Showing posts with label Catch-22. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catch-22. Show all posts

February 1, 2021

Ship in a Bottle


How do they get that ship in a bottle?

Build the ship inside the bottle or blow the glass and shape it around the ship.

Sort of like the chicken and the egg dilemma.

What came first? I dunno! 

Someone get me out of these circular, mind-numbing Catch-22s!  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal) 


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October 23, 2015

Does Every Problem Have A Solution?

So someone said something interesting to me yesterday.

They were going off about this and that problem in the world. 

Then seemingly exasperated by the current and desperate state of affairs, they go "You know what? Not every problem has a solution."

And that really took me aback.

As a student and then a professional, I have always prided myself on looking for a solution to every problem. 

Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don't, but I was always taught to try!

Now someone says to me this earth-shattering news that maybe there is not a good solution out there for every catastrophic problem.

So this got me thinking...

Maybe some problems are just too big or too complex for our mortal minds to even understand or our supercomputers to really solve. 

Or perhaps sometimes things have gone too far or are too far gone, and we can't always easily just turn back the clock.

Are there some things that we can't really make right what we did so wrong for so long, despite the best intentions now. 

And in life are some things just a catch-22 or a zero-sum game--where every way forward is another dead end or it has consequences which are too painful or otherwise unacceptable. 

This sort of reminds me of the sick brutal Nazi in the Holocaust who took a women with two beautiful young children to the side and said, "Choose!"

"Choose what?" she innocently replies.

And the sadistic Nazi pulling out his gun says, "Choose which of your children will live and which will die, you have 30 seconds or I kill them both!"

Indeed, some problems have no good solution as hard as that is for me to hear or accept.  

All we can do is our best, and even when we can't satisfactorily solve those completely vexing problems to us (because some things are not in the realm of the possible for mere mortals), we have to continue to go forward in life because there really is no going back. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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March 17, 2015

Everyday, A Catch-22

I took this photo of this guys' cool Catch-22 bag on the Metro in Washington, D.C. yesterday. 

Catch-22 was made famous in the book of the said name by Joseph Heller.

Essentially a Catch-22 is an unsolvable problem.

In the book for example, military servicemen in WWII can apply for a discharge if they are verifiably crazy, but the sheer act of applying for a discharge shows you are not crazy. 

Other examples of a Catch-22 are locking your keys in the car and you can't unlock the door to get them or losing your glasses but now you can't look for them.

In life, it seems like we are constantly facing Catch-22's, however not solving them is not an option...we must come up with a workable solution.

At work and in school, we compete to get ahead, yet we must team, cooperate, and collaborate with those very same folks that we are competing with. 

At home with children, we need to teach our children often difficult lessons of right and wrong, patience, discipline, and safety, even while we have overflowing feelings of love for them and just want to hug them and give in to them. 

With spouses, as our love and lives build over the years, we grow together and become ever more interdependent on our partners, yet we need to maintain some healthy independence and self at the same time. 

With career, are we advance ourselves so that we can provide well for our families, we must balance work-life, so that we aren't just bringing home a paycheck, but are actually emotionally there for our loved ones. 

The list of life's conundrums goes on and on, but rather than throw up our hands in defeat, we have to fight on and come up with solutions that are best fit to the challenges we face...there is no discharge just because you feel crazed or need to confront something hard...you need to solve the dilema and then you can go home. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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November 4, 2011

What's In That Container?

Ever since 9-11, there has been acute concern about preventing "the next" big attack on our nation.
Will it be a suitcase bomb, anthrax in the mail, an attack on our mass transit systems, or perhaps a nuclear device smuggled into one of our ports--all very frightening scenarios!
The last one though has been of particular fascination and concern given the amount of commerce that passes through our ports--more than 95% of our international trade--and hence the damage that could be done to our economy should these ports be hit as well as the challenges in being able adequately screen all the containers coming through--a massive undertaking.
Wired Magazine (November 2011) did a feature story on this topic in an article called "Mystery Box."
The article highlights the unbelievable damage that could occur if a dirty bomb ("a radiological dispersion device") were to get through in one of the millions of 20 foot long by 8 foot wide shipping containers out there--aside from the risk to lives, "it would result in a major national freak-out...cause billions and billions of dollars in economic damage...dirty bombs are weapons of mass disruption."
While 99% of shipping containers are scanned when they arrive in the U.S., DHS is supposedly challenged in implementing a bill requiring scanning every container before they enter the U.S.--"some 66,000 [containers] a day."
Instead "100 percent screening" is being pursued where, shipping information is checked before arrival--including vessel, people, and cargo, origination, and destination--and when an anomaly or cause for concern is detected--if there is a U.S. Customs Officer at the origination port, they can check it there already.
However, there are still at least four major issues affecting our port security today:
1) Most containers are still checked only once they actually get onshore.
2) The scanners are too easily foiled--"most detectors are set to ignore low radiation levels. [And] basic shielding would be enough to mask all but the strongest sources."
3) Thoroughly scanning every container is considered too time-consuming using current processes and technology and therefore, would adversely affect our commerce and economy.
4) Around the world "Customs tends not focus on containers being transshipped [those moving from ship to ship]. Their attitude is 'It's not my container, it's just passing through.'"
This is a perfect example of technology desperately needed to address a very serious issue.
Certainly, we cannot bring our economy to a standstill either by unnecessarily checking every "widget" that comes over or by risking the catastrophic effects of a WMD attack.
So for now, we are in a catch-22, darned if we do check everything as well as if we don't.
This is where continued research and development, technological innovation, and business process reengineering must be directed--to secure our country sooner than later.
The risks are being managed best we can for now, but we must overcome the current obstacles to screening by breaking the paradigm that we are boxed into today.
(Source Photo: here)

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February 10, 2010

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t

Frequently employees face double-bind message in the workplace and these not only impair morale, but also can result in poor decision-making.

