Cascading Failure in Judgment - How to Break The Cycle?

[JRH6856]

The guy who monkey dances without an audience is turning it into asocial violence

Again, not necessarily. It isn't the setting that defines the monkey dance, it is the purpose. that purpose is to establish social position of one person relative to another. And while that purpose may be served by an audience, an audience is not required.

Predatory violence has nothing to do with social position, and everything to do with a predator taking something from a weaker prey.

 

[Loosedhorse]

Again, not necessarily. It isn't the setting that defines the monkey dance, it is the purpose.

I disagree: the "purpose" of the monkey dance (as I understand it) is to establish the "dominance hierarchy" in a group. If I'm not in his group, and if none of his group is there to see it, it does nothing for him socially.

So, I will assume his purpose is other than a simple hierarchy display, and will go from that assumption. Even if the same "mechanism" is active at first, the usual social "brakes" that come with the presence of others are missing, so there is nothing to help the dance stop when it starts.

We can all assume what we want.

...And we may be getting off-topic.

 

[Sam1911]

As with any analogy, the "Monkey Dance" is an approximation, in this case an approximate description or analysis of a common situational behavior. I think it is wrong to demand that every instance of its application is perfectly identical -- however:

In describing the Monkey Dance, Rory Miller gives examples from nature, specifically the big horned rams butting heads to determine the right to mate with a particular flock of ewes. These contests (and other similar ones among bears, cats, etc.) may relate to the larger community of animals in their effects, but really don't require an audience. It is dominant animal A vs. aspiring-to-be dominant animal B, for all the marbles. Mere territoriality may be enough of a reason to contest for dominance.

Sgt. Miller makes a very strong distinction between the "Monkey Dance" as performed between two contenders and the "Group Monkey Dance" performed for social status purposes in front of an audience. In his view, they are critically different largely in that the MD is a function occurring between two people and which can be controlled and ended by either of them, if they realize what's happening and make an appropriate response.

The GMD, though, is actually very different in that it is a function occurring between the aggressor and his audience -- perpetrated UPON you (as the defender). Your relation to and interaction with the aggressor is somewhat irrelevant and you can usually NOT derail or deflect the event because it really ISN'T about you at all.

The upshot is that the GMD (as it relates to you, the defender) is much more similar to the acts of a process predator than to the standard MD, as performed between two people. You are merely the tool or the object upon which an act is to be performed. Your status, relationship, and person-hood are utterly irrelevant to the attacker -- only the act itself matters.

And that's a bloody dangerous thing.

 

[Sam1911]

School fights, bar fights, and friend fights used to be not that unusual when I was growing up but, when the opponent cried "uncle" the fight was over. No knives, kicks to the head, or guns in my day were used that I can remember; none of my friends were shot or stabbed during altercations. There was an unwritten code of honor/rule that you proved yourself and your foe surrendered so now you can go your separate ways or be friends for life.

And that's standard Monkey Dance behavior. As Sgt. Miller says, it really ISN'T about violence or serious injury. Unless one participant is very socially odd, or determined, actual harm and/or death is in no way necessary to effect the purpose of the contest.

It seems that now, for whatever reason, the "man up/woman thing" is to get them down and fix them so they never rise again. At least carry the scars for life.

And this is the process predator aspect of the Group Monkey Dance at work. Not only must the aggressor dominate someone to make their bones with their group, the violence, brutality, and ruthlessness with which they accomplish the act serves to increase that standing. Someone who picks a fight and beats down his victim will earn some respect, but someone who is crazy vicious and does serious harm will be even more respected, and a straight up killer will be king of the hill.

 

[Loosedhorse]

And this is the process predator aspect of the Group Monkey Dance at work.

Unless one participant is very socially odd, or determined

Agree with both of these, and I mentioned them above.

To amplify the latter point: some guys don't "get" the monkey dance--it may be because they are on drugs, or emotionally disturbed--but they imitate it. They therefore don't do it the "right way:" They'll pick on a small woman, or a child--or even a guy much bigger than they are--or try to start a dance without an audience.

That is a signal for me that such a person is MUCH more dangerous than the guy in a bar carrying a pitcher whom you bump accidently.

But my main point, again, is I do believe there are behaviors that bridge the gap: that let predators know they've picked the wrong guy while simultaneously letting the stardard monkey-dancer (or "educational beat-down"er) know they've made their point, and things don't need to go farther, because they've won.

