that lets the powers-that-be proudly pat themselves on the back and claim that the system they benefit by is good and right and that really all those complaints are just from lazy, jealous, and whiny people. Not like them.)

Really, if I were religious and wanted to somehow create a more godly society, making sure that everyone had the time and space for those quiet moments would be a large part of that. None of this 'controlling everyone for their own good' bs - if the sentiments about motivational fear or the dangers of making higher education too accessible represent real beliefs - is a sure sign of a system driven by fear, and about as far from godly as you can get.

But let's bring this back to my own current circumstances, wherein I am job hunting. And perhaps what I want isn't really to be a bug bounty hunter. Perhaps it's more as a SOC Analyst and eventually threat hunter. I admit those sound fun and interesting, and I really wish I had the money to do a whole bunch of those SANS courses because I'd love to learn. Alas, I think those are so high-priced you pretty much need to be independently wealthy or have your company pay for it, and that leads to the inevitable 'prove you have the skills before we hire you and then support you in getting the skills' issue. 

But even that is... a bit of distraction really. Because cybersecurity was just one part of the national affairs and government policy making. I've been so focused on my computer science background these days that I haven't really been dwelling on political science, history, etc. 

Except that, as I watch story after story of Trump and his wrecking crew, I can't help but feel angry. He's destroying everything that made America good. Destroying the rule of law, demolishing the protections built into the Constitution...

I don't want to get into (yet another) rant on this, because the ones who see it already know and the ones who don't?

I have no idea how to reach. It's a very disturbing time to be alive, and I don't want to be so focused on securing my own immediate employment that I ignore everything they are doing right now.

But...

What can I do, really?

Or rather, I can do the usual. Say my thoughts, participate in protests maybe. Vote when it matters. 

And for some blasted reason I keep thinking back to events that happened almost two decades ago, now.

I try not to dwell on that time, because it's really crazy-making. 

It still is.

Thinking that posts like these might actually matter. Except if they did, I would expect some sort of feedback. Some sort of interaction. Something real. So that it didn't feel like it was all in my head, or that I was just posting into the black hole of obscurity so many people find on the internet.

Tbh that's part of why I stopped posting as much. I still do for some things. It's great for digging deeper into some ideas, or sort of noting down things I find interesting.

But it's too easy to slip into the notion that I'm writing for an audience, and then to start imaging what I would want to say to that invisible audience, and next thing you know I'm plotting out posts in my head instead of doing the things I need to do.

Like put another blasted job application in. Or study more about sql injection, or other hacking techniques.

Whatever. I can't afford to spend that sort of time on something that just distracts me from making a living, and it's better not to pretend there's any real sort of interaction going on when there isn't.

Well, I've got a bit of time to muddle about. Hopefully I'll figure things out and everything will resolve themselves well. And soon.

smh

This article captures one of the more horrifying aspects of our current times - the fear that makes people reconsider perfectly legal and normal behavior. 

https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-courage-to-be-decent

Very Serious People, Cont.

 While writing the previous post, it made me realize part of what I find so frustrating about -  waves hand -- everything.

Too many of the powers-that-be seem so cavalier about everything. 

In the example I gave before, I mentioned that if someone making dumbass statements was ever actually in the position to do what they casually said, that I would expect them to sit back and think about it.

There is... a weight to being in charge. We talk about the burden of command because the person giving the orders that leads to someone's death does bear a burden.

Should bear a burden. 

You can't not give the order, not if it's truly needed. But it should not be done lightly or casually, because you are spending people's lives when you do. 

There's a trust that should be there. Your people know and trust that you're not spending their lives wastefully, that the mission you give them is one that needs doing, in pursuit of something they support. If you have a voluntary military (like we currently do), then your duty isn't to prevent them from ever facing harm or risk, it's to make sure that when they do take those risks, that it's done for a good reason.

There's a gravity there, and honestly anyone giving orders who doesn't feel it shouldn't be in that position in the first place.

They don't feel the weight of responsibility enough, and are likely to get people killed wastefully and unnecessarily. And might not even learn their lessons in the process.

And that doesn't just apply to the men and women serving this country. Every. Single. Elected. Official. was elected to serve the American people.

