John Robb, "Brave New War", and Group Size

[Ken White]

"In your face" argumentive techniques are often mistaken for intellectual acuity and innovative thinking. Mostly all they do is start food fights.

As the old saw says, 'We can disagree without being disagreeable.'

Content, not method determines validity...

[marct]

Hi Ken,

Content, not method determines validity...

Thanks, and quite true. I think one of the greatest difficulties we have in this ype of forum, and by that I mean Computer Mediated Communications not the SWC , is that it is much harder for people to pick up the body language of the posted. Even these wonderful emoticons just don't capture the full range of body language (). So while I think it's imperative that we have a convention that says "we can agree to disagree", I think it's also imperative that we all be aware of this potential problem and try to do it in a fairly "polite" way - something that I really do find here . As my grandmother used to say, "politeness is the vasiline of social intercourse".

Marc

[Ken White]

Helps that they're willing to tell their grandkids things they learned from raising the kids parents that said parents have not yet discovered...

[Rob Thornton]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Culpeper View Post
As with the topic of the insurgencies throughout the book, as the SWC grows in membership, it will or already has fallen victim to Robb's axiom. It is beginning to give the appearance of the same things we find fault with on topics such as COIN and the war on terror. Too much bureaucracy with sets and subsets. A think tank that has grown into a group think tank.
...........
Instead, the SWC has gone from a think tank to another online forum with the life expectancy of effectiveness no different than any other online group as Robb describes.

On Robb's axiom, I think it largely depends on if you take a deterministic approach to how things will unfold or a contentious one.

Just because a set of conditions exist that can be associated with another event, does not mean the outcome is predetermined, or even likely.

Since we are using SWC as means to consider Robb's point I point out some distinguishing features that I think lower the odds of its devolving into group-think:

1) A very diverse membership - in terms of geography, profession, education, experience, and perhaps to a lesser extent values (both religious and political)

2) Such diversity means that members are also shaped throughout their off-line life by competing perspectives - from yet further diversity

3) The production of "stuff" which brings revenue, prestige, business, etc. is pretty much absent at the council level. The lack of such goals which hinder moving forward so that the organization can get on to the next thing is evident by the way in which old threads are often brought back by new members with new questions or observations.

4) Accessibility - in terms of council members being able to ask the questions they'd like to ask, reply as they see fit (no time tables or suspenses). The rules are fairly simple and unrestrictive - primarily their function is to facilitate debate. This makes for inclusiveness vs. exclusiveness.

5) Intellectual burden of proof - If you write something or quote it, be prepared to qualify it, or its likely that on this diverse council, someone will have the background to call you on it. If that happens, council ethics require you to clarify your position, acknowledge the counter position, or face the consequences.

If we deviate too far from some of these features to accommodate any individual, a group could fall into group-think.

I have probably spent an equal amount of time on SWC writing and reading (I write slower so it all equals out). I have as much respect for those I've disagreed with as those who I've agreed with. You can't always get context to content on the first go around, and often I've found a at least one position within a greater argument that can be agreed upon.

SWC/SWJ/SWJ Blog is pretty dynamic when you consider Communities of Practice in general. The members largely police themselves, and care enough about the site to raise issues about its health, assist new members in contributing and maintaining a standard of inclusiveness to those willing to participate in the discussion of war and its related topics. As long as we continue to so, we will probably remain in good health.

Best regards, Rob

[Culpeper]

All good points, which I can't disagree, but I'm wondering if those that participate the most are actually below the range of 150 members. I don't know because I only participate on certain topics and on occassion have fallen under the table for breaking rules for which I take responsibility and was handled fairly. It is just a coincidence that I had a similar experience while reading that particular chapter of Robb's book and posting this thread. I guess on occassion I have participated as one that takes risks and overly optimistic as mentioned above as a sign of a member participating in group think (Illusion of Invulnerability).

