Remove the firewood from under the pot

The NYTimes reports that VC investment in military tech went from around $6.7 billion on military tech in 2016 to $34 billion in 2022. Silicon Valley is embracing central government and providing “tech” to the military brass. However, the fetishization of technology and undisciplined “solutionism” leaves us vulnerable.

The title of this piece is one of the Thirty Six Strategems. This strategem teaches us to simply “take the fuel out of the fire”. In other words, find a vulnerability and exploit it.

The image from the Portland protests in 2020 reminds us that simple attacks can completely “steal someone’s thunder”. In this case, a paint bomb has rendered this police officer temporarily blind. It gives an attacker enough time to launch an offensive.

I feel like our reliance on technology leads us to forget that there are motivated people who are not impressed by gadgets and gizmos. They are focused and want to achieve their goals with whatever tools they can get. They don’t want glory. They want to win.