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It's not as direct as measuring wannabe aviators for athleticism. You have to see it as the multi-year pipeline going from high school / college / enlisted rank

It's not as direct as measuring wannabe aviators for athleticism. You have to see it as the multi-year pipeline going from high school / college / enlisted ranks to the selection for officer training to the selection for aviation. All three steps are competitive, and athletic participation and achievement and physical fitness scores are major inputs. So a flight school class ends up having a disproportionate number of former varsity and intercollegiate athletes, and the intramural sports played among aviators tend to be quite serious. If it helps, it's probably for the reasons you said - generally being able to quickly process and accurately react to visual / audio / proprioceptive / vestibular stimuli - plus being used to working through physical discomfort. I agree that that's true of all SOF selection, and probably Army SF in particular.

mmooss 2y ago
> All three steps are competitive, and athletic participation and achievement and physical fitness scores are major inputs. Are they? Why? I don't want an athlete next to me in a foxhole, but someone who can stay calm, think clearly, and make good decisions under extreme stress. Edit: Sports are the opposite of warfare: Games, where the only consequence is 'points', where the losing team at worst buys the beer, and where participants follow rules and require fairness. Warfare is the opposite in every respect. You die, your country is overrun and your family dies and home is destroyed. Generations pass before you recover, if ever. There are no rules or fairness; quite the opposite - the participants look for every advantage they can. > agree that that's true of all SOF selection I said/meant that SOF does not select for athletes.
- warner25 2y ago
  For better or worse, I think athletic participation and achievement is used[1] as a proxy for what you want. The idea is that one can prove himself through sport as a good teammate with grit, determination, toughness etc. in adversarial situations. It might be debatable, but I think that's the logic used by the institution. And I was trying to say that what's true is the SOF community's desire for "emotional and cognitive performance under stress" above most other qualities. Like you said, one won't even get looked at without a baseline level of fitness or athleticism, but after that selection appears to be based on the outcomes of mind games and the assessment of personality traits. [1] Officers coming out of Army ROTC, for example, get literal points for playing intercollegiate or intramural sports, and having more points gives them a better chance at getting their choice of career field. Getting an Army ROTC scholarship in the first place probably works the same way.
- psunavy03 2y ago
  As a former military jet aviator, you don't seem to a) know what you're talking about on a fundamental sense and b) be comprehending what you're being told. The point is the empirical evidence that those who succeed in the pipeline tend to disproportionately have athletic backgrounds, often competitive ones. Not all, but many. This is precisely because competing in elite sports is a way (not the only way, but a way) to develop everything you say you'd want next to you in a foxhole, yet which you somehow scoff at athletes being able to acquire. You frankly come off as someone with no experience in the military OR in athletics, and I say that as a former aviator who was not an elite athlete but knew some. And I've worked with SOF personnel. They may select against stereotypical "jock" behavior (though that's sometimes debatable looking at Naval Special Warfare). But they sure as hell select for very high athletic talent . . . among other things.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    Why attack people you are talking to - unless you have little else to make your case? The value of selecting for athleticism has nothing to do with me; that topic is irrelevant. If you really can keep your head in a jet, maybe you can keep your head here. Regarding knowing what you're talking about - you have no idea about me at all. People might differ from you for other reasons than being fundementally flawed - the first is not at all a signal of the second; you are not the standard of reason. > the empirical evidence that those who succeed in the pipeline tend to disproportionately have athletic backgrounds, often competitive ones. Where could we find this evidence? That would be very interesting. I don't doubt they do select for athetic backgrounds but that's not empirical evidence that it's wise. My individual experience in playing competitive sports (pretty well, very competitive, not professionally), gambling, and also frequent experience in very high stress (professionally and otherwise) and sometimes dangerous situations: The first is no help with the latter other than blowing off steam. I wouldn't use the same word for real-life stress and the 'stress' in games, but for comparison sake: I'd say the 'stress' in sports is for children - highly simplistic situations of no consequence; like a movie; just enough 'stress' to supercharge engagement and make it interesting. The value, the conceit or trick of sports (or a good movie or song) is that you get to experience those exciting feelings without actually facing real life, you don't have to accomplish anything real but you get the endorphins and other drugs pumping. That's great, until you start believing it's real; it's a drug trip. Real-life stress is entirely different. Sports 'stress' is not nearly enough to psychologically threaten or damage or traumatize you; not enough for real fear and injury; there are no life-changing consequences for you and others based on your decision and action - do all your employees lose their livelihoods because you make the wrong decision, or because you don't thread the needle, on your feet, on 10,000 political and business and social factors and communicate effectively to the big client? College admissions tests (i.e., something with real-life consequence) are a better measure IMHO, as an example off the top of my head. I think that "supercharged engagement", those emotions, gets the better of people's judgement. Add to that the macho bias; the social trend of embracing physical violence and action, the big trend of favoring sports, and dismissing judgement, knowledge, and intellect (because the latter result in things that undermine powerful people); some groupthink ... that's where I suspect the bias (IMHO) to sports comes from.

