The Negative OODA and the Death Spiral of Human Productivity
Cultural Flow State and Transient Inhibition
The OODA loop is a powerful principle that helps one gain an advantage in the competitive marketplace.
In conflict or competition, applying the OODA loop bestows upon an opponent the most significant of human stressors, thus facilitating their untimely demise.
The essence of the OODA loop is the application of high-tempo fast transients — the ability to execute decision cycles faster than your adversary — thereby inducing a high-performance flow state for the performer.
Today’s focus will be on the notion that if fast transients can be used to gain an exponential advantage, induce flow state, and accelerate human productivity and output — then the inverse must also be true — if decision cycles are disrupted or inhibited, this will introduce “transient inhibition,” creating a negative death spiral in advantage thereby collapsing human productivity and output, and destruction of flow state.
Much has been written on applying the OODA loop and fast transients.
However, not quite as much has been written on their dark and evil sibling, the transient inhibitor.
This article aims to identify the nature of transient inhibitors, how one may experience them in day-to-day life, the ramifications, and some brief advice on how to manage them.
What is the OODA Loop?
The OODA loop principle was developed in the 1960s by US Air Force Colonel John Boyd and has since been implemented by the military, business, sports, and any situation involving opposition and competitive human output and production.
OODA stands for observe, orient, decide, and act. It describes a four-part decision cycle that ensues when faced with any transition between actions.
An example of a transition between actions would be to imagine two football players: one on offense and one on defense.
The defensive player is trying to tackle the offensive player. The tackle is the action.
The defensive player attempts the tackle; however, the offensive player athletically leaps over the defensive player, thwarting the tackle attempt.
The interlude after the missed tackle is the transition between actions.
Before another action can be initiated, the defensive player is placed into a decision cycle: “Did I miss?” Observe. “Where did he go?” Orient. “How do I reengage?” Decide. “Ah ha! There is his new position. Get him!” Act.
When faced with a transition between actions in any situation in life, whether physical, emotional, psychological, or moral, all people run through the OODA decision-making process.
Performance comes when a person develops their mind to get through the OODA sequence faster and gain an advantage.
This quickening process is called skill. Skill shortens, and, in some cases, enables one to bypass the lengthy four-step analog decision cycle process.
The OODA loop’s central theme of increasing performance is based on fast transients.
A fast transient is when one passes through the OODA decision cycle at an accelerated pace, faster than the opponents.
The premise of the fast transient is that the transition between actions is more critical to high productive output than the speed of the action itself.
What is Transient Inhibition?
Per the laws of physics, all forces come in pairs.
Therefore, if a fast transient accelerates high-performance human production, its counter and negative opposite must also be true: a transient inhibitor must exist that decelerates and inhibits human production.
Like the relationship between matter and antimatter, fast transient and transient inhibitors, when mixed, annihilate each other.
A transient inhibitor is not something that outright breaks a system. It is not dynamite to the cog of a wheel.
If fast transients are lube, a transient inhibitor is more like a piece of sand in the cog. It is friction that inhibits free flow.
An example is the difference between crimes and vices in culture.
Crimes are acts like murder, theft, and corruption, which are blatant and destructive. Dynamite to the cog.
On the other hand, a vice is not outright destructive but inhibits human flourishing. Sand in the cog.
In life, there are at least three types of competition: you can compete against the environment, compete against other people, or compete against yourself.
The ramifications of fast and transient inhibitors manifest in each domain.
On a broader scale, the idea of transients can ascend beyond the individual to the collective that encompasses communities, demographic groups, and even entire cultures.
When put into practice on a mass scale, the transient inhibitor creates a nonproductive OODA loop that can inhibit human production and create cultural demise.
Flow State
Flow state is when a person achieves deep immersion in an activity.
The notion of flow was first introduced in the 1990s by famed University of Chicago psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who used the term to describe his research on optimal human performance.
When we sublate the domains of Boyd and Csikszentmihalyi, there is a direct correlation between the notion of fast transients and the flow state, albeit from different vantage points.
Think of the flow state as an electrical current and the fast transient as the transistor. Transient inhibitors act like rust on the circuit board.
Anything that disturbs the flow state acts as a transient inhibitor.
There are six primary markers to facilitate the flow state: intrinsic reward, concentration, abandonment of self-consciousness, merging of action and awareness, the feeling of personal control, and ignorance of time [1].
Therefore, anything disrupting one or more of these six markers would inhibit flow, thus acting as a transient inhibitor.
Transient inhibitors are like the biting, numbing twinge of an autoimmunity disease gnawing at the nerve fibers of performance and productivity.
The Two Types of Transient Inhibitors
Two general types of transient inhibitors exist: internally induced and externally induced.