When, actually, you both have, since you got out of the situation.

We should all realize that there are predators out there (or emotionally disturbed attackers) that won't be discouraged by anything short of several bullets COM. If verbal skills were always effective, no one would carry a gun.

But I worry that this "Oh, don't back down, because it will encourage a predator" attitude can freeze us into not being sure what to do--instantly--when some guy "challenges" us and gives us those few seconds to get out of the situation without a fight. I think you can "back down" with enough sincerity to let the monkey-dancer save face with his group, and yet with enough strength to communicate, "Believe me, I will end you if this continues."

At least this is my goal.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

So I thought it might be worthwhile (and we'll see how that judgment pans out) to start a thread discussing:

1. How do you recognize when you are in that cycle?
2. What do you do to break out of it once you recognize it?

One of the places where a cascading crisis often turns up that results in an absolute disaster is with aircraft crashes. Before you have a crash of most aircraft, you have a lot of factors that have to come into play that often a change is just one of them will result in the disaster not occurring. Quite commonly when the pilots of doomed aircraft have made decisions that end up being part of that negative cascade, they are actually making the proper decisions based on the information available to them at the time. The downside to this is that it is often the case that the pilots don't actually have the proper information or a way to know if they have the proper information in order to make the correct decisions. In using the benefit of hindsight, it would appear that many such decisions are stupid because they helped result in the crash, but in reality, the decisions were appropriate given what the pilots thought they knew at the time and given the other parameters of the situations.

Ask yourself, "Is what I'm about to do actually NECESSARY? What are the potential consequences?"

This can be good if you have enough time to really sit down and think about what is going on, but a lot of self defense and disaster situations don't allow for much luxury of time in this requard or to have the time and resources to determine all of the things that need to be known before one can make this decision correctly.

One of the things that studying crashes has revealed to me about making decisions in a crisis is that a person can make a lot of very good decisions given the information they have at the time and the parameters of the situation that is developing and still end up in disaster. Why? Because it can be very difficult to actually have all of the correct information to make such decisions or know whether or not you have all the correct information to make such decisions. In many cases, pilots did things that turned out very well without actually knowing what needed to be known in order to make a proper decision concerning the problem.

I have been bothered by many of the NTSB reviews that determine an air disaster to be pilot error. Even when the pilots did everything right to bring the plane down, the NTSB looks at if they did everything right to result in the least amount of damage or injury. For example with the Miracle on the Hudson, after striking the geese that resulted in loss of thrust in both engines, the pilot took command of the plane while the co-pilot followed procedures to restart the engines. Attempting to restart the engines was a fool's errand. Given the low altitude, there was no way to get through all the steps of an engine restart before crashing, but this was not information that the pilots had and was not stated in their quick reference manual. Given the information they had, it was the correct decision, but they did not have the correct information to know whether or not the decision to attempt to restart was correct until running out of time. So the decision to restart was wrong. Fortunately, that wrong decision did not result in making the decision worse.

So how do you recognize when you are in such a cycle? Good question. Given the time parameters of crisis situations, people often don't have the time or mental accumen to recognize being in such a cycle because recognizing the cycle is not something that seems relevant given the negative parameters of the situation (blood, noise, fire, scream, pain, etc.).

Several years ago I was reading about fighter pilot training and it was noted that when your plane came under attack that you could do the right thing, the wrong thing, and do nothing. In that sort of situation, it was determined that doing nothing resulted in the greatest loss of aircraft and pilots because it essentially made the aircraft a "sitting duck" so to speak. Doing the right thing, given the type of attack, produced the greatest amount of success, but was never 100%. Doing the wrong thing often produced failure resulting in the loss of the aircraft, but surprisingly, doing the wrong thing actually was beneficial something like 10-20% of the time. So doing either the right thing or the wrong thing were both better than doing nothing. We have seen this with several of the attack and gun fight videos. On occasion, the good guy does the wrong thing and ends up being successful.

"Nobody ever rises to the occasion, they just fall back to their level of training."

Sorry, but this is another one of those nonsensical mantras we keep spouting over and over again. Time and time again, people have risen to the occasion during emergency disaster and self defense situations and have done very well...which is really amazing because in many of these situations, the person has no actual training for handling that type of situation. While you may not be able to count on people rising to the occasion beyond their level of training, it most certainly does happen.

