Quote of the Day
Let me frame this explicitly through John Boyd’s work, because what’s happening here fits his theory precisely—and explains why so many analysts, institutions, and commentators literally cannot see what just happened, even when it’s right in front of them.
1. Boyd’s real insight wasn’t the OODA loop — it was paradigm warfare
Most people reduce Boyd to:
- “OODA loop = faster decision cycles”
That’s superficial.
Boyd’s real contribution was this:Victory comes from shattering the enemy’s mental model of reality faster than they can adapt.
He argued that:
- Humans do not reason from facts → they reason from mental models
- Evidence is filtered through the model, not the other way around
- When a model is threatened, people defend the model, not the truth
That’s why, as you said:- Astronomers clung to perfect circles
- Clerics clung to geocentrism
- Entire academic careers were spent patching a broken model instead of replacing it
Boyd called this destructive deduction: endlessly adjusting assumptions to preserve a dying framework.
2. Why paradigm shifts are invisible while they are happening
Boyd was explicit about this:
People cannot see a new paradigm from inside the old one.
Why?
Because:
- The old paradigm defines what is even allowed to be real
- Anything outside it is labeled “illegal,” “impossible,” “unthinkable,” or “crazy”
So when someone acts outside the playbook, observers don’t see a new game —
they see:- “lawlessness”
- “chaos”
- “norm breaking”
- “authoritarianism”
- “recklessness”
Those are defensive labels, not analysis.They are the immune response of a dying paradigm.
3. Apply this directly to modern politics (and Trump specifically)
The post–Cold War Western political paradigm assumes:
- Power must be exercised through multilateral institutions
- Enforcement must be indirect, slow, procedural
- Leaders are constrained by “norms” more than outcomes
- Sovereignty violations are unthinkable unless everyone agrees
- Deterrence is symbolic, not personal
This paradigm produced analysis tools that assume:- sanctions
- statements
- negotiations
- gradual pressure
Now enter an actor who:- treats law enforcement as geopolitics
- treats heads of state as personally accountable
- treats speed and shock as strategic tools
- treats norms as optional if they no longer produce deterrence
From inside the old paradigm, observers say:
“This is illegal, dangerous, unprecedented, destabilizing.”
From outside the paradigm, it’s obvious:
“This just rewrote the rules of hemispheric power.”
They’re not disagreeing on facts.They’re operating in different realities.
4. Venezuela as a Boyd-style paradigm shatter
From a Boyd lens, the Venezuela action is not “policy.”
It’s psychological dislocation.Old paradigm expectation:
- Dictators are insulated
- Regimes are abstract entities
- Accountability is slow, symbolic, diplomatic
New paradigm signal:
- Leadership is personal
- Sovereignty is conditional on behavior
- Criminal-state fusion voids immunity
- Time-to-consequence just collapsed
That’s not escalation — that’s model collapse.
And that’s why analysts are:- obsessing over legality
- ignoring signaling
- missing second- and third-order effects
They’re doing Ptolemaic math while the planets have already moved.
5. Why the reaction is so emotional (and irrational)
Boyd noted something else most people forget:
Paradigm collapse threatens identity, not just ideas.
For many elites:
- Their careers were built under the old rules
- Their moral authority depends on those rules
- Their expertise becomes obsolete overnight
So they respond with:- moral outrage
- procedural fixation
- narrative inflation (“this is the end of democracy”)
- denial of efficacy (“this won’t work”)
These are psychological defense mechanisms, not strategic assessments.
Just like astronomers who knew the math didn’t work —but kept adding epicycles anyway.
6. Generational lag: why acceptance takes decades
Boyd was brutally honest about this:
- People deeply invested in a paradigm will not change
- They reinterpret evidence indefinitely
- Acceptance only comes when:
- new actors rise who didn’t build their identity on the old model
- or the old model catastrophically fails in public
That’s why:- Paradigm shifts look “obvious” in hindsight
- But feel “unthinkable” in real time
You’re watching that live right now.
7. Why this move is more powerful than it looks
Most people are asking:
“Was this legal?”
“Was this appropriate?”
