4 ms·

I 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

• TrispusAttucks 4y ago
  It feels like this is happening to the entire country right now.
  • roflyear 4y ago
    We've definitely passed the middle of the underground items in the US :/
  • 23B1 4y ago
    Yeah, 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.
    • Analemma_ 4y ago
      > I always tell folks that it's a great opportunity to rebuild those institutions better One of the big problems right now is that it's easier than ever to just burn down institutions for the sake of a little social or financial profit-- far easier than actually building them up. It's no wonder most people take the easy and profitable road instead of the challenging and unrewarding one. It's not that this potential didn't exist before, but it is more frictionless than ever thanks to the democratization of information afforded by the internet. There's probably a Turchin-esque "elite overproduction" angle to it as well, where previously the institutions had enough slots to absorb all the talented people who might go this route and give them rewards consummate with their status of keeping the machine running; now there aren't and so people who get left out turn to burning it down instead.
      • dd36 4y ago
        And the lack of antitrust enforcement. It used to be that the power to increase prices was a bust-able monopoly then it somehow all became perverted under Reagan to where actual increased prices are all that matter but those increases are always years later. The bad guys won. Only now are the tides starting to turn.
    • happytiger 4y ago
      As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. — lincoln
    • SuoDuanDao 4y ago
      The term I've heard is 'empire fatigue' - what happens when a global empire is so good at funnelling resources towards the center that the easiest way for anyone trying to get resources for themselves is to get it from inside rather than outside the empire. The fall of Rome is an excellent example, once warring with neighbours became a net cost even in victory, Roman politicians switched to warring with other Roman politicians at an alarming speed.
    • germinalphrase 4y ago
  • gnarbarian 4y ago
    this is basically a manual for how our federal government works.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • happytiger 4y ago
    Ray Dalio’s book was helpful in understanding this period of time, as well as The Fourth Turning. Definitely just part of the cycle of civilization. Might be helpful to pull up that that framework in order to understand what’s happening. I’d love to hear any other titles like this. I’m almost done with Disunited Nations by Zehan. Some interesting ideas in there, but the book isn’t as interesting as his ongoing YouTube posts have been this far — just got it today so I’m only have way done.
    • sizzle 4y ago
      Which book by East Dalio was it?
      • sizzle 4y ago
        Ray*
• neovialogistics 4y ago
  Organizations, large and small, are all pathological. It isn't an epidemic of terrible social accidents, it's inherent to organizations as a method of grouping humans. Essentially, people (and AFAIK, all primates) have a built in behavioural system to take excess credit for wins and minimize blame for losses. The details are a nasty tangle of evolutionary psychology but the consequences, in groups, are blame deficits. These deficits typically manifest as a simultaneous doublethink mix of low morale and unrealistic optimism. That's the pathology. Good personnel management is about leveraging this instead of fighting it. I recommend The Organization Man (1956) and Moral Mazes (1988) if you want to read on the topic and/or fall asleep fast but if somebody knows a more recent text on the topic, please suggest it.
  • reb 4y ago
    The Gervais Principle comes to mind.
    • neovialogistics 4y ago
      Took a quick skim at that blog: * It seems initially derivative of Moral Mazes - there are a couple sentences almost lifted wholesale. * Part three seems more psychoanalytic than Moral Mazes and quite original. * The fannish references to The Office are kinda irritating IMO. Might be less so if I'd watched more than a few episodes, probably the same for others. I'm gonna give it a deeper look though.
    • red-iron-pine 4y ago
      A great read. Dude is a good writer. Terrible point though. It's a humor post masquerading as a business / organizational analysis. It filters 1950s mgmt books through a humorous comic and then through a fictional TV show. An organization viewed through the lens of fiction, then viewed through the lens of more fiction (a comic), and then through some old business management books. Very Simulation-vs-Simulacra.
  • theteapot 4y ago
    > Essentially, people (and AFAIK, all primates) have a built in behavioural system to take excess credit for wins and minimize blame for losses. Where did you get this from? Seems like a cynical view. I think it's just one end of a spectrum. I've definitely worked with people like this, but I also some that do the opposite - wins are for the team, failures are on them.
• cheaprentalyeti 4y ago
  I have been wondering... who's the author of the original Soro Pyramid?
  • 23B1 4y ago
    SORO = Special Operations Research Office I believe it was originally found in this publication: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Human-Factors-Considerations-of-Undergrounds-in-Molnar-Tinker/a101ea74d4d08537c1586605af72eea2d9bf2d3a https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Human-Factors-Consider... which you can read here: https://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&vid=LCCN66062974#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&vid=LCCN6...
• 9dev 4y ago
  Without any military experience but some interest in history, this feels a little tainted with domestic propaganda; the entire pyramid, even the new version, regards existing institutions as inherently righteous and legitimate, and those exerting guerrilla tactics as inherently morally corrupted (e.g. achieving their goals using lies, influenced by foreign agents). The older version is especially hilarious, considering the CIA applied the same external influence to terrorists and guerrilla forces in South America and the Middle East they revile as "communist" in there.
  • RugnirViking 4y ago
    I didn't get that sense at all. I'm with you in not trusting the CIA, but I feel like this is a fairly realstic view of how things actually happen, which they probably intentionally used as part of the process of destabilizing foreign governments they dislike. edit: I see - the "original" one is a lot more explicitly targeting communist gurellias
• networked 4y ago
  Interesting how the quality of diagramming is plainly worse in 2013 than in 1966. The 1966 original is more easy to read: the typeface is pleasantly wider, there is no red or blue text on a saturated yellow background. It looks better overall. One part of it is technical limitations (you can't abuse color when you print in monochrome), but it is also that the 1966 version was most likely done by a specialist, and the 2013 version wasn't.
  • dan-robertson 4y ago
    I suspect in 1966 you would send it to typesetters / a graphics department and in 2013 someone does it themselves with a computer. If you have a diagram/graphic made by someone who specialises in making diagrams/graphics, it will likely be better than something made for the same cost in 1966.
  • mturmon 4y ago
    And as a matter of substance -- the right-hand vertical black bar on the earlier version says, "Preparation of parallel hierarchies for taking over government positions", but on the newer version, the same text appears on both vertical bars. That theme as shown in the earlier version seems important, and it's just not there in the newer one. In current terms, you could see the militia movement in the US as relating to that theme.
  • trentgreene 4y ago
    While I can appreciate the simplicity of the older version, the lack of padding around text + monochrome made this a sea of black marks to me. Basically illegible. 2013 was much easier to read
• SuoDuanDao 4y ago
  This would make a great meme template. Add a 'you are here' indicator and comment on any recent news story.
  • red-iron-pine 4y ago
    Q-anon is pretty near the top, I'd imagine. They get a lot of foreign and domestic help, though.