Michael Grier

Dabbler in life. My wife calls me a curmudgeon, I call myself a truth teller. Minarchist, the founders were geniuses. I follow back, generally don't message.

[Michael Grier @mgriersr]

@davepl1968 The gold key!

[Michael Grier @mgriersr]

@davepl1968 You and I are of a similar age. I grew up 5 miles from a first strike rural site. I remember every day looking at the sky and wondering, “are those contrails the missiles?”
Science fiction had us all living underground or in domes by the year 2000. Where’s my damned dome!

[T_p_tio 🎈 @Txp_RBI_Xctuxl]

"A man doesn't ask the mountain to be shorter"

[Michael Grier @mgriersr]

@cremieuxrecueil If you, or whoever, keeps paying for it, I may have to shift my stance and declare that “AGI” actually has been achieved.

[Kaiser @KaiserLoengramm]

Andrew Jackson had a 1400 pound block of cheese he left to age in the Whitehouse lobby for two years, and then when he left office he invited thousands of citizens to come and have a cheese eating party wherein the entire block was consumed in about two hours.

[Michael Grier @mgriersr]

@NoahLJennings @ComfortablySmug The future really will have no idea at all who was actually on Trump’s team between this and the J.D. memes. The signal to signal ratio is maxed.

[Wendy’s @Wendys]

@BurgerKing He is not, in fact, having it his way

[DataRepublican (small r) @DataRepublican]

Hello Brad Duplessis,

You pre-emptively blocked me here on 𝕏, so I am forced to make this "Hello" a standalone post.

You are a retired Army infantry officer. You served in Iraq and Afghanistan. You graduated from the National War College in 2018. You are now an Assistant Professor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

Thank you for your service.

But reputations are not defined by resumes. They are defined by choices.

Today, you chose to doxx @CynicalPublius.

Today, you published your debut article on War on the Rocks. You published his legal name. His profession. His pseudonym. All in one sentence. Indexed, archived, permanently searchable.

You have changed the course of his life forever, and revealed him to the leftist ghouls who will demand his blood for forever. It doesn't matter if he was planning to reveal his identity eventually. You still made that choice. And I will make sure you are remembered for this.

So, what was CP's sin such that you saw it fit to throw him to the wolves?

Last month, he dared to write an article for American Greatness, centered around nine recommendations for War College reform. The recommendations included firing most civilian faculty and ending permanent military faculty positions.

You hold a permanent civilian faculty position at a War College. You did not mention this in your article.

In short, you named him, exposed his life to danger, because you really are arguing for your job and self-preservation.

Know what is the most disgusting, hypocritical part of this is?

In the Fall 2017 issue of eARMOR (the U.S. Army Armor Branch professional journal) you published an article. You titled it "Our Readiness Problem: Brigade Combat Team Lethality." You opened with General Milley: "Our fundamental task is like no other — it is to win in the unforgiving crucible of ground combat." Your thesis: "If we are to get after GEN Milley's No. 1 priority, we must first address brigade combat team (BCT) lethality." The word "lethality" appears in your article about fifty times. You meant it as a compliment.

Now contrast to today's piece. You wrote this: "In staking out this Huntingtonian position, the cult of lethality does a disservice to service members and the American people."

The same word. Nine years apart. You were a field commander then, and lethality was the mission. You are a faculty member now, and lethality is what your critics embarrassingly worship.

Frankly - and you will never realize this - but you yourself are the living, walking example of the thesis which @PeteHegseth is proving.

Also, you named a section of today's article after Colin Powell. You called him your model of what War College education produces. Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama in 2008, endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, and publicly called Donald Trump "dangerous for our democracy." Powell, who infamously tipped the scales at the UN to start the Iraq war even after privately doubting the WMD intelligence, is your hero in an article about who gets to reform the military in 2026.

In addition to being a doxxer, you look a lot less like someone who's defending institutions, and a lot more like someone who exemplifies institutional capture in the name of self-preservation. And you disclosed none of it.

Let me reiterate.

@CynicalPublius wrote under a pseudonym and identified himself as a retired Army colonel with Afghanistan and Iraq experience. He argued about curriculum policy. You responded by putting his name on the internet.

Your career depends on the institutions you are defending. Your article defending those institutions is the same article that ended his anonymity.

You taught your students about the instruments of national power, Professor Duplessis. You are now a living, breathing demonstration one of them. And why reform must happen.

[Analytic Valley Girl Chris @ChrisExpTheNews]

I was using ChatGPT for legal advice and it decided to completely hallucinate some preposterous nonsense about how growing wheat to use on my own farm somehow constitutes interstate commerce

[J. Michael Straczynski @straczynski]

6'4" barefoot. 5'7" in shoes.

I have no explanation for this.

[RadioShack @RadioShackUSA]

i would like to formally announce that march is going to be our best month ever. i have zero data to support this but i have a feeling. and feelings are important in leadership

[SGM Mike Vining @ Blasting Through Official @BlastingThrough]

Never say, "That's not my job." The photo is of me at four years old. Enjoy your Monday, but don't forget to think about our troops in harm's way. #LeadershipDevelopment

[Montreal Expos @Montreal_Expos]

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Ayatollah Khamenei Bobblehead Day on Sunday, April 12 has been cancelled

[Bleeding Fool @BleedingFool]

As Amazon pumps $200M into a glitzy He-Man reboot, MOTU creator Roger Sweet fights dementia and his family is stuck with $10k monthly memory care bills. Sweet's wife has launched a GoFundMe, as fans demand Amazon power up for the man who built Eternia. https://t.co/uGiseGInEr

[Magills @magills_]

The match is now going to sudden death, or as Canadians call it, “Free Health Care”.

[SGM Mike Vining @ Blasting Through Official @BlastingThrough]

Bud, related to your post, in "Blasting Through," I'm thinking about including a section on the facts vs. the myths surrounding Vietnam. It always astounded me that the Communists received commendations for killing civilians. As you know, the death squads at the village level killed anyone who improved the lives of peasants such as medical personnel, social workers, and school teachers. -- from Nixon Presidential Papers

[AAGHarmeetDhillon @AAGDhillon]

👀 — almost 200k!!! Follow and see what ⁦@CivilRights⁩ is up to folks!

[Michael Grier @mgriersr]

@FatElrato23 @greg16676935420 @NYCMayor @elonmusk @nikitabier Don’t make me feel Obama did something useful.

[Michael Grier @mgriersr]

The problem is a multiplication of manager competency and span of control. When your organization is right sized, has good managers with the right number of reports, everything is very natural.

But good managers are rare. When I say good managers, I mean the kind that enable and accelerate their teams, not necessarily “toe the line” or are vying for their own career growth, or have been put into positions they are unable to really fill.

I loved being a first level manager of software engineers and approached it akin to being a seasoned sergeant corralling some set of troops on a mission. I couldn’t personally handle a span of control over 5 which is generally too small for big companies nowadays, but also my seniority is a blocker since such a role is seen as too limiting for me and preventing up and comers from being able to take it.

I loved it but it was very unhealthy for me, I was 60# heavier and stressed constantly.

It’s a hard problem and the problem is that if you didn’t have managers and measurement in a large organization, you would have a much higher percentage of dead weight. Assuming the OP is not dead weight, it would be very hard to, in a way that management could use for a grounds for termination, gather evidence of such without the review runaround.

My point: in super big orgs, it’s kind of a given since it’s practically impossible to put the right leadership structure in place that would make them unnecessary. Sucks. I’m a little depressed after writing what I have.