They have obligations and duties to us, which I personally think they have failed miserably at, but whatever. Part of the reason so many politicians act as Very Serious People is that they are acknowledging that weight, that duty.

And then we get these clowns who act like it's all a joke, as if politics is just like a game. Support your team, badmouth the other side, and when it's all over you can just go home and go back to your normal life.

I do get the frustration with said people. Just because the put on a serious face doesn't mean they've actually been living up to their responsibilities, and we've had issues going on for quite a while now.

Too many of those Very Serious People seem like bureaucrats and other hidebound types, more focused on the rules and following and enforcing them than they are on actually fixing anything. Or even seeing that something needs fixed in the first place.

It just seems like now we have the worst of both worlds - ruled by people who don't limit themselves to the rules and laws we've developed over the centuries, and also not bound by any sense of duty or obligation to the American people either.

Or maybe they've just convinced themselves that devolving like this is in the interest of the American people. It's so hard to tell whether it's cynical self interest or willful denial at play.

Very Serious People

 I like to read some of the stories that shed light on the inner workings of people in power. 

More than their political positions, I think it's their decision making process that helps me decide if I think someone will do well in office.

Part of that relates to something I've pondered before - is it better to have a perfect plan, executed imperfectly? Or an imperfect plan, executed perfectly?

I've come to conclude the latter is better, because part of executing a plan is to continuously evaluate your results and adjust the plan if needed. An imperfect plan, executed well, should still ultimately get to the desired result - whereas a 'perfect plan', executed poorly and without any feedback mechanism to adjust for failure, probably won't.

Plus seeing their decision making process helps identify what they value, since it often involves prioritizing one thing over another. (Like Trump prioritizing the appearance that covid was under control over the reality that it wasn't. That right there is a pretty big indicator about what he values - and that 'protecting the lives of average Americans' isn't one of them.)

Anyways.

I remember reading a bit about one of those internal discussions - not the recent one with Peter Hegseth, though the search for what I recall is being drowned out by that. It was some group chat with influential people, but what struck me was that some of the opinions expressed were...

Let's just say they weren't much different from some of the idiotic statements I've heard our enlisted grunts say.

And I was thinking about why it didn't much matter when Private Joe Schmoe said it, and yet it's pretty horrifying when someone with the connections to be in a chat like that does.

I think the difference comes down to two things - seriousness, and ability to make it happen.

When Private Joe Schmoe says that they wish they could just turn the entire middle east into glass- 

a) I suspect they'd hesitate and rethink that statement if they were ever actually in the position to do so. It's easy to say bullshit you can't actually make real, but knowing your decision would actually murder numerous men, women, and children? Many of whom are perfectly innocent? I expect they wouldn't actually follow through, and any who did would show a level of callousness and cruelty and a disrespect for the gravity of their choice that means they should never be in a position to make such a decision in the first place. 

b) They also aren't in a position to actually make it reality. If they ever were to achieve such a position, I'd hope they'd have gained the wisdom and maturity to know better.

Anyways... I use the term 'powers-that-be' instead of 'elites' or 'leaders' because 'powers-that-be' is just a statement of fact. It acknowledges that they have power and influence, but it doesn't credit those powers with being better than any of the rest of us. They aren't elite, and if they are leaders they aren't necessarily good ones.

And yet realizing that some of these 'powers' who are primarily connected and wealthy men are willing to spout off stupid comments that are just as ignorant as the dumbest joe?

Yeah... somehow I still expected better of them.

People feel disconnected and distrustful of the 'Very Serious People' because such people have learned to take the responsibilities of their positions seriously. So they learn to watch what they say, to be careful in expressing an opinion, and in the process they stop seeming authentic or passionate or real.

Some of that is inevitable. After all, as an officer in the Army it would be a Very. Bad. Thing. if I told my soldiers that I thought our battalion commander was ordering us to do something unnecessarily and foolishly risky. 