“Will this cause backlash?”
Boyd would ask:
“What mental models just broke?”
Answer:
- Cartels’ belief in state protection
- Regional elites’ belief in untouchability
- Adversaries’ belief that the U.S. is procedurally paralyzed
- Allies’ belief that the U.S. won’t act decisively
That’s why this is a paradigm-level event, not a policy tweak.
8. The core Boyd takeaway applied to today
What you’re seeing is this:
- Old-paradigm thinkers are fighting to preserve the lens
- New-paradigm actors are changing the environment itself
And Boyd was clear:
Those who shape the environment force everyone else into reaction.
That’s the deepest reason people “don’t get it” yet.
They’re still calculating perfect circles
while someone just changed the center of gravity.Greg Hamilton
January 3, 2026
(20+) Greg Hamilton – Let me frame this explicitly through **John…
I’ve been thinking about the Venezuela situation some. There are some things that are very clear to me.
- If some Ayatollah declared a top leader of some country, say Israel, U.S., etc., has broken one of its laws of Sharia, can the Ayatollah then be justified in arresting and trying the top leader of Israel or the U.S.?
- If might makes right at the national level, then there is little reason to pay for the natural resources of other countries, or even the goods of other countries.
- Vietnam used a disputed justification of self-defense and humanitarian intervention (taken seriously but legally weak) in the invasion of Cambodia in 1978.
- The vast majority of the people of Venezuela are very pleased with the arrest of their dictator.
With the above and all the obvious conventional issues on the topic as my inputs, I’m left with concluding, this is like someone who murders the guy who raped and murdered their daughter and was set free by the legal system due to a technicality in the process. So, at the individual level the murdering parent is arrested tried and the jury is probably going to convict them of a lesser charge, and they get a couple of years in a relatively comfy prison.
So… what is the expected/proper outcome in this case at the national level? I don’t know how to resolve this question in my model of how world law and politics is “supposed to work”.
Then Hamilton says, “This is an alternate reality. Your models are obsolete.”
I have more thinking to do.
“can the Ayatollah then be justified in arresting and trying the top leader of Israel or the U.S.“
For 1300 years this has been the case, except without a trial. This is the caliphate model.
Have you only just noticed?
I was thinking in terms of international law.
If you were a civilian in Israel would it comfort you to know that the Ayatollah bombing you for the last 24 years did so without justification under international law? What reality does a law have that is not enforced?
The realpolitik ground truth is that rogue nations will not follow international law. As such they must not be protected by it.
Anything else is national suicide.
The same might be said of intra-country criminals who insist on stealing and murdering without regard for state or national laws. Why offer THEM the protection of the law?
Thirty years ago my Administrative Law Professor said that the prosecution of criminals could be removed from Article Three judges like so many other areas of law, like Housing Zoning, Fire Safety, Building and Safety, or Social Security. The police are already a separate administrative agency, so they can have their own Article Two Administrative Law Judges who can then require the Defendant appearing before an ALJ “Exhaust the administrative remedies” before being authorized to appeal his case to an Article Three Judge in what we consider a normal criminal court today.
Because if criminals don’t have rights, all the government needs to do to strip you of *your* rights is call you a criminal (or in current parlance, “a terrorist.”). If laws, particularly those around punishing criminal behavior, don’t apply to everybody, they’re not laws they’re political excuses, and what we really have is “might makes right” aka whoever’s in power gets to do whatever they want.
Another example is free speech: if you’re not protecting the speech you hate you’re not an advocate of free speech, you’re an advocate of speech you personally find acceptable. Which is clearly not free speech unless you find everything (modulo the edge cases e.g. “fire in a crowded theater”) acceptable.
International law is what wordcels do to paralyze the guys with guns. It works until it doesn’t
International law is a rather fuzzy thing with hardly any reality to it. One of these days I’ll have to read Hugo Grotius…
Churchill is supposed to have commented that diplomacy is “saying ‘nice doggy’ while searching for a rock”. In other words, yes, in real life “might makes right”. Ask Vlad Putin or Xi or Kim 3rd, the all are perfect examples of that reality.
