“World War Z” was an excellent book, however it was a thoroughly crappy movie. But..there was a little nugget in there that is worth mentioning. In the story, the Israelis wind up being the best prepared country to survive the zombie apocalypse. The question raised is ‘how did the Israelis know to prepare for this event’. In the story, an Israeli intelligence operative briefs the main character on the “Tenth Man Rule”. He goes on to say that after getting caught flat-footed in the 1973 war, the powers that be adopted the Tenth Man Rule. The idea is that if a threat is brought before this council of ten men, and all are in agreement about threat being minimal or unlikely, it is the duty for one man, the tenth man, to disagree, treat the threat as real and likely, and investigate/plan for it. When the Israelis intercepted the Indian communications, everyone assumed the word ‘zombies’ as code for something else…but the tenth man works on the assumption that zombies actually meant…zombies.
In it’s own words;
This process of critical thinking goes by several names..Deviils Advocate, critical thinking, etc, but I rather like the name ‘Tenth Man’ since it encapsulates the basic premise of the idea.
This ..docrtrine..doesn’t say to prepare for the unlikely eventuality, but rather to investigate it seriously instead of dismissing it out of hand. For example, I live in a landlocked state hundreds of miles from the nearest coastline. Going down a list of potential disaster you get to ‘tsunami’. The natural instinct is to cross it off the list and continue to other threats. The Tenth Man, however, might look deeper. He might realize that while the water will never reach this far inland, the consequences might…there’ll be refugees, airport traffic increases, delivery interruptions from the affected area, etc, etc. And, perhaps, these will be significant enough to plan for..or maybe not. But dismissing the threat out of hand would have been the knee-jerk reaction nine times out of ten.
Anyway, it’s an interesting outlook and a different way of approaching potential problem-solving…and thus worth sharing.
Rakshasa’s in the old Hindi tales are scary mofos.
In old school D&D they were tremendous pains in the azz to fight.
Good word for scary fast zombies, raksasha.
“Every human being we save is one less we will have to fight”.
That sounds like Angela Merkel’s master plan.
I liked this part of the movie, it was one of the better parts, good idea.
Chris
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain
YES! i find myself falling into the role of devil’s advocate/tenth man all the time. the majority opinion might be mine as well but for some reason i am compelled to look at it from dif angle. it has saved my bacon more than once.
Closely related to “The Coward’s Advocate” from the Man/Kzin Wars series by Niven etc. The Kzinti in the position – usually tricked into it – had to advocate for caution, restraint, all of the things that the warlike Kzinti loathed.
But dissent is not well tolerated in the US, and the skunk at the picnic is generally not welcome.