 

[Sam1911]

So doing either the right thing or the wrong thing were both better than doing nothing.

Absolutely concur. In a self-defense case, the vast majority of attacks seem to assume that the victim will do "nothing." A very few more complex attacks may seek to instigate some wrong action, like fleeing in a direction of greater isolation/danger for example, but I don't think those represent a very broad set, and they can only be countered through very good situational awareness/analysis.

For the "average" rolleyes attack acting boldly in almost any purposeful way helps to break the attacker's OODA loop and give you the momentum.

As I said a while back...

Some of the things I've read recommend coming up with a one-size-fits-most standard emergency action. Something that is unexpected and powerful and which does not look like any of the standard reactions the average person might have to sudden assaults, impacts, contact, etc. Might be a gross-motor strike to the rear if anything unexpected snags you from behind, for example. Or it could be something more dissuasive rather than aggressive -- like shouting/yelling loudly which is unexpected and disorienting and calls attention. Whatever it is, it isn't likely to be the perfect response, but it is immediate, unhesitating, strong, and unexpected. All of which are better than the perfect plan identified several moments too late.

If he's expecting wide eyes, open hands, and "Please, Mister, don't hurt me!," and instead you scream aggressively, and simply take off running at top speed -- well, that's not what he expected and while it may not ensure your perfect safety, it's going to take him a moment to decide just how to react.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I may have mentioned this previously as it goes with what you are saying. I still find it quite amusing today, though the site with the images is now gone. Back around 2000-2002, there was a sequence of ATM photographs of a customer walking up to an outdoor walkup ATM and starting his transaction. As the picture sequence progressed, you see two guys appear in the distance that get closer and closer until being about 10 feet away and having a gun drawn. About that time, they apparently started their robbery spiel and the next image shows the expression of the ATM customer changing as if he is alarmed and the bad guys are just a few feet behind him with the gun drawn.

And the funny clincher. The next photo shows two bad guys, one with a gun pointed at the ATM machine, but both robbers are looking about 90 degrees to their right, but no ATM customer is seen in the image. So their quarry bolted in a decisive manner very quickly so much so that while the bad guys tracked him with their heads, but not with the gun. The notion of the guy running apparently never crossed their minds.

They managed to score some cash from the guy's account because the card was still in the machine, but that was all handled by FDIC and the customer lost nothing because the robbers stole from the machine (insured by the bank) and not from the customer.

 

[JRH6856]

But I worry that this "Oh, don't back down, because it will encourage a predator" attitude can freeze us into not being sure what to do--instantly--when some guy "challenges" us and gives us those few seconds to get out of the situation without a fight.

Rigid application of such a rule can get you killed if the rule is applied in the wrong situation. Not all situations look the same, and sometimes, the same situation can have a different look.

I think you can "back down" with enough sincerity to let the monkey-dancer save face with his group, and yet with enough strength to communicate, "Believe me, I will end you if this continues."

In some situations this is certain to be true. In others, perhaps not so much. Misidentifying a Process Predator as a Monkey Dancer or vice-versa can end badly. As can getting caught up in a GMD and not recognizing the group. Sometimes what you really need is not an instant reaction that will diffuse the situation, but an instant reaction that buys you enough time to correctly assess the situation.

It is like playing chess. If you recognize what your opponent expects you to do or is trying to get you do, and can do something different, you can often gain a time advantage (get inside his OODA loop). Once you have a time advantage you can use that to gain a space or force advantage as the situation allows or requires. And like chess, recognition of the goal of the attack is key to the defense.

 

[Loosedhorse]

Misidentifying a Process Predator as a Monkey Dancer or vice-versa can end badly.

Exactly my point. So why condition your response based on identifying which one your aggressor is...and making sure you've identified him correctly.

That's a recipe for OODA paralysis.

The alternative is to fashion one response that handles both situations; that avoids the hazards of misidentification, and gets one's OODA unstuck.

It is like playing chess

Well, except that it will happen in two seconds and your life is on the line. Other than that, the analogy holds.

Hey, dance with the guy, play chess with the guy, whatever. I'm exiting. If he won't let me exit, I'll make him let me exit. Those are the givens. This verbal stuff is just so I can exit without hurting anyone...so that makes it very important to me.

