I get this question all the time:
What if there was a podcast dedicated to the memory and life’s work of John Boyd?
There is!
No Way Out
“No Way Out” was co-created and is co-hosted by yours truly, along with my colleague, collaborator, comrade-in-arms, and friend Brian “Ponch” Rivera. We created “No Way Out” to explore the diverse domains and disciplines underlying John Boyd’s OODA sketch.
In today’s VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world, understanding Boyd’s axiomatic sketch of how organisms, individuals, teams, corporations, and governments comprehend, shape, and adapt is more critical than ever. The title “No Way Out” is directly taken from Boyd’s seminal briefing, “Conceptual Spiral,” which was the working title of this influential work.1
Stay Updated with Our Newsletter
We now have a newsletter so you can “STAY IN THE LOOP” newsletter to keep you updated on our mission to continue John Boyd’s work and further develop his theories.
Where to Listen and Watch
You can listen to “No Way Out” on your platform of choice by following this link. It is also available on YouTube here. Tune in and join the conversation as we strive to remember John Boyd, honor his legacy, and advance his theories, helping others improve their capacity for free and independent action.
Join the conversation and tune in to “No Way Out!”
And don’t forget to STAY IN THE LOOP!
PS: A few of our guests on No Way Out have Substacks that I highly recommend:
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• Uncertainty associated with the unconfinement, undecidability, and incompleteness theorems of mathematics and logic.
• Numerical imprecision from using rational and irrational numbers in calculations and measurements.
• Quantum uncertainty linked to Planck’s Constant and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.
• Entropy increase related to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
• Irregular or erratic behavior from far-from-equilibrium, open, nonlinear processes or systems with feedback.
• Incomprehensibility due to the inability to fully screen, filter, or consider spaghetti-like influences from ever-changing, erratic, or unknown outside events.
• Mutations from environmental pressure, replication errors, or unknown influences in molecular and evolutionary biology.
• Ambiguity in natural languages as they interact with one another.
• Novelty generated by the thinking and actions of unique individuals and their interactions.
Boyd emphasizes (with added emphasis for clarity) that the underlying message is:
“There is no way out, unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this: we must continue the whirl of reorientation, mismatches, analyses/synthesis over and over again ad infinitum as a basis to comprehend, shape, and adapt to an unfolding, evolving reality that remains uncertain, everchanging, unpredictable.”
This insight inspired the name of both the podcast and this Substack.