This Silly Slop

If You Know What an OODA Loop Is, You Should Be Embarrassed

/ David Lamp / 4 min read min read

Observe. Orient. Decide. Act.

If you just nodded along to that sequence like it was a perfectly normal thing to have memorized, I need you to sit down. We need to have a conversation about what's gone wrong in your life.

What Is an OODA Loop?

The OODA Loop — Observe, Orient, Decide, Act — is a decision-making framework developed by military strategist Colonel John Boyd, originally to describe fighter pilot combat tactics during the Korean War.

And you know this. You know this off the top of your head. That's the problem.

Normal people do not know what an OODA loop is. Normal people hear "OODA" and assume it's a sound a baby makes. They go about their day. They watch television. They are at peace.

You, on the other hand, can diagram the orientation phase from memory and have opinions about whether Boyd's framework applies to business strategy or only to kinetic engagements. You've said the word "kinetic" in a non-physics context. Something has gone terribly wrong.

How Did You Even Learn This?

Nobody is taught OODA loops. There is no class. It's not on any curriculum outside of very specific military colleges and the kind of LinkedIn posts that get exactly 11 likes.

You learned this because you went looking for it. You were reading about something already obscure — probably maneuver warfare or maybe decision theory or possibly, God help you, "mental models" — and you tunneled deeper. You followed a footnote. You read a PDF hosted on a .mil domain. You thought, "Ah yes, Boyd's Energy-Maneuverability theory, that contextualizes this nicely."

And at no point did you stop and think: is this a normal amount of things to know?

The OODA Loop Is a Litmus Test

Here's the thing. OODA Loops themselves are fine. They're a perfectly reasonable framework. The problem is that knowing about them is a signal.

It's a signal that you have crossed a threshold. You have read too many things. You have absorbed information so far outside the common knowledge base that you have become, in a very real sense, a weird person.

Consider the information hierarchy:

  • Normal knowledge: The capital of France. How to change a tire. What the Pythagorean theorem is.
  • Slightly nerdy: How TCP/IP works. The difference between a recession and a depression. What mise en place means.
  • Concerning: The details of the Byzantine Generals Problem. What "second-order effects" means and using it in conversation. The Lindy Effect.
  • You need to go outside: OODA Loops. The specific biography of John Boyd. Strong opinions about whether Clausewitz or Sun Tzu is more applicable to modern supply chain management.

If you're in that last category, I'm not saying you're a bad person. I'm saying you're an outlier, and outliers make people uncomfortable at dinner parties.

The Social Consequences

Imagine you're at a barbecue. Someone mentions they're having trouble making a decision at work. A normal person says, "Yeah, that's tough." Maybe they suggest making a pros and cons list.

You — you absolute unit of unnecessary erudition — are physically restraining yourself from saying, "Well, Boyd would argue that the key isn't the decision itself but the speed of your orientation phase relative to your competitor's."

You know you shouldn't say it. And yet the OODA Loop is right there, fully loaded in your working memory, ready to deploy at a moment's notice. Because you have optimized your own cognition to the point of social dysfunction.

Congratulations. You have out-OODAed yourself.

A Partial List of Other Things You Probably Know

If you know what an OODA Loop is, you almost certainly also know:

  • What Chesterton's Fence is and why you shouldn't remove it
  • The difference between complicated and complex systems
  • At least two things about the Wright Brothers that aren't in children's books
  • What "legibility" means in the James C. Scott sense
  • The phrase "map is not the territory" and who said it
  • Something unsettling about how sausage regulation works in the EU

Each of these, individually, is fine. Together, they form a portrait of someone who has read approximately four hundred books too many and can no longer relate to people who get their information from normal sources like television and vibes.

What Should You Do?

First: accept that you are this person. You cannot un-know the OODA Loop. It is in you now, permanently, like a tattoo but worse because at least a tattoo is visible and people can choose to avoid you preemptively.

Second: stop telling people about it. Nobody at brunch wants to hear about Colonel Boyd's briefing style or how he was called "Forty-Second Boyd" because he could defeat any opponent in simulated air combat in under forty seconds. (You just perked up reading that, didn't you? That's the disease.)

Third: maybe read a normal book. A thriller. A romance novel. Something where nobody develops a framework. Something where the characters just do things without first observing, orienting, deciding, and then acting in an iterative cycle of continuous competitive advantage.

You'll feel better. Probably. I wouldn't know. I'm also too far gone.

In Conclusion

The OODA Loop is a legitimate and useful decision-making framework. It is also a shibboleth — a password that, when spoken aloud, immediately identifies you as someone operating at a level of general knowledge that society did not ask for and is not equipped to process.

If someone at a party mentions OODA Loops, do not engage. Do not say "Oh, Boyd!" Do not ask if they've read Certain to Win. Simply nod, excuse yourself, and go talk to someone normal about the weather.

They won't know what an OODA Loop is. And they will be happier for it.