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Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

This is frequently not true. There’s examples all through history of weaker and poorer armies defeating larger ones. From Zulus, to the American Revolution, to the great Emu wars. Surely the birds were not more advanced than men armed with machine guns. But it’s only when the smaller forces can take advantage and leverage what they have better than others. It’s best practices, but what’s best is not universal, it’s best for who, best for when, best for under what circumstances

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That doesn't defeat my point- is the smaller/poorer army using best practices?

When all things are the same, the army with more will win.

When all things are not the same, there are little bonuses that can cause the smaller/poorer, malnourished army to win against those with machine guns. Often it's just knowing the territory. Again though, these people are individually making decisions. There isn't some massively smart borg ball sending individual orders to shoot 3 inches to the left to each drone.

  > That doesn't defeat my point- is the smaller/poorer army using best practices?

I don't agree, but neither do I disagree. But I do think it is ambiguous enough that it is not using best practices to illustrate the point you intend.

  > malnourished army to win against those with machine guns

With my example I meant literal birds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War

The Zulus won a pitched battle or two, but lost the war.

Sure, they (eventually) lost against the British, but they won against many of the southern African tribes before.

Occasionally something novel and innovative beats the best practice. In that case it usually gradually gets adopted as best practice. More often it doesn't, and falls by the wayside.

> It’s best practices, but what’s best is not universal, it’s best for who, best for when, best for under what circumstances.

I’m pretty sure building an organization on a free for all principle is anathema to the idea of an organization.

That's a straw man. The actual argument is about the danger of applying "best practices" uncritically, not about doing away with leadership.

"Do X because it's best practice" is very different than "do X because you were commanded by your rightful authority to do so."

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