Internally induced transients are feelings and emotions that well up from within the mind and body.
Externally induced transients are imposed influences from outside the mind and body.
There is a bi-directional relationship between internal and external transients. Internal prohibitive thoughts can shape the electrical current of external reality.
Conversely, imposed disruption to the current of external reality can short-circuit one’s internal state of mind and body.
Like Gustav Vigeland’s bronze depiction The Circle of Life, internal and external are intertwined.
Internal Transient Inhibitors
The FUD acronym is the baseline for internal transient inhibitors.
FUD stands for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It was first used with its current meaning by technology entrepreneur Gene Amdahl to describe the tactics of the IBM sales organization.
It was typical for the IBM sales representatives to use techniques involving fear, uncertainty, and doubt against potential customers to dissuade them from considering Amdahl’s products [2].
FUD is a great base; however, it is incomplete.
Another facet of internal transient behavior is anger. Adding anger, which works against a fast transient flow state, affixes to the emotional spectrum and gives us the acronym FUDA.
The more complete term FUDA was initially coined by software developer Carl Erikson in 2016.[3]
FUDA is an excellent progression to FUD, as it acknowledges annoyance, irritation, frustration, and rage, which are measures of degree within the same process domain as anger.
The interesting thing about anger is that it can sometimes temporarily push us beyond our natural capabilities, returning us from the brink of defeat, willing us into action, or giving us a surge of energy for the final push across the finish line.
However, by the same token, anger kills the fast transient flow state. In other words, it gives the unskilled a temporary advantage and the highly skilled a temporary disadvantage, moving both toward the middle of the performance spectrum.
Therefore, we can say that anger is the great equalizer between the skilled and unskilled.
High-performance fast transient flow states require harmonizing all three brains: survival, social, and rational [4].
The emotion of anger stems from the social brain, impedes the rational, the neocortex, and moves us down the hierarchy closer to the survival brain, the limbic system.
FUDA correlates well with Boyd’s fast transient theory in terms of the effect we want to instill into an adversary.
However, Boyd’s models are from the perspective of active conflict engagement.
FUDA does not account for the passive aspects of engagement, or worse yet, anti-engagement.
Anti-Engagement
Boredom and apathy. These qualities are the mainstays of passive and anti-engagement.
To shape a complete model for transient inhibitors and reconcile it to Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory, we must account for engagement’s active and passive components.
Thus, since apathy and boredom are measures of degree within the same phenomena, we can add boredom to FUDA to cover both, leaving us with FUDAB.
FUBAB = Fear | Uncertainty | Doubt | Anger | Boredom
This new species of word gives us a complete picture of the internal transient inhibitors that can affect human output and production.
The FUDAB is an unfavorable chemical mix that can break a person’s OODA loop, tear down the flow state, and add elevated amounts of Clausewitzian friction [5] to high-performance decision cycle processes.
Since FUDAB is not the prettiest of acronyms, to help simplify, alternatively, we can think of the internal transient inhibitors using the following helpful mnemonic of the four A’s.
Internal Transient Inhibitors, The Four A’s:
- Anxiety
- Apathy
- Ambiguity
- Anger
These four words consolidate the FUDAB into a clean memory tool.
Each A is an intermediary for the different internal transient inhibition behaviors.
Anxiety is the intermediary between fear and panic.
Anger is the intermediary between impatience-frustration-agitation and rage.
Ambiguity is the go-between of uncertainty and doubt.
Apathy is the arbitrator between boredom and depression.
Inhibitors can operate together or independently, directly assault the bastions of the flow state, and disrupt the OODA process.
External Transient Inhibitors
External transient inhibitors come from outside influences.
Like internal transients, external transient inhibitors can be represented with a mnemonic device — the 4D’s.
External transient inhibitors:
- Dilation
- Distraction
- Disorder
- Drain
The first D, dilation, can be thought of as either time or distance distortion.
In other words, it is a manipulation of the TD-Theater.
An example of TD-Theater dilation would be an increase or decrease in tempo.
On the one hand, a decrease in tempo can stimulate the internal transient inhibitors of frustration, anger, and rage.
Imagine the feeling you get when behind an inappropriately slow driver and late for work. Argh!
On the other hand, an increase in tempo can evoke internal transient inhibition, our old friend FUD, fear-uncertainty-doubt [6].
Self-doubt is a form of ambiguity. It brings into question one’s abilities, or lack thereof, in the conscious mind. Recall a key to a flow state is a lack of self-consciousness.
Self-doubt is a blatant self-consciousness. It adds corrosion to the transistor.
The second D, distraction, acts as an enemy to concentration [7].