 

[JRH6856]

The alternative is to fashion one response that handles both situations; that avoids the hazards of misidentification, and gets one's OODA unstuck.

That is why I said that the best instant response might be one that may not diffuse either situation but instead buy one enough time to accurately assess the situation. Do something that is unexpected in either case. The predator expects weakness and submission, the monkey dancer expects the next step in the dance. Break inside the opponent's OODA loop. An aggressive refusal to dance as you suggest, may get the job done and diffuse the situation, OTOH, if it does not, it may just buy you time to make an accurate assessment.

whatever. I'm exiting.

That is the goal. Especially doing so without anyone getting hurt.

 

[Deanimator]

Ask yourself, "Is what I'm about to do actually NECESSARY? What are the potential consequences?"

This can be good if you have enough time to really sit down and think about what is going on, but a lot of self defense and disaster situations don't allow for much luxury of time in this requard or to have the time and resources to determine all of the things that need to be known before one can make this decision correctly.

What I'm referring to is when something BECOMES a crisis unnecessarily. People convince themselves that they HAVE to "do something", when in fact NOTHING needs to be done, or at most some minimal action will suffice.

I've previously mentioned the two NYPD shootings where bad judgment CREATED its own emergency, as well as the Zimmerman shooting which almost certainly would never have happened if he'd stayed in his vehicle, regardless of whether the subsequent shooting was justified.

The absolute classic example of the self-manufactured crisis is the start of WWI.

Left to their own devices, the Austrians and Serbs would have had a localized dustup that would have killed at most a few thousand people.

Instead, everybody adopted it as THEIR crisis, to no quantifiable benefit.

A negative feedback loop of bad decisions ended in millions of people dead.

 

[Serenity]

Double Naught Spy that's a great story.

 

[easyg]

It was my perception that in many of these situations, the person has multiple opportunities to bypass the incident (survival or self-defense) and they choose the wrong path repeatedly.

It's easy to "Monday morning quarterback" a scenario.

When looking at a survival situation, as a spectator, from the comfort of your living room, it's much easier to see the best course of action.
It's much more difficult when you're actually in the situation.


The best that we can hope for is to rely upon our training and our own life experience, and try to make the best decision based upon what we believe to be true at the moment.

 

[JRH6856]

The best that we can hope for is to rely upon our training and our own life experience, and try to make the best decision based upon what we believe to be true at the moment.

And yet, when faced with such situations, some people make good decisions, and some make bad decisions. The question being asked is how to improve the chances of making good decisions.

 

[telkontar]

Thanks for the thoughtful discussion. The personal stories were all good. Boy Scouts, OODA loops, pilot training -- all relevant. (Simulators for real life are hard to find, so we rely on THR!)
In a long thread, I begin to draft a comment, but all my comments were made by somebody else.
Monocausation is almost never the correct analysis of a bad result. Be prepared, Train; Plan; Avoid; then act as needed.
Thanks again all!

 

[Serenity]

SAM1911 I finally read Sway!

Very good read. A lot of information but very engaging. A lot of it reinforced what I know about people (and was a little depressing) but it was interesting to see how much research has been conducted regarding decision-making (all those poor grad students). I found the discussion of the biological process of decision making to be very interesting. There is a lot of applicable information for work or relationships or for rapid decision making. If you can recognize an irrational decision before you make it, you can cut off that thought track and go down a more logical one.

Thanks for the suggestion; I have already passed it on to a couple of people, and read aloud to both my hubby and son, to much eye-rolling.

 

[Sam1911]

Awesome! Thanks for getting back to me with your thoughts. It was an eye-opener, though, of course, all that is said is easier said than done!

 

[GEM]

Extreme Fear: Science of your mind in danger. Jeff Wise.

The unthinkable : who survives when disaster strikes and why / Amanda Ripley.

Good reviews.

 

[sidheshooter]

Extreme Fear was a good read, FWIW.

This thread is absolutely punishing my Amazon account: more books to stack on the "must read" pile....

 

[Fred Fuller]

This thread is absolutely punishing my Amazon account

Happens to me often enough that I can sympathize. But it's part of the price we pay. Mindset has associated costs, just as surely as training classes (skillset) and hardware (toolset).

Speaking of which, I need to order another copy of Rory Miller's Meditations on Violence to replace the one I gave to one of my young cousins, who's headed for the USAF Security Forces (he just finished basic, don't know which AFSC yet)...

