Cognitive Waste

Generation Kill. It's a new series from HBO. Worth watching. One of the more interesting aspects of the show, at least to me (which will probably be lost to many), is how well it depicts a 2GW command/control system in a modern context.

It also shows how all of that brainpower at the bottom of the pyramid goes to waste. Unfortunately, this brainpower/cognitive capacity in combination with unique situational data is several orders of magnitude superior (both in quality and quantity) to that available at the top of the hierarchy (where all the decision making is being made). Perhaps the fatal flaw in classic conventional militaries is that they waste nearly all of their cognitive capacity...

Comments

[shloky]

And corporations/think tanks modeled on 2GW forces. ;)

[Dan Lyke]

Seems to me like yet another application of "The Dilbert Principle". In a properly functioning organization everyone should be recruiting better smarter people than they are. If the leader is effective and good at leading, by definition the leader is the stupidest least capable person in the organization.

The challenge is always structuring the operation to take advantage of that distribution of talent.

[zenpundit]

Shloky beat me to the punch. The cognitive waste you describe is symptomatic of all industrial era, newtonian paradigm, hierarchical-bureaucratic orgs - corporations, states, armies, education systems ( ironically).