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Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence
The year 2024 will require a reorientation to new realities, largely driven by the acceleration of disruptive technologies grinding against the inertia of stale institutions that would rather we snack on the comfort food of the past than the buffet of the future. In this post, the reorientation required is an understanding of the broad political and societal impact of stochastic terrorism and confirmation bias.
Stochastic Terrorism – The Cruelty is the Point: Terror and the Secondary Trauma of Social Media
Douglas Yeung is the Associate Director of the Management, Technology, and Capabilities Program at RAND Homeland Security Research Division, A Senior Behavioral and Social Scientist, and a Faculty Member at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Yeung recently shared a personal and professional perspective in a commentary in USA Today, excerpts of which we have included here.
Stochastic terrorism has been bandied about in recent public discourse. However, it has received little scholarly attention, particularly in understanding its mechanics and the deeper psychological context in which it might flourish. The history and phenomenology of the term are elaborated upon, and its psychological meaning is explored through the application of linguistic pragmatics, the psychoanalysis of large group regression—what we term “poliregression”—and terrorism risk assessment. The January 6 Capitol siege and other historical events are used as illustrations. For the full study, go to this link.
OODA CTO Bob Gourley, in An Executive’s Guide To Cognitive Bias in Decision Making, shared these insights on and framing of confirmation bias.
Confirmation Bias: In the Intelligence Community, this is considered the most deadly and dangerous bias. In the commercial world it can be the most costly to business. A confirmation bias results from a natural tendency to search for information that confirms our beliefs or interpret data in a biased way to confirm what we think. The bias also causes us to discount information that might contradict our views. You can think of this tendency as having an internal “yes man” in your head who tells you you are right about everything. This bias can be very strong, especially when there are emotional issues at stake.
I saw many examples of this at play in my career in intelligence. Perhaps the most deadly wrong intelligence analysis of the last 20 years was because of the influence of this bias. I am referring to the official assessments of the status of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq. Everyone involved had plenty of reason to believe Saddam Hussein still possessed WMD. This led to horribly wrong national intelligence estimates and to the Director of the CIA famously telling the President that he was so confident that Iraq had WMD that it was a “slam dunk.” Years later, A congressionally mandated study would later show many reasons for the failure to get this one right, including “an analytical process that was driven by assumptions and inferences rather than data.” Too frequently, our analysts fell prey to a confirmation bias.
You can probably find examples of this bias in your own organization as well. Confirmation bias contributes to overconfidence when evaluating your strategies, plans, proposals, or fundraising. It also contributes to poor resource decisions. Mitigating this bias is hard and usually requires multiple strategies and approaches, including training organizations to keep an open mind and be receptive to new information. It also requires leaders to ask good, neutral questions when seeking insights.
“A guide to busting through confirmation bias, the cognitive fallacy that’s destroying our discourse.”
Transcript of the video:
“If you have a sneaking suspicion that liberals are prone to violence, you’re more likely to pay attention to raucous leftist demonstrations at Berkeley while downplaying acts of violence at Donald Trump’s own campaign rallies: “They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.” And liberals tend to do the opposite. That’s confirmation bias. We all have the tendency to interpret information in a way that supports what we already believe. And it’s what we’re talking about in this episode of Argument Clinic, a guide to spotting bad arguments on the internet. We are all inherently biased. We tend to weigh evidence more heavily if it confirms our belief and discount evidence that doesn’t. And the internet, especially social media, is a giant confirmation-biased machine. It makes it easy to find evidence to support just about any argument you want to make and ignore all the other stuff. For instance, let’s say you wanna prove that Trump supporters are violent. So you Google ‘violent Trump supporters.’ You’ll find a long list of ugly incidents. Of course, there may be millions of peaceful Trump supporters out there, but you didn’t Google that.
Social media like Facebook presents the same problem. We tend to like information that we agree with, which means we see more of it, which means we think there’s more of it, which means we must be right. Right? That’s why we have stuff like the scientific method, which uses control groups and placebos and peer review to ensure that our preexisting ideas don’t affect our findings. It’s also why lawyers try to screen out biased jury members whose experiences and beliefs might prevent them from weighing evidence and arguments objectively. Unfortunately, most of the information online now doesn’t meet those standards. Just the opposite, in fact. Most of it is engineered to create an emotional response, not a rational one because emotions are what get us to click and share. And there’s no better way to stir people’s emotions than by convincing them that they are right about everything and that anyone who disagrees is a moron. We’ll never be able to eradicate confirmation bias, but we can at least try to limit it in our own lives.
So just remember, anecdotes are not data. Be open to arguments that challenge your beliefs, and be modest and skeptical of everything you read, even if it seems to prove what you already thought in the first place.
The Surge in Political Extremism and Violence in the UK, EU, and USA: Find here a compilation of some seriously well-reported and sourced global documentaries and news reports on the global interconnectedness, virality, and spreadability of right-wing extremism and violence.
