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Comment by setgree | Hacker News Reader

I'm not an expert but I think this is an old lesson in warfare, that guerillas can triumph over larger adversaries by being more exploratory/iterative and less rules-bound. Tolstoy tells this story in the second half of War and Peace. Likewise with Iraqi militants wreaking havoc with IEDs. People repelling an invader have every incentive to move fast.

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I've just read that section of War and Peace and was blown away by the descriptions of guerrilla tactics as well as Tolstoy's way of capturing the state of mind of the Russian POWs and their ever-shifting relationships with their captors.

As an aside, the word Guerrilla (little war) was coined during Napoleon's occupation of Spain to describe the resistance effort by locals and peasants against the French army.

That applies everywhere. You’re commenting on a forum for startups that compete against established players. David will always, in the long run, win against Goliath.

I'm hesitant to use 'always' language but the innovator's dilemma is indeed another application of the same principle. It's remarkable when a company like Google can pivot in a way that threatens its existing core revenue streams.

> David will always, in the long run, win against Goliath.

Every Goliath may, in the long run, meet a David that beats it, but this premise ignores all the thousands of Davids that don't win.

Historybooks are 90% filled with tales of exterminations, slaughter of citystates and permanent area destruction.

If you glass the villages and salt the fields, you even win against the taliban and vietkong.

> If you glass the villages and salt the fields, you even win against the taliban and vietkong.

You may win tactically, but you lose strategically - firstly by demonstrating that surrender is pointless, and secondly by creating a martyr movement across the world.

When you sow fields with salt, the only harvest you should reasonably expect is more blood.

Which binds the empire crime family together. This was how it was done allover until 1945. Its how its still done in russia, near china, how the middle east does things. That we "shall overcome" only applied to the west as a selfset achievement. And history tells us that the dead are forgotten. Nobody is out there avenging jews or armenians. Thus also the pro active paradigm of "better fuck around as a empire" then being "found out to be peace loving". Congrats to the anti western westerners, you won so much, you got the old world back.

"Some" David will always in the long run, win against Goliath. But many, many millions will be buried.

Thinking of past notable Goliaths: Ma Bell has been reconstituting herself from the split apart companies, IBM and GE are… alive, and Edison Illuminating Company and Carnegie Steel are alive in successor companies.

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