8 ms·
Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944)
- walrus01 4y agoScroll about 75% of the way down to: (11) General Interference with Organizations and Production
- steponlego 4y ago[flagged]
- voz_ 4y agoWhat does this mean?
- roflyear 4y agoI took it as this person will sabotage parts of the US until Trump's charges are dropped. Pretty stupid thing to post about online, really! But I suppose not surprising!
- steponlego 4y agoIt’s quite legal to do almost everything listed in that manual, actually. It’s the basis of modern leftism in fact. Right wingers read Rules For Radicals years ago. I am very careful not to break any laws.
- roflyear 4y agoLegal things can be illegal if done with certain intent!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- berkle4455 4y agoYou’re not capable of sabotaging anything beyond your own livelihood.
- steponlego 4y ago[flagged]
- roflyear 4y agoTrolling is definitely against HN rules, btw!
- steponlego 4y ago[flagged]
- roflyear 4y agoI imagine if this was done today, you'd get a lot of: > Whenever someone asks you a question say you'll address it during standup. > Never decide anything outside of a meeting (I think this is partially covered) > If conversations become difficult, say you have to leave to go to another meeting and will follow up with them later.
- esses 4y agohttps://taylor.town/-10x https://taylor.town/-10x > Hold 10 engineers hostage in a technical discussion.
- roflyear 4y agoHaha I remember calculating how much $ we spent a week in meetings, just with my small team. It was... a lot of money...
- thinkingemote 4y agoSaw this first hand as a good technique - it was amazing. Was working in a open plan office of a major corporation and our department was situated right next to the CEOs office. One of my managers had an issue and got angry and said "right, im going to talk to the CEO" and walked up to him. CEO just said something like "Okay, thanks for bringing it to my attention but I have a meeting to go to right now, can we talk about this later". Not only did it completely defuse the anger of the manager but it totally worked and they never followed up. The manager was like head explodes in awe.
- worewood 4y agoWonderful, looks like my workplace is following all the tips!
- duxup 4y ago> Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision. OMG… I have customer who does this to his organization on every meeting we join. I’m guaranteed to have a good 30 (or more) minutes of discussions about some other meeting unrelated to the one they are currently in. It’s like clockwork. He always starts it out really vague too with “it was brought to my attention <re-opens topic>”. I’ve long wondered if anyone really does bring anything to this guy’s attention or if he just is being vague so he can hide the fact that he is just opening a can of worms, tell his anecdotes again all on his own for no reason. I kinda wonder now.
- rgblambda 4y agoPossibilities include: 1. He's a control freak and has to have a hand in every decision. 2. He's opposed to the project and wants it to fail. 3. The previously agreed decision benefits a rival within his organization and he's trying to reverse this. 4. He loves hearing the sound of his own voice. 5. He's incapable of keeping up with the current discussion and only works out what people were saying after the meeting so brings his belated contributions to the next meeting.
- ip26 4y ago6. The decision process is half baked, and nothing is ever completely closed. As a result, nobody shuts this guy down.
- onion2k 4y ago7. He's read the book linked from this thread and is actively trying to subvert the process. :)
- ParetoOptimal 4y ago8. Good decisions and solutions are avoided because the team has more familiarity with mediocre to bad ones. Glad this one no longer applies to me!
- dieselguy 4y agoPuzzled that a 1944 US guide has instructions using the metric system.
- koheripbal 4y agoWasn't this originally a Soviet guide? Are we sure about the source here?
- cookieperson 4y agoI stumbled upon this document on a friends kindle maybe 5 yrs ago. It was attributed the same. Think it is or was distributed for free in the Kindle bookstore and they downloaded every free book.
- stonogo 4y agoThe CIA certainly thinks the US government produced it: https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-art-of-simple-sabotage/ https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-art-of-simple-sabotage...
- monocasa 4y agoNo, it was just intended for western Europeans (primarily the French resistance), as the 1944 date might suggest.
