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I think it's simpler than that, I think Hanlon's Razor applies here. Not sure there has been a less capable Secretary of Defence in my lifetime than who they c
by noir_lord 2mo ago
I think it's simpler than that, I think Hanlon's Razor applies here.
Not sure there has been a less capable Secretary of Defence in my lifetime than who they currently have in the role.
Note: not saying less objectionable, I'd put Rumsfeld right alongside for that but as much as I didn't like the man, it was hard to argue he was incapable.
- amelius 2mo agoBoth can be true. Incompetence AND malice.
- schiffern 2mo agoTroublingly, I think he actually does think these ideas are helpful. Is a True Believer any less dangerous? "Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
- noir_lord 2mo agoThey are generally dangerous but they are truly dangerous when what they believe is itself dangerous.
- jjgreen 2mo agoI'll be using that
- hedora 2mo agoYou’ll like the Simple Sabotage Field Manual too: https://archive.org/details/simplesabotagefi26184gut/page/n1/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/simplesabotagefi26184gut/page/n1... It helped the allies win WWII. It contains lots of good advice (and the white collar chapter should be required reading in corporate training).
- dylan604 2mo agoI think True Believer is worse. I would say that if someone is willing to try something while still willing to accept that it might not work but need to confirm they'd be a rational person. A True Believer will not accept that the thing is not working and try to rationalize why others are still wrong.
- budman1 2mo agoa while back we had an army private as the secretary of defense. end of the day, his experience as a private meant nothing towards the job. perhaps he was slightly more able to relate to the needs of the troops. now we have a reserve captain. who was pushed out of the service for extremest views and body art. his experience means he hates the army, and his selection to the post means his political views have been vindicated. a master of strategy? leader of men in battle? CEO of the worlds biggest institution? nope. he doesn't even understand those roles.
- bryancoxwell 2mo agoOr simpler still, although related. Maybe we just can’t afford it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/07/21/pentagon-sinking-billions-into-iran-is-quickly-running-short-cash/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/07/21/...
- xnx 2mo agoNot being able to afford something has never stopped the US before.
- duskdozer 2mo agoWell, depends on what "something"
- bryancoxwell 2mo agoIt’s literally stopping them from routine training and maintenance.
- Jgrubb 2mo agoRumsfeld put in the work and was very smart. His natural disposition was such that, when given the ring of power, things went badly. The current head of DoD is basically a manosphere influencer that bumbled into this job. Now, I'm not an endocrinologist, just an aging guy, but from my current vantage point it appears that over the course of my life, many stupid decisions have been made that I have lived to tell about. I can't help but feel that my "wisdom of age" might just be testosterone getting out of the way. This is all to say that our current "situation" just kinda looks like one insecure guys roid rage when you take a big step back.
- lokar 2mo agoTrump was pretty clear he chose him because he looked good in TV.
- tyleo 2mo agoI think we're saying the same thing. I suspect there were a lot of people saying, "this probably won't work," but the Secretary of Defense pursued it anyways until real problems materialized.
- InsideOutSanta 2mo agoIt still irks me that people mocked Rumsfeld's explanation of unknown unknowns. The guy was probably a terrible excuse for a human being, but he wasn't stupid, and that quote was a pretty good explanation for why we shouldn't be overconfident in our knowledge: "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."
- YackerLose 2mo agoWisdom tends to sound obvious, and obvious statements aren't novel. The digital society values the novel over the wise.
- mattm 2mo agoAnyone who's ever worked on a software project can attest to this
- smallerize 2mo agoIt's the context that makes it crazy. Someone asked if there was any evidence of a link between Iraq and WMDs, at a press conference, and this is how he avoided giving an answer or taking any accountability.
- mirmor23 2mo agoRumsfeld heard it from some smart guy in NASA and repackaged it to sell Iraq war. This is similar to the influencers bandying around 'algorithms'; Rumsfeld is more like the Big Lebowski in parroting whatever to make him look smart. Never for a moment he stopped to think about the amount of damage that would haunt the veterans that served there. He wrote a book about leadership but he lacked balls to do anything about Abu Ghraib for example, nor he did anything to stop the war. IMO he is just another corporate coward. In his most stunning display of 'leadership', he used autopen to stamp his signature on condolence letters sent to the families of soldiers killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Imagine that!
- ethbr1 2mo ago