Solving the wrong problems precisely is the central topic of Dirty Rotten Strategies. If problems art wrongly stated to begin with, then what good are the answers? It is little wonder that we fail repeatedly to make headway on important issues and problems.
Because they are especially fertile sources of errors and because they are so important in their own right, we examine how health care, national security, the media, academia, and religion routinely solve the wrong problems. Even more important, we examine how they routinely foist the wrong problems on us. As a result, we are worse off because what we need are the right answers to the right problems, and not wasted effort on getting the right answers to the wrong problems. Needless to say, there is no end of other important issues that we could have chosen to examine.
Given that each of these topics reflects our own particular interests, our choices are to a certain extent arbitrary. However, in an important sense our choice of topics is also anything but arbitrary. Health care, national security, the media, academia, and religion are almost guaranteed to appear on anyone's list of major issues.
Although the divisions between the body, mind, and spirit are no longer as clear-cut and sacrosanct as they once were, we examine the health, safety, and security of the body, the mind, and the spirit. The divisions are no longer clear-cut, because any and all of our key problems could be grouped simultaneously under body, mind, and spirit. The latest evidence from the neurosciences shows how strongly connected, and interconnected, the various aspects of humans are.
In addition, all of our problems are simultaneously political, psychological, philosophical, spiritual, and so on. Therefore, no
single discipline or profession has monopoly on how we ought to define our key problems. As a result, the solutions also are not to be found in any single discipline or profession.
An edition of Dirty Rotten Strategies
(2009)
Dirty rotten strategies
how we trick ourselves and others into solving the wrong problems precisely
by Ian I. Mitroff and Abraham Silvers
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People and organizations are perfectly capable of making the most outrageous missteps. But, how does a person, organization, or society know that it is committing an error? And, how can we tell that when others are steering us down wrong paths?
Dirty Rotten Strategies delves into how organizations and interest groups lure us into solving the "wrong problems" with intricate, but inaccurate, solutions. Authors Ian I. Mitroff and Abraham Silvers argue that we can never be sure if we have set our sights on the wrong problem, but there are definite signals that can alert us to this possibility.
While explaining how to detect and avoid dirty rotten strategies, the authors put the media, healthcare, national security, academia, and organized religion under the microscope. They offer a biting critique that examines the failure of these major institutions to accurately define our most pressing problems. For example, the U.S. healthcare industry strives to be the most technologically advanced in the world, but, our cutting-edge system does not ensure top-quality care to the largest number of people.
Readers will find that far too many institutions have enormous incentives to let us devise elaborate solutions to the wrong problems. As Thomas Pynchon said, "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, then they don't have to worry about the answers."
From a political perspective, this book shows why liberals and conservatives define problems differently, and demonstrates how each political view is incomplete without the other. Our concerns are no longer solely liberal or conservative. In fact, we can no longer trust a single group to define issues across the institutions explored in this book and beyond.
Dirty Rotten Strategies is a bipartisan call for anyone who is ready to think outside the box to address our major concerns as a society—starting today.—Publisher
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Dirty rotten strategies: how we trick ourselves and others into solving the wrong problems precisely
2009, Stanford Business Books
Hardcover
in English
0804759960 9780804759960
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Book Details
Table of Contents
Preface
Page xiii
1.
SCREWING UP ROYALLY: An Introduction to the Errors of the Third and the Fourth Kinds
Page 1
2.
WHAT IS A PROBLEM? An Initial Framework for Type Three and Four Errors
Page 29
3.
ORGANIZED MEANNESS: The Biggest and the Most Broken Health System in the World
Page 43
4.
NATIONAL INSECURITY: The Complete and Utter Failure to Understand Why Bigger Is No Longer Better
Page 63
5.
THE MEDIA: National Insecurity
Page 81
6.
THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF ACADEMIA: Misrepresenting Reality
Page 105
7.
THE ABUSE AND THE MISUSE OF SCIENCE
Page 123
8.
ORGANIZED RELIGION: Misconstruing God
Page 144
9.
A GENERAL THEORY OF ROTTENNESS: Breaking the Grip of Type Four Errors
Page 167
Notes
Page 179
About the Authors
Page 197
Index
Page 199
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Excerpts
Page xiii–xiv,
added by Altercari.
Précis in the preface, edited for length.
Links outside Open Library
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| September 14, 2021 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
| June 28, 2021 | Edited by Altercari | fixing error in excerpt, changing capitalisation of keywords |
| June 28, 2021 | Edited by Altercari | information from publisher and LoC |
| August 15, 2020 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
| December 10, 2009 | Created by WorkBot | add works page |