I was reading about the "OODA loop" military concept in relation to Trump. I'm wondering how much it applies to human relations in general. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act: collect information, process it, make a decision, act on the decision. A more agile opponent (faster information process and decision making) can constantly interrupt this process meaning that you can't process new information fast enough to keep up. The concept was referenced in relation to Trump because he's great at derailing opponents so the ball is always in his court. By the time anyone else has worked out what he's talking about, he's interrupted their response with his next line of bullshit.
With what technicallyAdventurer was talking about I was wondering whether this concept applies in general familial relationships. technicallyAdventurer was trying to respond rationally to each new conversation point, gets cut off with irrational responses, and then is fighting a rear-guard action trying to extricate him/herself from the fracas.
You can never extricate yourself from these situations by merely defending yourself, that only pulls you in deeper and gives power to the other party. Think fencing: block, parry, thrust. Reacting to what they say and defending yourself is blocking. But you want to get into a position to thrust. To do that, you need to first parry their attack. e.g. at the height of them speaking, throw in a tangential or ambiguous / passive aggressive statement such as "I don't have time for this". Then when the conversation switches to be about that, then you hit them with your main complaint about their behavior. If they switch it back to be about you, you can reiterate "Look, I told you I don't have time for this". The parry part (tangential statement) is actually pretty important, switch the topic away from yourself before switching it to them to throw their train of thought off. Get them processing new information faster than they can formulate a response.
In this respect you can implement the OODA tactics in daily familial conversation.
Author
Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9752835 times)