Recall concentration is one of the main bastions of a fast transient flow state.
Therefore, the destruction of concentration will weaken flow, thereby tearing down performance.
The third D, disorder, is the realm of chaos.
Chaos results in confusion, shock, and awe, stimulating both the internal transients of ambiguity and anxiety.
The fourth and last D, drain, can be considered fatigue.
Fatigue is an inherent feature we all face as humans.
There are only so many hours in the day and so much we can do before a loss of wind settles in. Everyone, at some point, requires rest and recovery.
Even under the best circumstances, if a flow state is achieved, an exhaustion of energy eventually occurs, and a recovery process is needed. The three ways of loss are wreck, wind, and will.
Physical and mental skills are neutralized when someone is drained of their wind.
The healthier physique one can maintain will reduce fatigue and allow for optimal flow state to appear for longer durations.
FACTOR is alternative tool to help remember the external transient inhibitors.
FACTOR = Fatigue | Avert | Confuse | Twist | Obfuscate | Rarify
Transient Inhibitors in Day-to-day Life
The post-modern world bathes people in a toxic cesspool of external transient inhibitors that negatively impact the highly productive fast transient flow state of individuals and culture.
Everything from addictive dopamine-provoking phone tech (distraction) to overblown and irresponsible reporting on climate change deaths (dilation) [8].
From skilled labor shortages in the free market and overworked doers (drain) to the mismanagement of the Western migrant crisis (disorder).
You name it, mass and broad-scale exposure to external transient inhibitors is a septic tank with no bottom.
There is no scarcity of internal transient inhibitions either.
The all-time high use of emotion-regulating prescription drugs among young females is an indicator of something more profound (anxiety) [9].
Race relationships are at an all-time low since the civil rights movement (anger).
With heaping debt, inflation, and demographic implosion, the ability of future generations to obtain wealth equal to above their parents is in question (ambiguity.)
Full-time free market jobs have been at an all-time low since World War II (apathy.)
These factors lead to cultural output collapse.
Per Claude Shannon’s information theory, too much noise in the channel obfuscates a meaningful signal.
All these examples of transient inhibitors are noise to the channel of innovation, creativity, and productive flow.
On the Necessity to Evolve Beyond the Noise
I prefer Nassim Nicolos Taleb’s advice to move toward a more ancient, lower information age while benefiting from our time’s magnificent wealth, technology, non-authoritarian, and socially liberating gains [10]. An age of high-tech, enlightened simplicity.
One that reduces the noise from the channel and invigorates and nourishes the creative spirit of humanity. A world that enables people to be anti-victims from the shackles of transient inhibitors.
Per the wise words of the flow master himself, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [11]:
“The “battle” is not really against the self, but against the entropy that brings disorder to consciousness. It is really a battle for the self.”
At the center, people can only create two things: other people and ideas [12].
Engaging in both of humanity’s first principle creative domains is the best way to live a holistic life of meaning.
Don’t let transient inhibitors, the purveyors of entropy, hold you back and prevent you from maximizing your full potential.
About the Author
Scott is author, technologist, consultant, inventor, engineer, game designer, blogger, and martial artist at large.
His mission is to help people flourish and add meaning to their lives by fostering opportunity, talent, and ideas.
Check out the following resources to learn more about Scott:
About — Scott Gehring — Medium
They Get Their Kicks — YouTube
TheyGetTheirKicks (@GetTheirKicks) / X (twitter.com)
Strategic Engagement of Force (@force_strategic) / X (twitter.com)
References
[1] The Six Parts of A Flow State — Deepstash
[2] Fear, uncertainty, and doubt — Wikipedia
[3] The Power of Naming Abstract Ideas (greatnotbig.com)
[4] Strategic Engagement of Force: A Field Guide for the use of Martial Arts Strategy and Tactics 2nd Edition Paperback — September 22, 2023
[5] Carl von Clausewitz: ON WAR. Book 1, Chapter 7 (clausewitzstudies.org)
[6] Tempo: timing, tactics and strategy in narrative-driven decision-making Paperback — March 31, 2011, by Venkatesh Guru Rao
[7] https://admiredleadership.com/field-notes/interruptions-are-the-enemy/#:~:text=Interruptions%20are%20the%20enemy%20of,to%20take%20us%20off%20task.
[8] After 100 years of climate change, ‘climate related deaths’ approach zero — ClimateRealism
[9] The Teen Mental Illness Epidemic is International: The Anglosphere (afterbabel.com)
[10] Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Incerto) Paperback — August 23, 2005, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, page 131, section: Thank You, Salon.
[11] Flow — June 13, 2016 by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
[12] The Three Forms and the Trigon, the Design of Creation | by Scott Gehring | Medium