They may say that to each other, privately, but the minute an officer agrees? Suddenly it gives such complaints a certain legitimacy, and raises the specter of mutiny and sedition. (And the fact that Trump never tempered his speech, and instead deliberately and  repeatedly legitimized the lies about the 2020 election is part of why I think I can never forgive him for what he has done to this nation. He's the fucking President of the United States! And he has less self-control than junior officers do! If he honestly thought it was stolen, he should have waited until he had absolute proof or kept his mouth shut... and the repeatedly lost court cases showed he never had the proof, which he probably knew. And yet he still keeps saying that shit, undermining the legitimacy of what were our duly elected leaders, and in the process undermining the very Constitution he swore to defend! And he just doesn't care!)

Ahem.

But just because someone is 'authentic' doesn't mean they're better. After all, you can authentically be an asshole.

You can just as authentically be smart, caring, and passionate about things that don't require you to be an asshole at all.

Those 'powers-that-be', at least the ones that keep appearing in news report after news report in the past decade or so, seem to be remarkably ignorant and foolish...

Which then raises the question - why the hell are they where they are in the first place?

How did things get so bad, that such powerful and connected people are so unfit for their positions?

It's sort of like what people thought when we saw the golden parachutes for failed CEO's - we accept a certain amount of inequality, accept that some people get paid more than the rest... because the ones who are being paid so lavishly are supposed to have something more than the rest of us.

Those CEOs are supposed to have talents that the random person on the street doesn't.

But if they're going to fail, and still get ridiculous amounts of money? Well, hell... any of us can do that!

It basically shows, all over again, that we're not a meritocracy at all. And that these people making important decisions about our lives don't really deserve all the money and social acclaim they have.

I'm not saying they're dumb necessarily. But going back to that 'able to execute a plan well' bit?

They're knowledge and experience may not be suited to their positions, and while they don't necessarily have to be perfect right away, I would expect them to have those feedback mechanisms that would allow them to learn and grow and do better.

Instead, we have the current wrecking crew, and all the fools cheering them on.

Various Musings

 Got a few things floating around in the ol' noggin, so I figured I'd type them out here.

The last month has been... eventful.

Since losing my job I had gotten into a routine. Wake up, fix breakfast, work on some labs for Burp Suite and learn more about what's essentially hacking.

And then my brother's fiancee died.

She had been dealing with kidney disease the entire time I knew here. Was on dialysis. But she was on the list for a kidney transplant, had done that bariatric surgery to help her lose weight in preparation, and then in the last couple of months had been in and out of the hospital far too many times.

It had reminded the both of us far too much of when Mom was dealing with cancer, which is why they went ahead and set a wedding date. 

Not just because they wanted to get married, but also for the legal aspects (no FMLA for a live in girlfriend, but it would have been there for a wife) and so that he wouldn't essentially be a widower without the legal aspect.

We had thought we'd have longer... one of those hospital trips they had said her potassium was too low (something that had happend with Mom too, one of the times she wound up in a hospital) but the day my brother texted that they were using a crash cart she actually had too much potassium.

Anyways, he's a teacher and was on spring break last week, so in order to make sure he didn't have too much time alone I went up for the funeral and stuck around most of that week. Which disrupted my training routine, but was worth it.

Now I'm trying to get back into the swing of things, but...

Well.

I keep seeing all the articles in the news about the wrecking ball of our current administration, and I find myself thinking again about why and how I got where I am. And how I'd always been interested in public policy. About how much I had cared about this nation. And suddenly learning how to hack just... doesn't quite fit.

Except I still have to pay the bills. I mean, I'm good for now, but I will need to have some (hopefully stable) source of income before too long. And there were reasons I'd essentially stepped away from public policy.

Mostly the dawning realization that I'd probably need a whole lot of money to do the sorts of things I'd want to, and that I apparently am not so good at selling the idea of hiring me for anything like that as I would need to be.

Now? I don't know... I feel a bit adrift, and maybe typing things out here will help.

I still really like the idea of finding some way to financial freedom without being tied to yet another rigid bureaucracy. Making that work is the trick though. Sitting around waiting for a miracle to happen is just - not realistic. 

And I find myself thinking, at least somewhat, about the society we have made and how much it sucks.

Let's go back to what I was saying about fear. I've heard the belief, for example, that some people think we need people to be afraid of not being able to make ends meet in order to motivate them to do the jobs we need done.