The Venezuelan Election Results Should be on Your Strategic Radar: Why? The growing threat vector of the potential for Russian, Chinese, and North Korean “Kompromat” flooding the zone with misinformation tropes that leverage fear and violence also in the run-up to election day in the states – centering around hot-button immigration and political issues at the border – as well as accentuating the potentially violent response to a Maduro win or loss on the ground in Venezuela. The WP, WSJ, and NYT have all provided valuable coverage of the implications of the upcoming election in Venezuela and its potential impact here in the U.S., along with our OODA Network What’s Next? section with insights and analysis.
A Critical Infrastructure Risk and Vulnerability Assessment: In this age of global polycrisis, safeguarding critical infrastructure has become a top priority for governments, businesses, and security professionals. This post provides a brief Q324 survey of the risks and vulnerabilities faced by essential systems, from energy grids to communication networks and transportation to the water, food, and agriculture sectors. This risk assessment identifies potential threats and evaluates weaknesses
Stochastic Terrorism: The “Most Complex, Dynamic, and Dangerous Threat Environment” in Fifty Years
For our News Briefs and Original Analysis research efforts to date on this topic, go to:
Civil War Cinema Viewed through the lens of history, 2024 will be a landmark year punctuated by the complexities of a political process that will exacerbate the binary fractures of the American republic. These issues are much too deep to benefit from the analysis here, but it is always important to contemplate how close to the flame we are dancing in the context of an Eric Hoffer case study. It is also a year that will be marked by a major cinema film that contemplates a new American Civil War, normalizing the idea of conflict to resolve political differences, and it hits at a time of misaligned governance incentives and high levels of poverty and displacement.
Focused on the thematics of this Almanac, we should acknowledge that problems arise when societies dream more about how things were than how they could be and that a vote is the last bastion of power you have against a broken and corrupt system without firing bullets. Therefore, the articulation of the future and the benefits of exponential technologies need to align with the first principles of democracy and opportunity.
The Art of Geopolitical Intelligence: Lessons for Informed Decision-Making: OODA CTO Bob Gourley spent decades immersed in the world of geopolitical intelligence and remains a practitioner of the craft today. In this post, he reflects on some of the key lessons he has learned in seeking to optimize geopolitical intelligence analysis and reporting.
An Executive’s Guide To Cognitive Bias in Decision Making: A Career Intelligence Officer Provides Context on Fighting Bias in Judgement: This is part of a series providing insights aimed at corporate strategists seeking competitive advantage through better and more accurate decision-making. The full series is available in our special section on Decision Intelligence. Members are also invited to discuss this topic at the OODA Member Forum on Slack.
Domestic Political Extremism in the U.S.: Situational Awareness for June 13, 2023: We continue this with this research and dialogue in this post, in an effort to provide an assessment today of the situational awareness of domestic political extremism and violence in the U.S. Nation-wide situational awareness is provided by an audit, released days ago, of the “Department of Justice’s Strategy to Address the Domestic Violent Extremism Threat“, followed by data from The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project – as well as Recent Washington Post reporting and a seminal report from 2011 by the Center on Extremism provides a window into conditions on the ground in Florida.
Brian Jenkins on Domestic Political Extremism at the November 2022 OODA Network Member Meeting: The November call was held on Friday, November 18th. The call was dedicated to opening remarks by OODA Network Member Brian Jenkins and a Q and A session with OODA Network Members on the topic of domestic political extremism, his most recent research on the topic, and lessons learned from Jenkins’ decades-long leadership on and expertise in the history, motivations and incentive structures of foreign political extremist organizations and individuals. Jenkins also has a new book: Plagues and Their Aftermath.
An OODA Network Q&A Session on Domestic Political Extremism and Violence with OODA Network Member Brian Jenkins: The November OODA Network Member Monthly Call was held on Friday, November 18th. The call was dedicated to opening remarks by OODA Network Member Brian Jenkins and a Q and A session with OODA Network Members on the topic of domestic political extremism, his most recent research on the topic, and lessons learned from Jenkins’ decades-long leadership on and expertise in the history, motivations and incentive structures of foreign political extremist organizations and individuals. Jenkins also has a new book: Plagues and Their Aftermath.
Brian Michael Jenkins on Elements of a Pragmatic Strategy to Counter Domestic Political Violence: Brian also recently published an essay we recommend to all our network members. The topic is so important in our view we have asked Brian to give us an overview at our 18 November member meeting. The topic is domestic political violence. This is such a thorny problem that many choose to ignore it or simply hope it becomes better. Many in the national security space have spent a career in organizations that are almost forced to ignore domestic political violence because of the foreign national focus of the DoD and the IC. And many in federal law enforcement are still focused hard on preventing 9/11-style attacks, and the rise of this new threat has yet to be as recognized as it should be. It is different. But other forward thinkers have been hitting this topic directly. We are fortunate that Brian is one of those. In his essay in the West Point Counterterrorism Center’s Sentinel entitled Elements of a Pragmatic Strategy to Counter Domestic Political Violence, Brian provides fantastic context that goes far beyond just capturing the issues.