- whatsdoom 4y agoHere's a scan of the pdf: https://archive.org/details/SimpleSabotageFieldManualStrategicServicesProvisional/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/SimpleSabotageFieldManualStrateg...
- silisili 4y agoIt wasn't intended for US citizens, but for those in enemy states.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- King-Aaron 4y ago
- nextworddev 4y agoUnironically, this might be one of the biggest blockers to Artificial Intelligence adoption at most companies.
- 23B1 4y agoI always love it when this pops up. I'm unfamiliar with the origins of this particular version, but the Office of Strategic Services, working alongside the SOE and other Allied intelligence agencies distributed a wide array of manuals, pamphlets, and propaganda like this starting in WWII. I'm a former Green Beret, and we reference a lot of this stuff when studying guerrilla warfare (we call it Unconventional Warfare). Here's a graphic I love to reference – the Soro pyramid. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Original-version-of-the-SORO-pyramid-1966-Molnar-Tinker-LeNoir-1966-29_fig1_333222899 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Original-version-of-the-... and here's an updated one: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333222899/figure/fig2/AS:760688574222338@1558373697874/Updated-version-of-the-SORO-pyramid-Tompkins-2013-6.png https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333222899/figure/fi... This shows how sabotage, resistance, and underground activities progress towards full-on guerrilla war. It was deeply frustrating for me to get out of the service and go to work in large organizations who seemingly employed these very techniques as a matter of practice!
- TrispusAttucks 4y agoIt feels like this is happening to the entire country right now.
- roflyear 4y agoWe've definitely passed the middle of the underground items in the US :/
- 23B1 4y agoYeah, the interesting thing is that we're doing it to ourselves despite our (ostensibly) global supremacy. Having spent a lot of time looking at what unwinds a country – and I'm no sociologist or geopolitical expert – it generally seems to me that the institutions upon which we depend are unwinding. Pick any – government, business, the economy, the press, the concept of truth. Maybe those weren't perfect to begin with, but I always tell folks that it's a great opportunity to rebuild those institutions better, instead of sitting around waiting for the apocalypse. I'm very happy, for instance, to see all the new thinking around the institution education. We all knew it was going to become undone with the democratization of information via the internet, but thanks to COVID, a lot of people are reflecting on the value of sending their kids to (globally underperforming) public schools, or going into debt for college.
- ftxbro 4y agothis is surfacing again today from the comments on the -10x engineer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35438414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35438414
- dehrmann 4y agoBehold: the -25x engineer.
- webdoodle 4y agoThank you for posting this! I was talking about it recently with a friend, but couldn't remember the name or where I saw it.
- jorgesborges 4y ago> Anyone can break up a showing of an enemy propaganda film by putting two or three dozen large moths in a paper bag. Take the bag to the movies with you, put it on the floor in an empty section of the theater as you go in and leave it open. The moths will fly out and climb into the projector beam, so that the film will be obscured by fluttering shadows. What’s the contemporary equivalent? I’d still like to bring a couple dozen moths to the theatre just for the hell of it.
- roflyear 4y agoGood luck finding moths these days. They're all dead!
- Jolter 4y agoI think this would still work in a cinema. I don’t know what could constitute “enemy propaganda” though.
- thakoppno 4y agoI don’t think this would work. I can’t think of a single time in my movie going life where a moth has obscured the projection. There must be an existing counter measure. Fascinating idea.
- lrem 4y agoCan insect die off be contributing?
- KineticLensman 4y agoI don't remember clouds of moths or other insects spoiling films when I was a kid (first went to the cinema in the mid '70s).
- bunabhucan 4y agoA/C blower vent directly down in front of the projectionist window?
- throwawaysleep 4y agoScrum seems like it was lifted from this.
- greentext 4y agoI’m commenting to bookmark this. It reminds me of Ben Stein’s “How to Ruin Your Life”. These types of references are great for taking personal inventory. I can’t say I haven’t been doing a lot of these things unknowingly.
- mulmen 4y agoPro tip: you can “favorite” posts.
