Ep33 – Hubris and Misaligned Incentives: Mental Models in a Time of War

Mentally Unscripted

In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott talk about the mental models that we can use to make better decisions in our foreign policy with a focus on military conflict.

Resources

• Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, by Scott Horton
• TK News, by Matt Taibbi
• The Afghanistan Papers
• U.S. Military Pollution, US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries
• Incentives matter
• Begin with the end in mind
• Baselines
• Occam’s Razor
• Framing
• Moral Foundations Theory
• Risk assessment & cost/benefit analysis
• Opportunity costs
• Inertia
• Reversibility
• Disconfirming Evidence
• Bayesian Casino
• Optimism Bias
• Sunk Cost Fallacy
• Shifting Goalposts
• Priming
• Seeing the Front / The Map is Not the Territory
• Base Rates

Top Takeaways

• Mental Models can help clarify complex situations plagued with conflicting information, lack of an objective, and competing interests.
• Our moral foundation may differ from that of another person or group of people. No one has the blanket authority to impose their morality on others.
• Misaligned incentives and hubris combine to create a no-win situation.
• In any case, we must make sure we’ve accurately defined the problem. Then we must seek out the optimal solution for solving that problem.
• Decisions have tradeoffs that we must consider.

Timestamps
[0:20] Introduction.

[1:15] Did the U.S. fail in Afghanistan? Was the only failure for some interested parties that they couldn’t keep the war going?

[3:51] Military as a business.

[5:42] Why we invaded Afghanistan.

[7:01] Did the U.S. have an end in mind?

[9:11] Some models we can use when politicians and media tell us we need to consider armed conflict.

[13:04] Can we impose our morals on other cultures?

[18:21] The lesson is that we cannot and should not nation-build. Nation-building is a failed experiment.

[18:46] Cost/benefit analysis of invading the “Graveyard of Empires.”

[23:16] For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction and reversibility.

[26:49] Framework for rational decision making. Have we defined the problem correctly, and do we have the best solution for solving that problem?

[31:46] Bayesian casino. How much are you willing to bet on a given outcome happening?

[32:29] How over-optimism leads to bad decisions.

[35:28] Don’t keep going because of sunk costs.

[37:40] How shifting goalposts muddied the waters.

[38:55] Models for exiting 20 years of armed conflict.

[41:35] Did Biden make a mistake by not priming the U.S. for the difficulty in leaving Afghanistan?

[43:11] Logistics failures.

Engage with Scott and Paul on the Twitter thought control machine.

Follow Scott at Strength and Reason.

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