SWC/SWJ/SWJ Blog is pretty dynamic when you consider Communities of Practice in general. The members largely police themselves, and care enough about the site to raise issues about its health, assist new members in contributing and maintaining a standard of inclusiveness to those willing to participate in the discussion of war and its related topics. As long as we continue to so, we will probably remain in good health.

That pretty much sums up my motivation for starting this thread to begin with. I like this site and we should review this topic from time-to-time to make sure we don't become ineffective as a group. As individuals we should all be aware of the causes and consequences of a group falling prey to group think. Including myself.

[marct]

Hi Culpeper,

All good points, which I can't disagree, but I'm wondering if those that participate the most are actually below the range of 150 members.

Right now we are at 1255 registered members so if the 1:10:100 rule is holding, then we should have around 125 active posters. Of course, that's leaving out the lurkers who haven't bothered to register, so I just can't guess what the real figure is .

I don't know because I only participate on certain topics and on occassion have fallen under the table for breaking rules for which I take responsibility and was handled fairly. It is just a coincidence that I had a similar experience while reading that particular chapter of Robb's book and posting this thread. I guess on occassion I have participated as one that takes risks and overly optimistic as mentioned above as a sign of a member participating in group think (Illusion of Invulnerability).

I think it happens to all of us at one time or another. I know I've run into some situations where my assumptions were radically different from most of the people here - I guess it's that Canadian, academic, non-military background of mine .

In some ways, I suspect that the group think phenomenon is more likely to show up in areas where people share basic assumptions about "reality" and the focus of that community is more, hmmm, "fixed" let's say. Because our focus is "small wars" which, inherently, are all different, I think we have a built in advantage of sorts.

That pretty much sums up my motivation for starting this thread to begin with. I like this site and we should review this topic from time-to-time to make sure we don't become ineffective as a group. As individuals we should all be aware of the causes and consequences of a group falling prey to group think. Including myself.

That's a really good point. I mean, we've gone from ~3k unique visits per month this time last year to over 70k last month. That's a huge increase, and we are seeing some of the effects of it. Personally, I think Bill and Dave have done one Hades of a great job in holding this all together and expanding it.

I'm really glad that you brought the topic up because you are absolutely right - we could move to a group think, at least in some areas. So, what would you suggest that we, as a community and a council, do to help avoid that trap? Are there any new structures or rules you think would help?

Marc

[Culpeper]

I pointed them out using "#" style bullets above. Its more of an academic textbook approach but it something that we can take and give from. Ultimately, it is up to the administrators. Like I intimated before, I was taking my own inventory and wondering if I was contributing or taking away from the group. Obviously, I would rather contribute to the group than post something that may be misinterpreted. I don't get my feeling hurt very easily and my fallacy is that I assume everyone should feel that way as well. So, I know what my shortcomings are on the SWC and work on them. I guess what I'm trying to state is that group think can be avoided if we are educated on the subject so that as individuals we can take steps in understanding the "company language" over time. I think we all fall back on our areas of most knowledge. For me that would be military enlistment under poor leadership, my education in history and accounting (which made me a liberal arts major around a bunch of accountants and auditors), and a large patriotic core. So, at this point of my membership with the SWC I need to ask myself what can I bring to the table that is productive and still bring my style of sarcastic liberal arts humor. BTW, I recently did the latter against the same type of humor, which was sort of stupid. I didn't like someone's interpretation of this type of humor (meant to be funny or inflict a wound on the reader) and I responded with the same type of humor, which in itself, was interpreted differently by someone else. Does that make sense? I'm a freakish cross between Hunter S. Thompson and Fred Thompson. I'm not trying to sell a book but I should be more careful about how others may interpret something I post; i.e. offensive, irrelevant, or insulting. For example: "Enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do you think about me?" So, to avoid a group think mentality we should take responsibility as individuals to steer the group clear. We can only do that if we understand group think and I believe Robb's topic on this subject is enlightening. Most everything else he wrote about I took mostly as amalgamated abstracts but this particular part of the book I found very interesting at the right time and space.