- shrubby 4y agohttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt9148440/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9148440/ I can recommend this one :) Should you have access to a Finnish IP you can watch it here https://areena.yle.fi/1-50472616 https://areena.yle.fi/1-50472616
- Yhippa 4y agoHow much productivity has humanity collectively lost due to using QWERTY over DVORAK or some other interface? And we might be stuck with this for eternity.
- mulmen 4y agoProbably none. The claims of better typing speed with Dvorak have never been demonstrated. Only Dvorak himself found a benefit. It’s easy to change if you want and has been for decades now. Computers are flexible in that sense. But measuring productivity in words per minute isn’t much different than measuring it in lines of code.
- notjulianjaynes 4y agoDoes DVORAK somehow reduce the cognitive load of typing? Maybe I'm just a slow thinker, but I've never found myself in a situation where the rate limiting factor is the ability to physically move my fingers from one key to another. (On a real keyboard at least, tapping this comment out on a touchscreen phone I made several typos I had to correct.)
- castles 4y agoWe should focus less on peak speed and more on sustained speed? Not a dvorak user. I infected myself with Colemak back in the days when I had time to mess around on such things, somewhat inspired by a programmer of acquaint, that suffered from RSI. I can say after 10+ years I've never suffered from RSI. It's been a pain when trying to pair program but never really had any substantial regrets. I can't compare it to any previous era where I was a qwerty user as I learned to touchtype with Colemak. I think anything that allows you to maintain typing speed (ergonomics) and reduces the chance of distraction from errors is worthwhile.
- feldrim 4y agoQWERTY is not designed for speed but the exact opposite. And we are not monkeys typing randomly and continuously. We, as human beings, have valuable cognitive work, while typing is just a format conversion operation. Focusing there misses the point.
- CGamesPlay 4y agoI never understood if this guide was published tongue-in-cheek or not. Who is the intended audience? It seems like the intended audience was "people who don't like their organization" as comedic relief.
- lazyasciiart 4y agoIt was for occupied Europeans in 1944, who were frequently working for the German occupiers. (Or for dissident Germans)
- CGamesPlay 4y agoDid those people widely speak English? Was the guide translated?
- luckydata 4y agoit's that time of the month uh?
- aaron695 4y ago[dead]
- nico 4y agoIt’s amazing how many horrible things governments do and yet we keep giving them power and allowing them to do shit like this. This is from the 40s, can you imagine what they are doing to us right now? Creepy to even think about it.
- issung 4y agoThis is TAME compared to some of the other things that have been declassified.
- walrus01 4y agosuch as: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=US+DoD+improvised+munitions+handbook https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=US+DoD+im...
- mulmen 4y agoI don’t see the problem with this. What do you find objectionable? It was the 1940s. This was useful information for basically anyone in Europe.
- ZhadruOmjar 4y agoThese are guides for people living in war time Europe under Nazi occupation, not the CIA going after other US government departments. At some point you need to "pick a side" in geopolitics, there are no clear good guys or bad guys.
- zhouyisu 4y agoNow this is on github. (What would AI assistant system respond after trained on these instructions?)
- vrglvrglvrgl 4y ago[dead]
- fhrow4484 4y agoPast threads as compiled by u/dang: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29606518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29606518 This gist is notable as it's: - not in pdf format - complete (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597454 is just an excerpt) - not a 404 dead link like many of the previous post.