“International law” is partly a collection of treaties, and partly (it seems) some “common law” type habits that have formed over the centuries. In both cases, you are entirely dependent on the good will, or decency, of the parties involved. When a party doesn’t have that — e.g., Putin — none of these mechanisms can work. It’s like trying to use bits of paper (restraining orders) against murderers.
On the ayatollah and Israel example, that’s not a hypothetical example. Those criminals decades ago declared Israel to be illegal, and have stuck with that ever since. It’s mostly been words though backed up by support of a bunch of terrorist groups, which is why Israel has aimed to eradicate those. And it is why civilized nations must stop that regime from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Thanks for the info.
Grotius wrote at the time of the 30 Years war which not only was a horrible catastrophe but really led to the invention of the nation-state. Before that it was all dynastic struggle. Dynastic politics persisted until the French Revolution produced the modern age.
Yes, though I would actually describe it as the 80 Year War, the war of Dutch independence of which the 30 Year War was merely the tail end.
Invention of the nation-state, yes, that’s stated a lot, with the peace of Westphalia (1648) as the supposed starting point. I’m not convinced. For one thing, what does “nation-state” mean, in the context of Europe of that century or the couple after it? France was a fairly well defined monolithic state long before that. Conversely, Germany was just an amorphous connection of more or less independent statelets. Ditto Italy. The empire of Charles V was another monolithic state, though it broke into a couple of parts on his death.
One of those parts was the kingdom of Spain, which included the Netherlands among its possessions. The 80 Year War was a struggle of liberation from a far-away oppressor quite like the one of the United States two centuries later. And in fact there are some remarkable similarities, from a charismatic military chief (William of Orange “The Silent” and George Washington), a Declaration of Independence stating the grievances with the King and why those justify separation, just to name two. The was was not about dynasties or replacing one by another; it was about a people asserting their ancient liberties and insisting on them against an absolute ruler who had no interest in those old promises.
The Dutch struggle for independence resulted in the creation of a republican confederacy (the “United seven provinces”) similiar to the United States before the Constitution, and with some similar issues which you can see mentioned from time to time in Madison’s notes of the Convention, and/or in the Federalist Papers.
What is “dynastic”? War waged by rulers for the benefit of themselves and their families? Could be, but that sort of thing remains today; it is the expected situation anywhere and any time you have an absolute ruler who thinks of the country as his personal toy to do with as he pleases. Philip II of Spain arguably did this; so does Kim 3rd of North Korea.
There is no such thing as international law. There are temporarily convenient agreements between governments. Laws, treaties, contracts, and agreements are mere words on paper without the literal power and will to enforce the intent behind those words.
A sovereign government is defined as that which holds a monopoly (or in some cases a plurality) over the use of organized force in its territory. Might literally makes right – the right to rule over those without the power to oppose you.
“The Vexin is mine because it’s got my troops all over it.” – Henry II, “The Lion In Winter”
True. International law is a farce. Remember, “Law without force is impotent.”
Is it morally just for the leader of one nation to arrest the leader (or anyone else) in a different nation? Maybe, maybe not. The only thing that matters is CAN that leader accomplish this?
That is the reason why nations are formed in the first place- “Governments are formed among men to safeguard these rights, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
That is the main job of ANY government- safeguarding those over whom they govern. The fact that so many governments use that power to subjugate rather than safeguard is the problem, and the reason why we have (had) a bill of rights.
That’s US theory, if not always practice. Europe, not to mention Islam and China operates on divine right theory. Europe got rid of both kings and religiaon without changing the basic relationship between government and subject. China did similar but the CCP still needs the mandate of heaven.
To some degree this is a reversion to the old nation-state model where war is just just another means of diplomacy.
The whole League of Nations, United Nations fads to replace national sovereignty and alliances just fell apart.
My first thought is.the punch line of an old Dilbert cartoon “what was that pop? A paradigm shifting without a clutch”.
Grabbing Maduro with the aid of an air strike is simply a quicker and neater version of George Bush the elder invading Panama to grab Noriega. Trump 2.0 has been even more willing to act outside “the rules” than Trump 1.0 so this unsurprising.
