As our discussions progressed, we referenced cognitive psychologist Dr. Gary Klein's work in "recognition primed decision making." Two of us recalled his brief provocatively entitled: "How Technology Makes Us Stupid." To elaborate on just two points:
1) Technology can be a filter which interferes with our natural sensing; we miss real world cues that are not captured by and represented by technology. Gary’s work included among others the study of neo-natal nurses, fire fighters, pilots, and military.
Negative Pilot Example: Gary related cases whereby technology interfaces masked real-world cues of aircraft problems.
Positive Nurse Example: Despite all the great medical technology, experienced nurses “knew” (deeply embedded cues from much experience) as soon as they walked into the unit which of the four babies in their care first needed attention.
This "knowing" is an internalization over much time and experience with the real world. Frequently, highly skilled practitioners could not describe how they "knew" and thereby teach others --- they just knew.
Implications for technology/C4ISR systems/Simulators: All technologies are attempted representations of dynamic reality. Their sensors have parameters which capture some (much?) but not all. Latency, however small, is always an issue. Most importantly, systems distort by over and under representing key real-world cues. Practitioners can become quite good with representations of reality and still make fatal errors because technological interfaces masked real-world cues and issues.
2) Technology can replace skills developed by living and working in the natural world. When working and spending much time in high-technology environments, practical, real-world skill sets and natural sensing atrophy over time. When (not if) technology systems fail, are inoperable due to weather/natural phenomenon, or are neutralized, even temporarily, by adversaries, practitioners can discover that they lack fundamental survival skills and operational competence.
Implications for developing and integrating technology: Those of us who have studied complexity science have learned that we humans tend to under-appreciate processes within a complex system that work. Our cognitive bias is to focus on the narrow process/feature we intend to improve. Worse, we have a tendency to implement BEFORE understanding how an insertion might impact those features are actually working.
Corrective disciplines:
Proposals to insert planned improvements should include comprehensive analysis of potential impacts on not only the target system we desire to improve but also those systems (friendly and adversary) with which it interacts.
Rather than extolling only the positives of the planned insertion/modernization, skilled and successful innovators explicitly identify to themselves and others, skills and capabilities that will atrophy and might be lost. And, they identify and develop action plans for preserving and even further developing skill sets for those occasions when planned technology insertions fail, misrepresent, or are neutralized.
Key to successful technology insertion is a comprehensive and detailed listing of dependencies. All capabilities, new and old, are dependent in some way. Adversaries contending with US/allied capabilities are always seeking to identify exploitable dependencies.
Successful operational technology insertion is dependent on the disciplines to identify exploitable dependencies and develop mitigation measures and backup capabilities. Such disciplines and measures are essential to avoid fragility and system collapse.
CP post drew from a much longer and broader discussion that began with reflections on hunting, precision, and war that morphed to issues with technology development/fielding.
Spanish philosopher (and hunter) Jose Ortega y Gasset's book "Meditations on Hunting" originally written 1942 guided our initial discussion. Points relevant to CP readers:
1. Progress in weaponry leads to regression in field craft/hunting skill. In Hunting and Reason chapter, Ortega y Gasset traces the devolution in offensive hunting ethos from hunter to shepherd to farmer: A trend worthy of reflection as the Marine Corps continues its embrace of specialized, low density, high tech, long range systems. Yes, consider what we are losing in all-purpose, practical, combat-proven capabilities, but perhaps more importantly, what will be the subtle and pernicious effects on our offensive fighting ethos?
2. Ortega y Gasset's statement on the alert man is a powerful guide to both strategists and leaders/developers of truly capable and balanced forces-in-readiness : "The only man who truly thinks is the one who, when faced with a problem, instead of looking only straight ahead, toward what habit, tradition, the commonplace, and mental inertia would make one assume, keeps himself alert, ready to accept the fact that the solution might spring from the least foreseeable spot on the great rotundity of the horizon."
Perhaps, instead of focusing on a relatively small portion of the globe and a rather narrow capability, the Nation would be much better served by a Marine Corps and Navy team that focused on developing and maintaining balanced, full spectrum, global presence forces for the threats that "spring from the least foreseeable spot on the great rotundity of the horizon."
Perhaps, instead of a "me-too" acquisition strategy of sensors and missiles, the Marine Corps and the Navy might have tackled the tough problem of conducting from-the-sea offensive operations in an era of PGMs?
Bravo to Keith Holcomb. I believe his observation are spot on, and say, in essence, “ get out into the field, make your mistakes, but learn from them.” Doing that may be accomplished by more officer TEWTs, working in the NCO’s, and, always followed by a good and open after action review in the field, to be built upon when the unit returns to the Rear. His views merit our consideration, and further discussion.
A personal howl and thank you to Brig. Gen. Holcomb on his thoughtful post. Compass Points needs more of these sorts of insightful posts and the discourse I hope they stimulate. The Corps I grew up in welcomed spirited discussions--often turning into heated debates, which usually led to a handshake and the downing of a few beers afterwards by both parties. It's what Marine did, in fact, it's what our seniors encouraged and expected us to do when it came to increasing our knowledge of tactics, operations, and weapons systems. We knew not to engage in these exchanges "unarmed" and that made us read professional books and doctrinal manuals as well as some cutting edge ideas such as chaos theory. I long to see those days again.