I say bullshit. I don't know how many people truly believe it, or whether the powers-that-be really calculate things like that (and other things, too. Like deciding an educated population is a bad idea and making higher education more expensive, and various other things). It's possible? But feels a bit too much like believing there's some coordinated effort by wealthy men sitting around in smoke filled rooms deliberately choosing to make other people miserable just to maintain their power. Like - who is actually sitting in these rooms? Do they truly believe that crap? Is it just a way of making them feel special and elite so that they can look down on all the hard working people struggling just to get by?

It doesn't make sense from a talent perspective, tbh. I mean, when we look at the studies of flow and performance and whatnot - people do best when they are challenged and having fun. They will put in 200%, will step up and identify and fix things of their own volition, will be motivated in a way that doesn't happen when you're a corporate drone working in a soul-sucking environment where you're just a cog in some bureaucratic wheel.

On a more personal level...

I suppose I'm more internally then externally motivated. Always wanted to be my best self. If you think of the difference between someone motivated by fear and one motivated by fulfillment, I have always wanted more of the latter. I think that would lead to being that best self, and I'm curious about who that person would be. I'd really like to meet her.

That's part of why I made a promise to myself, when I went to college. Way back then I knew that I could do well in this society we made. I do well in school environments, I'm a good employee, and it's not that hard to 'fit in'. Going to college just seemed like the natural next step in the path laid out for people like me.

But I didn't want to follow it just because it was normal and natural, I wanted to do it because I really wanted to be there. 

So I made sure that every class I took was one I was truly interested in.

It helps that I'm naturally curious, that my interests allowed me to find classes that fit the graduation requirements and sated that curiosity. Oceanography for science, that class on human rationality for the math requirement (which did cover logic and other things, though not quite the same way as we did in discrete math since it actually looked at the many ways we aren't logical). Other classes that shaped my thinking and that I still appreciate even today.

But somehow things never quite worked out how I expected at the time, and one thing or another happened, and here I am. Older than I want to admit and with quite a few major career changes under my belt, and although I did well at my last job it was a bit too much like my fears when I went to college that first time.

Taking the convenient and 'safe' path to pay the bills, and not really following up on my genuine interests.

Hacking... to be honest I never really wanted to be a hacker. Being a blue team defender was appealing, and understanding how they hack is interesting and I've been enjoying the Burp Suite labs quite a bit. But most of those skills seem to lean more towards penetration tester or bug bounty hunter (i.e. a white hat hacker) then really helping use that knowledge to make things better.

Perhaps I should focus more on certifications that would let me find a job there. (Though there are far too many to choose from, and figuring out which to focus on... )

Well. Not really want I want to delve into right now. Besides, answering that might matter from the 'find a source of stable income' perspective, but they do nothing to address what Trump and his wrecking crew are doing to this nation.

What still feels strange is how... partisan things are. There are many people who see the same problems I do. Who are upset and talking about the various decisions, and the dangers unleashed. Deporting a US citizen, punishing dissidents, threatening to withhold aid from states that don't sufficiently kiss the ring.

And yet those who support Trump don't see it, and we're all stuck with the perennial question of - do they not see it because they're blind? Or because they know and are okay with dismantling everything America used to stand for? Gullible fools or cynical enablers?

And how did we wind up with so many of them, anyway?

More importantly - what do we do about it?

I think things are going to get worse before they get better. After all, even if people like me are horrified by how much damage has been done in the last couple of months, it still doesn't seem to have seeped into the public consciousness. And nobody seems to have successfully stopped the madness.

It doesn't help that the Trump administration is so chaotic. Are they truly going to risk a war with Canada? Or Greenland? Or is it just bluster and hot air (and trade war tariffs?)

Incompetence or malevolence? Or incompetent malevolence?

And what can one not-politically-connected person like myself even do about it? My congressional representatives so far seem to be doing the right things, so I don't necessary feel like I need to call up their offices and extort them to do anything different. I would say differently to anyone in a red district, but we here are pretty much blue across the board.

