For those who have not had the pleasure, I highly recommend John Boyd, both his essay Destruction and Creation, as well as his slide show on military history.

Boyd was an authentic American genius, and hero, whose writings captures/explains the current moment perfectly.

As to hero status, Boyd was an ace in the Korean War.

Later on, he was a test pilot known as Thirty Second Boyd for his ability to allow a pilot to get on his six o'clock position, and within thirty seconds, reverse the situation to what would have been fatal to the other pilot in a real dogfight: drinks were always on Boyd.

It was during his stint at the Pentagon however, that Boyd became a hero in the highest sense, as in combating the idiocy of military bureacracies, he gradually stumbled onto a general social theory that is very important to understand now; really, really important.

As Boyd tried to demonstrate to "The Brass" that his Energy Manueverability Theory at the time was the most appropriate quantitative measure for assessing fighter aircraft, in this case against the Soviets, and that by that standard, the nascent F-15 and F-16 were being steered in the wrong direction, he gradually came to realize that as much as ninety per cent of the people working in the bowels of the Pentagon were full of garbage; especially the Top Brass.

In essence, the Top Brass liked to Kiss Fannies; no matter how many people died, or could die, in the process, as long as they got to "Walk on Water/Get the Star (s)."

Boyd concluded that all most people working in the Pentagon wanted was to be somebody, preferably with four stars, rather than do something, for which, like Boyd, you generally speaking only make Colonel.

I have met one great brigadier before, and I am half joking, but only half. Maybe only a quarter joking.

To be fair to the non-Boydian majority, a key goal of most organizations is to crush their Enemy the Human Spirit Totally, which succeeds with most people if they are there long enough, and especially if they are beaten on long enough: HR people and Administrators are real good at setting that up now.

Ninth Circle or the Wall for you guys after the Revolution. Just kidding.

I am sure as well that Boyd figured out that the same phenemenon of the Biggest Fanny Kisser/Backstabber/Bully depending on what is Good for the Moment and Mess Everyone Else Over Going the Farthest is true in the private sector as far as getting a corner office and big bonus, or in the academic world in terms of landing the prestigious tenured job based on publications that no one will read in five years at best. At best.

I have seen the cowards, I mean bullies, I mean Fanny-Lickers enough in the corporate world to get the point, and have been on the receiving end of a massive amount of academic bullying and witnessed more fannies kissed than I care to think about: may my academic enemies that have tortured me over the years, and we know who you are, die by Chinese water torture. But I digress, but only slightly. I am joking. Sort of.

To those of you who the above calling out of organizational Fanny-Licking etc... has now made you want to kill me for invalidating your meaningless death of the human spirit and race pointless existence, I apologize in advance.

I would point out in my defense that your type of person has tried to hurt me in every organization I have worked in for speaking truth to idiots, I mean the powers that be, and that more importantly, that your type of person is about to kill all sorts of  innocent people;so to heck with you and the horse you rode in on.

Nothing personal.

Returning to the main theme of the essay, the work of decorated by the Marine Corps Air Force Colonel because the fly-boys didn't get Boyd, the reason for this phenemenon of organizational entropy, Boyd came to realize, is of course the Second Law ofThermodynamics, as applied to organizations.

In essence, the Second Law tells us that closed systems must have an increase in disorder over time in the sense of energy available to do work.

In organizational life, this means that eventually, more and more effort/resources must be inputted into the system in order to deal with the external environment of the organization successfully, until even despite the best effort of the doctors/management consultants/re-inventing government planners, it dies; like life, like right now.

I know that if Boyd came back right now to address the current world's leadership, what he would say would be something like this:

"Uh, guys, I have some good news, and some bad news. I am sorry for being kind of a jerk for being backstabbed my entire career in the Pentagon, so first, the bad news. The bad news is that the systems of economic, social and political governance that you are currently operating are real long in the tooth and collapsing around your dumb selves. The fact that none of the so-called experts in the "Mainstream Expert /Fanny-licker" community is getting it right at all lately tells you this. The fact that the "Mainstream Expert/Fanny-Lickers" spend a lot of time complaining about not seeing the future clearly all of a sudden, and all at once, all at once, these are the key signals that you are witnessing a General System Failure, a Collapse, in the sense of Jared Diamond. That is the bad news.The good news is, you don't have to freak out about it, or go the way of the Mayans, just get Creative! The Destruction part is already here, so you might as well get creative, and not freak out, and especiallly not do dumb stuff from the past like start wars to distract people; you hear me Vladimir, Barrack and Hilary, Nicholas, Kim, Hu, Bibi, et al... . Cut it out, or see my world wide theory of Revolution I had the brass you knows to show the Top Brass at the height of the Cold War in the Pentagon no less to see what happens to your sorry dumb morons. Be Creative. War is not usually Creative. Do the exercise."

People like Jared Diamond in Collapse intuited this Collapse too a while ago, which is why he wrote the book probably, because he just couldn't watch the lemings, sheep, Mayans, I mean us, wander ever closer towards the cliff anymore without some kind of hint.

There is good news from Boyd, however, and a thought exercise that all the lemmings, or sheep, I mean Mayans, I mean, everyone, needs to start doing right now. In Boyd I trust, on this point.

I have my classes working on it. Promise.

Boyd's model of Creativity, which is in the essay Destruction and Creation, and in which we need a lot more Creation now, because in organizations like governments, corporations and universities there is not nearly enough of that going on right now, and so therefore they are in the process of taking the lemmings, I mean the sheep, the Mayans, well, you get the point, real close to the cliff, works like this.

As an example, create three images in your head of a ski slope, a park, and a lake.

Think about it. For real.

Then, when you have painted in the details of each image, smash the mental boundaries between the three images. Poof, all to pieces.

 That is the Destructive step, no more ski slopes or lakes, or Left and Right, so to speak for later, and just think about the pieces in front of you.

Now you are free of Left and Right, well, first ski slopes and lakes.

Guess what is one thing you can come up with from the three images? This is the Creation part.

Well, one thing is a snow-mobile, from the skis, the handlebars and seat of a bike from the park, and a motor from the lake, none of which occured together in isolation. I bet there are other modes of transportation too from those three images.

Now, for homework.

Just kidding, but feel free to run with it, even Vladimir,better than your dumb ideas with the paratroopers in Vladivostok lately; think we didn't notice that? Vladivostok? Really. Nice to play on the Korean Peninsula with that maniac, or Alaska. But we know. How about the cholera? Been there done that before with small pox and the Indians whoever pulled that stunt, so cut it out. You too Americans, France, Japan, the Zionists, cut it out all of you, and try something new instead of the usual homicidal game of three level chess on the world island that you think you have to play. For once do something really different. Please. It will be way more fun the alternative. Promise.

A simple thought experiment I leave below for the current system crisis; don't be so mentally lazy, it is not a good time for it.

Take a corporation, a government, and a university. Really picture them. Really think about them.

Then smash the mental boundaries between them, and see what we you can come up with from the pieces.

I know one of the things you could come up with would be the Holy Roman Empire, properly understood, and in which that is actually a good thing in many ways, and where I am betting  the survivors of the current course will end up anyway in some sense, and thinking about it beforehand will increase the number of survivors or avoid talk of survivors in the first place.

GET CREATIVE.