Top products from r/BlackOps
We found 4 product mentions on r/BlackOps. We ranked the 4 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 4 product mentions on r/BlackOps. We ranked the 4 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
I'm glad to see this article mentioned. I urge folks to go to the Rand web site, down load and read a few dozen of their policy papers.
You'll see that the entire Bush administration play book is nearly (90%) of Rand origin. The rest can be found in similar FFRDC corporation work like the Brookings Institute.
If you are a thinking person, especially someone knowledgeable about models and system thinking, you'll also discover that if Rand ever did embrace systems theory, in the last decades they've completely lost that recipe and talent, replacing it with ideological doggeral.
Most so-called systems analyst are not trained in systems theory as far as I can tell but more often are journalism, sociology or similar majors, and their writing shows systems theory is not a subject they know anything about.
The evidence for the complete lack of actual systems theory comes from the hideous and pervasive cognitive and systems fallacies in the policy models implied or inferred or even embraced as truth, as evidenced by most of their recent (15-20 years) papers.
I used to work for a similar "think tank" and I'm professionally and intellectually shocked at the shoddiness of their work product. It suddenly becomes very clear how we managed to take so many sequential wrong paths in the last 2 decades - uncritically following Rand advice is probably the biggest cause.
For those who's like to understand the basics of systems theory I'd recommend reading Weinberg's classic: An Introduction to General Systems Thinking and the follow-up book General Principles of Systems Design if you want to dig deeper.
If the first book were required reading for every politician and government employee you might see government return closer to the principles of the founding fathers. I can dream. In reading most of the Rand papers, I get the impression they don't even understand as much as described in the Weinberg intro book above!!
Seal Team 6 founder's autobiography
SAS team captured by Iraqi forces
Autobiography of the founder of the Navy Seals
Rescue of an American couple kidnapped by Islamic terrorists