I do try to throw the occasional article into my social media feed. I have some online friends who are conservative, and I worry that they only get their news from like-minded people, and just aren't aware. But I doubt it makes that much of a difference, and I also don't want to spam my feed too much. Really, social media is not the best place for nuanced and in depth discussion of complicated topics anyway. It's better to have those discussions at things like the family Thanksgiving, or some other activity where people don't automatically label disagreement as 'libtards' or 'rethuglicans' and accept that both parties genuinely want what's best for America. (The number of times I have seen some short and quick meme that is... so simplified and incomplete that it's just plain wrong, and yet I know trying to explain why in more depth is not going to go over well... sigh.)

The problems seem so much larger than me, and require persuading people who have no reason to listen...

Again. Sigh.

Which makes me fallback on all that religious upbringing, and think a bit about faith.

There must be a way. I do think 'when God closes a door, He opens a window'. Or something like that. 

I mean, I do have to do my part. I can't just sit back and somehow expect things to fall in my lap. No savior is somehow going to miraculously decide to give me the resources I'd need to truly make a difference, and tbh I'm not interested in becoming an organizer who devotes their life to a specific cause. Unless that cause is 'make America live up to its potential, for all Americans'.

A bit too large and unwieldy to truly focus on, unless I can somehow become an eccentric billionaire. (Oh, the things I could do with that! Too bad it's wasted on fools that just keep making things worse.)

Well, accumulating massive wealth had never truly been my motivator, so that would probably take a miracle too.

Faith...

Maybe, if I keep myself open and keep looking, I'll see the path forward.

I hope I do before too much longer.

A Good Quote

“…It’s not about frontier spirit, or adventure or any of that sappy ’what’s-over-the-next-horizon’ bollocks,” he declared. “It’s the simple fact of humans that we go stir-fookin’-crazy unless we’ve got summat important to do. Summat to fight for. And if we can’t find owt that’s important, we start fighting over unimportant shit instead.”

Kirk nodded slowly. “And Cimbrean is something important.”

“Fookin’ right it is! Because maybe, just fookin’ maybe, if we can claw out a future for ourselves, if we can give people an actual life’s work rather than leaving ‘em as meat in the grinder, the day may yet come where there’s no poor bastards left who think the only future they have is blowing themselves up for God, or whatever.”

-- The Deathworlders

Be Not Afraid

 I've been thinking about the biblical Flood lately.

Or rather... thinking about how God must see us. Fallible, afraid, screwing up left and right (the Old Testament is full of stories where that happens. Even, or perhaps especially, King David.)

So much so that He decided to just drown everyone and start over.

And afterwards, gave us the rainbow to show He'd never go so far again.

You could say that He decided that drowning everything and starting over wasn't really a good answer.

And then we have the Bible, over and over again, tell us "Do not be afraid".

The more I learn and grow, the more I think fear truly is the mindkiller. Fear makes us small, fear justifies doing things we know is wrong. Scarcity politics come from fear - that the world is a zero sum game, and that if we don't fight for what's ours that we will lose out. That ourselves and our people could starve or die if we didn't secure access to the things we need.

Which easily turns into 'so if they succeed, I lose'. 

Alas, our society does not make it easy to live without fear. 

In some ways I think that's the worst part about losing the family farm. Losing small businesses. Losing independence. Sure... those aren't always ideal work environments and aren't always led by the greatest people either. But something happens when you have the large organization structures that dominate so much of our world today.

And I don't think it's always conscious, or even evil. It's like... think about how you ever act when dealing with your boss, or presenting information to a VIP. 

People will try to put their best foot forward. They might even research and learn how the target likes to have data presented. Do you build a complex graph? Do you give a quick executive summary? Do you delve into all the little details and have backup information ready in case they delve into the details?

Do they prefer morning meetings or afternoon? Do you check with a secretary or someone near them to see if they're in a good mood?

Do you provide their favorite snacks or drinks?

All of that can be pretty normal, but it's also the type of situation where people start self-censoring, which I think is part of how so many powerful people wind up surrounded by 'yes-men'.

'The boss' might not like your idea. Might fire you. Might ridicule you. So... people tone down anything that might not go over well. Maybe massage the data a little. Choose not to bring up certain topics. Make sure any loudmouths who might disrupt things is not invited.

