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When you cross a swamp, try to do it fast
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this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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chapotraphouse
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It's really good though but you have to be able to take the specific cases Sun Tzu is talking about and apply them to conflict more generally. Like the "look for different kinds of dust clouds to figure out what your enemy is doing" bit doesn't apply much today, but you can look for tell tale signals that offer insight on the actions of your enemies. Are the pigs on foot or in cars? What kinds of weapons are they carrying? Are they in regular uniforms or riot gear. It sounds obvious, but most people have the same understanding of conflict as those ancient noble failsons
Y'all massively overestimate how much the average person understands about conflict and struggle. Sun Tzu has an important place and doesn't deserve all this scoffing.
I have read Sun Tzu and my takeaway is that he wanted to wipe away overconfidence, or the idea that conflict is decided simply by who wants to win more. It's a repeated message of "no, conflict is a risk you're taking and you have to think about it." The entire book is him constantly saying that fighting a war is difficult, you need to take literally every advantage you can get, and you should only fight if you have to or if you vastly outnumber your opponent. Also, run away when you have to and do boring logistics stuff like make sure the horses have water and everyone's getting paid. That's my impression for why business guys like it so much, because their gut instinct is that they're the hottest shit on Earth and don't need to think about how to do anything. They look at Sun Tzu's advice, which is often just "think about doing things before you do it, because you could fail and that would suck" and to them it's a massive revelation because they've never once considered a negative outcome was possible.
I can't really speak to the cult of business self help, I just find the Art of War a useful manual.
Once I joined a march in the middle of July. Somewhere between 80-100 degrees, in the sun, miles of marching. I had a big water bladder and snacks and first aid and shit, because I read Sun Tzu and Sun Tzu says you need to pay attention to water. All the libs I was marching with? Totally unprepared for a long march in the July sun. A couple of miles in we had to stop at a gas station and absolutely clean it out of water, like we were all emptying our wallets to buy as much water as they had for people. At that point a call was made to turn around before people started collapsing. Shameful, total logistical failure. Adequate water is the most basic thing, and the libs didn't even consider it.
Next march I went to, I brought a wagon with like 20 gallons of water, plus a big bag of WHO oral rehydration mixture for people to add to their water if they wanted. Folks emptied me out before we'd gone two miles.
Sun Tzu is important!
Okay I'm convinced, do you have a preferred translation?
The version I have on my shelf is "The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China" translated by Ralph D. Sawyer, but I can't tell you if it's an especially good translation.
So why do you figure do so many businesses suck at logistics or the nearest company equivalent if you're not actually in the business of physical things, like process management?
Because they all think they're a super special exemption to the rule and it doesn't apply to them because of how smart and cool they are.
If Sun Tzu was such goofy common sense the FBI would not have infiltrated all these orgs or catch hackers with poor opsec. It’s only obvious because I’m reading it while taking a shit in an air conditioned bathroom. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
People think they're too good for The Art of War and then go on to do shit that The Art of War specifically tells you not to do. And people in general need to read up on how to wage war, whether it's guerilla warfare or counterinsurgency or even just conventional warfare. Like, how can you shout "no war the but class war" without a general understanding of what war actually means? How can you even entertain fantasies of waging revolutionary warfare without even reading a single book on how to wage war?
It's also really easy to look at the advice and consider it obvious when you're sitting at home reading it with plenty of time on your hands. It's less obvious when you're in a stressful real world situation.
The stuff that soldiers get taught in basic training also feels really obvious. "Stay physically fit. Be aware of your surroundings. Only point guns at what you want to kill. Follow orders quickly." None of this should feel surprising to anyone with the most basic knowledge of what a soldier does, but drilling it in until it's what you do automatically in the moment is important.
Dang, good point, never thought of the armchair stress-free aspect before.
That's one of my major takeaways from BJJ after over a decade: competition separates what you know and what you think you know. What you actually know and what you'll actually do is a really short and simple list compared to the multitudes of knowledge and trivia you'll see and collect like trading cards. I was practicing going from ashi garami to a heel hook for a year before going to a competition that allowed it and the moment I saw an opening for it I messed it up bigly and let a person I was frankly more athletic than win.
Same, but with combat LARPing. The difference between sparring in a park and a real brawl at an event with hundreds of people on the field is striking.
It's important, because in stressful situations, most do not rise to the occasion, but rather fall back on their training. So drilling in the basics during training plays a very important role. It also applies to competitive sports as well.
Absolutely. As silly as it sounds, the couple of times I ended up in the middle of a firefight, i was able to function because I had a thousand hours in ARMA, combat LARPs, shit like that - Go for cover, direct civilians away from the fighting, shit like that. Didn't have to think about it, just fell back on what I'd done in sim games thousands of times.
Going for cover is another great one. "Try to hide behind things so you don't get shot" seems painfully obvious but in real life you can see how often civilians just freeze up instead.
Omg, i'm playing lots of helldivers rn and people absolutely will not use the simplest tactics! "The shield backpack is essential and you should kick anyone who doesn't bring it" meanwhile i have used the clausewitz level strategy of lying down to avoid enemy fire
Clausewitz' On War often frustrates me with how dense and wordy it is, but if nothing else, I think it's made him considerably less likely to be coopted by dipshits than poor Sun Tzu.
"war is politics by other means, dumbass" doesn't ring as true as "don't attack uphill, idiot"