Worth Reading: 1993 Paper On Strategic Fraud ... Applies To Diverse Contexts (& OODA Loops)

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

OODA Loops aren't active ONLY in warfare, as the 1993 paper linked to below clearly shows.

Looting: The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit

The authors received a Nobel Prize based on this work, about just one aspect of 2G-5G war by parasites on their host, the USA and it's MiddleClass.

That Nobel award actually shows how naive people in other fields can be about the scope for applying misdirection when mastering Policy OODA Loops. After all, the "OODA" loop has been actively studied since circa 1926-1939, as Walter Shewhart's PDSA Cycle, and it's actual existence certainly predates the human species. The bigger the group brain, the more feedback loops contribute to the statistics of it's process control. Only the scale and the methods change.

We're all politicians now. That's what Democracy means. Hence, fraud and misdirection are our constant companions, everywhere, even in our own mirrors.

If we can't trigger an honest effort to re-orient after our own acts - in the midst of an unending FutureShockWave - then we can't possibly make adaptive adjustments in response to all the repercussions we ourselves trigger.

And if we're not re-assessing our own impact on our own outcomes, we can't hope to field OODA loops that are better/faster/leaner than the OODA loops of others - including diverse frauds, Innocent or not, both domestic and foreign.

Ironically, complacency involves actively defrauding ourselves of our future options.

Have you ever actually visualized a Control Fraud lobby arresting a Democracy's OODA Loop? It happens. Remember the Keating-5? The neutering of Brooksley Borne? Or the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act?

There have been more examples, in all disciplines and all arenas, and more are undoubtedly in the works. It's up to us to safeguard our policy OODA loops. That's possible, since none of us is as smart as all of us ... but that only matters if enough of us participate in our national OODA loop.

Until then, a group brain is a terrible thing to waste.

Fascinating Reads: John Boyd And Orienting to Context (i.e., Driving Adaptive Rate)

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

For those who know, there's a unbroken, inter-disciplinary link between:

Wallace_&_Darwin => Walter Shewhart => W.E. Deming => Toyota Production System => John Boyd

There's too much to discuss or read in one post, so here are some references just about Boyd, to start with. One can work backwards from there, just as Boyd did.

On The Making of History: John Boyd and American Security
http://www.usafa.edu/df/dfh/docs/Harmon54.pdf

BOYD ON AL QAEDA'S GRAND STRATEGY
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/05/journal_boyd_on.html

Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/158365-1/Robert+Coram.aspx

John Boyd’s Art of War
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/john-boyds-art-of-war/

Introduction to the Strategic Theories of John Boyd
http://chuckspinney.blogspot.com/p/compendium-colonel-john-boyds.html

ps: Paradigm, of course, refers to the set of methods which an aggregate (molecular, CNS or culture) uses while attempting to orient - successfully or not - to context, as the backbone of Adaptive Rate.

ps: ps: Shewhart's PDSA cycle looks at mfg adjustments post policy decisions, a method which Deming tried to push into policy & governance itself, and which Boyd re-named from the policy/goal/outcome perspective as the OODA Cycle or OODA Loop.