The person being presented all this may not even realize how often this happens. Might not even ask for it, though they often have to work very hard to make it clear they prefer the truth (and demonstrate that they really mean that, every time they are presented with uncomfortable truths) if they want to avoid it.

Which is part of why I despise this current belief that 'truthiness' is fine. The minute you start letting your organization get away from accepting facts, you've doomed your decision making process.

But let's not go there right now.

The current situation in America is so depressing that I don't even know where to start. And yet it's still seen as a partisan issue rather than a bi-partisan and patriotic one. If you pay attention to the news you know what I'm talking about. A US citizen - an actual citizen!!! Not someone here on a visa, or here illegally (though a quick look at wikipedia shows he gained his citizenship after doing so).

Is that why they aren't up in arms? They think how someone gets their citizenship should make a difference? Or is it just that Kilmar Abrego Garcia doesn't have a name like John Smith?

There's a clear trend, to, amongst all the daily craziness.

Dissidence is punished. Norms are broken. Boundaries are constantly being tested. If one US citizen is allowed to be deported like that, how long before others are, too?

Does citizenship no longer provide any sort of protection?

The initial test cases are - well, they're obviously the type that typical Americans might not care about.

A US citizen with a clearly hispanic name, who originally arrived illegally.

Pressure on foreign students for speaking out on political matters that they disagree with.

There's no clear smoking gun, it's mostly ICE doing obscure and hidden activity, not the US Army being sent in clear violation of the posse comitatus act, nor even a calling out of the National Guard by some sympathetic governor (since they truly belong to teh state, and the president can only legally use them for specific reasons.)

But as guardrail after guardrail and institution after institution has folded like a wet paper tissue, it's hard to believe those legal protections matter.

After all, they didn't help Kilmar Garcia, did they? 

Perhaps the most disturbing part of all this, to me, is realizing that all those things I used to think we - as Americans - stood for are just not so.

Truth, justice, and the American way?

Puh-leeeze.

Nobody seems to care about truth or justice anymore. As for the American way - our history shows over and over again that that is muddy and murky. We can somehow be both xenophobic and isolationist as well as enlightened, engaged, and idealistic. I don't believe one view is true and the other false - they both are true, and have been throughout our history. Deciding which is more true today is part of what we, as a society, decide.

I am now grappling with the realization that all those values I thought we shared - in the Constitution, in the Bill of Rights, in the separation of powers and checks and balances, all the hard earned lessons to professionalize our civil service and get away from political corruption - are not as widely shared as I thought.

And, in fact, some of the people most loudly proclaiming that they love America and want it to be great, know so little about what they claim to love.

It is tempting to wish, like God, to just start all over. 

I suspect that's not the answer though, any more than it was in the Bible. That perhaps the right response is to remind people 'be not afraid'.

Which would be a helluva lot easier if I wasn't currently hunting for employment myself, and dealing with my own fears at the moment.

The Executive

 I wanted to explain a little more about how a good executive works.

First - almost anybody who has managed other people has into the problem where they don't do the work as you expect. One reaction is to just do it yourself - micromanaging - but that runs into a problem.

Namely, that you if you are given more and more responsibility, you eventually reach the point where one person can't do it all. There are so many hours in a day, so much work you can do before you are overwhelmed (and maybe even burnt out).

Alternatively, you can focus on just the ones who somehow manage to perform as you expect. Perhaps finding the 'whales' - but that also has its problems. It basically puts the burden on those who already know what to do, and ignores the underperformers. Then the people you rely on may get overwhelmed and burnt out whereas the rest are able to coast by. (The people focusing on the 'whales' then compete for those already able to do the job, rather than developing more people and getting them to the point where they are also able to perform.)

There's an additional problem here. Because as anybody who has ever been a subordinate knows, they are keenly aware of what the boss wants... and will strive to look good in their eyes. Simply telling them to do a task and then measuring performance on how well they achieve it means that you may ignore how they achieve it. It pressures them, sometimes to do things that are illegal... or even just browbeating their own subordinates, which eventually will drive them off. (Seriously, unless you take major steps to indicate you want to know the truth, and then prove it - repeatedly - by how you react to bad news, and also make sure you've got good feedback mechanisms, it is too easy to get blindsided by things you just don't know).

