McNamara's Folly
by Hamilton Gregory · first published 2015
3mentions
1recommended by
3HN commenters
2019–2025first – last mentioned
33% recommend67% neutral
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
McNamara’s Folly is a great book on one of his more idiotic policies, and a great meditation on the dehumanizing cruelty that results from basing policy on false but ideologically pleasing assumptions.
on “‘I Could Solve Most of Your Problems’: Eric Schmidt’s Pentagon Offensive” ↗This reminds me of McNamara's Folly - during the Vietnam war, then Secretary-of-Defence Robert McNamara lowered mental standards for service in an effort to increase the size of the conscript pool. [0] (Gwern's review is a nice summary…
I am disappointed by the lack of citations in this article. I am assuming much of this information is from the mentioned book, McNamara's Folly.
on “Pentagon's shameful effort to draft mentally disabled men to fight in Vietnam” ↗