mmooss 2y ago

> All three steps are competitive, and athletic participation and achievement and physical fitness scores are major inputs. Are they? Why? I don't want an athlete next to me in a foxhole, but someone who can stay calm, think clearly, and make good decisions under extreme stress. Edit: Sports are the opposite of warfare: Games, where the only consequence is 'points', where the losing team at worst buys the beer, and where participants follow rules and require fairness. Warfare is the opposite in every respect. You die, your country is overrun and your family dies and home is destroyed. Generations pass before you recover, if ever. There are no rules or fairness; quite the opposite - the participants look for every advantage they can. > agree that that's true of all SOF selection I said/meant that SOF does not select for athletes.

warner25 2y ago
For better or worse, I think athletic participation and achievement is used[1] as a proxy for what you want. The idea is that one can prove himself through sport as a good teammate with grit, determination, toughness etc. in adversarial situations. It might be debatable, but I think that's the logic used by the institution. And I was trying to say that what's true is the SOF community's desire for "emotional and cognitive performance under stress" above most other qualities. Like you said, one won't even get looked at without a baseline level of fitness or athleticism, but after that selection appears to be based on the outcomes of mind games and the assessment of personality traits. [1] Officers coming out of Army ROTC, for example, get literal points for playing intercollegiate or intramural sports, and having more points gives them a better chance at getting their choice of career field. Getting an Army ROTC scholarship in the first place probably works the same way.
psunavy03 2y ago
As a former military jet aviator, you don't seem to a) know what you're talking about on a fundamental sense and b) be comprehending what you're being told. The point is the empirical evidence that those who succeed in the pipeline tend to disproportionately have athletic backgrounds, often competitive ones. Not all, but many. This is precisely because competing in elite sports is a way (not the only way, but a way) to develop everything you say you'd want next to you in a foxhole, yet which you somehow scoff at athletes being able to acquire. You frankly come off as someone with no experience in the military OR in athletics, and I say that as a former aviator who was not an elite athlete but knew some. And I've worked with SOF personnel. They may select against stereotypical "jock" behavior (though that's sometimes debatable looking at Naval Special Warfare). But they sure as hell select for very high athletic talent . . . among other things.
- mmooss 2y ago
  Why attack people you are talking to - unless you have little else to make your case? The value of selecting for athleticism has nothing to do with me; that topic is irrelevant. If you really can keep your head in a jet, maybe you can keep your head here. Regarding knowing what you're talking about - you have no idea about me at all. People might differ from you for other reasons than being fundementally flawed - the first is not at all a signal of the second; you are not the standard of reason. > the empirical evidence that those who succeed in the pipeline tend to disproportionately have athletic backgrounds, often competitive ones. Where could we find this evidence? That would be very interesting. I don't doubt they do select for athetic backgrounds but that's not empirical evidence that it's wise. My individual experience in playing competitive sports (pretty well, very competitive, not professionally), gambling, and also frequent experience in very high stress (professionally and otherwise) and sometimes dangerous situations: The first is no help with the latter other than blowing off steam. I wouldn't use the same word for real-life stress and the 'stress' in games, but for comparison sake: I'd say the 'stress' in sports is for children - highly simplistic situations of no consequence; like a movie; just enough 'stress' to supercharge engagement and make it interesting. The value, the conceit or trick of sports (or a good movie or song) is that you get to experience those exciting feelings without actually facing real life, you don't have to accomplish anything real but you get the endorphins and other drugs pumping. That's great, until you start believing it's real; it's a drug trip. Real-life stress is entirely different. Sports 'stress' is not nearly enough to psychologically threaten or damage or traumatize you; not enough for real fear and injury; there are no life-changing consequences for you and others based on your decision and action - do all your employees lose their livelihoods because you make the wrong decision, or because you don't thread the needle, on your feet, on 10,000 political and business and social factors and communicate effectively to the big client? College admissions tests (i.e., something with real-life consequence) are a better measure IMHO, as an example off the top of my head. I think that "supercharged engagement", those emotions, gets the better of people's judgement. Add to that the macho bias; the social trend of embracing physical violence and action, the big trend of favoring sports, and dismissing judgement, knowledge, and intellect (because the latter result in things that undermine powerful people); some groupthink ... that's where I suspect the bias (IMHO) to sports comes from.