Delegation is not just a fire and forget kind of task. You have to have a good understanding of who you're delegating to, and what they're capabilities are. Maybe they're experienced and just need a general order, maybe they're new to the job and need a bit more involvement. Knowing which is part of your job.

And part of that job involves setting them up for success. Do they know the task? Do they know the standard expected? Do they have the resources they need? The funding, the personnel, the equipment?

If you can't clearly show you've given them those things, then you've set them up for failure... and it's not that they're a bad subordinate, or lazy, or whatever excuse you have for thinking any failure is theirs and not yours. (In my experience, it's poor leadership rather than poor employees that are the problem, and if you give them the tools to succeed they will.)

For complex projects, it's helpful to identify all the tasks that need to be accomplished to reach the end goal. That's where project managers come into play, and the tasks and timelines marked in some sort of project management tool, but I can illustrate this point with something much more familiar - Thanksgiving dinner.

If you want to have Thanksgiving dinner at 4pm on Thanksgiving Day, you have to figure out the timeline of all the events leading up to it.

The turkey has to be thawing about three days out (depending on the size of the turkey). The potatoes need to be peeled and ready to cook around an hour out. You have some leeway, depending on how many potatoes there are, but they can also sit in the hot water for a little while so an hour gives you plenty of time for them to cook - and then just before dinner you can mash them and add whatever fixings you want.

Same for casseroles, and pies, and stuffing, and any food to nibble on. (If we're having spinach dip or cheese dip we may prep them the day before, and then they're ready to eat all day long).

You have to assign the tasks to whoever you want. Is someone responsible for a particular casserole? Are they going to bring it already cooked? Or ready to cook? How long will it take? Is there enough space in the oven for it, along with all the other things? If using the stove top, are there enough burners? Can something be cooked earlier to ensure all of it gets done on time?

Most mothers somehow manage to track all of this in their heads, but if they were to put it in a project management tool you would soon get a list of all the tasks and which have to be done by which point in time... and you'd better make sure someone buys the ingredients ahead of time, because trying to find eggs or green beans, or sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving Day can be a bit difficult.

If someone new in the family is hosting Thanksgiving, it generally doesn't hurt to ask if they've got the turkey thawing a few days prior. It's generally easy enough to do during some sort of call to coordinate plans, and if it's not necessary then no harm done - but if they've forgotten or inexperienced enough not to know, then you've saved everyone the stress of worrying how you'll cook thanksgiving dinner with a frozen turkey.

All of this, btw, is a lot of work. Maybe you don't have to do each and every task yourself, but making sure everything happens on time and bringing it all together so that the meal is ready when you've told everyone it will be is no small feat.

To bring this back to business - management is more than just tracking KPI's and reporting on the results. It requires really knowing. Know your people, know what they're doing, know that you've given them the tools to succeed. That you're aware of any blockers and have time to resolve them before the tasks need to be done. 

That entire skillset seems more rare then I expected. You can see that in companies like Boeing, where their CEO said they have "made serious missteps in recent years."

You see that in executives who seem to think they can manage by fiat. Just tell people to do something, but whether or not they follow through depends on how skilled they are at all the things I listed above. The executive isn't doing it, instead they just yell at them if they fail and praise them if they succeed - but they're not really involved enough to know if the tasks are being done to standard, or even legally.

Governing by fiat is, in some ways, the same problem I pointed out with regards to programming. It's abstracting away all the messy bits, simplifying it... and ultimately obfuscates problems and only succeeds if the someone lower down does what's necessary. Sometimes without any acknowledgement or understanding by the people who delegated it to them.

Anyways, in American Congress (as the legislative branch) is supposed to decide the what and the president (as the executive branch) is supposed to decide the how.

There has been immense pressure over decades to make the president the point person, and hold them responsible for both the how and the what, but that's not really what the Constitution says.

And governing by fiat both takes the 'what' from Congress and is incomplete without a plan for 'how'.