As events have shown, Ireland can call for the ICC to arrest Netanyahu for bombing Hamas in retaliation for 10/7 but lacks the ability to do anything since Ireland has no significant force projection capability and Israel has a proven capability to hit back. This ties in to the ayatollah declaring Israel illegal. Proxy attacks via Hezbollah and Hamas have resulted in the near destruction of both groups and direct attacks on Iran. This makes it clear which side is more capable. Iran is also an outlier since it is classed as a “rogue state” outside of international law
And Trump using the navy to blockade, and tell the world “we drilled that oil, and it’s only going to us” is one of the smartest things I’ve seen out of a world leader in years. (And that’s why Colombia is all of a sudden playing nice.)
No need to put boots on the ground. That regime won’t last 2 years with no oil exports. And the proceeds are paying for our navy to be there. And Cuba can’t afford oil from anywhere else in the world.
So, maybe a twofer?
I’m thinking that the “insurrection act” is coming next for America.
I heard there rebuilt the courthouse at Gitmo?
Not sure about that one though.
Interesting times.
Funny you should mention the Insurrection Act:
https://ekolovesyou.com/p/the-insurrection-proclamation
Kind of a long read, but interesting.
More than interesting. Much more.
It is counting down the seconds to bunker time.
Totally good info!!!!! Thanks Joe!
Michael Yon talks about something on this order in saying. “If you keep getting surprised by the world around you. Your paradigm is wrong.” (And why he says information war is the highest form of warfare.
Truly, and learning to think “outside your box” is one of the hardest of personal human endeavors.
To me our biggest problem of today is that we have been brainwashed into thinking in terms of law, social constructs, and what works for all.
Leaders, never think in those terms. Especially world leaders. For all of them, might makes the ability to do whatever it is you think you can get away with. And “right” doesn’t even enter the equation until you demand an explanation. (That’s when we all get/and get to, hash over the phony excuses.)
And truly we are starting to see that true paradigm even down to the business level of the world today.
That is and always will be how things get done by the elite caste.
And just for info.
The Imam in Iran already thinks he and his friends ALL have a mandate from heaven to rob, rape, enslave, and behead us at will. They would do Trump in a heartbeat. For the fun of it.
And New York is the new beachhead of the same old “Barbery pirates” of old. That smile on Mammy face is not for you. It’s because of what he is getting away with.
Use that for your new paradigm. (I think you will find it far more useful.)
I’m not sure why it’s the US’s job to be the world police, but all other things aside, what I found absurd was charging Madoro with NFA ’34 violations. Posession of machine guns and destuctive devices? It’s BS here, but in another country? It doesen’t even begin to make sense. I guess the three-letter agencies have their own paradigms. Stupid is as stupid does.
The indictment is clear, this is “conspiracy” with NFA violations on US soil by co-conspirators within the US.
Think TdA and Glock switches.
That makes much more sense than charging him with NFA violations directly. Thank you.
“Humans do not reason from facts → they reason from mental models
Evidence is filtered through the model, not the other way around”
This is not a universal truth. As a counter example:
In my years designing software I had an ongoing battle with designers who would create elaborate schemas for how a GUI interface should work. They’d come up with a model for the whole system that was coherent and made sense if you understood the model, and then we’d go into the usability lab and it would all fall to pieces because users don’t think that way: they react to whatever’s in front of them and take one step after the other that seems like it might get to what they want. They don’t create a model of the whole system in their head because they never see the whole system to be able to do so, and aren’t inclined to do so even if they did have the time to study the whole thing.
A more realistic description, or model, if you will (ha!), is that people use heuristics to guide them through life, and those heuristics change as stimuli and experience change. Some have models of “the system,” but most simply have reactions to what they see relative to what they want, and some level of experience from the past to guide them on next steps.
Which means it’s less “paradigm collapse” and more like “well shit, apparently *that* doesn’t work any more, now what?” I find the use of the term “paradigm collapse” a bit suspect, sounds like someone’s editor working out the subtitle of a forthcoming book aimed at airport bookstores and less like a direct observation of reality.