 

[Serenity]

I just read the description of The Unthinkable. I think I will have reading material for my Saturday morning.

 

[Driveway]

I found a website when I was in college. www.nononsenseselfdefense.com Really good thoughts on the thing on how to interpret what's going on. I am convinced some of that info got me to see some things and avoid a major confrontation in Chicago while in school.

Maybe some (most?) of you don't buy what the Bible has to say, but there's a Proverb that says something about meddling in another man's quarrel is like grabbing a dog's ears. (You're just asking to get bit.)

There are some similarities, but I would make a distinction between a survival scenario dealing with punks or a survival situation in the wild or the accident chain in a airplane. I am a pilot, working in bush Alaska as a full time helicopter mechanic. I went to school in downtown Chicago. Firefighter/EMT as well. I wouldn't say I'm an expert in all this survival stuff, but I do have a bit of a variety of seeing things. (Been other places in the US and World too.)

The OODA/IDPE or whatever other title you give it, does apply in all the situations to one extent or another. In a wilderness survival setting, doing something immediately is often not the best answer. There are always exceptions. i.e. falling through the ice and then realizing that immediately after getting out you need to strip down and get dry. (Wet clothes cause more heat loss than being naked.) Generally in a wilderness setting though, taking your time is by far the best thing you can do.

That doesn't always work when dealing with people. Sometimes you need prompt and correct action. Same with an airplane. There are things that can kill you in a hurry and there are other things that take time, but in almost all cases, I agree that there is a chain of events that can be broken. FAA has a big push on this topic as someone else mentioned. Denial is one of the hardest things to overcome sometimes. I've seen that first hand. Denial something is broke. Denial that you need help. Denial that a threat exists.

Side note, I had a discussion with one instructor when learning to fly multi-engine airplanes. He told me to expect an engine to fail every time I took off. (The point was to be ready for an engine failure because one engine failing during the roll or shortly after takeoff will cause a massive pull to one side and could kill you real quick.) I told him if I was expecting an engine failure on the takeoff, I had no business even attempting it. To be ready/prepared, sure that's a very needed mindset. Some of it is semantics, but I think it's a point worth bringing up in this discussion.

Wild animals can be more predictable than people sometimes. Where I live, don't leave food sources around for the bears and leave them alone and they leave you alone. That doesn't always work in Chicago though. Sometimes fleeing is the best thing you can do. That website above somewhere addresses the idea of fighting to get away. Not standing and fighting, which usually ends in serious injury or death, where fighting to flee usually results in much less serious results. There are times when one must stand and fight, but I think they are the exception rather than the rule. I'd hardly be considered a pansy by anyone, but I refuse to get in a fight. Someone would likely be going to the hospital, whether it would be me or them, that's an outcome I'd really not like to deal with. I have even been punched, but they realized they better back down and not hit me again. Turning the other cheek doesn't mean that you are walked over or will allow serious injury or death to happen though.

Yes I do carry, not always though. If I did pull on someone, the gun would likely go bang. I don't want that for many reasons.

 

[coondogger]

"What I'm referring to is when something BECOMES a crisis unnecessarily. People convince themselves that they HAVE to "do something", when in fact NOTHING needs to be done, or at most some minimal action will suffice.

I've previously mentioned the two NYPD shootings where bad judgment CREATED its own emergency, as well as the Zimmerman shooting which almost certainly would never have happened if he'd stayed in his vehicle, regardless of whether the subsequent shooting was justified.

The absolute classic example of the self-manufactured crisis is the start of WWI.

Left to their own devices, the Austrians and Serbs would have had a localized dustup that would have killed at most a few thousand people.

Instead, everybody adopted it as THEIR crisis, to no quantifiable benefit.

A negative feedback loop of bad decisions ended in millions of people dead."

This is a post so profoundly true that it should be downloaded, printed and taped to walls everywhere. By heeding this advice,
the entire world could be immeasurably improved.
__________________
Gun control, the theory that 110lb. women have the "right" to fistfight with 210lb. rapists.

 

[Driveway]

Yes, WWI was brought on by all of the treaties that were going on. Kind of like the way things are starting to get aligned right now. Lot's of treaties happening now in the world.

That website I mentioned talks about avoidance a lot, and yes you are right many times situations are made worse than it should have been.