More Context:
As our discussions progressed, we referenced cognitive psychologist Dr. Gary Klein's work in "recognition primed decision making." Two of us recalled his brief provocatively entitled: "How Technology Makes Us Stupid." To elaborate on just two points:
1) Technology can be a filter which interferes with our natural sensing; we miss real world cues that are not captured by and represented by technology. Gary’s work included among others the study of neo-natal nurses, fire fighters, pilots, and military.
Negative Pilot Example: Gary related cases whereby technology interfaces masked real-world cues of aircraft problems.
Positive Nurse Example: Despite all the great medical technology, experienced nurses “knew” (deeply embedded cues from much experience) as soon as they walked into the unit which of the four babies in their care first needed attention.
This "knowing" is an internalization over much time and experience with the real world. Frequently, highly skilled practitioners could not describe how they "knew" and thereby teach others --- they just knew.
Implications for technology/C4ISR systems/Simulators: All technologies are attempted representations of dynamic reality. Their sensors have parameters which capture some (much?) but not all. Latency, however small, is always an issue. Most importantly, systems distort by over and under representing key real-world cues. Practitioners can become quite good with representations of reality and still make fatal errors because technological interfaces masked real-world cues and issues.
2) Technology can replace skills developed by living and working in the natural world. When working and spending much time in high-technology environments, practical, real-world skill sets and natural sensing atrophy over time. When (not if) technology systems fail, are inoperable due to weather/natural phenomenon, or are neutralized, even temporarily, by adversaries, practitioners can discover that they lack fundamental survival skills and operational competence.
Implications for developing and integrating technology: Those of us who have studied complexity science have learned that we humans tend to under-appreciate processes within a complex system that work. Our cognitive bias is to focus on the narrow process/feature we intend to improve. Worse, we have a tendency to implement BEFORE understanding how an insertion might impact those features are actually working.
Corrective disciplines:
Proposals to insert planned improvements should include comprehensive analysis of potential impacts on not only the target system we desire to improve but also those systems (friendly and adversary) with which it interacts.
Rather than extolling only the positives of the planned insertion/modernization, skilled and successful innovators explicitly identify to themselves and others, skills and capabilities that will atrophy and might be lost. And, they identify and develop action plans for preserving and even further developing skill sets for those occasions when planned technology insertions fail, misrepresent, or are neutralized.
Key to successful technology insertion is a comprehensive and detailed listing of dependencies. All capabilities, new and old, are dependent in some way. Adversaries contending with US/allied capabilities are always seeking to identify exploitable dependencies.
Successful operational technology insertion is dependent on the disciplines to identify exploitable dependencies and develop mitigation measures and backup capabilities. Such disciplines and measures are essential to avoid fragility and system collapse.
Background/Context:
CP post drew from a much longer and broader discussion that began with reflections on hunting, precision, and war that morphed to issues with technology development/fielding.
Spanish philosopher (and hunter) Jose Ortega y Gasset's book "Meditations on Hunting" originally written 1942 guided our initial discussion. Points relevant to CP readers:
1. Progress in weaponry leads to regression in field craft/hunting skill. In Hunting and Reason chapter, Ortega y Gasset traces the devolution in offensive hunting ethos from hunter to shepherd to farmer: A trend worthy of reflection as the Marine Corps continues its embrace of specialized, low density, high tech, long range systems. Yes, consider what we are losing in all-purpose, practical, combat-proven capabilities, but perhaps more importantly, what will be the subtle and pernicious effects on our offensive fighting ethos?
2. Ortega y Gasset's statement on the alert man is a powerful guide to both strategists and leaders/developers of truly capable and balanced forces-in-readiness : "The only man who truly thinks is the one who, when faced with a problem, instead of looking only straight ahead, toward what habit, tradition, the commonplace, and mental inertia would make one assume, keeps himself alert, ready to accept the fact that the solution might spring from the least foreseeable spot on the great rotundity of the horizon."
Perhaps, instead of focusing on a relatively small portion of the globe and a rather narrow capability, the Nation would be much better served by a Marine Corps and Navy team that focused on developing and maintaining balanced, full spectrum, global presence forces for the threats that "spring from the least foreseeable spot on the great rotundity of the horizon."
Perhaps, instead of a "me-too" acquisition strategy of sensors and missiles, the Marine Corps and the Navy might have tackled the tough problem of conducting from-the-sea offensive operations in an era of PGMs?
Bravo to Keith Holcomb. I believe his observation are spot on, and say, in essence, “ get out into the field, make your mistakes, but learn from them.” Doing that may be accomplished by more officer TEWTs, working in the NCO’s, and, always followed by a good and open after action review in the field, to be built upon when the unit returns to the Rear. His views merit our consideration, and further discussion.
A personal howl and thank you to Brig. Gen. Holcomb on his thoughtful post. Compass Points needs more of these sorts of insightful posts and the discourse I hope they stimulate. The Corps I grew up in welcomed spirited discussions--often turning into heated debates, which usually led to a handshake and the downing of a few beers afterwards by both parties. It's what Marine did, in fact, it's what our seniors encouraged and expected us to do when it came to increasing our knowledge of tactics, operations, and weapons systems. We knew not to engage in these exchanges "unarmed" and that made us read professional books and doctrinal manuals as well as some cutting edge ideas such as chaos theory. I long to see those days again.