Sublime

In the summer of 1971, Zimbardo took healthy Stanford students, assigned them roles as either “guards” or “inmates,” and locked them in a makeshift “prison” in the basement of Stanford University. In just days, the “prisoners” began to demonstrate symptoms of depression and extreme stress, while the “guards” began to act cruel and sadistic (the exp

Boyd was famous for browbeating his audiences with the mantra, “People, ideas, and hardware—in that order!” What we have seen so far reinforces Boyd’s conclusion. In all the battles and business examples noted in chapter II, as well as in the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks, groups of dedicated people found and exploited weaknesses in their

THE PEOPLE QUESTION

John Boyd, a sort of warrior-monk who revolutionized Western military strategy in the latter half of the twentieth century,

Foundation for the Study of Personality in History,

If you find yourself trapped, cornered, and on the defensive in some situation, try a simple experiment: Do something that cannot be easily explained or interpreted. Choose a simple action, but carry it out in a way that unsettles your opponent, a way with many possible interpretations, making your intentions obscure. Don’t just be unpredictable (a

Colonel John Boyd’s OODA loop, Three Years in Mississippi, and Herodotus’ The Persian Wars.