- dang 4y agoThanks! Macroexpanded: Simple Sabotage Field Manual by United States Office of Strategic Services - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31676964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31676964 - June 2022 (55 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31070624 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31070624 - April 2022 (8 comments) Excerpt from CIA's Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597454 - Dec 2021 (209 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26293804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26293804 - Feb 2021 (1 comment) 1944 OSS Manual on How to Sabotage Productivity - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28507930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28507930 - Sept 2021 (5 comments) CIA's Declassified 1941 Simple Sabotage Field Manual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316292 - May 2020 (1 comment) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 - Feb 2020 (89 comments) Spotting Field Sabotage in Meetings (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16045073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16045073 - Jan 2018 (36 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771 - Aug 2017 (32 comments) The CIA’s 1944 Simple Sabotage Field Manual (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253276 - Aug 2016 (64 comments) Updating classic workplace sabotage techniques - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11702267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11702267 - May 2016 (280 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 - Nov 2015 (68 comments) How to make sure nothing gets done at work - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10393485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10393485 - Oct 2015 (3 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363 - Nov 2012 (67 comments) From CIA: Timeless Tips for 'Simple Sabotage' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4243649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4243649 - July 2012 (3 comments) How We Beat the Nazis with Bureaucracy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1398103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1398103 - June 2010 (22 comments) WW2 "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" declassified [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=905750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=905750 - Oct 2009 (6 comments) OSS (pre-CIA) Simple Sabotage Field Manual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443 - Sept 2009 (29 comments)
- fnordpiglet 4y agoThis describes literally every work place I’ve ever been in. Amazing, this must be the foundation of HBS MBA materials.
- ZhadruOmjar 4y agoThis is my favourite document and I share it with my team whenever it comes up. Really good inspo on thinking about what matters and where processes can slow down even by people that are well intentioned.
- constantlm 4y agoThanks. This will come in handy when the robots take over.
- selcuka 4y agoIt hurts to read this: > Abstract verbalizations about personal liberty, freedom of the press, and so on, will not be convincing in most parts of the world. In many areas they will not even be comprehensible. These days it is true in almost all parts of the world.
- onion2k 4y agoThere's a really interesting narrative history book by Giles Milton called "Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" that goes quite deeply into the background of how these books, weapons, and tactics came about as the UK defended itself during WWII. It's worth a read. (https://www.gilesmilton.com/historybooks/churchillsministry https://www.gilesmilton.com/historybooks/churchillsministry)
- Zickzack 4y ago> William Fairbairn, was a portly pensioner with an unusual passion: he was the world’s leading expert in silent killing This reads like a sentence straight from a bad 70s action movie. Who had decided he was the world's leading expert? And how in the world would one know? The "narrative history" seems to use a lot of name dropping, as witnessed by the reference to Churchill in the title. Special Operations Executive, the ministry of ecomomic warfare as well as the build up of a large air force go back to the much maligned Neville Chamberlain.
- jstarfish 4y ago> Who had decided he was the world's leading expert? And how in the world would one know? In publicly calling the bluff of the "world's leading expert in silent killing," consider the consequences of being wrong.
- sprkwd 4y agoI believe there’s a film very loosely based on this currently being made. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5177120/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5177120/
- thret 4y ago"Anyone can break up a showing of an enemy propaganda film by putting two or three dozen large moths in a paper bag. Take the bag to the movies with you, put it on the floor in an empty section of the theater as you go in and leave it open. The moths will fly out and climb into the projector beam, so that the film will be obscured by fluttering shadows." I doubt anyone tested how difficult it would be to acquire three dozen large months and fit them into a paper bag, then smuggle that into the movies. I'd like to try though.
- jstarfish 4y agoI've seen people smuggle in full meals for an entire family. Moths interfering with the projection lights? That's Anarchist Cookbook level dumb. Just bring a tube of crickets in and release them. Once the screams start, the movie is over and that auditorium is going to be out of commission for the rest of the day.
- m_eiman 4y ago> (4) Don't order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown. It's a bit funny that the entire Western economy with just-in-time-everything is indistinguishable from an act of sabotage.
- paulorlando 4y agoInteresting that people are aware of this old document. But it also makes me wonder at how much of section 11: General Interference with Organizations and Production matches what I've experienced in some organizations. And I'm assuming no intentional sabotage.
- jordanpg 4y agoSo much of this would be right at home in the parody book 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings: How to Get By Without Even Trying [1]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/100-Tricks-Appear-Smart-Meetings/dp/1449476058 https://www.amazon.com/100-Tricks-Appear-Smart-Meetings/dp/1...