One example has to do with whether we should apply tried and true, best practices or be creative and innovative. This manifests when employees bring innovative approaches to the table to solve problems are told, “there’s no reason to recreate the wheel on this.” And then when the employees take the opposing track and try to bring established best practices to bear on problems, they are told disparagingly “ah, that’s just a cookie cutter approach.”

Another example has to do with when and how much to analyze and when to decide, such that when employees are evaluating solutions and they hustle to get a proposal on the table, only to be told they haven’t done enough work or its superficial and they need to go back, “do due diligence, and conduct a more thorough evaluation.” Then when the employees go back to conduct a thorough analysis of alternatives, business case, concept of operations and so on, only to be told, “what is taking you so long? You’re just getting bogged down in analysis paralysis—move on!”

I am sure there are many more examples of this where employees feel like they are in a catch 22, between a rock and a hard place, damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The point is that creating contradictions, throwing nifty clichés at employees, and using that to win points or get your way in the decision process, hurts the organization and the employees that work there.

What the organization needs is not arbitrary decision-making and double-bind messages that shut employees down. Rather, organizations need clearly defined, authoritative, and accountable governance structure, policy, process and roles and responsibilities that open it up to healthy and informed debate and timely decisions. When everyone is working off of the “same sheet of music” and they know what is professionally expected and appropriate to the decision-making process, then using clichés arbitrarily and manipulating the decision-process no longer has a place or is organizationally acceptable.

We can’t rush through decisions just to get what we want, and we can’t bog down decisions with obstacles, just because we’re looking for a different answer.

Sound governance will help resolve this, but also necessary is a leadership committed to changing the game from the traditional power politics and subjective management whim to an organization driven by integrity, truth, and genuine progress based on objective facts, figures, and reason. Of course, changing an organization is not easy and doesn’t happen overnight, but think how proud we can be of our organizations that make this leap to well-founded governance.


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January 9, 2010

Architecting A Secure Society

Once again, we are confronted with the basic security question of how much is the right amount?

It’s a classic catch-22 that requires us to architect security to meet opposing ends: we expect security to be as much as necessary to stop the terrorists, but as little as possible to ensure efficient travel and trade and maintain people’s privacy and equality.

In the last decades, we have behaved schizophrenically, calling for more security every time there is an attempted attack, only to withdraw and demand greater privacy protections, speedier security processing, and only random checks when things cool down.

The Wall Street Journal reported in the January 9-10, 2010 edition that the U.S.’s handling of security nowadays is an ever-losing proposition. The article calls it a virtual game of “Terrorball,” in which we cannot win, because there only two perpetual rules:

· “The game lasts as long as there are terrorists who want to harm Americans; and

· If terrorists should manage to kill or injure or seriously frighten any of us, they win.”

Based on the above, I believe that we can only win the game by changing its rules. Rather than being reactive to every terror scare, we are prepared with one approach—one that delivers an optimal level of security based on the current level of risk.

I recall when Michael Chertoff was Secretary of Homeland Security. During that time, he was a strong advocate for a risk-based approach that was multilayered, strong yet flexible enough to accommodate changing circumstances. From that perspective, which I think made a lot of sense: security decisions are made on the basis of objective criteria. These include technical feasibility, maximum effect, cost-benefit analysis, and so on.

A risk-based approach, or what I call “optimal security,” clearly makes a lot of sense. Yet it is tempting, when a security situation actually occurs, to let emotions get the better of us. On the one extreme, sometimes hysteria takes place and everybody seems a potential threat. Other times, we get angry that anyone at all is subjected to scrutiny or questioning.

In order to save the most lives and change the terror game, we have to decide to become more rational about the threat that faces us. This doesn’t mean being cold and calculating, but rather rational and proactive in developing a security architecture and governance that seeks to protect the most with the least negative impacts—but not trying to plug every possible hole at all costs.

In optimal security: sure, there is the ideal where we want to protect every American from every possible threat. However, there is also the reality where, because of competing priorities and scarce resources (to address everything from the deficit, health care, education, social programs, energy, science, defense, and more) we cannot—no matter how much we genuinely want to—prevent every terror instance.

So the terror playbook can and should be transformed. We can recognize there will always be terrorists—enemies of the state—who want to harm us and given enough attempts, no matter how optimal our security, they will occasionally get a sucker punch in on us—and we must be prepared for this. Moreover, rather than “freaking out” about this the terror threat, we can grow and commit to doing the best we can and accepting that we will increase security when information is there to support that need, and we will relax when that becomes possible.

Bottom line: We must move away from hysteria and any other factor that prevents us from being objective and make rational choices to deploy protections that are most effective and simultaneously safeguard our liberty.

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” captures the security debate well. We want to safeguard lives, but at the same ensure liberty and we want to be happy and not afraid all the time.

To accomplish this balance, our optimal security realization should be based on highly effective intelligence, supported by the very best technology, and a security platform that adjusts to threats in real time.

While our intelligence continues to strengthen and our technology continues to improve, the greatest challenge is our ability as a nation and as individual human beings to cope with the distress caused by terrorism.

We are ambivalent emotionally about the threat and what needs to be done to combat it. However, once we look inside and understand the emotions that this issue raises, and come to terms with reality we face, we will as a nation be more at peace and less likely to jump from one extreme to another in terms of our demands and expectations from those who protect us every day.


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