This reflection immediately brought to mind Des Linden’s 2018 Boston Marathon win. In that particular year, Des was far from the fastest runner on the field, and was privately dealing with a hypothyroid diagnosis. However, she leveraged the disastrous race conditions (severe, freezing rain and win the whole way) in her favor. What she lacked in speed, Des made up for in grit and resilience, and she shocked herself by breaking the tape and taking gold.
I don't do well with chaos or noise, so I've never introduced it deliberately!
And I think it's worth remembering that the people who suffer the most from chaos are the already vulnerable - those without a buffer, savings, or reflexes - and those with something or someone to protect. So we should hesitate to advocate for chaos when bystanders like that could be affected. Fortunately, Ged's open ocean has few bystanders.
The reasons I can think of for why introducing (or correctly predicting) chaos can give one an advantage are:
1. If you're already on the losing side, it's a kind of re-roll of conditions; with the caveat that if your buffer is unavoidably low as per the above, you might just be making your odds even worse, like they would be in a war of attrition.
2. If you are the one initiating or predicting the chaos, that's an information advantage your opponent doesn't have, so you can prep your buffer better for the unusual conditions to come, making yourself less vulnerable than the default your opponent is probably at.
3. When dealing with chaos, your opponent might take more predictable actions, such as hastening to shore up their buffer, which predictability you can then use to your advantage.
As an illustration of that third one, I am reminded of a tactic from Wildbow's web serial Twig, a dark biopunk novel that I probably wouldn't have the stomach or the time to read these days, but from which a few ideas stuck with me. Here's the relevant excerpt:
"Humans as a species were like a collection of bugs in a box. Left alone, it was hard to predict how they’d move, or the patterns that would form.
"Shake the box, and it generated chaos. Maddened, they would seek to escape, butting their heads against barriers. They would turn on their closest neighbors and strike out. Even seek to kill. In their frenzied movements, they were very predictable."
"Force people into darkness, then offer them a light, and they were a moth to a candle flame.
"The darkness that surrounded Mothmont wasn’t my darkness. It was meant to work against me.
"But it was darkness I could use. The headmistress was worried, and I very much doubted she was sleeping after so many of her students fell ill. Many of them had rich and powerful parents. She’d been driven into a corner.
"Taking a blank piece of paper from the drawer of her desk, I placed it on the top, and I penned out a simple statement with a fountain pen.
"'The Academy would like for you to please order a quarantine… None of the blame in this lies with you. Provided you speak of this letter to no-one, you have nothing to worry about. All will be well.'
"Giving the moth her candle flame.
"The only way this situation could go sour was if something happened to my group, or if more of the puppeteer’s Bad Seeds decided to make a break for their families.
"The quarantine would keep that from happening and it would force our adversaries into a corner."
That character sometimes initiates "shaking the box of bugs," and sometimes just takes advantage of when it happens.
Which brings me to this other idea sometimes attributed to Sun Tzu:
Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.
I like to remember that one when navigating conflict with people I actually don't want to be opponents with, which I'm relieved is the norm in my life.
This reflection immediately brought to mind Des Linden’s 2018 Boston Marathon win. In that particular year, Des was far from the fastest runner on the field, and was privately dealing with a hypothyroid diagnosis. However, she leveraged the disastrous race conditions (severe, freezing rain and win the whole way) in her favor. What she lacked in speed, Des made up for in grit and resilience, and she shocked herself by breaking the tape and taking gold.
I don't do well with chaos or noise, so I've never introduced it deliberately!
And I think it's worth remembering that the people who suffer the most from chaos are the already vulnerable - those without a buffer, savings, or reflexes - and those with something or someone to protect. So we should hesitate to advocate for chaos when bystanders like that could be affected. Fortunately, Ged's open ocean has few bystanders.
The reasons I can think of for why introducing (or correctly predicting) chaos can give one an advantage are:
1. If you're already on the losing side, it's a kind of re-roll of conditions; with the caveat that if your buffer is unavoidably low as per the above, you might just be making your odds even worse, like they would be in a war of attrition.
2. If you are the one initiating or predicting the chaos, that's an information advantage your opponent doesn't have, so you can prep your buffer better for the unusual conditions to come, making yourself less vulnerable than the default your opponent is probably at.
3. When dealing with chaos, your opponent might take more predictable actions, such as hastening to shore up their buffer, which predictability you can then use to your advantage.
As an illustration of that third one, I am reminded of a tactic from Wildbow's web serial Twig, a dark biopunk novel that I probably wouldn't have the stomach or the time to read these days, but from which a few ideas stuck with me. Here's the relevant excerpt:
"Humans as a species were like a collection of bugs in a box. Left alone, it was hard to predict how they’d move, or the patterns that would form.
"Shake the box, and it generated chaos. Maddened, they would seek to escape, butting their heads against barriers. They would turn on their closest neighbors and strike out. Even seek to kill. In their frenzied movements, they were very predictable."
"Force people into darkness, then offer them a light, and they were a moth to a candle flame.
"The darkness that surrounded Mothmont wasn’t my darkness. It was meant to work against me.
"But it was darkness I could use. The headmistress was worried, and I very much doubted she was sleeping after so many of her students fell ill. Many of them had rich and powerful parents. She’d been driven into a corner.
"Taking a blank piece of paper from the drawer of her desk, I placed it on the top, and I penned out a simple statement with a fountain pen.
"'The Academy would like for you to please order a quarantine… None of the blame in this lies with you. Provided you speak of this letter to no-one, you have nothing to worry about. All will be well.'
"Giving the moth her candle flame.
"The only way this situation could go sour was if something happened to my group, or if more of the puppeteer’s Bad Seeds decided to make a break for their families.
"The quarantine would keep that from happening and it would force our adversaries into a corner."
https://twigserial.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/taking-root-1-8/
That character sometimes initiates "shaking the box of bugs," and sometimes just takes advantage of when it happens.
Which brings me to this other idea sometimes attributed to Sun Tzu:
Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.
I like to remember that one when navigating conflict with people I actually don't want to be opponents with, which I'm relieved is the norm in my life.