The [Military] Accelerationism Research Consortium: In an effort to continue “pulling the string” on the recent OODA Network Member Meeting discussion of domestic political extremism and violence with Brian Jenkins, we took a look at the research product of and community of practice represented by the Accelerationism Research Consortium (ARC).
Is the “General Deterrence Theory” Up to the Challenge of Domestic Political Extremism? In November of 2022, OODA Network Member Brian Jenkins spoke to the OODA Network Member membership on the threat posed by domestic political extremism. – which was followed by an OODA Network Q&A Session on Domestic Political Extremism and Violence. We pull the string on these previous internal discussions here, exploring the role of recent convictions and sentencing as a general deterrent to extremism. We also catch up with the latest research and findings from the Rand Corp., including an article by Brian Jenkins that warns against the inadvertent creation of martyrs.
Breaking the Building Blocks of Hate: A Case Study of Minecraft Servers: In yet another example of a successful public/private policy research collaboration and in a continuation of the topic discussed by Brian Jenkins at the OODA Network November Monthly Meeting – domestic political extremism – we turn to a report released in July of this year: Breaking the Building Blocks of Hate: A Case Study of Minecraft Servers, which found that “one-in-four moderation actions across three private servers of the popular video game Minecraft are in response to online hate and harassment.”
Scenario Planning for Strategic Decision-making: Scenario planning is an often overlooked aspect of corporate decision-making. But it is needed now more than ever. Scenario planning is a methodology for helping leaders think through alternative futures in a way that enables identification of issues. It raises potential outcomes and impacts and helps conceptualize potential risks and opportunities so organizations can be better prepared.
Networked Extremism: The digital era enables extremists worldwide to collaborate, share strategies, and self-radicalize. Meanwhile, advanced technologies empower criminals, making corruption and crime interwoven challenges for global societies. See: Converging Insurgency, Crime and Corruption
A Practitioner’s View of Corporate Intelligence: Organizations in competitive environments should continually look for ways to gain advantage over their competitors. The ability of a business to learn and translate that learning into action, at speeds faster than others, is one of the most important competitive advantages you can have. This fact of business life is why the model of success in Air to Air combat articulated by former Air Force fighter pilot John Boyd, the Observe – Orient – Decide – Act (OODA) decision loop, is so relevant in business decision-making today. In this business model, decisions are based on observations of dynamic situations tempered with business context to drive decisions and actions. These actions should change the situation meaning new observations and new decisions and actions will follow. This all underscores the need for a good corporate intelligence program.
Mental Models For Leadership In The Modern Age: The study of mental models can improve your ability to make decisions and improve business outcomes. This post reviews the mental models we recommend all business and government decision makers master, especially those who must succeed in competitive environments.
John Boyd on Patterns of Conflict and the OODA Loop: John Boyd studied. He studied fighter pilot tactics, studied aeronautical engineering, studied bureaucrats and how to avoid their traps, studied evolution and biology, and studied history. And Boyd synthesized in a way that only a real practitioner of war could to produce a briefing called Patterns of Conflict that is still having a big impact on the world today. A full copy of the briefing is linked here. This post summarizes some key points worth reflecting on as the world views and reacts to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The OODA Loop Explained: The real story about the ultimate model for decision-making in competitive environments: In this article Matt Devost and Bob Gourley provide practitioner’s context on a concept near and dear to our heart, the OODA Loop. In doing so we capture why this concept is so relevant to any competitive situation, including business and cybersecurity. The OODA Loop is an approach to decision-making developed by retired Air Force Colonel John Boyd based on his decades of experience as a pilot and extensive study of the greatest battles in history.
In Business, Like In War, Data Is A Weapon: Broadly speaking, a weapon is anything that provides an advantage over an adversary. In this context, data is, and always has been, a weapon. This post, part of our Intelligent Enterprise series, focuses on how to take more proactive action in use of data as a weapon.
Fine Tuning Your Falsehood Detector: Time to update the models you use to screen for deception, dishonesty, corruption, fraud and falsity: The best business leaders are good at spotting falsehoods. Some joke and say the have a “bullshit detector”, but that humorous description does not do service to the way great leaders detect falsehoods. Bullshit is easy to detect. You see it and smell it and if you step in it it is your own fault. In the modern world falsehoods are far more nuanced. Now more than ever, business and government leaders need to ensure their mental models for detecting falsehood are operating in peak condition.
About the Author
Daniel Pereira is research director at OODA. He is a foresight strategist, creative technologist, and an information communication technology (ICT) and digital media researcher with 20+ years of experience directing public/private partnerships and strategic innovation initiatives.
Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence
Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence